This surprised me VHS

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FrankD77

FrankD77

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After building a new effects rack and reconnecting gear i decided to finally test my old VHS recorder.

I love working in my DAW but sometimes the end result for my ears can lack something mostly in the higher frequencies but still sound a bit harsh.

It's one of those things no one hears except me ;)
I've tested with a reel to reel but never really got one that could sync up to the original. Although the sound i really liked i gave up.

The VHS i can highly recommend testing.
It doesn't destroy anything but it does glue the bass and lower mids nicely together and the high frequenties are nice and gentle.

Routed both to dedicated channels to test and balanced them for output.

I'll do a new mix tomorrow and if someone is interested ill post both versions here.
 
Back in the 80's, I was using a BetaMax for my tape machine. I had a reel to reel, but the Beta tape seemed to play with higher performance and the tape was cheaper. At the time, it was just to record my LPs and make a "mix tape" so I didn't have to flip or search for a song on the LP. I always thought the sound was pretty good on those old video tapes.
 
Same here
Beta was beter than anything else at that time
 
I remember mixing my four-track machine with a hi-fi stereo Panasonic VHS machine in the early 1990s. There were some magazine articles about doing this at the time. These days, something like a DV-3700 is probably $50. I would instead do that than VCR but YMMV.
 
I also still have a DAT and MD unit
MD is compressing too much so is a no-go
And DAT is too perfect (sounds silly)

I'm now using a tape plugin to get some of the highs the way i like it and that works great. But without the plugin and dumping it to vhs and back almost doesn't change the quality but it seems to glue it together. And it's more fun ;)

On the x32 recording is done on an USB stick
Which i load into logic to run the mastering workflow.

The difference is now i route the mix to VHS and back into the DAW. I have to experiment more but for now it seems to add something i like.
 
Did the test

Blog

frankdoorhof.com frankdoorhof.com

I wrote the article on my blog which normally is aimed at photography. Hope you enjoy the test. I think it's very interesting

If I break any rules by linking to my site feel free to remove.
 
Are you guys using the linear audio tracks from a VHS, or the HiFi audio tracks? The linear audio tracks have dreadful specs, as the tape runs even slower than a cassette, even at SP. It tops out about 10kHz or so.

VHS HiFi was pretty good, but you need to have good alignment or you can get a buzzing sound since it is using the same stripe style recording as the video. Otherwise it's got full frequency response and pretty good S/N.
 
I never tried with VHS, just BetaMax. I recorded using the audio inputs to the machine, as to where it was recorded, I am afraid you are over my head as to where it was located. I had to assume on its own two channel track and I thought the speed was at least that of a reel to reel.
 
OK, I read the blog, and yes, it was with VHS HiFi. 1st part is cleared up.

I listened to the two samples, and to me, the VHS has some type of distortion of the bass frequencies. I don't know if that is the VHS system doing something like putting a limiter on things, or if it's distortion introduced by the process. There's something there that is bumping the bottom end, but also making it fuzzy.

The USB sample sounds more "open", not so compressed, especially the snare hits. They are more what I hear when listening to a straight feed from a mic. I can't really talk about the difference in top end, as my hearing falls off above about 10k.

If I had to choose, I would go with the USB for sure. The VHS HiFi has lost something in the translation.
 
In fairness, Hifi VHS and Beta sounded pretty transparent, but my first digital system was the Sony F1 - which was an add on box to the portable betamax recorder, usually teamed up with a 3000 or later 4000 camera. Remove the camera, attach the digital audio unit and you had 16 bit digital - and it was damn good!

I also really liked MD - the compression I thought worked in a positive way with uncompressed audio, but it sucked when presented with already compressed material. At that time, I didn't own a compressor!
 
I tried to keep levels the same
Maybe it's something like compression in the machine.

I did like the VHS for the "glued" sound and if felt more open. The USB has more shine and detail.

Depends on the music i think.
 
The Sony F1 was a true digital encoder that used the video signal to record the data, much as early home computers used portable cassettes to store programs. It is distinctly different from VHS HiFi which stores it as a Frequency Modulated signal via the rotating heads, more similar to FM Radio. VHS and Beta tape both run as speeds significantly slower than a compact cassette.

Frank,

I know that most video recorders used AGC for both audio and video. At one point, VHS tapes had "Macrovision" copy protection. They would modulate the unseen parts of the video signal up and down. It would have no effect on playback, but if you tried to record on another tape deck, the brightness would go up and down, making copies unwatchable. It would be like putting a 10Hz signal under your audio, and modulating the signal. It would trigger compressors to continually adjust the volume of the audio track if you try to copy it, but you wouldn't hear it in normal playback being below the normal hearing range, and below the output of any speaker systems.
 
A follow up:

I downloaded both samples and put them in Audacity. It looks like the VHS sample is definitely got a hard limiter on it. Even the USB sample has some flat tops, which are digital clipping, but the VHS doesn't have the same max volume. You can see the effect of the AGC/Limiter.

VHS V USB.webp


You can clearly see the limiting in this zoom. Either it's AGC, or you overloaded the transfer to digital and clipped the signal and then adjusted down. The only way to determine would be to transfer the VHS do digital again, with a reduced input level. If you still see the flat tops, the it's the AGC.

VHS V USB zoom.webp
 
TalismanRich said:
The Sony F1 was a true digital encoder that used the video signal to record the data, much as early home computers used portable cassettes to store programs. It is distinctly different from VHS HiFi which stores it as a Frequency Modulated signal via the rotating heads, more similar to FM Radio. VHS and Beta tape both run as speeds significantly slower than a compact cassette.

Frank,

I know that most video recorders used AGC for both audio and video. At one point, VHS tapes had "Macrovision" copy protection. They would modulate the unseen parts of the video signal up and down. It would have no effect on playback, but if you tried to record on another tape deck, the brightness would go up and down, making copies unwatchable. It would be like putting a 10Hz signal under your audio, and modulating the signal. It would trigger compressors to continually adjust the volume of the audio track if you try to copy it, but you wouldn't hear it in normal playback being below the normal hearing range, and below the output of any speaker systems.
Click to expand...
While it is true that the tape runs slower, it seems since the heads are rotating that would have an impact on the sound quality. At least it was in my "uneducated" opinion when I used it. The tape movement was for motion, head movement for playback.
 
Linear tracks are just normal tracks along the top of the tape. I just looked up the speed of a VHS in SP. An 811ft tape goes 2 hours which is 1.3ips, vs 1.875ips for cassette. Going to LP mode cuts that in half. My first VHS was a JVC with a stereo linear track. With a standard VHS, it would be like playing a 2 track tape on a full track head, but if you played it on the JVC, it sounded about like a cassette. In LP mode it was distinctly worse than cassette.

In hifi mode, you are using the helical scan heads, which in the US is 1800rpm, which means you are writing at ~240 IPS! Each rotation is one field, and you have two heads, which completes one full frame of NTSC video. The HiFi audio is multiplexed on the tape in a FM scheme. It's not just recorded as audio at 240IPS. It's actually a bit like a Double Layer DVD where you have two different depths of recording in the same physical space.

It was all quite ingenious, using different azimuths of the heads to minimize crosstalk between field, and then recording two layers of magnetic information on a single tape layer for both video and audio.
 
Problem was a "slush" sound in the highhats etc. Due to the fm modulation ?

In all honesty i thought it would be much worse
 
FrankD77 said:
I also still have a DAT and MD unit
MD is compressing too much so is a no-go
And DAT is too perfect (sounds silly)

I'm now using a tape plugin to get some of the highs the way i like it and that works great. But without the plugin and dumping it to vhs and back almost doesn't change the quality but it seems to glue it together. And it's more fun ;)

On the x32 recording is done on an USB stick
Which i load into logic to run the mastering workflow.

The difference is now i route the mix to VHS and back into the DAW. I have to experiment more but for now it seems to add something i like.
Click to expand...

What kind of DAT machine are you using? I remember seeing a lot of people using different converters on DAT machines, the AD-500 being popular.

Someday we will get that ADAT (with the black and silver models) and SV-3700 plug-ins to go with the Studer and Ampex plugs :P
 
The dat is a pretty good one i think. It's still in the attic ;) together with an Akai sampler and MD / laserdisc players ;)

The x32 has the internal USB recorder which is ofcourse direct digital. It doesn't have spdif in/out so it would mean using my interface. And i don't think it will be better that the interval recorder for what i do.

I tested the VHS to not F-up the sound completely but get a bit more "glue" in the sound. Still on the fence if i like "perfection" or "imperfection"
 
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