Master on VCR

B

bigpants

New member
I am recording on Tascam 414mkII. I mixdown to cassette. I hear that sucks sound wise. I have a HI-FI VCR. If I mix down to that will the sound quality improve? If I want to send a cassette to freinds will the sound be better dubbed from the VCR to a cassette deck than it was mixed down directly to the cassette from the 414? How about mixing down from the 414 to my PC and then from the PC to the cassette deck? Will this improve sound quality?
 
Mixing down to a VCR can result in a high quality master and you could do a search as there are a number of posts on this. However, the casette mixed down directly from the 4track is going to be higher quality than one dubbed off the VHS master. This is simply because every time you mix down, bounce tracks or whatever you lose a generation. The same thing goes with mixing to your PC, although you could lose even more quality unless you have somewhat high quality A/D/A converters on your sound card. If you do have a high quality sound card and keep the song in digital format (ie burn a CD) this could be better than all the above.

Ta
 
Bigpants,
Why don't you just record on your computer? If you have the stuff to convert the 4 track to pc, why not record on there?
 
OK Wallycleaver now what?

Thanks for the info however, your about to find out what a tech moron I am. If I want to mix down my master from the the Tascam to my PC I am assuming all I need is the Y cable for the 2 rca outs on the 414 to the 1/8" in on the sound card? I have a Soundblaster Live card. Now, can I buy a CD recorder and dub out from the PC to the CD recorder or can I do my mixdown direct from the 414 to the CD burner? Am I better off (cheaper) buying a writable CD drive for my PC?
 
How important is the recording? If it is something that you can recreate, I highly recomened that you start moving towards a digital audio workstation or DAW and re-record on that, and I think you will be quite happy with the results!
 
You sound like a future PC recording candidate so I would recommend, all things being equal, get the CD burner for the compu. Even with the 414 you are using now, you can import tunes now to your hardrive using the connections you mentioned. There are many shareware .wav editing programs out there, which you will want once you start importing audio to your compu. Also, start scoping out a larger hard drive...high sampling rates can eat up 10+Mb/minute! Try searching a browser with 'Wav editors'. I've found some cool links over the last few years if you cannont find any, let me know and I'll see if I can dig some up. With the CD burner onboard, you are literally one (ok maybe 5 to 10) clicks away from mixing to CD. Good luck.
 
TeyshaBlue said:
You sound like a future PC recording candidate so I would recommend, all things being equal, get the CD burner for the compu. Even with the 414 you are using now, you can import tunes now to your hardrive using the connections you mentioned. There are many shareware .wav editing programs out there, which you will want once you start importing audio to your compu. Also, start scoping out a larger hard drive...high sampling rates can eat up 10+Mb/minute! Try searching a browser with 'Wav editors'. I've found some cool links over the last few years if you cannont find any, let me know and I'll see if I can dig some up. With the CD burner onboard, you are literally one (ok maybe 5 to 10) clicks away from mixing to CD. Good luck.
Click to expand...

Yeah, not to mention once you get songs into computer you can use some fairly inexspensive software to really spruce it up, make it sound a ton better. Then once you have that you're only a hop skip and jump away from being able to multi track record directly to your computer!!!
Yeah baby, now we're cookin with GAS!!!
 
Thanks

Thanks for the input. You've all been a great help. I think I'll go the computer route as you have suggested. Saving my pennies for the CD burner.
 
Plus, the cost of an internal CD-Writer is so much cheaper than a stand-alone consumer model.

$129.00 VS $700.00

The computer choice is the way to go....:D


spin
 
SPINSTERWUN said:
Plus, the cost of an internal CD-Writer is so much cheaper than a stand-alone consumer model.

$129.00 VS $700.00

The computer choice is the way to go....:D


spin
Click to expand...

That's no frickin joke, big price difference.
 
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