From tape to CD, what's the whole point?

A

alex0203

New member
Okay, you'll have to excuse me if this is a dumb question, but anyway...

What's the point of a musician recording with a cassette tape, but only to transfer it to an MP3 (and then eventually on a cd)?

Won't you lose "quality" by doing that? I don't get it. There's a musician (that I can't remember right now) who recently recorded his whole album on a cassette tape, transferred the tracks to a DAW and then burned thm onto CD. So, I'm guessing he was trying to get a Lo-fi sound....but really, why even convert it to MP3?

It just seems ass-backwards. Somebody please explain?
 
There is a point in getting stuff off tape and into digital format. The latter is much more easy to distribute. For example, you can email material around the place, or ferry it around on a USB stick. Leaving it on cassette means you have to deal with making sure you have a reasonably functional cassette player . . . and that others do as well.

Transferring tape recorded material onto a computer won't necessarily degrade the sound quality (any more than it already is). Converting it to low-resolution MP3 will.

Were someone to do this, they would be better off recording the material from tape into their computer as a WAV file, then converting it to a higher resolution MP3 if they want to distribute it further.

Some people prefer to record onto tape to make use of the character of material recorded onto tape, as opposed to material recorded digitally. Words and phrases such as "warmth", "tape saturation" and so on are prevalent in discussions about this approach.

"Lo fi" is another, and is a means of trying to achieve a more "natural", "unprocessed", "less digitally sterile" sound. Note my quotation marks around these words? That's because I don't buy into these arguments. I note that some prefer analog recordings to digital, and that there is an apparent benefit from using high quality analog equipment.

In many cases, though, I expect that "lo fi" is used as a justification for poor performances, i.e. it is an excuse to sound bad.
 
I often use my 4 track cassette recorder.
I love it.
It requires a different mind set to the process of recording but it can give excellent results. I don't have the ability to plan ahead that is required for 4 track recording, bouncing, OD'ing all the way to mixing from the tape but it is frequently done.
From tape into the computer, mix to wave & then burn to CD.
Or, mix from tape into computer as wav files then burn to CD.
MP3 doesn't figure in the sequence as far as I can figure.
I sometimes use MP3s to listen to a mix when I'm out for a walk etc. but don't see the point in converting to MP3 then converting the MP3 to wav.
 
alex0203 said:
Okay, you'll have to excuse me if this is a dumb question, but anyway...

What's the point of a musician recording with a cassette tape, but only to transfer it to an MP3 (and then eventually on a cd)?



It just seems ass-backwards. Somebody please explain?
Click to expand...

Well, if a portastudio or reel to reel happens to be all you have or your preference to record on, you're at some point going to have to deal with the fact that we live in a digital world and if you want to get your music to others to hear, you're bucking the odds in assuming that everyone has a cassette player or a reel to reel. The dominant listening spheres are no longer analog and haven't been since even before this site existed.
Also, some people just prefer recording to their tape machines, familiarity and love, not necesarilly aesthetics. It's what they know, they see no reason to have change imposed upon them by the weight of majority opinion or ez willis {:D} but they also recognize that it's in their interest to have it on a more permanent medium that's easier to move about, either physically or in cyberspace.
In a sense it's a similar thing to transfering all of ones' vinyl and cassette albums to CD or MP3.
 
On a sort of relavant note. I rescently picked up a vintage Akia reel to reel to deck. And along with it about 120 tapes. In these tapes are a few that I have the CD's also. In comparing the two formats, reel to reel (tape) wins hands down. The difference is unbelievable !!!!! And actually comparing the stats of the two formats shows reel to reel to be the superior media.
 
BushmasterM4 said:
On a sort of relavant note. I rescently picked up a vintage Akia reel to reel to deck. And along with it about 120 tapes. In these tapes are a few that I have the CD's also. In comparing the two formats, reel to reel (tape) wins hands down. The difference is unbelievable !!!!! And actually comparing the stats of the two formats shows reel to reel to be the superior media.
Click to expand...

No doubt!
But strapping a reel to reel tape player to your back to take to the gym to workout with, instead of an MP3 player, or trying to change reels in the car while driving when you want to hear something different, rather than just pressing a button on the CD changer, would be problematic at best. :laughings:
 
Besides necessity, it's all about getting the sound one wants, isn't it? If using a cassette recorder gets someone the sound they want then why not?

Others have pretty much covered why ending up in digital makes sense.
 
If you wanted the crappy sound of cassette tape and wanted to mix on a computer, then you would record to cassette tape and dump to a computer.

People who record to 2-inch tape usually do so because it sounds better than 24/96 digital.

gecko zzed said:
"Lo fi" is another, and is a means of trying to achieve a more "natural", "unprocessed", "less digitally sterile" sound.
Click to expand...
A natural unprocessed sound is hi-fi.
A crap-ass unprocessed sound is lo-fi.

I can't imagine why you think a natural reproduction is lo-fi.
 
Chibi Nappa said:
I can't imagine why you think a natural reproduction is lo-fi.
Click to expand...
He followed with this:
gecko zzed said:
Note my quotation marks around these words? That's because I don't buy into these arguments. I note that some prefer analog recordings to digital, and that there is an apparent benefit from using high quality analog equipment.

In many cases, though, I expect that "lo fi" is used as a justification for poor performances, i.e. it is an excuse to sound bad.
Click to expand...
So, I don't think he thinks what you think he thinks. :)
 
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