MrUserNameIV
SenselessActsOfCreation
I was doing some thrift shopping today, and came across an old JVC cassette recorder (JVC CD-1770) for $10 so I figured I'd bring it home and see about sending some tracks out my daw into it to play with smashing the snot out of the tape and circuitry for a low-fi-ish effect. When I hit record and play, it appears to be previewing what it's recording and it sounds really cool, noisy, saturated (actually a bit wider of a stereo image than my DAW which is interesting). Something that would be fun to send a drum bus to and blend for effect, or sample a kick drum through with it pinned.
First off the bat, I'm noticing a few problems that are preventing me from having my low-fi fun.
First problem is that the play, record, rewind and ffwd buttons randomly pop up. Sometimes they stay down for a bit, but sometimes I can't get them to stay down and they disengage the recording function. Could this be a part that just needs a bit of lubrication that might be catching and making it think it's at the end of the tape? Once in a while rewinding and fast forwarding makes it less of an issue.
Second problem is when playing back something that is recorded. I played back a pre-recorded cassette tape I had sitting in a closet and it sounds perfect (play head appears to be doing well), but after I record something out of my daw into the unit to a tape, I play it back and it sounds a bit like a blown speaker/bad cable/blown circuitry. It leaves a ghost recording of anything previously recorded on the tape that's almost as loud as the signal itself. I'd imagine the record head hasn't been cleaned in a few decades. Could this be the culprit (a good cleaning and demagnetization) or is some of the record head circuitry likely fubared?
Any recommendations?
First off the bat, I'm noticing a few problems that are preventing me from having my low-fi fun.
First problem is that the play, record, rewind and ffwd buttons randomly pop up. Sometimes they stay down for a bit, but sometimes I can't get them to stay down and they disengage the recording function. Could this be a part that just needs a bit of lubrication that might be catching and making it think it's at the end of the tape? Once in a while rewinding and fast forwarding makes it less of an issue.
Second problem is when playing back something that is recorded. I played back a pre-recorded cassette tape I had sitting in a closet and it sounds perfect (play head appears to be doing well), but after I record something out of my daw into the unit to a tape, I play it back and it sounds a bit like a blown speaker/bad cable/blown circuitry. It leaves a ghost recording of anything previously recorded on the tape that's almost as loud as the signal itself. I'd imagine the record head hasn't been cleaned in a few decades. Could this be the culprit (a good cleaning and demagnetization) or is some of the record head circuitry likely fubared?
Any recommendations?