Cassette vs. Reel-to-reel

[Sonic Idiot]

Sorry Blue Bear. Seriously, I'm not trying to push buttons. Your comments are helpful and appreciated.

OK. There are any number of 10-30 year old machines on ebay for $300 bucks. There is otherwise a whole world of people out there with stuff. (ebay isn't the only place to get stuff). AND I'm willing to pay someone to tune it up. I'm not willing to drop $3000 grand on something I'm viewing like a stomp box! (How much do the units you suggest go for, Ghost?) And I don't want a piece of shit that just distorts mixes. I want a stereo reel to reel, two tracks, on which to record certain mixes that may or may not benefit from the treatment. I believe I can achieve this by spending anywhere from $100 to $600. I'm not asking about analog vs. digital or how things were so much better back in the ol' days or how there's no point in using tape unless you use a $150000000 studer and train a monkey to run it.

I admit I'm developing my thoughts as I go, but gravy, these are just forums. So now:

Which sort of reel to reel, so that I might begin patiently searching and inquiring, what machines would any of you recommend for the purpose of using it as a "go to" effect?

And another thing: why wouldn't you guys want to help a newbie through a situation? Why have a forum? To discuss amongst yourselves how great it is to know everything?

Again, thanks for the help. I'm learning a lot today.

 

[The Ghost of FM]

why wouldn't you guys want to help a newbie through a situation? Why have a forum? To discuss amongst yourselves how great it is to know everything?

You caught us on a bad day.

Did you ever have a bad day?

Cheers!

 

[Sonic Idiot]

I've had many. And I don't care who is pissy. I just want guidance on buying a reel 2 reel. And since I can't sit down and talk with you in order to converse in a more efficient manner, well, here we are...

TEAC? Akai? Sony? Studer? Otari? Realistic? What machines are known for good components? Hold their salt? Stand up well in spite of the years? Have longevity? Don't turn into salt? Are good candidates for adoption and to enjoy a retirement where they are only called upon once in a while?

 

[Mark7]

How about a compromise? A nice 1/4" half track

Incidentally, do stereo cassette decks only exist in quarter track formats?

 

[Beck]

Reel-to-reel is generally going to give you the best results. However, those that are familiar with terms like "reference metal cassette" will remember how far that format came before being replaced (prematurely) by CD.

Even cassette has its place in that it too is free from digital coldness. Tape compression is one attribute, but not the only one. A little cross-talk and the presence of "just right" 3rd harmonic distortion, which is musically pleasing to the ear, is another. Boston's Tom Scholz refers to these qualities as, "The analog smear effect." I guess that term is as good as any. I describe it as the difference between a cold Winter rain and a warm Summer shower.

Cassette technology has made up for a lot through design, such as CrO2 tape (Type II) formulations, finer magnetic particles and noise reduction. Its biggest challenge compared to open reel is wow & flutter, which is audible at slow cassette speeds on most decks.

An open reel deck is your best bet. With today's modern tape formulations there's nothing a 1/4" 2-track @ 15 ips can't do. Even a consumer 2-channel 4-track @ 7 1/2" ips will knock your socks off if you've become acclimated to CD.

Tape speed and track width is a big part of the picture, but things like head design, tape formulation, and microcomputer transport control have made the issue a little more complex.

Recommendations:

2-track mastering decks - Tascam 22-2, Tascam 32-2, Otari MX5050
4-track 2-channel consumer hi-fi - Akai GX-77, TEAC X3/X300, Realistic TR3000 (made by TEAC)

I'll be happy to answer any other questions best I can.

 

[Sonic Idiot]

Thanks Beck--great info. Yeah, I'm chomping at the bit to get an open reel machine to fart around on. I really have only one application in mind: songs composed in Reason. I love the program and I use it constantly but it sounds like a grape popsicle. I must say I have less of a problem with real instruments I've recorded on computer, namely my own guitar playing and voice. (Echo MIa, N-tracks, RNP, RNC, Neuman Mic, AKG C451, a few other chinese specials.) I have meager gear, but live things sound just fine on my set up. Running those tracks through the deck didn't add anything to my ear--actually detracted. But running Reason mixes through even a lowly cassette deck, albeit a quality deck, was a real turn on--it added some magic and smoothed out the parts...Soft synths and the like are TOO clean. Running the Reason mixes through the deck created a room vibe of sorts. The individual parts sounded like mic'd instruments...at least more so, anyways.

I want a quality machine to create this effect as I intend to release stuff commercially and while the sound of the tape deck is pleasing, I can hear very small errors--tape warble. Hardly noticible but not commercially acceptable. If it wasn't for that, I'd use the tape deck because I think the end musical result is subjectively great.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

Even cassette has its place in that it too is free from digital coldness.

A quick comment on this........ if you're using a good converter at hi-res (24/88 or 96), and you still think you have "digital coldness" then you have no business being behind a console.................

"Cold digital" went the way of the dinosaur with earlier generations of 16-bit converters....

 

[Sonic Idiot]

I'll agree with that. The converters on an Echo Mia aren't stunning by any means (Audiophiles may poo poo them) but at 24/96 they are at least clean and I feel they are accurate. Guitars sound like guitars--They are good enough to the point where other things make the real difference--string size, mic placement, and (gasp) performance. I cut my teeth on a Tascam TM-D1000 and the converters (among other components) made everything I ran through that desk sound like thin soup. The last few years have been kind to digital. I've been happy--except for stuff in Reason. It seems like a marriage between digital and tape will help there...

Does anyone else use this approach? Sampler, soft synth based stuff to tape then back to DAW? (I know its done. I mean people on the board here.)

 

[Beck]

A quick comment on this........ if you're using a good converter at hi-res (24/88 or 96), and you still think you have "digital coldness" then you have no business being behind a console.................

"Cold digital" went the way of the dinosaur with earlier generations of 16-bit converters....

That's just a stupid statement, Bear. You know as well as anyone that this is a very controversial issue with equally qualified people on both sides, who just don't see eye-to-eye (or ear-to-ear).

Some have invested so much into digital technology that they can't/won't examine this issue objectively.

As for me, I have chosen analog, and can just as easily choose digital if and when it performs to my standards.

On the issue of hearing coldness in digital recording -- you either hear it or you don't. Those who hear it (or are aware they hear it) obviously have superior hearing/perception. Thousands of dollars of equipment does not a recording engineer make. Not everyone is physically wired for it. Just as having a Stradivarius will not make one a violinist.

The negative effects of digital are insidious. To most there is an almost subliminal discomfort but they're not sure why. It's like having dirty contact lenses or something. You can still see, but you have this underlying sense of annoyance.

Those who are able to detect the subtle nuances and imperfections in recording technology, digital or not, are really the only people that DO belong behind a console.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

Gimme a fuckin' break........ I'll put my ears up against yours anyday......

Sounds an awful lot like the rationalizations people use to differentiate $500/ft cable from $2/ft cable.

Only a select few can hear the difference in cables, if you don't obviously your ears aren't good enough....... only a select few can hear "digital coldness", if you don't obviously you're ears aren't up to par....... what a load of fucking horseshit...........

Beck - if you have the option of using analog or digital and you choose one over the other, that's fine... but please, knock off the bullshit rhetoric - proprogating these superiority myths of one technology over another does nothing to help novices who don't have enough experience to make up their own minds based on objective comparison and not opinionated malarky.

 

[Beck]

Gimme a fuckin' break........ I'll put my ears up against yours anyday......

Sounds an awful lot like the rationalizations people use to differentiate $500/ft cable from $2/ft cable.

Only a select few can hear the difference in cables, if you don't obviously your ears aren't good enough....... only a select few can hear "digital coldness", if you don't obviously you're ears aren't up to par....... what a load of fucking horseshit...........

Beck - if you have the option of using analog or digital and you choose one over the other, that's fine... but please, knock off the bullshit rhetoric - proprogating these superiority myths of one technology over another does nothing to help novices who don't have enough experience to make up their own minds based on objective comparison and not opinionated malarky.

Bear, you're setting up straw men. I don't have an issue with cable types and I've never mentioned it on these boards. You're trying to fit me into some neat little box. Your frequent use of the word audiophile as a derogatory term is very telling indeed.

The fact is there are great differences in individual auditory acuity, just as there are differences in athletic abilities and intelligence. The best engineers are not made they are born with keen senses and musical instinct.

This digital/analog controversy has nothing to do with myth, but has been well documented in recording, hi-fi and engineering journals for some two decades now. Would you like a list?

You strike me as someone who has bet the farm on digital technology and takes it personally when someone talks frankly about its shortcomings. You cannot honestly pursue excellence if you surrender your objectivity for religion.

When it comes down to it the thoughts I share on these boards are my opinions based on experiential knowledge gained over 20 years in music recording. You're not going to change them. They are what they are.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

Bear, you're setting up straw men. I don't have an issue with cable types and I've never mentioned it on these boards.

Hmmm... talk about missing the point........

The fact is there are great differences in individual auditory acuity, just as there are differences in athletic abilities and intelligence. The best engineers are not made they are born with keen senses and musical instinct.

Which has absolutely NOTHING to do with any discussion of analog vs. digital...........

This digital/analog controversy has nothing to do with myth, but has been well documented in recording, hi-fi and engineering journals for some two decades now. Would you like a list?

As I said earlier, any "controversy" is a more or less moot point in the age of 192Khz+ sampling rates and 24-bit word sizes. Try and keep up with technology there, skippy..... the days of horrid early generation 16-bit converters are long gone.

You strike me as someone who has bet the farm on digital technology and takes it personally when someone talks frankly about its shortcomings. You cannot honestly pursue excellence if you surrender your objectivity for religion.

That I use digital technology is no secret, nor is it a "bet on the farm" -- it's a technology to be used, that's all. You speak about shortcomings but only seem to be aware of limitations that have long been surpassed. Apparently, analog is your "religion".......

When it comes down to it the thoughts I share on these boards are my opinions based on experiential knowledge gained over 20 years in music recording. You're not going to change them. They are what they are.

Yep... same goes for me....... at least we can agree on that point!

 

[wildflower soul]

Perhaps Bluebear has no business in an Analog forum whatsoever. Maybe someone should go into a digital forum and start giving advice on something they know nothing about.

24 bit converters still sound like shit, I recorded on 24 bit digital, in a million dollar studio with over 13 microphones on the drums in a tuned drumroom. And the drums still sound like digital garbage.

I'm so sick of everyone going "its ok digital is fine now we have 24 bit converters". Still makes everything sound like it was recorded in a tin can.

Don't get all pissy just cause you spent all your money on building a digital studio, and some people disagree with you.

But then again, thats my opinion and why I post in the analog forum. I won't be arguing any of my opinions in a digital forum

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

24 bit converters still sound like shit, I recorded on 24 bit digital, in a million dollar studio with over 13 microphones on the drums in a tuned drumroom. And the drums still sound like digital garbage.

Then the engineer, producer, or you guys were all doing something very wrong..........

Was that a serious post? Are you honestly THAT clueless???

Funny how in my modest quarter-million-dollar-digital studio, I can turn out very excellent results..............!!

 

[Han]

Well, actually hi end digital sounds awesome and hi end analog sounds even better.

But you guys will be amazed by the sound of a really good cassette deck like the Nakamichi 582. This $2K+ cassette deck with a metal cassette sounds better than most consumer R to R machines like Akai, Pioneer etc.

The best sounding R to R today is the Ampex ATR 102 1" 2 track. Slipperman said it makes anything else sound like a cheap cassette player. But you'll need an awful lot of money for a machine like that.
http://www.jrfmagnetics.com/

A 1/2" 2 track will cost you a lot of money as well and it will need maintenance, don't you forget that.

Best alternative is a pro 1/4" two track that can run on 15 ips (30 ips is nice too) A Studer, Otari, Ampex, Nagra, Telefunken or other machines in that quality can be found sometimes.

I have a Studer B67 that sounds very good and a rare Philips PRO50 all tube machine that sounds killer. Besides that I have a very old Philips pro machine that runs 30 ips and an old Telefunken M10. These machines (accept the B67) have the size of a fridge.

 

[wildflower soul]

Then the engineer, producer, or you guys were all doing something very wrong..........

Was that a serious post? Are you honestly THAT clueless???

Funny how in my modest quarter-million-dollar-digital studio, I can turn out very excellent results..............!!

Funny how I stated it was my opinion. I'm entitled to a preference. Me saying you're wrong and you saying I'm wrong will prove nothing. Because we both have a preference. This is still the analog forum, do you enjoy lurking or something? It seems you liek to cause trouble often.

I did hear clips off your site. And yes digital records instruments as they sound. I just don't think its appropriate for recording albums.

As far as doing a decent sounding demo,rehearsal its more than ideal. We record all our live shows on digital... and thats cool because we arent going to to anything with it or anything.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

Good sound is good sound, no matter what method is used to record it.........

 

[wildflower soul]

Good sound is good sound, no matter what method is used to record it.........

i agree.

 

[Sonic Idiot]

You all have good things to say about analog sound, but are adding very little to the literary canon concerning rhetoric...

Han, expand, please, on your assertion regarding high end tape decks vs. consumer reel to reels. Please elaborate on the specific attributes of the techonolgy. Or anyone else, for that matter. I'm trying to learn more about why cassette is worse than reel to reel. We've established tape speed and width as two factors. What else?

 

[regebro]

Yeah... right....

Dump a mix to a cassette portastudio and also a 1/2" reel and see which sounds better.........

Define "better".

What he wanted was to ge a fat analog sound. A cassette will do that, through a crappy high-end response, wow, flutter and a tiny little bit of tape compression. It that "better"? From an accuracy point of view: No. But if you want ACCURATE sound, but some $1000 AD/DA converters and run everything digital. That will sound more accurate than any tape. But will it sound *better*?