Tape distortion?

[Bulls Hit]

One of you guys might know what's going on here.

I've got a mix, nothing out of the ordinary, 24/48. It plays fine, the 16/44 wav plays fine as does the mp3.

One of the things I always do is record the 24 bit mix to a chrome cassette and see how it sounds in the car. I run the tape meters into the +2 area without any problems usually. However this mix has a bubbly low level distortion running all the way through it, just like it's too hot on the tape. I had a pultec eq with just a smidgen of 30 & 16K boost, and a limiter with 2 db boost on the mix. I've taken all that off, and am just running the limiter at 0.2. I've backed off the tape level so it's just hitting zero, occassionally over.

The distortion is not as bad now, but it's still there. It's present both in the car and in my 'hifi' Kef speakers. However if I play the mix out my daw through the monitors, it's clean as a whistle. Any ideas?

Another wierd thing is when playing through the Kefs, if I turn the Sony amp up past about 3, it cuts out and displays 'Protect'. What the hell am I being protected from? I know my mixes aren't the best, but this is just silly

 

[legionserial]

I know it sounds dumb, but have you tried a different tape?

 

[Bulls Hit]

Heh, no I hadn't but I have now. Same thing, it doesn't appear to be the tapes

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Roll off the low frequencies below about 90Hz on all tracks except bass, kick and any other special bass track you may have that has important things happening down there, and remix.

Also make sure you're not sitting in a bass null where you do your mixing.

G.

 

[Dani Pace]

Have you tried demagnatizing the tape heads? Or maybe just a good cleaning?

 

[bigwillz24]

I think you have gremlins in the bass frequencies of the mix.

*just read SSG's post Iwas going to suggest about the same thing*

 

[Bulls Hit]

OK I'll check out the bass end. Thanks guys.

Come to think of it, it does sound like distortion I've encountered previously when I've overcooked the bottom end - just not to this extent

 

[TexRoadkill]

I agree, look at the sub bass. Why do you still bother with casette?

 

[olfunk]

I agree, look at the sub bass. Why do you still bother with casette?

they sound so good thats why

 

[Bulls Hit]

I agree, look at the sub bass. Why do you still bother with casette?

It's just easier than burning a bunch of test CDs

 

[sweetnubs]

you using noise reduction? Could be the culprit, especially if it is dbx. Dirty heads? Alignment issues? Have you listened to the tape through your monitors to make sure it's not the playback system in the car? Have you gone mad? Have I gone mad? Why do I find myself attracted to george hamilton? Why don't you use 8-track instead of Cassette? Do you have any Gordon Lightfoot on 8-track, he makes me feel so sad. I want to be happy like Tom Cruise, he is happy and very excitable! I love blue raspberry Otter Pops!

 

[Bulls Hit]

sweetie no I'm not using NR. I know it's not the tapes or the heads because it plays exactly the same in the car as it does in my sony tapedeck. I did try out a bunch of uad plugs on the track, including the Neve 1073 and Helios eqs and I know I got a little trigger happy on it. I don't own any Gordon Lightfoot records,so I can't help you out there. I do like Graham Bonnet though.

I still don't see why the tape doesn't handle a bit of bottom end when it'snot peaking. I can see why vinyl would get unhappy, but tape? Is it the magnetic arrangement of the atoms in the tape that's causing the distortion or what? I don't get it

 

[Rokket]

I tend to think it's the low end too. Your car stereo and home stereo speakers tend to accentuate the bass freqs, so if you over do it... bam!i

I had that problem for awhile on everything until I discovered high and low pass filters.

 

[bloomboy]

This is maybe another dumb question, but have you tried recording on another cassette deck? This is exactly what happened to my old cassette deck when the preamps started dying.

 

[TexRoadkill]

they sound so good thats why

Compared to what, telephone?