Tape Gear!

[janglesoul]

Sorry, I’ve tried googling for it. But really this below is all there is to it. On an AUX-buss place a Delay and the External Effect that routs the audio out to your tape deck and then back into Live.

You need a 3-head deck and you need to monitor from tape. Put the tape deck in REC and let it roll. The setting below will now give you a slapback-echo of 104ms + the time it takes for the tape to go from the rec-head to the read-head.

If you want multiple bounces you need to feed the AUX-channel into itself (a feedback loop). You do that by Enable sends on the AUX-track. I’m using channel G here, so I activate the G-send to send the output back into itself.

What’s pretty great with this is that you get all the flexibility of your Delayplugin - but with a tape sound. So you could do a ping-pong, have different times on Left and right etc.

Hope it helps! Damn, I better keep looking out on those hifi-pages

[rvense]

That’s… a really good idea, actually. Could also use a clean delay pedal that’ll do fully wet, like a Boss DD-3 if you put something in the direct jack.

[bobbcorr]

I have this very same walkman. It’s been going strong since the early 90s.

[Gahlord]

My walkman.

[trypps]

I’m faced with a dilemma. I want to buy a Marantz and there are two available where I am. A Marantz CP430 and a Marantz PMD222. not sure which one to go for, I think the 222 is mono. My sound sources would either be my electric guitar recorded through an interface or an OP-1 adding an Empress Zoia later on. Should I go for the stereo 430?

[shakey]

Get the stereo if you can. It’s more or less the same but stereo!

My stereo one broke and I could only find a mono to replace it unfortunately. Both are great vibey tape players though.

[dianus]

Does anyone have a recommendation for a cheapo cassette walkman for hacking purposes? Looking specifically for something that could be used for loops or speed hacking

[Coitmusic]

I’ve found all my Walkman type players at resale shops for cheap but you have to look constantly nowadays. Most GE and Sony decks are speed hackable to some extent or another. The GE model 3-5362 has an OK speed control built in but not a lot of room inside for a speed pot. The GE 3-5027 is bigger and has plenty of room inside for mods. Both are mono though. I always pick up any Sony Walkman I’ve come across just because the quality is so much better.
Out of 7 decks, the only one I haven’t been able to speed mod was a Sanyo.

[petesasqwax]

The cheaper models of Sony voice recorder dictaphones (TCM-150) for example can be picked up cheaply and hacked quite easily. They’re the range that Scott Campbell uses with his Onde Magnetique units.

[Shiftr]

And get a collection of new rubber bands from a place like eBay.

[Gahlord]

Just a heads up for US Nagra peeps. Glen started up the Nagra repair bench again at Trew Audio Nashville.

[n-So]

been looking for someone to fix up my Nagra 3- will look into this, thanks for the heads up!

[Gahlord]

I’ve always been satisfied with his work. It costs about as much as a visit to the mechanic but your machine will run forever after he’s got your sorted out.

[vinc]

I own several multi-tracks recorders that use compact audio cassette (i.e. 414, 424, X-28H, etc.), all produce hiss in recorded track. The Dolby NR did helped a bit but the sounds get less airy like thru a low pass filter.

How to get rid of that hiss, in pre/ post process.

[ludo]

You can’t without removing specific frequencies completely on de hiss plugins or dolby. You can try using hi quality type ii or IV cassettes but expensive. Or record hotter. Compact cassette is intrinsically hissy, particularly poor quality tapes and recorders

[janglesoul]

I use this plugin - Brusfri by Klevgränd - to remove hiss, hum, traffic noise from recordings. There are videos on the website. It’s dead simple to use and… almost magic. (Brusfri means hiss-free in Swedish).

Although, when it comes to cassettes, some may argue that the hiss is the main benefit.

[emho]

Hi guys
I have this opportunity to join the Tape gear club and buying a Portastudio 424 MK1 (3 tape speeds) in mint condition (New belts and so on) for 350 euros. Is it worth it?
Thanks

[Gahlord]

An 8-channel reel-to-reel recorder working on 1/4" tape will be using 1/32" of tape width per channel. A 4 channel Tascam on cassette will be using 1/32" of tape width per channel. A great amount of the noise inherent in cassette systems is in the electronics and mechanical issues (tape speed, quality of tape).

Here are the things I’ve learned along the way about handling tape hiss with cassette multitracks (in no particular order):

• Clean and demag the tape head. No one ever does this. Whoever you bought the machine from definitely didn’t do it. If you haven’t done it then it probably hasn’t been done since it left the factory. It isn’t hard and it’s worth doing. Pick a number of usage-hours (10 hours) or a regular schedule (every 2nd Friday) that works for you and do it.

• Use Type II tape. This kind of tape can take a hotter signal. It’s hard to find but one method I have found that yields results is to buy a large mystery box of random tapes or go to a thrift store. Once you have a bunch of tapes to look at find the ones that are obviously made as someone’s amateur vanity project ()–unknown middle aged country performers or small vocal trios or classical solos. These are often are made on Type II tape because the person was doing it for themselves and believed that the quality of tape mattered for the music and got the expensive tape. You can tell the difference by looking at the tape. Type I will look brown or red and probably be dull–it’s iron-based. Type II will be darker and probably shiny.

• Run as hot as you can. The nice thing about tape is how forgiving it is to being “over” 0db compared to digital. Run it hot hot hot. The hotter you run the signal the more signal there is vs the noise. If you aren’t crossing over the 0db mark on the recorder regularly then you aren’t running hot enough. Again, experiment here. But err on the side of too hot. Learn where the distortion gets to be too much and stay just shy of that.

• Speaking of running hot: the preamps on these things are noisy as hell. Many (including me) like them. But if you are trying to get a clean recording use a different preamp and turn the recorder’s preamp knob all the way over to “line.”

• Dolby NR is usually not worth it. Instead, run signals with a gentle high shelf boost (pick a frequency, experiment, I tend to be between 800 and 1000). When you play back/mix use the same EQ & settings and cut by the same amount.

• Try to avoid bouncing tracks. For example: If you are using more than 2 MIDI controllable things consider donating a track to SMPTE stripe and letting those midi instruments not take up channels on your cassette–record them as you master the cassette, letting them follow the SMPTE stripe. Or, if you can, record two instruments with one microphone (singers with a figure 8 etc) so you don’t have to bounce them this helps keeps hiss from building up. Similarly, use a submixer to make a 1 or 2 channel drum kit mix instead of putting them all on different tape channels to bounce. It requires better mic placement and performances though so it might be a tradeoff that way. Every time you bounce you’re multiplying the tape hiss by the number of channels you’re bouncing.

• Turn off channels you aren’t using so they aren’t adding noise to your mix. Usually not a problem with a 4 track because you’re out of tracks. But for the 8 channel cassette mixers this matters.

• Often there is more hiss is in the electronics than the tape medium itself. Try testing different outputs. Between the headphone out, line out, monitor out jacks, one of them may have a cleaner signal. The Tascams in particular often have a blown vca in the headphone jack due to people running too many headphones from them via unpowered splitters.

• Work at the “high” speed setting and also (if you don’t need it for other effects) set the speed of the adjustable pitch to high pitch. This will run your machine at the fastest possible speed, which makes the tape hiss go up in pitch (much of it goes up out of human hearing range).

• Do all of that and then output as clean as you can into clean converter preamps. Figure out whether your converter preamps sound cleaner as a boost vs cranking the cassette mixer. Almost certainly running the mixer at a modest level and getting your gain from your converter will be better. If you can send individual tracks to your computer all at once (some of the Yamahas have an insert that works for this) this is better. Then you can mix and sum digitally or with a clean mixer.

• When all that is done and you’re ready to get rid of the last bit of tape hiss, open up Izotope Rx Advanced, use the Spectral DeNoise module and train it on a couple seconds of noise at the beginning or end of your track. Set it on the high quality preset and use the “amount” slider until you like it. If you are worried about how much music you are sucking out of the track check the “output noise only” checkbox and if you hear any of your music in there reduce the “amount.”

• Someone will eventually ask you why do you go through all of that? to record on tape. Have a simple answer handy like “I really like the tape process and working with my hands” or “I just always made my best stuff this way” or “There’s something magical about the light compression in the mids and the way this old cassette stock handles bass” or “here’s a copy of my latest tape, where can I find your music?”

Signal flow review:
Source -> Microphone -> Clean mic preamp -> EQ with high shelf boost N db -> Cassette multitrack in (gain set to line or very very low) -> No Bouncing, Just Mixing -> Whichever output is cleanest between headphone/monitor/line/sum -> EQ with high shelf cut N db -> AD for final gain boost into computer (alternately a clean pre and then the AD).

Hope that helps! Helped me to write it all down.

[aeoner]

Thanks a lot for your excellent post.

About the tape hiss, although I understand that there are variable levels of acceptability (and the flow of the discussion right now is about hiss reduction), I think that using cassette tape/four tracks for recording includes accepting (or even looking for) a hiss aesthetic. In some way, I think that my use of 4-track is a kind of “soft noise”, even if compositionally/culturally isn´t what it looks like.

[herrhewel]

Here is my humble collection, three of them needs new belts.
I have a couple of walkmen and a mini-cassette dictaphone hiding somewhere as well.
plus my dads old reel-to-reel.

my main use has been to glue drum and bass tracks together or to make one instrument stand out by taking the track stem and bouncing it back and forth between a couple of cassette players until the head bias and subtle speed difference takes its toll and makes it all beautifully blurry.
this can then be used as is or mixed back in with the original.