The Cassette thread

This is a really good video on using tape with a DAW:

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Just ordered this Yamaha MT3X. I hope it’s good - it’s been serviced/cleaned up prior to purchasing, which is good. A bit pricey, but not as much as Tascam’s I was looking at - I had to draw the line somewhere.

I was wanting a solution for mixing together a setup. I’ve ordered a Model:Samples and borrowing my friends Model:Cycles, and I might throw some tracks from maschine into the mix. I also wanted something characterful so I was looking first at vintage analogue mixers like Boss BX… But I thought this would a) give me more experimenting and sound design fun, and b) be good for just sampling cassettes if I find some around charity shops/order some job lots.

Anyway, been wanting one for aaaages, so I’m excited for it to arrive :slight_smile:

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Ah Räjä Elektrik on tape! Think I need to find that one.

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Nice score! I have its little brother and it’s a great machine. Sound is solid, and it plays all my old Tascam tapes at whatever speed I recorded them at and with the same noise reduction. Love it.

Congrats, looks in good nick. Let us know how you get on with it!

Yeah looks great! I bet it’s as good as a tascam

Yamaha makes great stuff. I bet it’s awesome! Congrats!

Cheers all

#tapegoals

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As cool as 4-tracks are I’ve found myself using consumer tape decks with stereo in for recording lately. They usually also have great saturation and sound, especially if they’re more high end from the 80s, but when they start to distort it’s not like the uhh kind of linear gain like on 4-tracks, but it sounds like the whole sound just starts to deteriorate. In a good way! The device kind of gets overwhelmed and turns the input signal into this warm mass of saturated distortion thats constantly moving around. It’s very interesting and great for pads.

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Yeah I think I’m also going to get some cheap tape deck, and also a VHS recorder. I used to sample VHS quite a lot so it’s useful to have - mine broke down and I was a lot less likely to investigate fixing the issue back then, than I am today, so it ended up out on the street for someone else. Cheap random VHS cassettes are a lot easier to find that music cassettes, in the wild

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I have this one model that has a minijack input and some kind of auto gain system, but it also has 50% pitch control for the tape speed. Only cost me 50 euros and the previous owner had cleaned it up real nice. But yeah, I also have a regular Pioneer deck that has stereo in and gain control and stuff. With careful gain staging it’s actually really good, almost like a 4-track. I’ve dubbed small batches of tapes with it.

80s was truly the golden age of consumer electronics. Everything was so well made.

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Not promoting anything here - just wanted to share this channel I found. Whoever this is is deep into their tape aesthetic and old gear/methods, and is absolutely awesome imo.

Anyone come across this/know much about ‘Mid-Air!’?

https://youtube.com/@100PercentBOOTLEG

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can anyone help me figure this one out? not in the mood to poke around myself/on my own.
so i have a portastudio, and it used to sound great.

now after a few months of me not using it, recordings have excessive noise, and somewhat clipped signal, even though meters dont peak.

audio i put through it sounds fine while in safe mode, and previous recordings i have made on the tape im using sound normal, but when i record something new on it - signal is degraded.

switching to non safe mode in general causes noise that wasnt there before. (even on minimal trim)

any idea what can be causing this? :drunk:


EDIT: i found the culprit but im still confused.
Blackbox outputs, despite sounding normal through tascam while not recording onto tape, overload it during the recording (voltage?). When i revert to my original setup of BB into DN then to tape, its fine again. Which is a shame because i lose the ability to sample DN, if i want to use tape as bus.


EDIT: makes sense i guess. Manual:

The audio output will be at Eurorack
levels which is +/- 5 volts. This is louder than a consumer
electronics line level, so you may need a mixer to
connect with consumer electronics gear.

comeon, it’s your youtube channel

nice try

I wish I had those tekkers

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Not so porta but a really good machine.

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WOAH! She’s a beaut!

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I really like this channel. This is a fun look at real generation loss, and how to use it.

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