Mixing Down to Vhs

J

Jack Simpson

New member
I read some things last night somewhere about mixing down to a VHS tape. I have a magnavox hifi stereo vcr, with audio in's and out's. Will this work? Do I just run the rca outs on my 4-Track to the VCR and press record, just like mixing down to a cassette deck? Do I run it through my VCR input of my reciever to record onto my tape deck (connected to tape monitor output)? What is the difference in sound quality?
 
i think the audio on video is hrader wearing, way back when, we recorded two track to vcr and the quality was nicer than audio tape (not by much)....but if you aren't going to use the vcr to listen to your audio, or you only want to make one or two tapes, then going direct to tape is the way to go....the more things you add to an analog signals journy, the more it dies a little along the way.....if you want to make six or seven copies, then maybe master to vcr, and tape copies from this, no point though if your vcr ain't stereo.....all being said, you are much better off mastering to a digital source, such as your p.c., all you need are stereo ins and outs and a freeware recording program
 
Well......

I used to record live to VHS using a very nice tape deck as a preamp. The signal never hit the tape before the VHS. I found I did get much better recordings that way, but I don't know if going from tape to VHS is going to do much for you. Give it a try though.
The method is simple . Treat the VHS deck just like a tape deck. It has the same audio ins and outs and works pretty much the same. You may display some lag when hitting record on the VHS so I would start it first then the 4 track.

P.S. I was told the VHS converts it to a digital recording but I am not sure about that. Any way It may serve as a better master for dubbing off copys than a cassette.


Hope this helps.

F.S.
 
daled

Be careful when recording to VHS because when I tried it, my vcr had a built in compressor that would screw up the dynamics of my songs. :(
 
Using HiFi VHS as a mixdown is a good step up from a cassette deck, but it has some issues...

Someone already pointed out the built-in automatic gain control (a form of compression)... not all VCRs have this but it will be a pain if yours does.

Audio in HiFi VHS is stored in 2 places - the linear audio track (mono - you don't care about this because it sounds like crap!), and the HiFi track, which stores the audio signal as a form of FM modulation. It is NOT a digital signal at all.... (You have confused it with the use of VCRs and a PCM encoder -- primitive digital from the late 80s!)

For the most part, the sound quality is quite good, but because of the FM modulation, distortion occurs very easily on transients... try recording a drum machine hi-hat sound - you will easily hear artifacts around the "ssh" parts. Obviously this will vary form machine to machine.

In a pinch, it will work... but even a minidisc will outperform it nowadays.

Bruce
 
VHS Hi Fi was my first attempt at a mixdown deck. The s/n and frequency response look good, but I could never reliably avoid the the transient problems Blue Bear mentioned. As i recall, it uses something similar to DBX noise reduction?
 
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