Tascam 488 for "tape sound" or "analog mix"?

[lagoausente2]

Yes. With *any* tape synchronization setup, one tape track is “striped” (recorded) with timecode.

You know, a lot of people who have a hybrid setup with analog and digital recorders avoid the complication of synchronization by recording to the tape machine first, and then transferring those tracks all at once to their DAW. That way there’s no need for a synchronizer.

Just remember that if you’re going to add a tape machine to your setup, there are other expenses for maintenance, upkeep and alignment that go along with it. And the cost of tape. Or if you don’t plan on doing the maintenance, alignment and upkeep yourself, be prepared to find a good tech to do it for you, and that’s not cheap either. The TSR-8 is a good quality machine; good sound. Good transport. It’s only negative in my opinion is it is a two-head machine. So there’s no real-time playback monitoring, and electronic setup and alignment is more of a hassle. But consider the cost of the alignment tape, audio spectrum voltmeter, some kind of tone generator, demag tool, and then the tape itself for recording. Depending on how much tape you want to buy, that could be $700-800USD on top of the cost of the tape machine to get started, unless some of that is included with the machine.

A multitrack open reel tape machine is a significant commitment.

Hello, thank you for the tips. The third head for monitoring should be desirable, but since it they have delay as you pointed, seems useful for tweaking the sound input adjust, but not for directly recording out that monitoring haead output. So the idea of using it for "traking" as a hardware plugin, directly to digital is no practical on any other 3 head machines either, unless all time editing/moving the track.

The guy who is selling it, adds two tapes with the machine. Still don´t know the length of the tapes, but I think should be enough for starting.
Regarding the maitenance, he said it was "recaped" last august, not sure what it mean. Google say about changing capacitors ( I think he must be saying "relap"). I´ll ask him about alignment. Can you tell me how much often must be tested, or calibrated? .

Ok, that a multitrack open reel machine is a significant commitment, but what should be the alternatives?

Regarding the maitenance, long term use probably should worth to get the equipment to to myself. I know electronics so it should be no imposible to me, just I should need knowledge about how to do it, and specially on this machine.

Anyway, I´m open to suggestions as alternatives to this TSR-8 machine.

What I have found till now, are quarter stereo older machines, with same maitenance needings, and just 2 tracks. Maybe I´m missing other models I should consider..?

Thank you very much.

 

[lagoausente2]

Seems tape machines have a lot of cons, but still guys using them, others saying tape is just "low fi" the digital, and can get same with plugins and compression. I´m confused so maybe the only way to find out is buy one and try it myself. Seems opinions vary from one direction too the opposite.

I guess if tape users do it for "love" with that gear, or if really they prefer the real hardware for any reason. Still no clear for me.

 

[AnalogApples]

The thing with all things recording is quality bit also where your 'quality' comes in the the great scheme of things.

Back in the 70s, when this kind of kit was emerging and developing into the 80s, the quality of cassette in general - consumer, prosumer and professional gradually increased. Tape mechanisms presented less wow and flutter, the electronics better signal to noise and the tape formalations got better and better. At work we had all of these - as a hifi and video sales and rental outfit doing domestic and business customers. It did get to the stage that I could wander in and take anything I liked to do a recording - either music events or conferences or meetings, and quite frankly, we got to the stage where the quality differences were so minute, it didn't matter. What mattered were gadgets and gizmos to make life easier. I had a few favourite cassette decks and reel to reels, and yet when new things appeared, like elcassette I'd give them a shot, and even Sony's digital audio add on unit for the F1 video recorder. We had Akai 4000Ds sitting there and my favourite, the Ferrograph series 7s and Super 7s. These all had sufficient quality to be as close to transparent as we could get. I hated the 4000D - for no reason other than it was so easy to mark the brushed aluminium front, and for resale values, we needed to keep them pristene. The 4 track Akai and the 2 track Ferrographs were impossible to spot by listening, as were ALL the cassette decks. Any of the proper hifi ones sounded excellent.

We suffered from dodgy tape, that was all. BASF was my favourite - the CR02 being my go to forumation in the black and silver livery. Memorex was pushing heavily on TV. Is it live or memorex? being the strapline. Sony tapes were OK. TDK Ferrichrome were reliable too.

My point for home recording or pro studios then and now, was that as long as you had hiss under control, then all these brands did a great job. There really was (and still isn't) some level of quality we can really determine. As soon as you got to a certain level, anyone could use them - abd our national broadcaster, the BBC did. Very rarely did they modify things for quality, they modified them to be simpler, more reliable when abused or over used and sometimes just to make inputs and output levels the same as other gear, for swappabiliy.

The 688 we had lacked EQ versatility and the routing possibilities were a bit limited and mic possibilities, but it sounded fine. It was reliable and as an all in one box offered more than the 4 track portastudios of the day. I don't remember tape issues once we found the most appropriate cassette type. For the life of me, I cannot remember what we standardised on. I don;t remember any major reliability issues either. Compared with ADAT, which we moved to, the unreliability and constant requirement for cleaning and aligning didn't sit well at all. We moved to the MK2 versions but then quickly bought an HD24 which integrated well and was transparent. you just pushed record, and it did. No more waiting for three machines to rewind and lock up, and no need to pray before you ejected.

People who are no reliving the analgue life seem to think there were real goto machines, but the reality is there weren't. If you had a Tascam 3340 you probably had it bodged into some awkward mixer and it meant lots of cable swaps. I bought a Tascam multi-track and a Revox 2 track, mainly to be able to transfer a few things, but with the idea of recording on them. However, this 'sound' people are expecting to get out of them is compression and a bit of hiss coupled with a bit of frequency response filtering, and maybe a touch of distortion. I simply don't record the kind of music that reacts well, so transfers complete, they are just sitting in the studio. I suspect, at £70 a spool, I'm not going to be buying much tape just to dirty my recordings up. I do understand the liking some folk have for the 'old' sound, but I spent all my recording life moving upwards, and going back to the old problems (even not talking about the quality) means I shan't be doing it.

This response was so vivid of a story it made the subscription cost of homerecording .com worth it. Thanks for the no hype description of living with analog for many years!

I still believe the semi random orientation of magnetic iron particles is a better way to record an audio wave, compared to the 1s and 0s of a computer.

 

[lagoausente2]

Yes. With *any* tape synchronization setup, one tape track is “striped” (recorded) with timecode.

You know, a lot of people who have a hybrid setup with analog and digital recorders avoid the complication of synchronization by recording to the tape machine first, and then transferring those tracks all at once to their DAW. That way there’s no need for a synchronizer.

Just remember that if you’re going to add a tape machine to your setup, there are other expenses for maintenance, upkeep and alignment that go along with it. And the cost of tape. Or if you don’t plan on doing the maintenance, alignment and upkeep yourself, be prepared to find a good tech to do it for you, and that’s not cheap either. The TSR-8 is a good quality machine; good sound. Good transport. It’s only negative in my opinion is it is a two-head machine. So there’s no real-time playback monitoring, and electronic setup and alignment is more of a hassle. But consider the cost of the alignment tape, audio spectrum voltmeter, some kind of tone generator, demag tool, and then the tape itself for recording. Depending on how much tape you want to buy, that could be $700-800USD on top of the cost of the tape machine to get started, unless some of that is included with the machine.

A multitrack open reel tape machine is a significant commitment.

I think question is easy. Can get the same on digital using UAD tape emulations? , if reply is yes.., so using real tape is just for fun?
if reply is no, or it depends, can you explain your perception?

Thank you so much.

 

[TalismanRich]

I think question is easy. Can get the same on digital using UAD tape emulations? , if reply is yes.., so using real tape is just for fun?
if reply is no, or it depends, can you explain your perception?

That's a loaded question. Will you get EXACTLY the same result with a tape emulator? Probably not, for a few reasons.

1: you are setting up the tape as the "target" but it's a moving target! Which of these tape decks do you want to emulate?

Those are the frequency response curves from 4 different tape decks. It doesn't even take into the account any compression effects.

You might as well ask if you can use one of those tape decks to emulate a digital recording where the response curve is this:

If you have a complete picture of what that tape deck is doing, and the time to fiddle with the settings long enough, you could probably get a very passable emulation. Taking a particular plug-in with a default or random setting and asking if you can duplicate any random tape deck, the answer is going to be an absolute NO!

What would probably be halfway successful would be to use the same type of IR technology that is used for things like the Kemper guitar amp system or the Bricasti Reverb, and create models of different tape decks. Press the button and get a Studer A80, or a B77. Another button to get an MCI 24 track, another for an Otari MX80 half track or an ancient Ampex. But that's going to take a fair amount of work and programming (maybe that's what UAD does, but it doesn't seem like it).

 

[lagoausente2]

That's a loaded question. Will you get EXACTLY the same result with a tape emulator? Probably not, for a few reasons.

1: you are setting up the tape as the "target" but it's a moving target! Which of these tape decks do you want to emulate?

Those are the frequency response curves from 4 different tape decks. It doesn't even take into the account any compression effects.

You might as well ask if you can use one of those tape decks to emulate a digital recording where the response curve is this:

If you have a complete picture of what that tape deck is doing, and the time to fiddle with the settings long enough, you could probably get a very passable emulation. Taking a particular plug-in with a default or random setting and asking if you can duplicate any random tape deck, the answer is going to be an absolute NO!

What would probably be halfway successful would be to use the same type of IR technology that is used for things like the Kemper guitar amp system or the Bricasti Reverb, and create models of different tape decks. Press the button and get a Studer A80, or a B77. Another button to get an MCI 24 track, another for an Otari MX80 half track or an ancient Ampex. But that's going to take a fair amount of work and programming (maybe that's what UAD does, but it doesn't seem like it).

The point is no emulate a different tape machines. It has no sense. UAD have different emulations. In real life I will not be buying 2 or 3 o 4 reel to reel machines to have different "flavour".
There videos about comparisons, between the real hardware and plugins, even the pluin emulates a tape, and the real tape compared is "other" brand, or type, often the hardware seem to perform e little more natural regarding the compression of the tape, and the distort flavour. Plugins seem to sound a bit more artificial, not that different but the difference is no just frequency response.

Also there are diferent plugin brands not same quality as UAD even they emulate same original machine not all pluings are as real each other.

Does it worth the difference in real life? Don´t know, but there is more than emulate an specific machine, is more how "real" o "naturally" the emulation sounds compared to a real tape, even its a Tascam Tsr-8 ¿? still don´t know.

 

[RFR]

The point is no emulate a different tape machines. It has no sense. UAD have different emulations. In real life I will not be buying 2 or 3 o 4 reel to reel machines to have different "flavour".
There videos about comparisons, between the real hardware and plugins, even the pluin emulates a tape, and the real tape compared is "other" brand, or type, often the hardware seem to perform e little more natural regarding the compression of the tape, and the distort flavour. Plugins seem to sound a bit more artificial, not that different but the difference is no just frequency response.

Also there are diferent plugin brands not same quality as UAD even they emulate same original machine not all pluings are as real each other.

Does it worth the difference in real life? Don´t know, but there is more than emulate an specific machine, is more how "real" o "naturally" the emulation sounds compared to a real tape, even its a Tascam Tsr-8 ¿? still don´t know.

It seems to me there is an over abundance of talking and more talking.
A forum while useful to some extent, is no replacement for real life.

Experiment, try stuff out, find out what works.

You’ll find what is best for you, and in the process really learn something. Much, much,more than you can get from words on a screen.

 

[rob aylestone]

I tell you what, if he is in England, I’ll loan him a Revox A77 and he can try it for himself. He’s done his research and read far, far too much into this and now with emulations, got himself totally bamboozled. Every tape machine could be considered as an audio processor. What comes out is different to what goes in. A failure, actually, as the intention was to be totally transparent. The fact that people invent plugins to simulate distortion just makes me smile. We do the same with guitars. We have nice, artistic distortion and we have destructive distortion. A minimum of say five hundred quid for a product that is unreliable, needs regular cleaning and servicing and will only get worse, and eats tape for breakfast is such a waste of time and money. Worse is we are trying to create an effect that really needs a great deal of experience to generate, because to get the tape sound being sought, requires abusing the machine. The standard technique reduces the tape sound to a minimum, so you need to work out your own input overload setting, your own EQ and bias current adjustments, your own skill set in using technology to align the machine etc etc.

If I record onto either of my two reel to reels, it sounds different. However, all I’m hearing is a reduction in HF, and I have old ears, so it’s a reduction quite low, for me to hear it, plus a gentle reduction in dynamic range. Most of my music is quiet, so it’s just not a case of pressing play and record, I have to raise the level to get the quiet bits out of the noise, and remember to put them back for the next track that’s louder.

if what my reel to reels do to the music could be put into a plug in, I think only silly people would buy it. Seriously. I totally understand the analogue enthusiasts but recording digitally and then thrashing it through a reel to reel is never what those analogue folk are doing.

I’ll happily loan a machine for a weekend if he’s close. I KNOW it would come back Monday when he disappoints himself. It simply will NOT improve a recording, it will make it worse.

 

[lonewhitefly]

I’ve never heard of any Akai machine being anywhere near the level of even a Teac or Tascam, much less an old school “pro” studio deck.

I was personally never very impressed with Revox- I had an OG 15 ips A77, and found the Tascam 22-2 to sound better and be more usable.

I agree w Sweetbeats this thread is all over the place and is really a great example of more information having a counter-effect. Another phenomenon to note is the paradox of choice (or option fatigue) …

Anyway, it’s not that complex. Name 10 of your favorite records that are the ideal kind of “tape sound” you’re after. From there, it’s easy to get into the ballpark of what kind of deck you want.

All tape decks have “tape sound”. Tape sound can mean Guided by Voices or Michael Jackson Thriller. It’s like “microphone sound”. Yes they all sound like a microphone in front of an instrument LOL.

There is night and day difference between a Revox and an Ampex across the board. If someone asked me “what tape deck should I get?” with no other information, the answer is simple: an Ampex 440. I will not go into all of the reasons why this answer is the best choice because there’s already way too much info in this thread.

Okay, an Ampex 440 is too large or too expensive and too much for what I’m doing. Great, then a Teac 3340 would be my next recommendation.

And a good tech available to help work on either.

Okay well this seems really daunting- not sure I want to commit to all of this, I just want to play around and I don’t have a tech or resources available. Great, any 4-track cassette recorder in working condition.

Finally, I would add if you’re just farming out digital tracks, I think you’re really gonna see like 5-10% “frosting” on your productions. Tape alone used as an effect is … just another effect. An all-analog workflow is what makes things sound “analog” IMO.