"Recording on tape is probably- oh shit, probably only going to be fun for you if you are having fun. " What a quote. Edit. Part II if you weren't annoyed enough. ruclips.net/video/mJN__qJk2cE/видео.html
Great video. I agree totally. I’ve recorded to tape, stand-alone digital recorders, rack HD recorders, and DAW’s. Although there can be a lot of tonal differences between preamps, mixers, and mics, at the end of each project it’s the subtle way I approached the tune that gives it a certain “sound.” The best part about going back in recorder history (imo) and using something vintage is the fact that often it limits your options and increases your focus. I always do 4track demos to start with. It’s the best way to reveal the “song” and not get confused with its “production .” When you only have a few tracks to work with you can’t hide “crap” behind embellishments. Cheers
Workflow is king. I came up recording to 24 track. I get my best results by being careful about track count and working in as linear as fashion as possible. But bugger me if I’m gonna line up and clean my heads and transport every time I want to record, not to mention the cost.
I have a tascam 414 that I got for $22 and fixed up, and it was one of my favorite musical purchases I made. Not only do I enjoy the experimentation I have recording on it but also using it as an instrument (tape loops, etc.). I usually record on a DAW, but as a casual musician (mainly strictly studio work for myself), I like to experiment and have fun.
@@BeesWaxMinder it's a different workflow compared to working in a DAW. While a DAW enables you to customize endlessly, tape is more strict and encourages better recordings. It also sounds better because it's the best type of recording technology humanity has invented. I'm getting my Tascam BR20T serviced by Thin Air Audio and I couldn't even imagine working on them intricately like an electrical engineer would because there's a limited amount of expertise available to service these machines. Tape is also expensive.
learning to replicate certain eras and band's sound can be a good way to find cool way to find recording techniques but it should never be the endpoint. figuring out your own sound is the fun part. great video, fun is definitely the most important part of home recording. also i need that bogen, i love crispy vocals on my tracks lol
Hahah that's great. I think about it the same way. I also like to think of this way as well... people see old music/movies as boring and unengaging. However, humans have not evolved over the course of say 100 years. We are essentially identical to our 'ancestors' from a couple generations ago. Why would something they so thoroughly enjoyed in 1924 not bring someone in 2024 the same amount of joy? I think people miss out on a lot of great art (especially film) from the 30s, 40s, and 50s, because it's 'boring'. It's sad really, that's my favorite era of filmmaking.
i think its much more about the process than the actual result.i do own two tape macines, but i mostly do film photography including a darkroom setup, processing c41, ecn2 and normal black and white. realistically i could go out with my digital Nikon, take the perfect set of pictures (as in i have the ability to delete them and retake them) and upload them online as soon as i am done, or go out with my Nikon f and get them right fist time, develop them and spend ages scanning and editing them or print them on an enlarger. the film route is very time consuming but i prefer it for the process and the natural film grain and look, and likewise is the same with tape.
Yep analog photography is the greatest analogy (pun intended) to recording on tape. How do you find the ECN-2 development process compared to C-41. It's a lot cheaper but I'm so used to C-41.
@@Mario_DiSanto i use belleni chemestry and cross proccessed gold 200 as well as usual 250d kodak cine film. the gold 200 was more darker and had a brownish tone with the ecn2.an almost expired look in a way. i found it as easy as c41 however the c41 chemicals didnt keep aslong from what i remember. i want to try bleach bypass at some point but ive mostly been keeping to black and white recently. Bulk loading is good fun too for cost cutting with film- the old fuji motion picture stocks are pretty good if you can find them.
@@harrisonfisher7744 I've been bulk loading with Kentmere 400 for a while now. I like it lots of fun. I wanna try bulk loading color film too but the only ones available are motion picture ones with the ram jet layer on it. Supposedly not hard to do just something I haven't done before.
@@Mario_DiSanto kentmere is an awesome stock- like hp5 but with less silver i believe. You can remove rem jet with baking soda and warm water- just let it soak for a while and give the tank a rinse a few times. Its a bit like pre washing 120 film in a way if you have never done it before.
Good advice man! You actually beat me to making all these points in a video haha People bang on about preamps more than how good the room is or even more importantly the sound of what the person is playing, hell if those 2 things are good even a shitty mic will do a good job . Tape is so far down the list of most important link in the chain
100% man. You'd be surprised how many people SWEAR by the tape sound. I guarantee you if the tape hiss wasn't present, 90% of these online snobs wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a standalone track recorded on a Ampex vs digital setup with some dumb plugin. You'll make your guitar tracks more 'vintage' sounding just by turning off the 9 guitar pedals you have daisy-chained in your signal before it hits the amp.
I find my style of "music" better suited for digital than tape; so I'll be sticking with my DAW. But I really admire & respect what you're doing with the medium. Looking forward to hearing what you come up with next.
A couple of additions to what you said. The cost of tape is expensive while hard drive space isn't. Also the tape machine has to be calibrated to the tape you use, which requires a good quality signal generator and expensive calibration tapes. Once the deck is calibrated to the type of tape you use, you have to stick to using only that tape type. Then there's wear and tear of the deck itself. Mind you, I love tape and have taught myself the appropriate skills to use it because I'm an electronics nerd and it's fun. Mind you, a majority of the time I record to a computer in my home studio using outboard equipment and an analogue desk - the computer is just a substitute for the tape machine. Yeah, I also like shooting film.
Agree with all of that except deck calibration. Sure if you want studio quality recordings it's needed. But from a home recording perspective you can get by with a tone generator, even just a phone app would work. I've gotten by without any fancy calibration tape just fine. Will my tapes ever be played on another machine? Very unlikely ..so I don't care if my frequency curve is slightly off. As long as it's good to my dull ears I'm happy. This is also assuming your machine isn't wildly off.
@@Mario_DiSanto Yeah, true. The tapes I recorded ages ago before I knew what I was really doing sound fine and they were the wrong tape type for what the machine would've been calibrated for out of the factory.
@@Mario_DiSanto I agree i it is not much trouble for me to set bias. Only thing I solved not typicaly is that I use the same type 2 tape machines ) one for to record and other for play just to not wear recording heads and to keep them permanently aligned .
The Matrix in SF during the 60s used a Abram's Akai reel-to-reel vacuum tube tape recorder with Calrad DM-21 mics. I love the way it sounds. Check out The Great Society live at the Matrix for an example.
For me, the limitations of recording to tape are appealing. It seems more honest and authentic. And yes, you can apply the same limitations and tonal characteristics in a digital medium but there's an undeniable atmosphere and mindset that comes with tape and analog medium in general. I do agree that it's a labor of love and certainly not for everyone though
I have used everything from Tascams in home studios to Studers in big Hollywood studios. So I have reasonably educated ears. You can get that sound without all the technical challenges and cost from certain processors and plugins. UAD Studer 800 and ATR102 work for me.
I’m currently mixing our band’s album (melodic death metal) and I record everything direct to computer like most hobbyists. I have a ‘66 1/4” Roberts/Akai with two tube channels that I’ve used as a preamp for DI bass and it sounds nice and clean, even for metal. Last week on a whim I dumped the master mix to the deck. The mix is only about 90% done but it recorded a very balanced, pleasant sounding recording compared to the current digital mix. Not that digital is bad, but the tape rolled off the extra bass that was creating mud and also tamed some of the brittle high end. Kind of a mastering engineer who saves mixes that aren’t quite there. I dumped that mix back into the computer and I’m using it as a reference for the low and high end. While it obviously doesn’t line up (only two tracks, no SMPTE code) it sounds pretty great. I didn’t slam the preamps to really make them pump, but I did let them work a little. That gave it what people would call “tape compression” and “tube tone” and honestly in my case it did make a big difference. Not one that the layperson would be able to specifically pick out, but would definitely say “sounds better” than my current mix. All tech has its function and role. I’d die if I had to edit and punch on 2” tape, I did that back in the late 90s and while the engineer was very good at it, I would not be lol.
I think there's a lot to be said about learning how tape works and how to use it for interesting flavors. It's a very specific type of saturation and eq curve, Atleast with my consumer-grade machines (1/4"). I agree with most of what you're saying though, particularly with workflow and decision making; it forces you to think ahead which is really important when producing stuff for other people. The only thing you didn't touch on for me, is that when you track to tape, even when only using the mixer eq's, it sounds way closer to a finished mix than the same exact thing tracked digitally. Every time, without fail. That tape bandwidth-compression from limited headroom-is a real thing and it's magical imo.
My recommendation to those who want to try it out; buy old ass tapes and crappy 1/4" machines or better yet, a cassette recorder. If you use 1/2" or larger, the "sound" you think you're getting is likely just placebo.
Agree 1/4" machines are a great starting point. Fun for tape effects too. Delay, spllcing, backwards, speed changes. Get some Joe Meek going. Hell you could record a whole band to it with two tracks.
What I like about tape is that you were limited to a certain amount of tracks. I started working in a studio with 16 track tape. Then we moved to 24 track tape and then adat with the same 24 track. It wasn't until Pro Tools I felt there was no limit. The sound can get lost in all those tracks.
16 tracks is all I ever need. I often do 8 tracks too. When I need more open tracks I bounce down. there's no way I need to move more than 16 faders throughout the mix of a song. 24 might overwhelm me!
What are your thoughts on the plug-ins that emulate tape saturation and tape makes/formulas? Be interesting to find one that emulates your particular machines, that you show here, in this video and compare them?!
Zero experience with plug-ins and frankly not very interested in trying it out. Maybe if someone else could take one of my raw tracks and do the test to compare...
I would record on my R to R and then record that to cd then clean it up using an app on my computer. They have a lot of noise initially. I did it for fun over dubbing. Now I use my daw. Still learning.
Strangely enough this is quite shock for me! When I think back to how I used to take photographs with a 'chemical camera' it was very much the way people take digital photographs today! I used to roll my own film canisters so I could take as many photos as possible on one day and then cherry pick the best ones! Everything about what I used to do when I recorded to tape was all about Fidelity and it was with very few occasions/instruments that I deliberately overloaded things or tried to get some sort of "colour" I kind of miss caring with tape and maintaining the machine & whatnot but since getting hold of an eight track on loan all I seem to be doing is recording digitally and then transferring those digital multi tracks onto the 8Track reel2reel for mixing down -A/Bing as I go! As far as working method goes and workflow, surely you can easily maintain that and treat a computer or a digital recorder in the same way as a tape machine..? In this video, are you saying, that IF there was no difference in sound whatsoever between digital and analogue you would still use analogue?
Yes I am saying that specifically. The sound has very little to do with the reasons I like tape. As I said in the video (I think), my dull ears can BARELY tell the difference between my own recordings on my Tascam vs Alesis HD24. I use both machines identical in workflow to one another. In fact I actually have more functionality with the tape machine as I can change the speed, and do tape delay effects! But in reality when I work on my solo music I like the tape machine because well...I don't know really...there's some magic in the air. It's hard to describe. It's very akin to someone like Quentin Tarantino talking about the magic of recording on 35mm film. There's something special about it that's hard to put into words. The smell, the feel of it, the added pressure of needing to get it right in a couple takes vs endless digital takes. All of it. I enjoy tape very much, but I would never suggest someone record on tape if they aren't interested in the idea of it. The 'sound' benefits aren't worth the cost, maintenance, or time, if it isn't your thing. Quick way to get someone new to recording really disinterested. Hence the point of me making this video.
Agreed. . Some people like me just do harder things because of curiosity and fun to learn how things work and how to solve problems . I have laso HD digital recording KORG and few tape recorders for different purposes. If I care more about final result I would like more digital as more reliable. If I want to have more fun and do not worry about eventual problems, like in case of test recordings I like more tape. In fact last 3 years I use tape because I want fun and after to have eye control while winding/playing and searching recording. . I like colour boxes with tapes and notes on them and reels what is on tape
I’m one of those guys who exports their tracks to a tape machine but I do use it in different ways. Been recording with a Tascam 488 so that was great to teach myself how to make more effective music with less tracks. Now I want to be able to do more complex things so I use mainly Pro Tools. Often the bane of my mixing life is having to go back and retouch certain things for the sale of perfection, so once I reach a point in which I’m satisfied with the sonic “density” of the track, I would group everything and send it to my TSR8. After that I’m forced to work with 8 tracks only which is great for simplicity and to force some decision making. Also I love using the varispeed or just plainly recording at a lower speed to take some high end out. I do find it more satisfying at the end of the process especially if I drive the tracks pretty hard. My aim would be to then keep the recorded reels so everything is not just kept in a hard drive but also on a physical medium I guess. Fun nonetheless! I also love taking care of these machines. Once I get more tapes I’ll also record straight to tape but for now it’s just a big processing machine
I picked up a Sony TC 262 for just $25 at a thrift store, and a bunch of tapes for $1 each. The thing is a character builder when the 4 piece bands comes to record, but the payout is worth it.
The funny thing to me is how many people from "back in the day" would have JUMPED on what we have now with DAWs and plugins. I can imagine how much George Martin would have LOVED it and HOW different the Beatles would have sounded (and probably even better than they already did). I understand how the limitations also created the sounds we heard, but I bet they would have loved the technology we have today. I can even imagine someone like John Lennon having a phone with Garage Band or n-Track Studio on it and how that would have changed something like the last Beatles song and how it came to fruition. They definitely would have had an easier time, wouldn't have needed to use AI.
Just because you aren't young doesn't mean you can't afford anything. I just somehow turned 40 and can't afford any luxuries at all right now due to quiting my job to start my own business. The other guitar player in my band is 71 and would love, cherish and use that thing to no end. He's quite the productive "amateur" producer and literally the nicest guy you'll ever meet. His creativity surpasses anyone I've ever known. Age literally has nothing to do with it. Seriously though, you'd get a bang out if him, he's like the old mad scientist of recording. Like Doc from Back to the Future. I'm so lucky to have him in my band!
The only way I think you could give away items using your criteria is to make some lessons or projects up; run through things on your channel for people to learn from and then ask people of a certain age to submit their results then make a shortlist & have a split screen talk with them and compile these talks & projects into some sort of educational playlist and give the best of these to folks, based on their results and the talk through you had with them on how they got those results & the ones you feel that would make use of/deserve the Bogan etc 'WIN' This would also make a lasting record for others to learn from
I understand that completely. I love the look of my Teac 80-8 so much. Such a good-looking and simple design. The engineering behind tape machines is exciting.
I work "in the box" out of convenience. This is supposed to be fun after all. I'm still learning a lot fron this channel when it comes to microphone techniques and all that stuff. When it comes to the gear itself there's a ton of great freebie plugins out there that gives me 90% of the sound at 0% of the cost.
Mate keep going . My favourite music is mostly from the 1970s back into the previous decades and i just love all the musicianship . Its all quality stuff . I was a teenager in the 1980s and as that decade wore on the drum machines and synths took over and i hated it all . Then the computer quantised thing and the computer crashes and arrrrggghhhh . Jaco Pastorius was playing great in the 80s and so were Elvin Jones and Art Blakey. Think i just like instruments and i agree on the photography thing too
Found a version of keith moons drums from Who Are You isolated. I have over dubbed guitar and bass and tomorrow the video might be out . Its great groovin along with Keith. Check out my recent Sex Pistols video please and you should be in a film !
Never understood the r2r thing. It's expensive, cumbersome and difficult to work with, only to achieve a sound that is still clean and only an audiophile will notice. If you want a noticeably audible sound of tape and saturation and imperfection then you should instead save the stupid money that r2rs cost (I've seem them go for £800 or more) and instead buy a secondhand cassette tape multitrack/portastudio - either a tascam or my personal favourite I use is a fostex 160. Cassette tapes have an instant mojo to them that you can tell. Again it really depends on you and your sound you look for. Loads of people are making light music that sounds better clean and tape won't help there. Myself, as a metal/punk/hardcore musician, who craves a filthy, heavy and raw sound inspired by early Slayer records, Venom records, Motörhead, Sodom etc, cassette tapes sound amazing for that style of music (thrash/punk/metal) as they make the music sound rugged, raw and filthy, saturating in the red, and sounding amazing on guitars and bass especially, adding this fuzzy and heavy sound to the already chaotic guitars, as well as organic workflow. It's the same reason why many metalheads prefer the sound of old demo songs over final productions, and the same reason why many metalheads and people in general listen to music on walkmen and other cassette players. Loads of ambient music and atmospheric tunes also benefit from lofi tape, especially on the models with lower speeds, where you get a nice warm hiss in the background. Cassettes overall have the most drastic impact on sound ranging from subtle lofi hiss to just straight up metal dirt, and all that can be achieved at less than half the cost of a huge reel to reel tape machine. Mind you cassettes are very unpopular amongst musicians and recording artists, because of their drastic sound, that is an acquired taste and many people would argue it is too dirty and too harsh for their music. Chances are these people would probably be better of sticking to digital mediums of recording, rather than tape. R2R is honestly so close to digital that for the price of R2R versus a basic DAW (many are free) the R2R isn't worth the hassle, the money and the space unless you really enjoy working with R2Rs. If you're an audiophile who loves the sound, chances are most people can't tell the difference and if you're making tracks than you're probably better of with a slight saturation plugin (many are free) or even a gain boost/drive like a tubescreamer pedal set in low settings. Atm the best usage of tape I see I for filthy sounds (and cassette excels here) OR if you're using studio techniques like ADT or other effects that tape gives, which kind of goes deeper than just timbre, and more into a practicality route which I totally understand. At the end of the day I love my Fostex 160 not just for it's filthy sound, but also for the fact that I suck with technology and can't stand working on that bloody macbook and having it crash, overload and crap out on me every five minutes and also because of my mental health - as someone with autism and with potentially mild ADHD, I get distracted and procrastinate a lot. Working on a laptop is disruptive as is, but it gets worse when you're on a DAW with unlimited tracks, and so many cool sounds and plugins to mess around with - I spend stupid ages programming instruments and cramming every single sound that I like into one song, and messing about with logic and doing everything but what I should be doing, instead of finishing writing complete songs.
You hit a lot of good points here. Instead of a cassette deck I would recommend people get a 1/4" tape deck instead. Lot more fun, reliable, and versatile. I have nothing but disdain for the cassette format. I have plenty of videos of me calibrating, repairing, messing with cassettes decks. Lot of headaches for a pretty lack luster sound in my opinion. Perhaps if you get a prosumer deck you'll have good results, but the cheap/mid level decks just sound so flat to me. Lifeless. This is for mastering/mixing down purposes I mean. I bet a four track cassette deck is hella fun to record to and adds more 'mojo' than a regular cassette deck.
A cheap tape machine will make a bigger difference. I often run my 4 track cassette tracks or digital ones through my 1/4 One track reel for the speed wobbles. You will get speed variations that sound “vintage” more than anything. Of course the fidelity will suffer.
I have a Technics RS-1520 1/4" 2 track/4 track recorder I bought for $200 32 years ago. I had it professionally serviced about 8 years ago and now it's worth over $12k (that is what the guy at J-Corder appraised it as). I haven't used it much until recently, but I'm an old-school kinda guy and would never part with it.
@@Mario_DiSanto LOL 😄 I just got a new Mac Studio for my studio. When I'm working on a project I'll do test mixes to the Technics to gauge what needs to be boosted or lowered. And Thank You for the compliment.
Do you have any recommendations for recording gear? Ive been using a few audio technica condenser mics into my tascam digital recorder, but it only has 2 inputs. What're your recommendations on good cheap/affordable mixers, compressors, eqs? I don't want to use my laptop for that stuff because it sucks the fun out of it. My funds are pretty low bc of college.
A good 'hybrid' approach that I highly recommend people is a Tascam Model 24 (or the model 12 or model 16). It's a digital recorder with a analog work flow. A recorder and mixer all in one unit! Great for starters. Get that machine and pair it with a quality entry level compressor and you'll be golden. You'll have to bounce recorded tracks onto empty tracks if you want to apply compression to each track. But there's nothing wrong with that, I only had one compressor for a while when I first started recording. As far as which compressor....a lot of the entry level VCA compressors are very similar. I like ASHLY stuff a lot. But it's my little secret as they can still be bought for real cheap if you are patient. Don't tell anyone.
Awesome. Thanks for the recommendations, now I just need to figure out how to record drums and guitar at the same time. Also, any plans on putting your album out as a record? I know you put it on reel to reel. Keep up the great work man!
@@Mario_DiSanto 😂 I went to the dark side bro, it’s actually a lot of points you’re making there. I used to really value the analogue sound. I grew up using 4 track cassettes. However, as I get more into songwriting I’ve started to be more focused on the writing and performance of a song. Using digital I found I come away with a high quality bit of recording that can be altered aesthetically in post. Mic placement and room sound is something I like to play with but also I no longer have a nostalgia for a specific sound, I like playing and discovering things. I used to get overwhelmed with all the possibilities with digital, now I just keep it as simple as I did with analogue and focus on getting an interesting sound. Normally only use around 6 main tracks initially for a song if it sounds good with that your on to something.
After doing a bunch of DAW vs. tape comparisons I found that I could get 90% of the sonic benefits from "tape" just by running DAW tracks out to the same mixer. The warmth I liked about "tape" was still there. It was coming mostly from the mixer. (AH GL2400) And the remaining 10%, which is the tape compression and frequency response I'd say, most of the time I actually prefer not to have, unless I'm doing something deliberately "lo-fi". It's a stylistic coloration that I like to use sometimes, but most of the time not. I have a prosumer Otari MX5050-8, and it clearly lops off the high and low frequency extension, and adds hiss, which is, again, cool sometimes but mostly not. I'd rather have the clean accuracy and full frequency response of digital, and then do stuff to it with the mixer and some hardware. I thought I was into the romantic notion of working computer-free, commit to every take, nostalgic analog focus zen, but then once I actually put it into practice for a while I found that I quickly tired of patching every channel, interrupting my creative flow, and I'd rather just load up my DAW template with routings preconfigured or easily changed with a click, and be recording/editing/seeking instantly. I want to save my sessions and come back to them. I like the idea of minimalism in track count philosophically, but 8 is just too minimal for me, bouncing stuff all the time gets annoying quickly, and you still run out of tracks anyway, except now you're stuck with the mix decisions you already made previously before the song was even done. In practice, for my musical style and the way I work, it becomes more of a creative hindrance than a liberation. Maybe if I had a 2" 24-track it'd be a different story, but that's where I'm at now. A nice touchOSC setup gave me the hands-on computer-free control that I was yearning for.
Different strokes for different folks. The things you hate about tape is what makes me love it! That's exactly what I was trying to explain in this video. Thanks for commenting
Funnily enough I just bought brand new light bulbs because it's soo dark in there and all of the light bulbs were defective so I had put my old weak ones back in...
Lol true. Also I feel like an analog mixer takes care of the thinness. I don't notice a big difference from a track in my alesis vs the tascam. I also find the tascam to be way easier to record to. Less worries about clipping and proper gain staging. Other difference is I always pre eq to tape. I only eq to my alesis infrequently.
hi this model of tape deck is bad news i have had one the teac 8516 i have one and the otari one's andd the uk 1 inch brenell soundcraft 381 note some decks are money pit's i have to say the best deck i have had so far is the soundcraft 381-8 16 so easy to fix
No troll. The moral of the story is that there is different strokes for different folks. I love tape. Others may not. The deciding factor should not be reliant on the "sound" of tape. It's more about workflow and approach.
@@Mario_DiSanto I would agree that people shouldn’t go blindly for tape especially when they are not even using their ears in the process, but just because it’s supposed to be a holy grail of sound. am i correct that that’s at least some of your point? but yeah i like the sound of multiple generations on cassette for example. so i wanna use that sound. i feel like that’s not crazy right? 😆
@@Mario_DiSanto have only seen this video from you so im not sure. im referring to the terrible king gizzard, mac demarco, tame impala fan sort of mindset
Yeah, guitar amps don't matter cause "your average listener" doesn't care about the sound, just the notes! 🤦♂ Your specific tape machine might not sound much different then your hard disk rig for a multitude of reasons, i.e Not driving the level into the tape hard enough to get saturation/compression/eq effects, & running it at 15ips or above gets you even further from said effects. But I'm pretty sure you know all this.:/ I get your general point, but making this argument just for the sake of it is just kinda weak.
I think you are missing the point of what I am saying. Yes there is a sound difference but this is WAY overstated. Way more than guitar amps. Compare a twin reverb amp to a valve junior amp. These two guitar amps are very dissimilar. What I am trying to get across in the video (albiet very hapzardly) is that the 'sound' of tape should not be the deciding factor of choosing a digital recording vs analog recording. When I suggest people record on tape, it has ZERO to do with the 'sound'. It has to do with the workflow and approach. Same can be said for listening to records. I don't suggest people listen to records for better sound reproduction (in fact it's quiet worse for a number of reasons) but instead for the 'experience'. You are feeling the record, you are reading the liner notes, you are forced to listen to the whole album instead of skipping song to song like you would on Spotify. Does that make sense? I think recording on tape is wildly different than a DAW, but the biggest differences isn't in the final sound.
@@Mario_DiSanto I might've missed your point for sure. Just comparing what you're saying here wasn't really clear in this vid & it seemed fraught with contradictions. My apologies. So, I couldn't agree more about the value of the workflow, be it inherent commitment, listening without your eyes (i make better mix decisions with the screen off even when on a daw). And your analogy of listening to streaming vs listening to records. It's nearly the same pro/con list. Spotify & DAW's have inherent decision fatigue, you're really doing two things at once (being on a computer,) no value in the medium itself, etc. The band Ween once said going from four track to sixteen made them worse songwriters. There really is no convenience without compromise, so at best we get to choose our compromises, & yes I agree 'the sound' isn't necessarily in the top slot of reasons to use tape. I mean, the first time I got to record analog changed my life. I could rant about this for hours 🙃
@@charleymarkson Oh WOW! I have been wondering why TASCAM didn't make this product sooner, as I always thought a modern standalone recorder would be a fantastic idea.
I would have been fired for wearing a tie or a scarf when operating tape machines back in the day. A Studer A800/820 could strangle you if you got tangled during fast wind.
We say this jokingly but there has been a few times I had to take a step back (from various hobbies/interests) and think to myself..."am I actually having fun here?". I used to like doing wet-on-wet oil painting a la 'Bob Ross', until I realized one day it stressed the hell out of me everytime I painted. Now I don't paint anymore lol.
@@Mario_DiSanto what the hell...same. I tried to Bob Ross for like 6 months and one day was like. "why am I not chilling out like Bob. Why am I pissed off at this canvas"
Interesting video, but I think your point about what it means to be amateur isn’t very accurate. That’s not completely your fault.. the word itself is not very useful, here’s why: what do you call someone who doesn’t make money from something they’re doing? An amateur. Okay, but that doesn’t automatically mean that the only two reasons that people do things are for money, or for fun. Let me use an extreme example to illustrate my point - donating a kidney to save your brother’s life. Are you an amateur kidney donor? Did you do it for fun, since you didn’t make any money? Of course not. In the same way.. people may record music for other reasons than to have fun recording music, or to make money recording music.
Can't say I disagree really. Fun maybe isn't the best word. Perhaps fulfillment would have been better. A lot of things in life have an upfront cost that pay off in the end. Music, just like anything else, can be that way. Also, I think the word 'amateur' get's a bad rap these days because it holds a negative connotation (i.e. 'he's just an amateur'). But as I mentioned in the video, the original meaning of the word was actually positive as the latin root means 'to love'.
@@RideAcrossTheRiverYou're right everyone should record on tape! And drive only carburetored cars! And record all of their family events on 8mm movie film! And imagine using a calculator?!? Don't be crazy we gotta use a slide rule from now on! That's how we got to the moon ya know.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver They may seem like they don't have anything to do with tape but I disagree. I enjoy using a slide rule for fun when I need to, as a challenge. Would I ever in a million years suggest anyone else do so when trying to calculate their grocery bills? Of course not! But it is something I enjoy so for myself so I use one occasionally. I love ripping down the street with a wide open throttle on a four barrel holley carburetor, but would I suggest my mother who needs to go to work everyday to get rid of her fuel injected engine? Of course not! These are all different tools/methods that are seen as antiquated that I, myself, enjoy doing to a much greater degree than the 'modern' approach. Different strokes for different folks. If a 16 year old kids come up to me for advice about recording am I supposed to tell him he MUST record on tape for a good sound? Now THAT would be 'ridiculous'. That would be terrible advice that will send him down a long road of never getting to where he needs to be. Tape does not automatically equal a good sound. Nor does everyone have the stomach for the cost and repairs (especially a young kid without disposable income). Would I tell him I recommend recording on tape for the approach, mindset, limitations, and most importantly how much more fun it will be to use? Absolutely.
My 90s synth setup revolved around a Tascam Porta 7 four track. Great little machine as far as mixing, and routing effects. But recording was less than desirable. As far as quality, a steady supply of decent tapes, limited recording time. And horrible audio degradation. Lot of nostalgic memories, but recording in the digital realm is so much easier.
@@Mario_DiSanto It's "challenging" to put it as mildly as possible. We used a 4 track live for our backing tracks, and had to use an analog converter box to sync it to midi. I'll let you go ahead and guess how many times it actually works.
"Recording on tape is probably- oh shit, probably only going to be fun for you if you are having fun. " What a quote.
Edit. Part II if you weren't annoyed enough.
ruclips.net/video/mJN__qJk2cE/видео.html
what really convinced me about recording to tape is the expense and the inconvenience
As the proud owner of a couple of Tascam 388's I couldn't be happier to record to tape.
A couple! You greedy bastard.
@@Mario_DiSanto 😁
A couple??? Man it cost me an arm and a leg and a 1666 mile trip to even get hand to one of those machines. They are pretty rare.
Yeah, greedy bastard!
Great video. I agree totally. I’ve recorded to tape, stand-alone digital recorders, rack HD recorders, and DAW’s.
Although there can be a lot of tonal differences between preamps, mixers, and mics, at the end of each project it’s the subtle way I approached the tune that gives it a certain “sound.”
The best part about going back in recorder history (imo) and using something vintage is the fact that often it limits your options and increases your focus. I always do 4track demos to start with. It’s the best way to reveal the “song” and not get confused with its “production .” When you only have a few tracks to work with you can’t hide “crap” behind embellishments. Cheers
Workflow is king. I came up recording to 24 track. I get my best results by being careful about track count and working in as linear as fashion as possible. But bugger me if I’m gonna line up and clean my heads and transport every time I want to record, not to mention the cost.
I have a tascam 414 that I got for $22 and fixed up, and it was one of my favorite musical purchases I made. Not only do I enjoy the experimentation I have recording on it but also using it as an instrument (tape loops, etc.). I usually record on a DAW, but as a casual musician (mainly strictly studio work for myself), I like to experiment and have fun.
@@alexs-mind thats a damn good deal
ALWAYS record to tape
WHY?
(Genuine question!
Not a retort...)
@@BeesWaxMinder it's a different workflow compared to working in a DAW. While a DAW enables you to customize endlessly, tape is more strict and encourages better recordings. It also sounds better because it's the best type of recording technology humanity has invented. I'm getting my Tascam BR20T serviced by Thin Air Audio and I couldn't even imagine working on them intricately like an electrical engineer would because there's a limited amount of expertise available to service these machines. Tape is also expensive.
I got an Otari 4-track reel-to-reel machine and have so much fun using it.
learning to replicate certain eras and band's sound can be a good way to find cool way to find recording techniques but it should never be the endpoint. figuring out your own sound is the fun part. great video, fun is definitely the most important part of home recording. also i need that bogen, i love crispy vocals on my tracks lol
100% experimentation is essential to home recording.
I remember my eight-year-old being asked "why are you listening to all this old music?!" And him replying confidently "well it's new to me!"
Hahah that's great. I think about it the same way.
I also like to think of this way as well... people see old music/movies as boring and unengaging. However, humans have not evolved over the course of say 100 years. We are essentially identical to our 'ancestors' from a couple generations ago. Why would something they so thoroughly enjoyed in 1924 not bring someone in 2024 the same amount of joy?
I think people miss out on a lot of great art (especially film) from the 30s, 40s, and 50s, because it's 'boring'. It's sad really, that's my favorite era of filmmaking.
@@Mario_DiSanto
Disney proves this👍
🤣🤣🤣🤣So true 👍
2nd reason: tape is the ideal archival medium.
Great Point. People think digital is longer lasting. Quite the contrary, actually.
i think its much more about the process than the actual result.i do own two tape macines, but i mostly do film photography including a darkroom setup, processing c41, ecn2 and normal black and white. realistically i could go out with my digital Nikon, take the perfect set of pictures (as in i have the ability to delete them and retake them) and upload them online as soon as i am done, or go out with my Nikon f and get them right fist time, develop them and spend ages scanning and editing them or print them on an enlarger. the film route is very time consuming but i prefer it for the process and the natural film grain and look, and likewise is the same with tape.
Yep analog photography is the greatest analogy (pun intended) to recording on tape. How do you find the ECN-2 development process compared to C-41. It's a lot cheaper but I'm so used to C-41.
@@Mario_DiSanto i use belleni chemestry and cross proccessed gold 200 as well as usual 250d kodak cine film. the gold 200 was more darker and had a brownish tone with the ecn2.an almost expired look in a way. i found it as easy as c41 however the c41 chemicals didnt keep aslong from what i remember. i want to try bleach bypass at some point but ive mostly been keeping to black and white recently. Bulk loading is good fun too for cost cutting with film- the old fuji motion picture stocks are pretty good if you can find them.
@@harrisonfisher7744 I've been bulk loading with Kentmere 400 for a while now. I like it lots of fun. I wanna try bulk loading color film too but the only ones available are motion picture ones with the ram jet layer on it. Supposedly not hard to do just something I haven't done before.
@@Mario_DiSanto kentmere is an awesome stock- like hp5 but with less silver i believe. You can remove rem jet with baking soda and warm water- just let it soak for a while and give the tank a rinse a few times. Its a bit like pre washing 120 film in a way if you have never done it before.
@@harrisonfisher7744 huh I've only ever prewashed my 120 with some room temp water
Good advice man! You actually beat me to making all these points in a video haha
People bang on about preamps more than how good the room is or even more importantly the sound of what the person is playing, hell if those 2 things are good even a shitty mic will do a good job . Tape is so far down the list of most important link in the chain
100% man. You'd be surprised how many people SWEAR by the tape sound. I guarantee you if the tape hiss wasn't present, 90% of these online snobs wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a standalone track recorded on a Ampex vs digital setup with some dumb plugin.
You'll make your guitar tracks more 'vintage' sounding just by turning off the 9 guitar pedals you have daisy-chained in your signal before it hits the amp.
@@Mario_DiSanto yeah a lot of it is just a buzz word " Man this tapes making my music so warm and vintage!"
Not sure if I’m late to the party. Great video, I can’t wait to finish watching it.
@@unclejoeymusic thanks for watching uncle
There's a great Marshall McLuhan quote:
"Tape is fucking cool!"
I find my style of "music" better suited for digital than tape; so I'll be sticking with my DAW. But I really admire & respect what you're doing with the medium. Looking forward to hearing what you come up with next.
A couple of additions to what you said. The cost of tape is expensive while hard drive space isn't. Also the tape machine has to be calibrated to the tape you use, which requires a good quality signal generator and expensive calibration tapes. Once the deck is calibrated to the type of tape you use, you have to stick to using only that tape type. Then there's wear and tear of the deck itself. Mind you, I love tape and have taught myself the appropriate skills to use it because I'm an electronics nerd and it's fun. Mind you, a majority of the time I record to a computer in my home studio using outboard equipment and an analogue desk - the computer is just a substitute for the tape machine. Yeah, I also like shooting film.
Agree with all of that except deck calibration. Sure if you want studio quality recordings it's needed. But from a home recording perspective you can get by with a tone generator, even just a phone app would work. I've gotten by without any fancy calibration tape just fine. Will my tapes ever be played on another machine? Very unlikely ..so I don't care if my frequency curve is slightly off. As long as it's good to my dull ears I'm happy. This is also assuming your machine isn't wildly off.
@@Mario_DiSanto Yeah, true. The tapes I recorded ages ago before I knew what I was really doing sound fine and they were the wrong tape type for what the machine would've been calibrated for out of the factory.
@@Mario_DiSanto I agree i it is not much trouble for me to set bias. Only thing I solved not typicaly is that I use the same type 2 tape machines ) one for to record and other for play just to not wear recording heads and to keep them permanently aligned .
That machine is a pro Sumer 1980s unit, 60s garage rock was recorded on mostly Ampex, 3m and Scullys..
I think the one I got is from the early to mid-90s, tale end of production.
The Matrix in SF during the 60s used a Abram's Akai reel-to-reel vacuum tube tape recorder with Calrad DM-21 mics. I love the way it sounds. Check out The Great Society live at the Matrix for an example.
6:40 film photography makes me slow down and consider the shot more
I use my Yamaha mt8x and run my tascam interface to cakewalk then into my mt8x using the plugins as effects, works great.
For me, the limitations of recording to tape are appealing. It seems more honest and authentic. And yes, you can apply the same limitations and tonal characteristics in a digital medium but there's an undeniable atmosphere and mindset that comes with tape and analog medium in general. I do agree that it's a labor of love and certainly not for everyone though
@@jtag0995 perfectly said
when he counted down at the start i thought the icarly intro was about to play
I KNOW YOU SEE
Damn I gotta recreate my boi Alex playing Gibby's part for my next video
Nice looking Reel to Reel Tape machine...!😎
I have used everything from Tascams in home studios to Studers in big Hollywood studios. So I have reasonably educated ears. You can get that sound without all the technical challenges and cost from certain processors and plugins. UAD Studer 800 and ATR102 work for me.
I’m currently mixing our band’s album (melodic death metal) and I record everything direct to computer like most hobbyists. I have a ‘66 1/4” Roberts/Akai with two tube channels that I’ve used as a preamp for DI bass and it sounds nice and clean, even for metal. Last week on a whim I dumped the master mix to the deck. The mix is only about 90% done but it recorded a very balanced, pleasant sounding recording compared to the current digital mix. Not that digital is bad, but the tape rolled off the extra bass that was creating mud and also tamed some of the brittle high end. Kind of a mastering engineer who saves mixes that aren’t quite there.
I dumped that mix back into the computer and I’m using it as a reference for the low and high end. While it obviously doesn’t line up (only two tracks, no SMPTE code) it sounds pretty great. I didn’t slam the preamps to really make them pump, but I did let them work a little. That gave it what people would call “tape compression” and “tube tone” and honestly in my case it did make a big difference. Not one that the layperson would be able to specifically pick out, but would definitely say “sounds better” than my current mix.
All tech has its function and role. I’d die if I had to edit and punch on 2” tape, I did that back in the late 90s and while the engineer was very good at it, I would not be lol.
You should do your final mixdown onto the AKAI man! Commit Commit Commit!
I think there's a lot to be said about learning how tape works and how to use it for interesting flavors. It's a very specific type of saturation and eq curve, Atleast with my consumer-grade machines (1/4"). I agree with most of what you're saying though, particularly with workflow and decision making; it forces you to think ahead which is really important when producing stuff for other people. The only thing you didn't touch on for me, is that when you track to tape, even when only using the mixer eq's, it sounds way closer to a finished mix than the same exact thing tracked digitally. Every time, without fail. That tape bandwidth-compression from limited headroom-is a real thing and it's magical imo.
My recommendation to those who want to try it out; buy old ass tapes and crappy 1/4" machines or better yet, a cassette recorder. If you use 1/2" or larger, the "sound" you think you're getting is likely just placebo.
Agree 1/4" machines are a great starting point. Fun for tape effects too. Delay, spllcing, backwards, speed changes. Get some Joe Meek going. Hell you could record a whole band to it with two tracks.
What I like about tape is that you were limited to a certain amount of tracks. I started working in a studio with 16 track tape. Then we moved to 24 track tape and then adat with the same 24 track. It wasn't until Pro Tools I felt there was no limit. The sound can get lost in all those tracks.
16 tracks is all I ever need. I often do 8 tracks too. When I need more open tracks I bounce down. there's no way I need to move more than 16 faders throughout the mix of a song. 24 might overwhelm me!
What are your thoughts on the plug-ins that emulate tape saturation and tape makes/formulas?
Be interesting to find one that emulates your particular machines, that you show here, in this video and compare them?!
Zero experience with plug-ins and frankly not very interested in trying it out. Maybe if someone else could take one of my raw tracks and do the test to compare...
@@Mario_DiSanto GREAT
idea🤞
I would record on my R to R and then record that to cd then clean it up using an app on my computer. They have a lot of noise initially. I did it for fun over dubbing. Now I use my daw. Still learning.
Strangely enough this is quite shock for me!
When I think back to how I used to take photographs with a 'chemical camera' it was very much the way people take digital photographs today!
I used to roll my own film canisters so I could take as many photos as possible on one day and then cherry pick the best ones!
Everything about what I used to do when I recorded to tape was all about Fidelity and it was with very few occasions/instruments that I deliberately overloaded things or tried to get some sort of "colour"
I kind of miss caring with tape and maintaining the machine & whatnot but since getting hold of an eight track on loan all I seem to be doing is recording digitally and then transferring those digital multi tracks onto the 8Track reel2reel for mixing down
-A/Bing as I go!
As far as working method goes and workflow, surely you can easily maintain that and treat a computer or a digital recorder in the same way as a tape machine..?
In this video, are you saying, that IF there was no difference in sound whatsoever between digital and analogue you would still use analogue?
Yes I am saying that specifically. The sound has very little to do with the reasons I like tape. As I said in the video (I think), my dull ears can BARELY tell the difference between my own recordings on my Tascam vs Alesis HD24.
I use both machines identical in workflow to one another. In fact I actually have more functionality with the tape machine as I can change the speed, and do tape delay effects!
But in reality when I work on my solo music I like the tape machine because well...I don't know really...there's some magic in the air. It's hard to describe. It's very akin to someone like Quentin Tarantino talking about the magic of recording on 35mm film. There's something special about it that's hard to put into words. The smell, the feel of it, the added pressure of needing to get it right in a couple takes vs endless digital takes. All of it.
I enjoy tape very much, but I would never suggest someone record on tape if they aren't interested in the idea of it. The 'sound' benefits aren't worth the cost, maintenance, or time, if it isn't your thing. Quick way to get someone new to recording really disinterested. Hence the point of me making this video.
@@Mario_DiSanto 👍
Agreed. . Some people like me just do harder things because of curiosity and fun to learn how things work and how to solve problems . I have laso HD digital recording KORG and few tape recorders for different purposes. If I care more about final result I would like more digital as more reliable. If I want to have more fun and do not worry about eventual problems, like in case of test recordings I like more tape. In fact last 3 years I use tape because I want fun and after to have eye control while winding/playing and searching recording. . I like colour boxes with tapes and notes on them and reels what is on tape
I’m one of those guys who exports their tracks to a tape machine but I do use it in different ways. Been recording with a Tascam 488 so that was great to teach myself how to make more effective music with less tracks. Now I want to be able to do more complex things so I use mainly Pro Tools. Often the bane of my mixing life is having to go back and retouch certain things for the sale of perfection, so once I reach a point in which I’m satisfied with the sonic “density” of the track, I would group everything and send it to my TSR8. After that I’m forced to work with 8 tracks only which is great for simplicity and to force some decision making. Also I love using the varispeed or just plainly recording at a lower speed to take some high end out. I do find it more satisfying at the end of the process especially if I drive the tracks pretty hard. My aim would be to then keep the recorded reels so everything is not just kept in a hard drive but also on a physical medium I guess. Fun nonetheless! I also love taking care of these machines.
Once I get more tapes I’ll also record straight to tape but for now it’s just a big processing machine
Ps
just got a Tascam M216 which pairs beautifully with the TSR8. Greetings from the UK :-)
You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims.
What does this mean?
Not sure what you are implying
There is no effing way I'd go digital.
That's the attitude I love to hear
I picked up a Sony TC 262 for just $25 at a thrift store, and a bunch of tapes for $1 each. The thing is a character builder when the 4 piece bands comes to record, but the payout is worth it.
Love hearing that. The 'character builder' aspect is just what I am talking about in the video. Payout is DEFINITELY worth it.
The funny thing to me is how many people from "back in the day" would have JUMPED on what we have now with DAWs and plugins. I can imagine how much George Martin would have LOVED it and HOW different the Beatles would have sounded (and probably even better than they already did). I understand how the limitations also created the sounds we heard, but I bet they would have loved the technology we have today. I can even imagine someone like John Lennon having a phone with Garage Band or n-Track Studio on it and how that would have changed something like the last Beatles song and how it came to fruition. They definitely would have had an easier time, wouldn't have needed to use AI.
Part of me wants to say "least expected video topic" but then I remember that you've said similar on the side so yeah anyways yay you're back
I wish I had more time to make videos! These stream of consciousness videos are easy though.
Thank you. Good work.
I got a cassette boombox and recording mixtapes and albums if fun even though you can track professionally for that.
The things that one most wants to do are the things that are probably most worth doing.
Amen
I just spent 75$ on a new pinch roller and I feel some things
Never gonna stop recording on tape. We have a telefunken m15 24 track and it's one of the best tape machines ever made.
Very nice man
Just because you aren't young doesn't mean you can't afford anything. I just somehow turned 40 and can't afford any luxuries at all right now due to quiting my job to start my own business. The other guitar player in my band is 71 and would love, cherish and use that thing to no end. He's quite the productive "amateur" producer and literally the nicest guy you'll ever meet. His creativity surpasses anyone I've ever known. Age literally has nothing to do with it. Seriously though, you'd get a bang out if him, he's like the old mad scientist of recording. Like Doc from Back to the Future. I'm so lucky to have him in my band!
You ain't wrong at all. Currently unable to afford SHIT lol. Hope your business does well.
The only way I think you could give away items using your criteria is to make some lessons or projects up; run through things on your channel for people to learn from and then ask people of a certain age to submit their results then make a shortlist & have a split screen talk with them and compile these talks & projects into some sort of educational playlist and give the best of these to folks, based on their results and the talk through you had with them on how they got those results & the ones you feel that would make use of/deserve the Bogan etc 'WIN'
This would also make a lasting record for others to learn from
Thanks for the input
Awesome - subscribed
I feel like I want to have an Otari Mx80 as my livingroom coffee table. Separately, I like music. Its cool the two work together.
I understand that completely. I love the look of my Teac 80-8 so much. Such a good-looking and simple design. The engineering behind tape machines is exciting.
I work "in the box" out of convenience. This is supposed to be fun after all. I'm still learning a lot fron this channel when it comes to microphone techniques and all that stuff. When it comes to the gear itself there's a ton of great freebie plugins out there that gives me 90% of the sound at 0% of the cost.
What does the cost of a plug-in factor in? Better UI? Better modelling of specific compressors? The name? Genuinely asking
SO ....why shouldn't I Record on Tape? .....
sigh...
Mate keep going . My favourite music is mostly from the 1970s back into the previous decades and i just love all the musicianship . Its all quality stuff . I was a teenager in the 1980s and as that decade wore on the drum machines and synths took over and i hated it all . Then the computer quantised thing and the computer crashes and arrrrggghhhh . Jaco Pastorius was playing great in the 80s and so were Elvin Jones and Art Blakey. Think i just like instruments and i agree on the photography thing too
Found a version of keith moons drums from Who Are You isolated. I have over dubbed guitar and bass and tomorrow the video might be out . Its great groovin along with Keith. Check out my recent Sex Pistols video please and you should be in a film !
Never understood the r2r thing. It's expensive, cumbersome and difficult to work with, only to achieve a sound that is still clean and only an audiophile will notice.
If you want a noticeably audible sound of tape and saturation and imperfection then you should instead save the stupid money that r2rs cost (I've seem them go for £800 or more) and instead buy a secondhand cassette tape multitrack/portastudio - either a tascam or my personal favourite I use is a fostex 160.
Cassette tapes have an instant mojo to them that you can tell. Again it really depends on you and your sound you look for. Loads of people are making light music that sounds better clean and tape won't help there. Myself, as a metal/punk/hardcore musician, who craves a filthy, heavy and raw sound inspired by early Slayer records, Venom records, Motörhead, Sodom etc, cassette tapes sound amazing for that style of music (thrash/punk/metal) as they make the music sound rugged, raw and filthy, saturating in the red, and sounding amazing on guitars and bass especially, adding this fuzzy and heavy sound to the already chaotic guitars, as well as organic workflow. It's the same reason why many metalheads prefer the sound of old demo songs over final productions, and the same reason why many metalheads and people in general listen to music on walkmen and other cassette players. Loads of ambient music and atmospheric tunes also benefit from lofi tape, especially on the models with lower speeds, where you get a nice warm hiss in the background.
Cassettes overall have the most drastic impact on sound ranging from subtle lofi hiss to just straight up metal dirt, and all that can be achieved at less than half the cost of a huge reel to reel tape machine.
Mind you cassettes are very unpopular amongst musicians and recording artists, because of their drastic sound, that is an acquired taste and many people would argue it is too dirty and too harsh for their music. Chances are these people would probably be better of sticking to digital mediums of recording, rather than tape. R2R is honestly so close to digital that for the price of R2R versus a basic DAW (many are free) the R2R isn't worth the hassle, the money and the space unless you really enjoy working with R2Rs. If you're an audiophile who loves the sound, chances are most people can't tell the difference and if you're making tracks than you're probably better of with a slight saturation plugin (many are free) or even a gain boost/drive like a tubescreamer pedal set in low settings.
Atm the best usage of tape I see I for filthy sounds (and cassette excels here) OR if you're using studio techniques like ADT or other effects that tape gives, which kind of goes deeper than just timbre, and more into a practicality route which I totally understand.
At the end of the day I love my Fostex 160 not just for it's filthy sound, but also for the fact that I suck with technology and can't stand working on that bloody macbook and having it crash, overload and crap out on me every five minutes and also because of my mental health - as someone with autism and with potentially mild ADHD, I get distracted and procrastinate a lot. Working on a laptop is disruptive as is, but it gets worse when you're on a DAW with unlimited tracks, and so many cool sounds and plugins to mess around with - I spend stupid ages programming instruments and cramming every single sound that I like into one song, and messing about with logic and doing everything but what I should be doing, instead of finishing writing complete songs.
You hit a lot of good points here. Instead of a cassette deck I would recommend people get a 1/4" tape deck instead. Lot more fun, reliable, and versatile. I have nothing but disdain for the cassette format. I have plenty of videos of me calibrating, repairing, messing with cassettes decks. Lot of headaches for a pretty lack luster sound in my opinion. Perhaps if you get a prosumer deck you'll have good results, but the cheap/mid level decks just sound so flat to me. Lifeless. This is for mastering/mixing down purposes I mean.
I bet a four track cassette deck is hella fun to record to and adds more 'mojo' than a regular cassette deck.
1 min recording of why you want the give away item attached to an email. I'm too old for the bogen :-)
A cheap tape machine will make a bigger difference. I often run my 4 track cassette tracks or digital ones through my 1/4 One track reel for the speed wobbles. You will get speed variations that sound “vintage” more than anything. Of course the fidelity will suffer.
I have a Technics RS-1520 1/4" 2 track/4 track recorder I bought for $200 32 years ago. I had it professionally serviced about 8 years ago and now it's worth over $12k (that is what the guy at J-Corder appraised it as). I haven't used it much until recently, but I'm an old-school kinda guy and would never part with it.
That's a nice machine. Find an excuse to use it more ya bum.
@@Mario_DiSanto LOL 😄 I just got a new Mac Studio for my studio. When I'm working on a project I'll do test mixes to the Technics to gauge what needs to be boosted or lowered. And Thank You for the compliment.
Do you have any recommendations for recording gear? Ive been using a few audio technica condenser mics into my tascam digital recorder, but it only has 2 inputs. What're your recommendations on good cheap/affordable mixers, compressors, eqs? I don't want to use my laptop for that stuff because it sucks the fun out of it. My funds are pretty low bc of college.
A good 'hybrid' approach that I highly recommend people is a Tascam Model 24 (or the model 12 or model 16). It's a digital recorder with a analog work flow. A recorder and mixer all in one unit! Great for starters.
Get that machine and pair it with a quality entry level compressor and you'll be golden. You'll have to bounce recorded tracks onto empty tracks if you want to apply compression to each track. But there's nothing wrong with that, I only had one compressor for a while when I first started recording.
As far as which compressor....a lot of the entry level VCA compressors are very similar. I like ASHLY stuff a lot. But it's my little secret as they can still be bought for real cheap if you are patient. Don't tell anyone.
Awesome. Thanks for the recommendations, now I just need to figure out how to record drums and guitar at the same time. Also, any plans on putting your album out as a record? I know you put it on reel to reel. Keep up the great work man!
I started pulling the best mixes of my life when I only used one plugin for everything
It's the audacity built in compressor isn't it.
@Mario_DiSanto hahahahaha what a crap app audacity is. Nah ssl channel strip. Then from there bounce into anything specific when needed.
I moved to digital recently I value speed and ease these days 😂
@@riffraffrichard you disgust me
@@Mario_DiSanto 😂 I went to the dark side bro, it’s actually a lot of points you’re making there. I used to really value the analogue sound. I grew up using 4 track cassettes. However, as I get more into songwriting I’ve started to be more focused on the writing and performance of a song. Using digital I found I come away with a high quality bit of recording that can be altered aesthetically in post. Mic placement and room sound is something I like to play with but also I no longer have a nostalgia for a specific sound, I like playing and discovering things. I used to get overwhelmed with all the possibilities with digital, now I just keep it as simple as I did with analogue and focus on getting an interesting sound. Normally only use around 6 main tracks initially for a song if it sounds good with that your on to something.
After doing a bunch of DAW vs. tape comparisons I found that I could get 90% of the sonic benefits from "tape" just by running DAW tracks out to the same mixer. The warmth I liked about "tape" was still there. It was coming mostly from the mixer. (AH GL2400) And the remaining 10%, which is the tape compression and frequency response I'd say, most of the time I actually prefer not to have, unless I'm doing something deliberately "lo-fi". It's a stylistic coloration that I like to use sometimes, but most of the time not. I have a prosumer Otari MX5050-8, and it clearly lops off the high and low frequency extension, and adds hiss, which is, again, cool sometimes but mostly not. I'd rather have the clean accuracy and full frequency response of digital, and then do stuff to it with the mixer and some hardware. I thought I was into the romantic notion of working computer-free, commit to every take, nostalgic analog focus zen, but then once I actually put it into practice for a while I found that I quickly tired of patching every channel, interrupting my creative flow, and I'd rather just load up my DAW template with routings preconfigured or easily changed with a click, and be recording/editing/seeking instantly. I want to save my sessions and come back to them. I like the idea of minimalism in track count philosophically, but 8 is just too minimal for me, bouncing stuff all the time gets annoying quickly, and you still run out of tracks anyway, except now you're stuck with the mix decisions you already made previously before the song was even done. In practice, for my musical style and the way I work, it becomes more of a creative hindrance than a liberation. Maybe if I had a 2" 24-track it'd be a different story, but that's where I'm at now. A nice touchOSC setup gave me the hands-on computer-free control that I was yearning for.
Your machine is not properly calibrsted. I have one to and it does not do that.
Different strokes for different folks. The things you hate about tape is what makes me love it! That's exactly what I was trying to explain in this video. Thanks for commenting
Redundancy in different formats
😆👍
It's quite dark in your studio
Funnily enough I just bought brand new light bulbs because it's soo dark in there and all of the light bulbs were defective so I had put my old weak ones back in...
The reason you shouldn't is because it sounds amazing and you end up hating digital thin harsh recordings with no vibe
Lol true. Also I feel like an analog mixer takes care of the thinness. I don't notice a big difference from a track in my alesis vs the tascam. I also find the tascam to be way easier to record to. Less worries about clipping and proper gain staging. Other difference is I always pre eq to tape. I only eq to my alesis infrequently.
Me please! I'm fourteen lol
Great video btw
hi this model of tape deck is bad news i have had one the teac 8516 i have one
and the otari one's andd the uk 1 inch brenell soundcraft 381 note some decks are money pit's i have to say the best deck i have had so far
is the soundcraft 381-8 16 so easy to fix
Tascam decks always work just fine for me
Jack White disagrees with you, wholeheartedly.
Jack White? What has that bum ever accomplished that I haven't?! wait a minute...
@@Mario_DiSanto Thank youuuuu for that laugh. Subscribing now.
is this video a troll? i watched it all and i’m still so confused 😆
No troll. The moral of the story is that there is different strokes for different folks. I love tape. Others may not. The deciding factor should not be reliant on the "sound" of tape. It's more about workflow and approach.
@@Mario_DiSanto I would agree that people shouldn’t go blindly for tape especially when they are not even using their ears in the process, but just because it’s supposed to be a holy grail of sound. am i correct that that’s at least some of your point? but yeah i like the sound of multiple generations on cassette for example. so i wanna use that sound. i feel like that’s not crazy right? 😆
any sort of tape machine should cost $100000000000 for psych rock tame impala style backwards looking musicians
I hope you are referring to me as "pysch rock tame impala style backwards looking musician". Because that's going on my headstone.
@@Mario_DiSanto have only seen this video from you so im not sure. im referring to the terrible king gizzard, mac demarco, tame impala fan sort of mindset
@@Lreldge Please explain further I would like to know what mindset you mean.
TAPE SATURATION YUM :)
My 22-2 is broken, way to rub it in Mario 😂
@@gordonhuskin7337 oh no! I shall say three hail Marys and two our fathers tonight
Me, me, me, me :D Thanks for the videos and best regards
I'd give the rollers,capstan&heads a clean instead of the machine itself but hey:that's just me!✌
@@hanspuelinckx5602 I used alcohol for the heads and distilled water on the pinch roller after the video
@@Mario_DiSanto My appologies...
ME ME ME ME 🙏
Yeah, guitar amps don't matter cause "your average listener" doesn't care about the sound, just the notes! 🤦♂ Your specific tape machine might not sound much different then your hard disk rig for a multitude of reasons, i.e Not driving the level into the tape hard enough to get saturation/compression/eq effects, & running it at 15ips or above gets you even further from said effects. But I'm pretty sure you know all this.:/ I get your general point, but making this argument just for the sake of it is just kinda weak.
I think you are missing the point of what I am saying. Yes there is a sound difference but this is WAY overstated. Way more than guitar amps.
Compare a twin reverb amp to a valve junior amp. These two guitar amps are very dissimilar.
What I am trying to get across in the video (albiet very hapzardly) is that the 'sound' of tape should not be the deciding factor of choosing a digital recording vs analog recording.
When I suggest people record on tape, it has ZERO to do with the 'sound'. It has to do with the workflow and approach.
Same can be said for listening to records. I don't suggest people listen to records for better sound reproduction (in fact it's quiet worse for a number of reasons) but instead for the 'experience'. You are feeling the record, you are reading the liner notes, you are forced to listen to the whole album instead of skipping song to song like you would on Spotify.
Does that make sense? I think recording on tape is wildly different than a DAW, but the biggest differences isn't in the final sound.
@@Mario_DiSanto I might've missed your point for sure. Just comparing what you're saying here wasn't really clear in this vid & it seemed fraught with contradictions. My apologies.
So, I couldn't agree more about the value of the workflow, be it inherent commitment, listening without your eyes (i make better mix decisions with the screen off even when on a daw). And your analogy of listening to streaming vs listening to records. It's nearly the same pro/con list. Spotify & DAW's have inherent decision fatigue, you're really doing two things at once (being on a computer,) no value in the medium itself, etc.
The band Ween once said going from four track to sixteen made them worse songwriters. There really is no convenience without compromise, so at best we get to choose our compromises, & yes I agree 'the sound' isn't necessarily in the top slot of reasons to use tape.
I mean, the first time I got to record analog changed my life. I could rant about this for hours 🙃
@@charleymarkson please do rant! Upload a video! We need as much peeps as possible spreading the love for tape
@@Mario_DiSanto i might 😆 how funny tascam releases the “studio bridge” a DAWless/Mixerless 24 track recorder the day after this back & fourth.
@@charleymarkson Oh WOW! I have been wondering why TASCAM didn't make this product sooner, as I always thought a modern standalone recorder would be a fantastic idea.
I would have been fired for wearing a tie or a scarf when operating tape machines back in the day. A Studer A800/820 could strangle you if you got tangled during fast wind.
George Martin and his crew always wore a tie! Doesn't that count for something lol
imagine having fun 😂😂😂....😐oh wait... having fun is the only point.
We say this jokingly but there has been a few times I had to take a step back (from various hobbies/interests) and think to myself..."am I actually having fun here?".
I used to like doing wet-on-wet oil painting a la 'Bob Ross', until I realized one day it stressed the hell out of me everytime I painted. Now I don't paint anymore lol.
@@Mario_DiSanto what the hell...same. I tried to Bob Ross for like 6 months and one day was like. "why am I not chilling out like Bob. Why am I pissed off at this canvas"
@@krsp420 hahahah 'why am I pissed off at the canvas'. That gave me a good chuckle
Gen z lnows everything
@@Streamingstuff-qq3vw not Gen z....
Interesting video, but I think your point about what it means to be amateur isn’t very accurate. That’s not completely your fault.. the word itself is not very useful, here’s why: what do you call someone who doesn’t make money from something they’re doing? An amateur. Okay, but that doesn’t automatically mean that the only two reasons that people do things are for money, or for fun. Let me use an extreme example to illustrate my point - donating a kidney to save your brother’s life. Are you an amateur kidney donor? Did you do it for fun, since you didn’t make any money? Of course not. In the same way.. people may record music for other reasons than to have fun recording music, or to make money recording music.
Can't say I disagree really. Fun maybe isn't the best word. Perhaps fulfillment would have been better. A lot of things in life have an upfront cost that pay off in the end. Music, just like anything else, can be that way.
Also, I think the word 'amateur' get's a bad rap these days because it holds a negative connotation (i.e. 'he's just an amateur'). But as I mentioned in the video, the original meaning of the word was actually positive as the latin root means 'to love'.
the only true downside is tape shedding.. Tape machines blast out microplastics
mmmmm, microplastics 😋
I wear a n95 mask whenever I'm tracking to avoid micro plastics
@@Mario_DiSanto good idea!!
You are no amateur
Brother I really enjoy your vids but I suffer from OCD, and those shirt collars are fucking killing me.
Next video I'm going shirtless don't worry
Oh gosh, I guess we should stop listening to Hendrix and the Beatles. Because tape.
Son, people can see this.
Damn I thought this upload was a fever dream!
You should try getting to the point once in a while.
@@achtungmark nah
Ridiculous.
What is?
@@Allious131 Advising people to avoid analog multi-tracking.
@@RideAcrossTheRiverYou're right everyone should record on tape! And drive only carburetored cars! And record all of their family events on 8mm movie film! And imagine using a calculator?!? Don't be crazy we gotta use a slide rule from now on! That's how we got to the moon ya know.
@@Mario_DiSanto Again, ridiculous. Analog tape gets a good sound, that's all. The rest of what you say has nothing to do with audio recording tools.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver They may seem like they don't have anything to do with tape but I disagree. I enjoy using a slide rule for fun when I need to, as a challenge. Would I ever in a million years suggest anyone else do so when trying to calculate their grocery bills? Of course not! But it is something I enjoy so for myself so I use one occasionally.
I love ripping down the street with a wide open throttle on a four barrel holley carburetor, but would I suggest my mother who needs to go to work everyday to get rid of her fuel injected engine? Of course not!
These are all different tools/methods that are seen as antiquated that I, myself, enjoy doing to a much greater degree than the 'modern' approach. Different strokes for different folks.
If a 16 year old kids come up to me for advice about recording am I supposed to tell him he MUST record on tape for a good sound? Now THAT would be 'ridiculous'. That would be terrible advice that will send him down a long road of never getting to where he needs to be. Tape does not automatically equal a good sound. Nor does everyone have the stomach for the cost and repairs (especially a young kid without disposable income).
Would I tell him I recommend recording on tape for the approach, mindset, limitations, and most importantly how much more fun it will be to use? Absolutely.
My 90s synth setup revolved around a Tascam Porta 7 four track. Great little machine as far as mixing, and routing effects.
But recording was less than desirable. As far as quality, a steady supply of decent tapes, limited recording time. And horrible audio degradation.
Lot of nostalgic memories, but recording in the digital realm is so much easier.
Cassettes will be the death of me. I've never used a multi track cassette recorder and honestly...I'm better off for my sanity.
@@Mario_DiSanto It's "challenging" to put it as mildly as possible. We used a 4 track live for our backing tracks, and had to use an analog converter box to sync it to midi.
I'll let you go ahead and guess how many times it actually works.