Reel to Reel tape questions

Right, so I'm getting tired of using a zillion tape emulation plugins to try and make it sound like I'm not mixing stuff inside a computer, and it seems a bit of a silly way of doing things when I could just get hold of an actual physical reel to reel tape machine instead.

I'm not sure how many folks here are using tape at any point of the process, but if there are I'm sure you could give me a few pointers on what the best way to go about this whole escapade would be... I'm a complete noob when it comes to analogue recording methods!

How easy is it to get hold of tape in the UK? I remember reading something about one of the biggest (only?) manufacturers of tape closing down a few years ago, so I'm guessing it's going to be expensive and increasingly harder to come by.

Are there any specific models/companies I should look for or avoid, and any mechanical/condition things I should be looking out for when scouring eBay and whatnot? Which is preferable, 1/4" or 1/2"?

Is the hassle and maintainance actually worth it in the end? Any other pitfalls or details I should be 100% clued up on before going down this route?

Also, for a bit of a budget option, in regards to doing a bit of stylistic tape compression/saturation I still have a Tascam Portastudio knocking around in my parent's attic. Do casettes tape-saturate anywhere near as nicely as 'professional' tape to make it worth while at all? It's obviously going to be different, but by how much of a quality factor?

i switched from tape to computer last year.

it's just not worth it. tape is really fucking expensive and reel to reels need constant servicing and repairs. i ended up paying for mine about 3 times over. i worked out it cost on average $300 per PROJECT, not including tape. just repairs. waaay too much pain. yeah if i was aphex twin or steve albini and i had a pet bitch to maintain the thing, source tape for it, thread it up and run it while i worry about other details of recordng - sure, i'd still be using it.

cassette on the other hand. man, i've made plenty of cassette recordings that people thought were reel to reel. 4 tracks are fast and easy. you need to get familiar with how yours responds to get the most out of it though. go for it.

  analogue wings said:

i switched from tape to computer last year.

 

it's just not worth it. tape is really fucking expensive and reel to reels need constant servicing and repairs. i ended up paying for mine about 3 times over. i worked out it cost on average $300 per PROJECT, not including tape. just repairs. waaay too much pain. yeah if i was aphex twin or steve albini and i had a pet bitch to maintain the thing, source tape for it, thread it up and run it while i worry about other details of recordng - sure, i'd still be using it.

 

cassette on the other hand. man, i've made plenty of cassette recordings that people thought were reel to reel. 4 tracks are fast and easy. you need to get familiar with how yours responds to get the most out of it though. go for it.

Agreed, tape itself is also very expensive, it can be £150 + for a reel of 2" tape which at 30ips runs for about 15 minutes, add to that that the tape will not last for ever, it will degrade after not that many plays. The main manafacturer of tape near the UK is RMGI and there has been some bad press about the tape in recent years, with a few batches showing bad shedding which degrades sound and lessens recording life and CAN damage the machine too. That said, they seem to be REALLY on top of customer service and any reports of bad tape are taken very seriously and the tape replaced immediately.

pro tape machines come from a time when pro-audio was just not on the map of the average semi pro musician, and they cost a lot.

A four track is a good idea though, go for it, cheap and reliable, and sounds cool too, can't go wrong!

  rex sole said:

Is the hassle and maintainance actually worth it in the end?

no. not unless you're rich and got shit load of time on your hands. aphex twin basically.

Ok, I'm convinced, cassettes it is! Thanks for your responses folks, I knew it'd be costly but perhaps not so prohibitivly costly as that. Let's see if there's still some life in the first bit of cheapo gear I ever bought!

  rex sole said:

Let's see if there's still some life in the first bit of cheapo gear I ever bought!

no doubt there is. kill it brotha, kill it.

I don't really get the stuff about 4-track or 8-track tapes etc etc. Are the common cassette tapes you can still buy in a lot of places 4-track tapes? Also, is the tape saturation any good with those? I've read somewhere once that it doesn't quite compare to the quality of reel to reel tape.

Wanting to use tape really depends on what your goals are...

If you want to add a bit of distortion to the final mix, it's a good way to do it, as analog distortion when clipping sounds better than digital.

In terms of the type of tape deck, regular cassette decks run at a lower speed, so less tape is used for the same amount of recording. Reel to reels run at higher speeds which increases quality and makes it sound more natural. In a very simplistic sense you can compare the two to recording at 44kHz and 192kHz. More details on tape speeds can be found at various sources, but a quick google search brought me to this page: tape speeds

In terms of how you get tape, a lot of the times schools have a lot of old tape, so if you go to school or know someone who does, they can go in there and "borrow" a few I'm sure. ;) Also pretty much any time you buy a reel to reel it's expected that you get at least one roll of tape, and a lot of the time people give you 4 or more. For mixing down masters you don't really need a lot of tape (as long as it's in good condition, was used with clean heads, etc), the only limitation would be the tape length at the highest speeds.

Hope that helps! Good luck either way. Check the pawn shops. =)

You can easily make reel to reel sound as bad as cassette if you don't know what you're doing.

The good cassette 4 tracks run at double regular cassette speed and sound a lot better. It's definitely worth investing in a better one, as you get a jump in sound quality with out introducing extra costs a la reel to reel. Finally, a lot of the "hiss" of a 4 track is imparted by the uber cheap built in mixer. Use external preamps when recording if you have them, and when you mix down, connect the direct tape outs to an external mixer. If your 4-track doesn't have direct tape outs, it's too shitty!

Berk, any blank cassette is a 4-track cassette (two sides of left and right). A 4-track recorder records on both "sides" of the cassette at once. Most cassette 4-tracks are tuned for type II casettes and sound way better with them. Most cassettes in shops are type I.

Tamas - it's not distortion it's compression. Very nice compression with only one knob - "more".

Thanks for the replies Tamas and AW. I may invest in a tape deck when I have some extra money, at the moment I'm using a compressor/tape emulator VST which I quite like, PSP Vintage Warmer 2, you should check it out if you haven't already.

yeah! me too :D cassette rules

  Quote

If your 4-track doesn't have direct tape outs, it's too shitty!

A quick google to remind myself what model it is, and yup... it's shitty! Tascam Porta 03, which was the super basic model with no multi tape speed or tape out or anything, although some marketing blurb I found mentioned you could drive this one harder than previous machines. Which is just the ticket.

Thinking about it I'm probably more interested in getting a bit of exaggerated tape hiss and lo-fi-ness back in to some individual tracks anyway, rather than bouncing final mixes on to it and back... so we'll see how this goes. I can always snag a top-end Tascam for cheap on eBay if I find myself enjoying the sound of cassettes too much!

I think you're on the right track using it for individual tracks rather than whole mixes.

Re "tape hiss" vs "tape saturation" - they are pertty much opposites. I don't think tape hiss sounds much different to any other kind of hiss you can get from cheap gear anyway.

Tape saturation comes from recording with the input meters "in the red" (hint: WELL into the red). This gives that nice compression I talked about, but another dide effect is it leaves less "room" for hiss, so you get very little of that.

Guaranteed way to get tape hiss: take those VU meters at face value and never let them go past the yellow light.

This is my 4-track:

It's pretty pimp daddy

Oh yes, I wasn't getting terminology mixed up there, it's just another element I'd like to bring back from the nostalgic days of listening to tapes turned up really loud on my trusty sony walkman! :)

I wasnt implying that you had hiss and saturation confused :)

In which case, pretend my last post said something about dolby and dbx noise reduction or something equally less useless!

I got a nice tascam 2 track for 5$ not too long ago, haven't put it to use yet really but was a bargain :)

Some of the older 2tracks have sweet built-in preamps with outs so you can use them as mike pres

  analogue wings said:

I think you're on the right track using it for individual tracks rather than whole mixes.

 

Re "tape hiss" vs "tape saturation" - they are pertty much opposites. I don't think tape hiss sounds much different to any other kind of hiss you can get from cheap gear anyway.

 

Tape saturation comes from recording with the input meters "in the red" (hint: WELL into the red). This gives that nice compression I talked about, but another dide effect is it leaves less "room" for hiss, so you get very little of that.

 

Guaranteed way to get tape hiss: take those VU meters at face value and never let them go past the yellow light.

 

This is my 4-track:

It's pretty pimp daddy

i think that's the exact one i had. unless the had different tiers of 4 tracks that look similar.

i saved lunch money to get it. i didn't get a computer until a couple years later so that 4 track was like the greatest thing i had ever known.

This is a bit offtopic but are analog mixers able to saturate the sound as well? Or do you simply get ugly clipping when you drive it in the red?

  Berk said:

This is a bit offtopic but are analog mixers able to saturate the sound as well? Or do you simply get ugly clipping when you drive it in the red?

yes, they do, but again the quality of the mixer will effect the useability of the results, also the sound of the preamp if you are saturating through it. desks like mackies etc sound horrible when pushed to my ears, unless you want a really bitty distortion. good for nasty electronica though, but doesn't really have that 'saturated' quality. nicer desks and pres can add a whole new dimension to a sound,

at work we use a neve melbourne, the master VU's are rarely out of the high red when mixing and it sounds amazing!

I've just found this second hand tape recorder for sale on a website, does anybody perhaps recognize it or know how it works? There's no description at all (I think it only says "4 track, sort of like an 8 track"), but I thought it looked sort of interesting.

http://link.marktplaats.nl/250717869

  Berk said:

I've just found this second hand tape recorder for sale on a website, does anybody perhaps recognize it or know how it works? There's no description at all (I think it only says "4 track, sort of like an 8 track"), but I thought it looked sort of interesting.

 

 

http://link.marktplaats.nl/250717869

more photos here: http://link.marktplaats.nl/250587814

it's like the old 8-track format that was around in the 70s - 8 track in this sense being different from an 8 track multitrack recorder. not really what you're looking for but might be cool all the same as it's only 20euros... it's not a multitrack recorder though so you won't be able to use it as one.

also, dunno where the fuck you'd get tapes for it. if i was to buy it myself, i'd just use it to create weird effects or some shit.

Yeah, it seems interesting for effects only, at first I thought it was a cassette tape in the picture lol, but it really isn't, it looks intruiging though. Also, I'm not sure if you get any cables with it, because it uses some weird plugs judging by that picture.

I think I'm gonna e-mail the seller and ask him some questions hopefully he knows more