Dbx type 1..

S

Swifttomas

New member
I’m recording into my Yamaha mtx8 without using the internal Dbx ii so I can get a bit of saturation.. wondering if I bounce to S VHS as a master will my DBX 150 unit reduce the hiss from the original cassette or just the hiss from the VHS, leaving the original hiss intact.. is it futile to want the best of both worlds? (Saturation and low noise, totally analog) just got the DBX 150 and can’t seem to get it to detect the hiss.
 
Type I DBX is an encoding scheme. You have to record the material through a DBX encoder, and play it back through a DBX decoder. It cannot just remove hiss from arbitrary recordings, and if you try to decode something that isn't DBX encoded it will sound really awful.
Encoding via DBX and then not decoding it will increase the treble which some people like to use as a kind of poor-man's aural exciter, but that's not really what it's designed to do.
 
I’m bouncing a mix from an 8 track cassette machine to a Vhs player. my question being will this only address the noise floor of the vhs player, leaving the noise from the 8 track intact? Or should there be some noise reduction in addition to that ?
 
Swifttomas said:
I’m recording into my Yamaha mtx8 without using the internal Dbx ii so I can get a bit of saturation.. wondering if I bounce to S VHS as a master will my DBX 150 unit reduce the hiss from the original cassette or just the hiss from the VHS, leaving the original hiss intact.. is it futile to want the best of both worlds? (Saturation and low noise, totally analog) just got the DBX 150 and can’t seem to get it to detect the hiss.
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Neither dbx nor dolby for that matter, will reduce hiss that is already part of a recording. IMHO and experience, not using your internal dbx II on your multitrack is a bad idea. I'll never understand the romance with saturation. Even if you like it, it's temporary. The more passes of the tape, the less of it remains, especially at the top end.
 
Interesting, well it does seem to reduce the hiss on the vhs, and the hiss is only noticeable at the beginning and end of the song. DBX ii seems to strip the high end pretty significantly, which is another reason I’m running it off. Maybe I’ll retrack with type I encoded. For now I’ll just run a noise gate and see if that is the solution for this track. Thanks so much for your insight.
 
Swifttomas said:
Interesting, well it does seem to reduce the hiss on the vhs, and the hiss is only noticeable at the beginning and end of the song. DBX ii seems to strip the high end pretty significantly, which is another reason I’m running it off. Maybe I’ll retrack with type I encoded. For now I’ll just run a noise gate and see if that is the solution for this track. Thanks so much for your insight.
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If you are losing top end with dbx, you are probably printing too hot. It's a common mistake and the primary one that has given dbx a bad name.
 
I don't think a noise gate is going to solve any of your problems.

Assuming you're using the VHS Hi-Fi audio and running the correct levels I'd be surprised if it's adding much noise, but if it is the dbx should help (if you use it correctly).
 
In my opinion, if you aren't using DBX on an 8 track cassette format, I wouldn't bother using it on the mixdown to VHS HiFi format. You will have a (relatively) high amount of audible hiss from the 8 track cassette format and the additional hiss added in the mixdown process to VHS will be insignificant in comparison.

Incorporating noise reduction during mixdown won't eliminate any of the noise generated in the tracking process, it will only reduce the amount of additional noise added in the mixdown from MT8X -> VHS.
 
FYI Type I dbx is designed for open reel formats (wider track width and higher tape speed), not cassette formats. Type II dbx is specific to cassette based formats and is designed to deal with HF loss of those formats. Type I doesn’t do this.

Secondly, what type of tape are you using in the MT8X?
 
bouldersoundguy said:
I don't think a noise gate is going to solve any of your problems.

Assuming you're using the VHS Hi-Fi audio and running the correct levels I'd be surprised if it's adding much noise, but if it is the dbx should help (if you use it correctly).
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The noise gate is eliminating the hiss at the beginning and end of the song, during the song the hiss is not noticeable
 
sweetbeats said:
FYI Type I dbx is designed for open reel formats (wider track width and higher tape speed), not cassette formats. Type II dbx is specific to cassette based formats and is designed to deal with HF loss of those formats. Type I doesn’t do this.

Secondly, what type of tape are you using in the MT8X?
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Yeah I got it for the vhs, not for the cassette. I’m using Type ii cassettes, mostly Maxells but also some Sonys and Fujis.
 
Swifttomas said:
Yeah I got it for the vhs, not for the cassette. I’m using Type ii cassettes, mostly Maxells but also some Sonys and Fujis.
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Well it’s not designed for VHS audio either. I mean, use it if you want…knock yourself out, just don’t expect it to work correctly or accomplish what you are trying to accomplish. The track width for the audio tracks on a HiFi VHS machine are similar to the quarter track consumer Philips Compact Cassette format, and the tape speed may be slower than cassette. And, again, you’re using dbx noise reduction designed for wider track wide and much faster tape speed.
 
Oh I thought hifi vhs used the whole tape for audio, sharing with the video, and in short play mode ran the tape at very high speeds..
 
If your VHS deck is a “HiFi” machine then yes, it uses the whole width of the tape, but the audio is frequency modulated using two different carriers and embedded into the non-linear video signal.

dbx noise reduction is designed to work with linear analog audio, not frequency modulated non linear audio. Again, use it if you want…completely wrong application.

FWIW VHS tape speeds, even the shortest play mode (fastest tape speed) is about 30% slower than the standard 1 7/8ips Philips Compact Cassette format. Type I dbx will work with 7.5ips tape speed, but was originally designed for 15ips and faster.
 
wow thank you! I don’t know anybody that knows anything about this stuff so it’s great to have some of my questions answered, it’s tough sifting through Wikipedia trying to figure things out on my own, so this is much appreciated !
 
If you are hearing additional hiss on a Hifi VHS machine then it means that the Hifi track isn't working so the machine is dropping back to the linear analogue track which, as Sweetbeats says, runs more slowly than a standard cassette and won't give you great performance. The last time I measured the noise on a Hifi VHS machine it was something like -80dB relative to the 0dB level (it was an older deck with manual level controls and reasonably good level indicators).
 
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