Select Ambient Works II Expanded Edition

ok the tylenol+aspirin has kicked in and my sore back (from shoveling snow for over and hour yesterday) feels better so i changed my mind and did do some other clips showing the problem is almost definitely not this deck. unless there's some weird thing about this particular music that somehow makes my deck spazz out, which seems impossible.

first one is the collapse tape. notice how if sounds     but i know what you're going to say next- 'but misterE that's a type 2 chrome tape, maybe your deck only distorts type 1s!' and them im gonna be like 'ok well why does this VHS head tape also sound perfect?'

and by perfect i mean excluding the fact that my deck does run a teeny bit too fast, which may be why you thought the cheetah one sounded overdriven. it's not, it's just higher pitched slightly.

and again, NOBODY who has the SAW 2 tapes has chimed in saying they listened to theirs and they sound good, and not like mine, yet. are all these tapes fucked up and nobody has noticed yet? how would both of mine be bad but not the entire batch, or a big portion of it?

My vinyl pressing is shit. 

I don’t know why I keep buying Aphex records. I have not received a single one that hasn’t been trash. 

Meanwhile, I just got the repress of Confield and it’s absolutely immaculate, as every Ae vinyl purchase has been for me. 

  On 1/7/2025 at 6:13 PM, MisterE said:

ok the tylenol+aspirin has kicked in and my sore back (from shoveling snow for over and hour yesterday) feels better so i changed my mind and did do some other clips showing the problem is almost definitely not this deck. unless there's some weird thing about this particular music that somehow makes my deck spazz out, which seems impossible.

first one is the collapse tape. notice how if sounds     but i know what you're going to say next- 'but misterE that's a type 2 chrome tape, maybe your deck only distorts type 1s!' and them im gonna be like 'ok well why does this VHS head tape also sound perfect?'

and by perfect i mean excluding the fact that my deck does run a teeny bit too fast, which may be why you thought the cheetah one sounded overdriven. it's not, it's just higher pitched slightly.

 

and again, NOBODY who has the SAW 2 tapes has chimed in saying they listened to theirs and they sound good, and not like mine, yet. are all these tapes fucked up and nobody has noticed yet? how would both of mine be bad but not the entire batch, or a big portion of it?

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wots that second clip from??

  On 1/7/2025 at 6:28 PM, mushroom said:

wots that second clip from??

  On 1/7/2025 at 6:13 PM, MisterE said:

i changed my mind and did do some other clips showing the problem is almost definitely not this deck.

 

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yeah these two definitely sound a-ok especially the VHS head clips which sound super clear. Does it sound just as crunchy with SAW2 on all 4 playback modes (Normal, Special/CrO2,Fe-Cr, Metal) or do the modes appear to have some effect ?

the different modes do make the tapes sound different, which is always going to be the case, but do they specifically reduce the distortion or noise or whatever it is? no. they do *filter* the distortion/noise in different ways, since those buttons mainly just change EQ curves. but the fuzzy layer of distortion/noise is always there. the SAW tapes are made for the first (normal) setting, so they should work best with that one anyway.

seriously though, nobody else in this aphex twin forum has these tapes? or haven't listened to them yet? kind of weird.

  On 1/7/2025 at 7:17 PM, MisterE said:

seriously though, nobody else in this aphex twin forum has these tapes? or haven't listened to them yet? kind of weird.

I have them but no tape deck available currently sorry