cassette deck as compressor/gain effect

  • Thread starter Thread starter protein
  • Start date Start date
P

protein

New member
has anyone ever tried using a domestic tape cassette deck as a saturation/distortion effect?
 
Never heard of it, but in theory it would work.
 
If you're looking for "that tape sound" it doesn't come from cassette. Not even a nice cassette deck like a Dragon.

It's a noise maker, sure. If you're looking for lo-fi & hiss, that's the tool.
 
I love cassette tapes & my 4 tracks portastudio BUT the tape saturation compression thing doesn't really relate to this little device.
Maybe people get off on analogue more, or enjoy dolby recorded stuff played back without the dolby switched on because it seems to be a fatter sound or like the little bit of hiss that inevitably creeps into most tape recordings.
I just like the "hands on"ness of it and often record my basic tracks to tape because it feels good and because I like the colour of the built in pres but I'm now fully aware that the holy grail of compression isn't available.
Saturation? Well you can run into the red a bit without getting nasty digital clipping, you can cram signal on but the narrowness of the record path really doesn't give you too much scope.
Like I said - I love cassettes - I have a handy stock of them to see me ahead a couple of years and I still play tapes I recorded (well I might add) in the 70's.
 
yeah, not looking for that "tape sound" we're hitting 2 inch tape through a neve desk anyway. as a side note, we've been getting a pretty realistic tape warmth using an empirical labs fatso and had really great warm and fuzzy results really smashing the signal onto a half inch fostex 16 track. we've also played about with an old four track for fun.

what i meant was, we've had really great results using a wem copycat (with no delay) as a really fat trashy distortion/saturation effect and basically wondered if domestic cassette tapes do the same if you put it in record enable.

i suppose the answer is to just try it but i thought i'd see if anyone has tried it. i'm sure i've heard of it as a viable technique but i might have got the wrong end of the stick.

rob
dioyy
 
I hate cassette... I found it a noisy and horrible medium, and only used it when it was the only game in town for a home project studio... yes, that long ago... although I must say I had a hard time selling it for purely nostalgic reasons. But I got over it... sniff
 
I was in a band that tried it before. It did give the vocals that nice, rounded tape-y sound but at the cost of too much noise. The end result was not worth it.
 
If you use a good deck with CLEAN heads that can run at 3-3/4 IPS, like a decent Tascam 4-track or similar, it would be much higher fidelity than a standard cassette recorder. My Tascam 424mkIII is pretty flat from 40hz to 16khz. Top and bottom rolls off outside of that. Just slightly less of a frequency range than digital at 44khz. If the 4-track has DBX or some other good noise reduction, the tape hiss will likely not be an issue at all.

Any standard 1-7/8 consumer deck will be a step down in fidelity for sure.
 
hiss and distortion are exactly what i want. screw it, i'm gonna give it a go.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top