Tape Gear!

[iain]

The loops on this album were made with it (especially the second half of the first track, the transition around the 10 minute mark)

[mola]

I’ve got an old “Superscope 101” recorder which perhaps people could help me out with: It seems to be an entirely mono device, but it does have a DIN connection which would imply to me that it would be capable of recording in stereo. I can’t find any literature online about this device so does anyone know if back in the 70s they were making recorders that you could plug stereo mics into even when they were only recording from one channel? OR is the DIN connection wonky?

[Jonny]

Sometime those din inputs were for remote control functions if I recall correctly.

[mola]

Nah, it’s labeled “play/rec.”, and there’s a separate input labeled “remote” already. Also, using a stereo mic does work with the DIN connector, but it’s just 1 channel.

[standard_grey]

That goes on this weekend’s “to do” list!

[scttcmpbll]

I <3 tape gear

[frankchannel]

Which do you love most

[mola]

Damn… save some for the rest of us why don’t you.

[TomWhitwell]

What’s one better than recording to cassette? Recording on a 4 track Minidisc recorder, £30 now in London (not mine!)

Used Recorders for sale in North West London, London - Gumtree

[philmaguire]

Ace. I found one of those Sony ‘cassettecorders’ at work a while back and none of the audio in/outputs work. It makes lovely mechanical drones and clicks with an empty tape inside. Can get some cool timbral variations by pressing various parts of it! It finds its way into most of my stuff at the moment:

[HateNames]

Sounds great! I never thought to mic up the recorder itself but I will now. Did you use piezo’s on it for this?

[philmaguire]

Piezos and a coil pickup!

[quixot]

I spy a tascam 414 mk2! Regret selling that to this day, but sometimes ya just gotta pay the rent.

[iain]

I put a piezo inside a CD car adapter so now so the deck will play itself

[TomWhitwell]

Does this work? That’s such an awesome idea.

[iain]

It actually works quite well, although my decks are fairly quiet. Perfect for some lowercase

I’ll record something from it later. I wish I could take credit for the idea but I saw it somewhere

[rumorazzi]

The Sony WM-D6C it’s a great recorder/player if well maintained, don’t treat it badly please!

[cmcavoy]

Late to the tape party. I’ve been recording direct-to-tape on portastudio 424 mk ii for the last year or so (I guess it’s getting close to two years now?) I only recently swapped it out for a k-mix as my primary recording method. Proof.

The 4-track definitely gives a lofi texture to my recordings that I love, but I also really like the immediacy of recording to tape. There’s less room to edit exactly, which means I’m much more likely to just record rapidly, edit minimally and release often (to soundcloud or bandcamp after transferring the mix to digital, latest release on bandcamp was recorded entirely on the 424 with minimal editing after the transfer). I record for the process more than the product, so…it fits well.

I switched to k-mix because I wanted to edit a bit more…multi-track digital recording gives more flexibility obviously. I’m sure I’ll swap the 4-track back into my regular process, definitely as an instrument if not my main studio recorder.

[andrew]

i professionally duplicate cassettes for a living.

I guess that means you mean you work for National Audio Company then?

[jonsimon]

@andrew no, i do not work for national audio.