can you diagnose my recording?

  • Thread starter Thread starter burymyteeth
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burymyteeth

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hello forum,

i didnt feel comfortable putting this in the recording section cause its not really meant to be a finished product at all, just a demonstration of a problem i'm having.


i was wondering if anyone who could lend me a hand would be willing to give this recording a listen and try and help me figure out whats going on. this has been happening to me lately, the recording will just kind of "fizzle out" as it goes on. I'm constantly cleaning my tape heads, but maybe i'm just not doing a good enough job? Still a newb to the process for the most part. the song isnt very long, the problem starts to occur in the second half.

http://www.soundclick.com/dustincovertsrecordings

its called storefront jam.

I'm using a Tascam 38 with a Tascam M312 mixer with used tape thats supposedly 456


i'm gonna throw in another question if thats cool. I just got a dbx 208 with 411s. It worked awesome the first time I used it a couple days ago, then i used it tonight and it was buzzing like crazy. I noticed a place to attach a ground wire on the back, but the machine has no ground wire, you don't have to ground this thing do you? how ironic that my noise reduction is adding a TON of noise! just wondering if there's something missing that i would actually have to ground the 208. thanks for your help i appreciate it, and let me know if there's any better way to explain myself. thanks for your time!
 
Red flags went up when you said "supposedly" 456. I then heard the recording. I'd be willing to bet it's the tape, that's depositing layers of goo as you record / playback, gradually reducing the quality and amplification of the signal. Get some new Quantegy or RMGI tape, clean the heads and the tape path thoroughly and try again. You most likely will need to scrub the rubber pinch roller well with some mild soap / water, to get rid of the gunk. Oh, and you want to use 100% cotton make up remover pads (not q-tips) for cleaning heads, lifters, guides, tension arms etc... Not sure about your last question.
 
Hard to tell exactly from the fairly low bitrate mp3. Not enough highs.

Also a fair bit of clipping but that might be your transfer to digital.

But it doesnt sound like dirty heads due to sticky shed. More like a poor electrical connection in your mixer or perhaps a bad lead or connector.

I was going to suggest a loss of record bias but it affects both the guitar and the drum which I assume you recorded to separate tracks. So since it's common to both tracks it's unlikely to be on the original multitrack. Or is it?

Cheers Tim
 
cjacek said:
Red flags went up when you said "supposedly" 456. I then heard the recording. I'd be willing to bet it's the tape, that's depositing layers of goo as you record / playback, gradually reducing the quality and amplification of the signal. Get some new Quantegy or RMGI tape, clean the heads and the tape path thoroughly and try again. You most likely will need to scrub the rubber pinch roller well with some mild soap / water, to get rid of the gunk. Oh, and you want to use 100% cotton make up remover pads (not q-tips) for cleaning heads, lifters, guides, tension arms etc... Not sure about your last question.
Click to expand...

ill try the makeup pads, i've been using q-tips cause i've heard both. the tape doesn't shed that bad from what i can tell. if i wasn't so broke i would buy some new tape.
 
Tim Gillett said:
Hard to tell exactly from the fairly low bitrate mp3. Not enough highs.

Also a fair bit of clipping but that might be your transfer to digital.

But it doesnt sound like dirty heads due to sticky shed. More like a poor electrical connection in your mixer or perhaps a bad lead or connector.

I was going to suggest a loss of record bias but it affects both the guitar and the drum which I assume you recorded to separate tracks. So since it's common to both tracks it's unlikely to be on the original multitrack. Or is it?

Cheers Tim
Click to expand...


it is on the original multi track, so it has nothing to do with the mixdown actually. the tape really doesn't appear to shed that bad, i'm just going to scrap this garbage tape and bias the machine and start over with some new, well, new-er tape. since it is on the original multi track and it seems to get worse as time goes by, it must be the tape, right?
 
burymyteeth said:
ill try the makeup pads, i've been using q-tips cause i've heard both. the tape doesn't shed that bad from what i can tell. if i wasn't so broke i would buy some new tape.
Click to expand...

No disrespect to anyone who uses q-tips for anything above a cassette deck but they're pretty much useless and time consuming compared to the quick and very thorough cotton makeup pads. Get the low / no lint ones.

Clean the tape path, take some photos, play roll tape, from beginning to end, take more photos and post the before & afters.
 
burymyteeth said:
start over with some new, well, new-er tape.
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter if it's new or sealed tape, as many you'll find as NOS on eBay. You need to get a known tape which doesn't have the bad binder, as many back-coated American made tapes, from around the mid 70's to the mid 90's, suffer from.
 
cjacek said:
Doesn't matter if it's new or sealed tape, as many you'll find as NOS on eBay. You need to get a known tape which doesn't have the bad binder, as many back-coated American made tapes, from around the mid 70's to the mid 90's, suffer from.
Click to expand...

that i will. thanks for your input, i will get to work tonight and be back with more info. peace.
 
burymyteeth said:
it is on the original multi track, so it has nothing to do with the mixdown actually. the tape really doesn't appear to shed that bad, i'm just going to scrap this garbage tape and bias the machine and start over with some new, well, new-er tape. since it is on the original multi track and it seems to get worse as time goes by, it must be the tape, right?
Click to expand...

OK, then it is possibly a loss of record bias as I initially thought, as it seems to affect both tracks equally, as if it is the oscillator itself which drives all tracks. Gummed up heads would give more of a simply muffled sound, rather than that obvious distortion on your sample.
 
OK, yes, I hear a bit of distortion but the track, at least to my ears, also gradually drops down in volume and gets more and more muffled. Granted that it may be something else but I still say to at least rule out the possibility of bad tape.
 
Daniel, I agree. A lot easier to clean the tape path and try again rather than get into possible ocscillator problems. If cleaning the tape path doesnt fix it though, it would suggest something deeper.

Cheers Tim
 
Tim Gillett said:
OK, then it is possibly a loss of record bias as I initially thought, as it seems to affect both tracks equally, as if it is the oscillator itself which drives all tracks. Gummed up heads would give more of a simply muffled sound, rather than that obvious distortion on your sample.
Click to expand...

That's what it reminds me of. Bias noise.
 
It is possible that the recording is clipping or the input level on the computer is a little high when dumping to digital. Supposedly the deck was gone over by a pro and given a clean bill of health. With the shed problems I had with my first few RMG tapes I do notice a muffled sound as the song goes on. I hope he solves it with clean heads and new tape. Question, is it possible the noise is from heads not being demagnetized properly? The first time I demagnetized the heads on my 38 I tried recording some music after and got a similar sound. I don't know why that happened. I'm just grasping at straws.
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