hi fi vcr for recording

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juzdme

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i cant afford a adat at this time, has anyone out there ever tried using a hi fi vcr in the place of an adat??
i use cubase, newly purchased, and i need a way to mix down "live" so as to make adjustments to my mix while playing through my pc - back through my 24 bit sound card - through my Behringer mixer - recording onto my vhs tape.
any thoughts??? please advise me of anything to look out for or what not.
any help is appreciated!

Thanks,
Tim
Juzdme@aol.com
 
ADATs are 8-channel multitrack machines -- hifi VHS is a 2-track, non-multitrack format -- they really aren't interchangeable from a multitrack perspective.

You can, however, use the hifi VHS as a mixdown machine. Overall quality is generally just a notch below DAT or CD... but some of the problematic aspects of using hifi VHS are that some machines may have built-in compression (which is great when dealing with recording programs off the air and automatically reducing the level of loud commercials, but is completely useless for audio recording), lack of metering, and the recording method itself (a form of frequency modulation) is prone to artifacts - particularly on on high-transient percussive sounds. (Try recording a hi-hat only, you'll here hissing/spitting-types of artifacts underneath the sound of the hats...)

That being said - it's a budget way to get a much higher-quality sound than you would with cassette.
 
Yup, what Bruce said.

I used to record with a hi-fi Beta VCR, and the sound was surprisingly good. The cheaper VHS VCR's that are out there actually sound alot worse than cassette though in my experience. So between a cheap VCR and a cheap cassette, I'd actually choose the cassette.
 
Why don't you use the automation in cubase to do all the moves and mix in the box? Or at least go out through the mixer and back into your soundcard and into cubase. That way if you mess up a move, you can punch it in instaed of starting the song over.
 
You can get Cakewalk Pyro for $30.00. Its a really cool program for two track recording. Its can set track times, fades, cut and edit. Even use all of you plugins. Or you can get a comsumer level CD recorder for under $200.00
 
If you use a Hi-Fi VCR (I assume you mean VHS?), you might try doing so with no video signal applied. VHS Hi-Fi tracks tend to exhibit a lot of 'motorboating' if you ever play it back with a different deck (and sometimes with the same deck, depending on how good the auto-tracking is). As best I understand it, a large part of this is a result of the way that the video signal gets layered on top of the Hi-Fi audio track (at a reduced recording depth).

If you have no video signal, I -think- this might reduce that problem and result in a more acceptable recording... maybe.... That said, I've never tried it, and some VCRs might completely choke.... :D

Just a theory.
 
The hi fi signal is encoded into the video signal. If you are recording hi fi, you are recording on the video portion.
 
mixdown

I've had a consumer-Pioneer 555 or somemodel#, and it is ok with the Fiber/Digital input.
It also can really treble out your copies, if doing multiple using the Analog/RCA.... sht D/A's-A/D's I'm assuming.

I have a lot of problems with skipping on my copies too...blue back Maxell's.
don't know if its the CD-r's or the unit. once again nothing to compare to!!

had it for years and many.many hours/years....

workmanship is ok, no big positive...but it works, has Fiber Optic
and they're on ebay.

i would like to borrow/rent an Alesis Masterlink for 30days tho...mmmhmmm :)
 
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Farview said:
The hi fi signal is encoded into the video signal. If you are recording hi fi, you are recording on the video portion.
Click to expand...

Actually, it isn't encoded into the signal. You're thinking of Beta Hi-Fi. VHS Hi-Fi decks typically have 6 or 7 heads: 4 video, 2 Hi-Fi audio, and an optional flying erase head. (Some cheaper ones have 2 video, 2 Hi-Fi audio.) The video heads don't necessarily have to be laying anything down on the tape (noise notwithstanding).

IIRC (and I could be wrong here), only two video heads are used during recording and normal playback; the other two are used for pausing, slow-mo, and possibly cue/review to minimize signal loss caused by the difference in tape speed and the video signal not quite lining up with the main two heads.

Anyway, normally, the audio gets laid down first in a way that records at the entire depth of the magnetic material. Then the video heads fly by and effectively erase the upper layers of the audio. I'm not sure how they avoid video bleeding into the audio. Supposedly the heads are shaped in a way that minimizes the overlap, but.... Anyway, if the tracking is adjusted even slightly because of the video signal, the audio heads will no longer be in perfect alignment. I -think- that's the cause of the motorboating, but part of it might be leakage. I don't remember. It has been a while.

Most decks should be able to generate a fake edge sync if there is no video signal going in, but not all. For decks that can't, tracking will be a problem, as VHS largely depends on the sync pulse being laid down at one edge of the tape (I forget which) to track the signal, unlike such formats as 8mm and DV that actually do tracking based entirely on the helical signals. That's why a slightly cauliflowered edge will totaly ruin a VHS tape.

Oh, and I think I actually did do an audio-only recording with an HR-S6700U (or maybe with the somewhat crappier S6900U) back in the late 90s. I don't remember why, though....

You can read more about VHS audio (including some comments on the subject of using VHS for audio recording with no video) at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/AudioFAQ/part7/.
 
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