Weird and misterious high pitched tape

[killthepixelnow]

In 1998 my band recorded a demo tape (I mean TAPE) in a semi pro studio. They used a black tape... I still have it, pretty similar to the regular cassette tapes but... I cannot hear a damn thing in my stereo. It seems it has been recorded in a different speed because all sounds weird and high pitched .

So, I was thinking of recording the entire tape using ProTools and then correct the speed digitally. Is that possible? I was wondering if somebody knows another solution or maybe another approach to solve this problem? I really wanna hear the recording... all the members of the band have lost their copies. Lucky me I still have the master tape.

PS: I was hesitating if post this thing on digital or analog, lol

 

[jjones1700]

Find someone who has a Portastudio (Tascam) or a tape deck which can play back at 3 3/4"/ips. If you do pull it into Protools, you will have to pitch it down by half. I can't see someone giving you a "demo" tape at 3 3/4"ips though.

 

[Beck]

Sounds like you have the tracking tape from a cassette multitrack. Could be 4 or 8 tracks though. Do you remember what they recorded with? On the other hand they could have used two tracks of a 4-track for a x2 speed master.

 

[killthepixelnow]

Beck, It was ten years ago... I only remembered that they asked us to bring a black tape cassette. We didn't knew a damn thing about recording at that time. For what I remember (my memory is not that bad) I think it was a tape multitracker...

jjones, I've asked a lot of friends and some studios to "descipher" the tape without success (they don't have multitrackers anymore). Years ago I lost all hopes of hearing the tape... so I store it and forget about it.

I'll try to find some old school studio to see if they can play my tape. Hmm im not sure about the ProTools thing, it was a crazy idea that woke me up in the middle of the night... maybe I could record the tape via mixer into ProTools and then... then what? Just pitch it by half? Is it possible to slow down the tempo?

 

[jjones1700]

I'll try to find some old school studio to see if they can play my tape. Hmm im not sure about the ProTools thing, it was a crazy idea that woke me up in the middle of the night... maybe I could record the tape via mixer into ProTools and then... then what? Just pitch it by half? Is it possible to slow down the tempo?

To be honest, I have no idea. I haven't used anything newer than Sound Forge 4.5 (and I still use it!!). Granted it's only 2 channels, but it does everything I need. I don't know if it would be something like the time compress/expand on SF or not. There is also a pitch bend/shift. Basically, you can either speed it up or slow it down. If this old version of SF has that stuff, ProTools definitely should since they have every freakin' plugin in the universe for that thing. As long as the source tape remains intact, all you can do is experiment with it in PT and "accidentally" fix it.

Worst case scenario..............find an old Fostex or Tascam locally for cheap and run it with that. There are always multi-trackers for sale around here. Then again, I didn't pay attention to where you live and possibly how far out in the boonies you might be.

Or..................if you can copy it to another cassette (odd suggestion......I know) and send it to one of us with multi-trackers.

Crazy speak, but just trying to give you some ideas and options.

 

[killthepixelnow]

I forgot to mention, I live in Peru. In here... I can barely find a decent mixer, and it cost a lot of money. Garage sells or second hand stores are nonexistent in this city. Especially when we talk about pro audio. All my stuff has been ordered from the US: Protools, audio interface, preamps, even cables!

I'll record the tape and mess around with ProTools.. I think I've seen something like pitch correction in the menu section... as you said, this thing is full of plugins, haha... wish me luck!

 

[jjones1700]

I forgot to mention, I live in Peru. In here... I can barely find a decent mixer, and it cost a lot of money. Garage sells or second hand stores are nonexistent in this city. Especially when we talk about pro audio. All my stuff has been ordered from the US: Protools, audio interface, preamps, even cables!

I'll record the tape and mess around with ProTools.. I think I've seen something like pitch correction in the menu section... as you said, this thing is full of plugins, haha... wish me luck!

Peru? Oh wow. Yeah, it might be just a tad more difficult to score some cheap hardware. Best of luck to ya man, you'll stumble upon it soon I'm sure.

 

[killthepixelnow]

Well, here is it... I recorded the tape using ProTools... this is the result. I couldn't came up with anything... I used the Pitch tool but I failed miserably...

I've upload the file to see if you guys can do something with that track. beware my friends... this is very raw material... and it can be qualified as a nice turd .

I'm doing this for nostalgic reasons.

http://www.killthepixelnow.com/solo_project/demo001.zip

 

[jjones1700]

Is that the track just as you have it on the tape or are there some modifications done to it? It sounds like it is backwards and I reversed it and it makes sense so far. Still working on the rest.

 

[killthepixelnow]

No modifications, yesterday was the first tiem in yeas that I hear that tape again. As you pointed, sounds like reversed audio. Something curious: I could only record 15 minutes of the tape... then my deck stop playing it no matter how hard I press the PLAY button. Maybe is a failure of the tape, damn! Gonna try to record the rest tonight.

Making some progress on it?

 

[jjones1700]

Making some progress on it?

That's what I've come up with so far. I'm only guessing at the temp/pitch so let me know how far off I am. It sounded way too slow when I first opened it.

As far as the cassette playing for only 15 minutes, look to see if that is all that is on there. It could very well be just a short "demo" tape. If not, and there is more tape, try fast forwarding and rewinding it a couple of times to get the tape aligned a little better on the spindles, and try playing it again.

 

[killthepixelnow]

Holly shit, that's it! Know what? The guy who sung in that tape is now playing with me in a death metal band, can you believe? He has improved a lot! I'll try to record the rest of the tape... maybe is my deck 'cause the tape was playing great the first 15 minutes.

How did you fix the problem man?

 

[jjones1700]

How did you fix the problem man?

Ancient chinese secret.

Actually, I had to reverse it, pitch it up by 1/3 plus a fraction more to get it to sound like that. Wasn't very hard. I just had no idea what it was supposed to sound like when I was done.