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PHILANDDON
New member
Is the track width of each track on a quarter inch 4-track the same as each track on a stereo cassette tape?
arjoll
New member
No, approximately twice as wide. (approx 1/4 of 6.3mm tape, as opposed to 1/4 of 3.18mm).PHILANDDON said:
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PHILANDDON
New member
could you explain that? isn't cassette tape 1/8 of an inch wide? so shouldn't 4 tracks on quarter inch tape have the same width per track as 2 tracks on 1/8 inch tape?
cjacek
Analogue Enthusiast
PHILANDDON said:
A standard stereo cassette deck records to 2 tracks on only half of the tape width so that when you flip the cassette to "side B", it can record on the other half (or "side" if you will). That's like having 4 tracks on 1/8" of tape but there are only 2 tracks on a standard stereo cassette deck head. There is at least one cassette deck that I know of, however, which uses the entire tape width to record to 2 tracks. That's called a half track deck and yes, that would equal the track width as 4 tracks on 1/4" tape.
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PHILANDDON
New member
I get it. Thanks a lot. And the speed of recording too. Does that make a lot of difference. My reel to reel will record at 15ips. What rate does a cassette deck record at and how important is the difference?
jpmorris
Tape Wolf
Cassette is 1.86ips. The difference is very important given that it's 8 times slower than 15ips. The speed will affect the maximum frequency and signal-to-noise ratio (since moving the tape faster will increase the surface area of the recording).PHILANDDON said:
It also has interesting effects on the frequency response: 15ips causes a boost in bass frequencies. At 30ips the boost is in a higher frequency range, not everyone likes this (depends on the material you're recording). It will also affect the tape hiss, but I haven't played around different speeds much, mostly I stick with 15ips.
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PHILANDDON
New member
It's funny you shoud mention a boost in bass frequency. This is my first foray into a tape and I noticed things are quite a bit boomier to what I'm used to. Could tracking to tape instead of digital explain this, or is it more likely attributable to a new room and new mic.
THANKS.
THANKS.
Mark7
Well-known member
What'd be the point of a half track cassette deck? Practically no one would be able to play anything recorded on it unless they had the exact same machine.
A Reel Person
It's Too Funky in Here!!!
The Tascam 124AV is a halftrack cassette deck.
It's a fine little mixdown/overdub/production deck that does independent dubbing to Tracks 1 & 2 in sync. It was originally aimed at the AV presentation market,... as in "slide show with audio" type functions. It makes a great little lofi production deck for simple 2-track recordings. Being halftrack, it's sonically superior to the "standard" cassette format.
What's the point? That's a rhetorical question that I refuse to answer. What's the point of any of this antiquated analog gear? None of it's compatible with modern formats, and many older formats are not compatible with each other. What's the point of a 1/4"-8-track running 7.5ips? Same logic applies. It's not compatible with anything but itself,... and yet there still are hordes of avid users of such a format.
What's the point of that question??
It's a fine little mixdown/overdub/production deck that does independent dubbing to Tracks 1 & 2 in sync. It was originally aimed at the AV presentation market,... as in "slide show with audio" type functions. It makes a great little lofi production deck for simple 2-track recordings. Being halftrack, it's sonically superior to the "standard" cassette format.
What's the point? That's a rhetorical question that I refuse to answer. What's the point of any of this antiquated analog gear? None of it's compatible with modern formats, and many older formats are not compatible with each other. What's the point of a 1/4"-8-track running 7.5ips? Same logic applies. It's not compatible with anything but itself,... and yet there still are hordes of avid users of such a format.
What's the point of that question??
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Beck
Guest
I’ve always wondered why there weren’t more half-track cassette decks for mixdown. A 3-3/4” ips unit would be (would have been) pretty handy. That’s double speed and double track width using high bias tape.
Considering how far standard hi-fi cassette had progressed before yielding to digital, there would have been more to come, I’m sure. IMO cassette technology didn’t fade away, but rather was put to death in its prime.
What companies like Harmon Kardon, Denon and Nakamichi were doing toward the end there with Dolby S, HX Pro and Metal tape was pretty damn impressive.
When it was introduced, no one at the time expected the Philips cassette to ever be described as audiophile… but it surpassed its original spec by far in the last years.
When it’s good, cassette betters one of today’s most popular digital formats – MP3.
My old cassettes played on my Tascam 102 MKII still sound better to me than the same albums on CD.
Considering how far standard hi-fi cassette had progressed before yielding to digital, there would have been more to come, I’m sure. IMO cassette technology didn’t fade away, but rather was put to death in its prime.
What companies like Harmon Kardon, Denon and Nakamichi were doing toward the end there with Dolby S, HX Pro and Metal tape was pretty damn impressive.
When it was introduced, no one at the time expected the Philips cassette to ever be described as audiophile… but it surpassed its original spec by far in the last years.
When it’s good, cassette betters one of today’s most popular digital formats – MP3.
My old cassettes played on my Tascam 102 MKII still sound better to me than the same albums on CD.
A Reel Person
It's Too Funky in Here!!!
Beck said:A 3-3/4” ips unit would be (would have been) pretty handy. That’s double speed and double track width using high bias tape.
Those were my exact thoughts, about 5 minutes after posting, above.
For the record, (heh: pun), I agree w/your other points.
Elcaset was another interesting format that was aimed at hifi audiences, that was very short lived.
Thanx!!
Another point, is that many of these "hifi" tape decks & formats, (cassette or other), were designed for a purpose or set of functions, not necessarily designed directly toward wide compatibility. The flipside is that if a format was strong enough on it's own merits, it would become a defacto standard. Not a lot of the specific formats we discuss on this board are mainstream or poplular standard formats, eh?
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FALKEN
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philanddon,
another aspect which you might not be taking into account is the thickness of the tape. open reel tape is much thicker than casette tape. which has about the same affect as being wider, I think.
another aspect which you might not be taking into account is the thickness of the tape. open reel tape is much thicker than casette tape. which has about the same affect as being wider, I think.
rayc
retroreprobate
Viva la Cassetta,
Mort a la eeempeeephrreee.
I'm still using well recorded chrome & "normal" tapes from around 1975. I look after them & am slowly transferring them to CD but they are sssooo good & so poorly understood.
Cheers
rayC
Mort a la eeempeeephrreee.
I'm still using well recorded chrome & "normal" tapes from around 1975. I look after them & am slowly transferring them to CD but they are sssooo good & so poorly understood.
Cheers
rayC
arjoll
New member
Basically the same as a 4 track stereo machine running at 3.75 ips. I tried some 456 on my Akai and at 3.75 ips the sound was surprisingly good.Beck said:
There's certainly some truth in that. A few weeks ago I installed an "emergency programme unit" at our Gore transmitter site to provide a backup during satellite outages. It is based around a mint Teac W990RX that I bought for NZ$40 (US$25 or so at current exchange rates) last year (see attached). When Optus B1 decided to go AWOL for 13 hours last week the on-air sound quality we were getting from chrome tape with dbx from that unit was audibly superior (even over FM) than our normal source, a 128kbps MPEG stream from a Comstream ABR202.Beck said:
Attachments
arjoll
New member
You've got me started now....
This is the guts of the EPU, a Radio NZ programme switcher/silence detector, originally designed to allow remote switching from a network feed to a local studio and emergency programme content to be injected at the transmitter site. Was mono for use at AM sites. I have modified it to switch stereo (for FM) - made a stereo unbalanced-balanced and level converter and piggy-backed a 4PCO relay to the existing logic, with the original silence detector fed from the left channel. Just replaced the 3 pin XLR's with 5 pin ones so I didn't have to do too much creative metalwork.
This is the guts of the EPU, a Radio NZ programme switcher/silence detector, originally designed to allow remote switching from a network feed to a local studio and emergency programme content to be injected at the transmitter site. Was mono for use at AM sites. I have modified it to switch stereo (for FM) - made a stereo unbalanced-balanced and level converter and piggy-backed a 4PCO relay to the existing logic, with the original silence detector fed from the left channel. Just replaced the 3 pin XLR's with 5 pin ones so I didn't have to do too much creative metalwork.
Attachments
arjoll
New member
arjoll
New member
Finally, this is everything installed on the site. For this kind of emergency use Rhema are starting to use MP3 players and in some cases CD, but the humble cassette deck is still the most reliable - after 13 hours of satellite disruption this was about the only site still running.
