How I record my cassette tapes (The hard way).
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- čas přidán 21. 07. 2024
- EDIT: The first video to go 10K view, thanks for your time, I'd never expected this!
A view into how I record my own tapes.
This is by no means a guide on how to do it yourself but purely to give an idea on how many work goes into making a recording the more extensive way.
The music for the tape and the art used on the cards are not mine but come from this gentleman, you can listen and buy his music here: posy.bandcamp.com/
Also visit his CZcams channel here: @PosyMusic
The cassettes themself are not made to be sold but are used only for my own listening pleasure.
Timestamps:
00:00 - Showing setup
00:06 - Powering up
00:20 - Writing down song numbers
00:42 - Preparing the cassette tape
01:05 - Preparing the deck
01:17 - Frequency adjustments (tuning the deck)
01:36 - Preparing tape for recording
01:48 - Set deck ready for recording
02:03 - Booting audio source device
02:15 - Preparing audio on source
02:39 - Checking sound
02:58 - Write down sound levels
03:49 - Starting recording
04:23 - Crossing off every song
04:43 - Intermezzo
05:00 - Recording and crossing continue
05:07 - Flipping tape to side B
05:50 - Recording continues on side B
06:39 - Waiting for recording to finish
07:20 - Removing protection tabs
07:40 - Printing the J-card(s)
08:09 - Finishing cards and tapes
08:41 - Folding the cards
09:19 - Writing down recording device on cards
09:57 - Fitting cards and tapes in cases
10:43 - End result
10:46 - Hitting that audio source one more time!
For who is wondering about the clock you hear ticking in the background, here's a link to the clock:
• Antique clock in action - Zábava
I watched the video normally until I was amazed at what you were recording, Posy!
Those were some very satisfying device sounds (and one very unsatisfying HDD sound) Love the dedication. Nice music by the way 😇
Personally it's the sound the amplifier make's when it's goes "plung" that does the trick. As far as I know it's a overheating relay that switches when things are 'cool'.
The buzzing sounds of the media player is a bad fan, I should replace it but am a bit to lazy...
Futhermore, you should check out his music, it's in the descr... ow never mind 😉
You put a lot of care into this and I love your setup.
I can't even remember when I last recorded a tape, but it wasn't in this century. 😅😊
That went out the window as soon as CDs became an option for a reasonable price (that was in the 90s) and once i bought a PC in 2000 I never looked back.
I recorded all my vinyl onto CD and once phones could play music (my first was a HTC Sensation) in the 2010s I never burnt another disc for myself.
Mobile phones, mp3 and streaming turned the music business upside down and inside out and I'm there for it. And i admire the little works of art you create on tape.
Thanks! Must admit sometimes it's a bit of a burden to start a new recording but that's mostly because I need to stay close to the deck while it's busy, can't risk something going wrong... But in the end it's worth the time holding a tape that you made yourself 😊
I remember the craze when CD's where getting popular, my parents bought loads of them, music, games and of course blanks. My dad used to run the computer 24/7 to 'ahum' borrow files from the internet and burn them to disks. We had stacks and stacks of discs both legal and... not. He used to sell the latter around town. Now the funny thing is, I still own the CD's my parents had back then, I copied them all to the computer and now use them to record them on tape.
I actually started with tapes in 2007 because I did not had an mp3 player, but really wanted my own music collection, I could still buy them new from the electronics store. Dirt cheap of course! Even though I got my first mp3 not a year later, I still have those tapes and sometimes I got back to them and played them again. It's these tapes together with the vinyl resurgence that got me into this hobby in 2013.
I came BACK to cassettes cuz I like the way they roll off the high end, Like to record weird shit at weird speeds (a lot of "dictation-y" recorders have pitch control), and overdriven tape is much better sounding than clipped digital.
Awesome how much work and dedication you put into your recordings. I'm recording tapes myself since 30years+ (in fact, I have never stopped using cassettes). I still use my Aiwa "walkman" as a portable sound source since I bought it in high school (I'm almost 45 now). For recordings I mostly use my Sansui deck (with original belts!) from the mid 80s which sounds great and a beautiful Fisher 'Studio Standard' deck (also from the 80s) which I bought for 5€ and fully restored.
I also record radio shows on tape and digitize them later to mp3s so I can listen to them in the company car (via usb). sounds weird but that's how I roll
I must admit I've been playing with tapes since 2007, though I remember them from when I was younger (turning 31 by end of this year). I also restore a lot of Hifi, almost everything you see in the beginning has been restored in the past. Buy it broken, pull everything apart, re-lubricate and replace what's necessary. For me it's the combination of music, tinkering and plain old devices that makes it worth my while.
I actually don't even have a tuner in this setup, and never listen to radio anymore. Where I live, they mostly play contemporary commercial music, with lots of commercial breaks and hosts talking uninteresting stuff. Though I can still understand the idea of recording of the radio if it is worth the while. Especially with radio shows, they get lost to time easily!
My 2007 tapes (which I did record of the radio) have a lot of nostalgic radio tunes and fact breaks from those days, even one silly advert which still makes me laugh. The tapes take me back to the days when I recorded them, which are a fond memory for me!
Keep doing what your doing, it's nice to hear someone else's take on recording tapes in these days!
I would suggest one alteration, record the radio shows to digital first and then onto tape. That way you have a high quality original.
Now that's dedication. I haven't made a tape in 30 years. I just burn the music onto a CDR and call it a day
It's all about how much time you want to put into making a 'good' recording, if I wanted I could simply grab a average volume, press record and let the thing do it's job.
Not to mention I already put in like 2 to 3 hours beforehand making the playlist before I can even start the physical part.
BTW I also still burn CDR's but only to use them inside my car which still uses a CD-player.
Noticed IKEA Fjällbo shelve… 👍 Working great. I do have almost similar set.. but stereo set is different 👌
Thanks! I thought the same of it. Blends in well with the wood and metal (black) finish on the devices. Nice to hear you have a similar setup, what does it consist of may I ask?
A lot of method in the making. The advice I want to offer you is to not remove the tabs from cassette: they are not easily replaceable and at some point you might want to change your music. If you are manually getting past the leader to avoid it scraping on the heads chances are you also don't want your leaf spring contacts to go beyond their usual bending point because some bulging cap has been fitted in the tabs or even stay closer to their opening point for the slack in the covering tape. I usually start my recordings far later than just past the leader as the first few turns inevitably develop audible kinks in the tape where the hub tape retention tab has been pushing.
In my renewed years of dealing with decks and cassettes it never happened to me that I accidentally erased a tape with regular use. It happened that I erased some of my test tapes because I manually activated the record switch while working on decks with a mechanical multiswitch, something that would have happen even if the recording tabs were still intact.
The levels are indeed of a concern. Personally I use foobar2000 which is very sweet with EQ, peak and level meters, but you can't auto-level your tracks without modifying them, for that I might use my TEAC W-6000R with ARLS. Otherwise I resort to my other decks, usually of the 3 heads variety, in any case the tracks are laid out on a playlist file and spaced apart with 4 to 8 seconds of silence (except for limited titles) to let the automatic track detection systems of various decks do their job.
Well about the tabs, I have so many good tapes laying around that I never re-record onto them once finished (unless the recording failed, but I keep the tabs in until I took a complete test with my headphones on). Otherwise I simply stick some tape over them and re-record anyways.
The manual winding is sort of unnecessary, the deck in the video backwinds about a sec of playtime, it's more to gives me a precise indication on when I need to press record on the deck. For the warped beginning I use a intro music of around 11 seconds which mostly picks up on this problem and sometimes it even sounds pretty nice hearing the intro being warped and stretched only to come back to proper levels just before the music starts.
What I do not like however if fast winding of my tapes, the physical winding on the spools always looks very bad and uneven afterwards, also sometimes the tape tends to slide a bit left and/or right pressing onto the film of the casing making it run very stiff or even getting stuck on the next playthrough.
This Teac deck is a 3-head machine (not all of mine are though). Together with the bias setting make this my go-to deck for recording, I have a Pioneer CT-F1000 which still needs repairs, I like to also use this for recording in the future but that's something for later.
I had one accidental re-recording when I hastily pressed both play an record at once on a cheap deck, probably pressed it so hard it went past the safety mechanics of the deck, I only realized it after a minute or so when I saw the record light burning faintly. So I'd rather remove the tabs anyways that let them be.
To finish, manually adjusting the levels while recording gives me a more appreciated feeling, knowing I put so much effort in making them, opening my drawer of tapes and looking at them all knowing how many hours went into them warms me. It also make's me feel a bit scared knowing what all could go wrong when using them but that's the risk that goes into this hobby anyways.
@@tapehead-jeff You read my feelings. I too like the physical media, the fact that you have to take care of it and it will eventually wear out.
Concerning the uneven spooling of cassettes I've never had seizures or hard turning problems because of it but I've found worn out seized slip sheets in pre-recorded cassettes. Even BASF cassettes with the Security Mechanism still spool quite unevenly. Probably the best evenly winding cassettes are the TDK SA from the 80s, the ones strewn with button bumps in their slip sheets, they spool very evenly despite not being obvious as they do not have a big window on the hubs.
Okay, interesting. But why didn’t you adjust the track volumes in the original WAV files in the first place? This would have saved you alot of manual rec level adjustment in between tracks. Personally i like to prepare 1 WAV file per each tape side, where you are in full control over the play length, volume, track flow, etc. After that all you have to do is press record on your tape deck and let the tape run untill the end. Groeten :)
hmm making on big Wav file is not that of a bad idea to do! Take's some time to set up but make's it easier to use when actually recording, also making it easy to set up spaces between the songs breforehand. I do however like to do it manually, it gives a tape that bit more feel to it when I finally get it out of my deck still warm from recording. Also when I open up my drawer of tapes and look at them warms my heart knowing how much time went into each of them :D
Sorry for the late reply though, somehow I overlooked your comment! 'Groetjes terug' ;)
Because that's the hard way.
Haha, writing down recording levels in advance, I sometimes do that too if I notice there's a particular track sounding much louder than the rest.
One thing I noticed: you didn't recalibrate the deck before recording on Side B. I've noticed with my recordings there can be quite a substantial difference in levels between Side A and B, so I always calibrate again before recording on the other side.
Yeah, I write them down every time, noticed that when you make a true mixtape (with different artists and songs) they vary greatly in level where with the same artist (as in this case) the levels don't really differ much. That last part is something I never thought about. I simply thought the formulation of the tape is the same both ways but nice tip! I'll keep that in mind the next time I record a tape!
whats the clock ticking in the background? i love clocks so it really interests me
We'll you can count me in, I got 3 'digital' flip-clocks and two* antique clocks of which you hear one ticking in the background. It used to be the driving mechanism of a church clock tower once. It's hard to show any picture via Google since it's unique.
In large description:
It's almost full brass with small steel parts to prevent heavy wear (like the anchor piece). It got no housing so only thing you see is the gears and braces, one massive leaded weight and the tailpiece. Furthermore there is a small enamel display to tell minutes and hours (which was actually used to know what the real clock on the tower was displaying).
It still has a fork on top that used to drive the display on the clock tower, it has no use anymore but it's still there.
I have to wind it up with a big 'key' which looks more like a crank in size. I can only wind it during daytime otherwise my housemates wake up by the clicking of the gears when I do so.
Changing the speed is done by raising or lowering the weight of the tailpiece and changing the time is done by lifting a metal part on a spring that unlatches one specific gear and rotate it manually until time is correct again.
Bought it from an antique store for a bargain since it was not working anymore, got it restored by a clock maker a year ago (which was no bargain).
I have no clue one where it came from, it could have been local but it could also have been from somewhere far abroad. Only thing sure is that it's at least a 100 years old looking at the parts and how they are made.
It has no chime btw, (I don't like that anyway). It's very nice to hear it tick when you go to sleep, some people hate it but it sounds like music to my ears.
In short description however: If you know what steampunk is, this clock screams it!
*I got another antique clock in storage which is interesting too but harder to describe, uses a steel ball on a seesaw, on every end of the swing it pushes onto a rod which makes the seesaw flip so the ball will slide to the other side (in a W shaped path) to push the other rod (and this continues until the spring is unwound).
EDIT, I got two video's of the clock I made last year, I'll upload them and send the link in another comment under this one, give me a sec.
Here's a link to the video I just uploaded on this clock:
czcams.com/video/xYRBXYpO_JA/video.html
The Best way to prepare a " old stock" casette before recording is to wind or rewind the tape completey, this way a more smooth tape flow is possible, as a mather of fact that is the method old ( archivel) reel to reel mastertapes are held, played to the end so you have to rewind them fully before playing...
I've seen a video about some Beatles (master dupe?) reel lately, they had to re-spool them onto another hub anyways, but can understand why you would do something like that, even though cassette tape usually does not really have this problem the tape can get a little sticky after many years of not using it.
I usually erase old stock before using so they have already been through a full playthrough when I start recording on them. Hence the small paper with the word "LEEG" (Dutch for empty) inside the cassette case at 10:00
Ja Helder, ehh clear, leuke video trouwens
@@giottodiotto1 Hahaha, Ja beda... Uuhm Thanks 😂
Ottimo lavoro!
Grazie! 😁
how'd you get the elcaset machine?
World wide web of course 😉 Ebay to be precise. Bought it in a neighboring country so the shipping expenses and risks are as low as possible.
I had to completely overhaul it though since it was barely working on arrival
impressive job with awsome result. I also record to tapes - to casstettes I record from FM radio. I record interesting me AM radio to tapes on tube mono R2R just to have that nostalgia at hand in day time when is no enough reception. For LPs and some brand recorded (also by me in past) on past casette recorder and thus 90% having faulty azimuth I copy them after correcting azimuth to to my bigger stereo R2R to listen to it's one setting Unfortunately I find that only may be 40% of brand recorded casette tapes have any common azimuth so for recordings done not on my recorder I correct head to every casette. Also to secure full band I have two the same separate recorders - one of them only for recording, other for hard use.
Anyway I am far from dedication to technical perfection here shown. I wouldn't do it because no matter how good technicaly is source of recording it is still not all to asure final impression in listening. The list of conditions is long and bumpy. For example I just corrected my cassette recorder recording and reproduction levels without test tape and it took me some 5 hours . Before it was very erratic and because I purchased damaged casette recorder 44 years old it obviously was played by unkonown servicemans.
I use own concept of speakers and own concept tube amplifier and two other solid amplifiers with two way tone corrections and loudness corrections and expanded space option.
Nice to hear someone else about using analog media in these days. What you say is true, no matter how good the source and tape is, there is always something that affects the quality of a recording. But in a sense that is what makes tape media so interesting to me. It can take a long time to fix and fine tune a player/recorder especially when they are very old!
I also have multiple decks with different uses. My TEAC deck is used for recording (and playback sometimes). I have a Philips double deck for playback and a Pioneer deck which I intend to use for both recording and playback (still have to fix it). Besides that I have multiple other media types which I use a lot, both for recording and playback.
Thanks for sharing your take on the story!
Aww cassettes. Buy a new album and record it on a cassette to play in the car, work or at a friend's house. Dug out some cassettes the I recorded in about 1980 on that very same type of Maxell XL II 90 tape. Still clear. Like your set up.
What stands are you using here?
They come from Ikea, I think they still sell them (at least in my country), there are many different versions of the design as far as I know. I looked it up for you, the design name is "FJÄLLBO" search for this on their website, they indeed still sell them.
@@tapehead-jeff Thanks :)
Nice Rack !
Thanks! It took me a lot of time getting, repairing and setting up everything. I got more unusual stuff in storage and have another shelf waiting there too. When I finally gotten to buy my own home I want to fully display (and use) the entire setup! 😁
2:18 Is this real Windows XP, or just a template for Windows 10/11?
Not really both, it's 3th party software in combination with some fiddling of my own to make it look and use like Win XP, though it still has the useful parts from win 11.
I used Retrobar for the taskbar and OpenShell to overhaul the rest (loading bars, folder view etc.) I manually changed the sounds, pictograms and background as cherry on top.
I also used Winaero Tweaker but not sure if any of those changes are still in effect.
It does give a few bugs here and there in the explorer part of Windows but for the most of the time it works just fine.
I just plug my phone into the deck and start recording 😂
Why go through all the hassle when it is as simple as that indeed! 😋
Bit weirded out by the rolling the tape forward. The beginning of a tape is never the best sounding, andt your teac rewinds the tape a little to tighten it so it's not at that point anymore anyway when you put the tape in. Why not just wait 10 seconds and then press play on the source?
Nice deck btw!
You have a sharp eye! Yes the tape is wound 'tight' by the machine even though I progress it manually (in this case it's a fruitless attempt by me). I still do it though, mostly to get a good approximation of the beginning of the tape.
Which puts us to the second part about the beginning (and end) of the tape being bad. yes again, though I'm aware of that. That's why I use a intro that lasts around 11 seconds. This part not only catches the bad section but also give a example of the volume to adjust to when playing back. In the end it sounds nice to have an intro, it sort of gives the recording a little extra touch. The most funniest part however is knowing my friends now recognize the intro tunes after they heard them so many times over the years 🥲
Hahaha, I also find myself being less picky about 'the first bit of tape' when there's a clear intro to the music. Generally though, I like skipping that bit as it tends to get slightly worse over time as well. As for the rewinding; Pretty much any modern deck does that, so when I saw you do the manual winding, I thought to myself 'wait a second, that teac is going to...'. And then it did. Mostly using Aiwa AD-F800/810 here (absolute gems for the money and about as good as an entry level Nakamichi) and yup, they do it too. That said all NAK CR/DR/CassetteDeck series do it too. Makes sense, you don't want to know how many people put the tape in with tapeslack hanging out. And then they blame the medium :D.
@@tapehead-jeff
@@rollingtroll I worked a lot with older 70's decks before going for this more modern take. On the older models you have to wind the slack out yourself so I'm a bit used to it. I went for the Teac not only because of it's design but also the Bias function which really gives a big difference in recording levels!
The Aiwa AD-F810 does looks very nice too! Seems to have all the good functions that a deck should have!
I'm no recording expert, just an old guy who remembers that being a common practice 50 years ago when making a mix tape and wanting as little dead space as possible.
@@peterjohnson1734 But the deck rolls the tape forward as well, so he only added dead space. Better option would be to listen out for tape hiss and start recording from there ;).
Hi, Jeff.
Hi John
I more like mechanic cassete players, for example Vega BRG 326, but it not plays very good. Also i more like large reel to reel players, because they are easiers to fix
True, I like them for their ease of fixing, the mechanical parts show themself how they should work, figuring out how electrical parts works is a whole other thing. Also I noticed that way older machines sometimes still work without service while newer machines have to be completely overhauled to get even a bit of life out of them.
Besides it's also much nicer to see, feel and hear the machine at work rather than with cold electronics being silent.
You're crazy, lol 😅😂
I like tapes too, but not like this.
Enjoy your recording. 😊
Just send it out to a duplicating co
That could ba an option, but the quality for duplication anywhere else is mostly mediocre at best. Where I live there is one dupe facility to do such thing but they can only duplicate to ferro (type I) tape which I do not really prefer.
You spend more time clicking that pen than recording.
Not to mention the many unnecessary clicks I make while waiting impatiently for the recording to finish :p
Windows 7! Nice ;)
Almost, it’s Windows 11 with third-party software emulating Windows XP
😁 Глупо подматывать ракордную плёнку - дека при загрузке кассеты выбирает петлю отматывая назад! 😂😅🤣
ты прав, это бесполезно, но я все равно это делаю
No narration.
If you try to imply that I did not use narration, no I'm not really the person to talk a lot, I'd rather let the video and sound do the work 😉
EDIT: to be honest, I find my English still contains a lot of Dutch accent in it, which I don't like.
@@tapehead-jeff You should not worry about your accent Jeff, we watch darts here.
Barney, Michael Van G.♥️
Anyway, good luck👍🇬🇧👍
@@CdEmm50 Yeah if you hear them talk in what we call "stone-coal English" it sounds quite hilarious. My pronunciation is not bad, but when I make a video with narration I have to do it over multiple times just to get it right. I did made a video with narration nog long ago czcams.com/video/-MnJi59fcgs/video.html It's nog bad but I can do better though.
What the hell are you doing bro? lol Recording onto a cassette tape shouldn't be and really isn't this complicated. Take the cassette out of the shrink wrap, stick it in the deck, check your levels, run a silent lead-in for about 12-15 seconds and start your program source. Monitor. If you know what you're doing, you can get pretty near perfect results without a lot of effort. You don't need to be manually winding/cueing the tape and writing levels down. I mean, I guess you can if you want. 🫤
Well it comes down to the sound levels of the music I record onto the tapes. Sometimes the music comes from different sources, hence why I always write down the sound levels beforehand.
Especially with mixtapes the sound levels can differ a lot. For this recording the difference was not that big though so it may have been unnecessary but since I'm used to it I did it anyway.
The manual winding of the beginning (I must admit) is totally irrelevant, the deck winds it back on it's own and you can clearly hear the difference in noise for the lead in and the actual tape itself.
@@tapehead-jeff Ok, so if you're recording tracks from various sources, you'd set the levels for each individual track in the software of your choice as you're building the playlist. You'd make two playlists. One for side A and another for side B. The idea being that when the playlist is played back, the levels that you had set before hand should have them all at pretty much more or less similar levels. No need for pen and paper, let the software do the work! :) If you have a 3-head deck, you can make (very minor) adjustments and tweaks on the fly if need be. Cheers friend and happy taping.
@@summersky77 It sounds like to more logic thing to do yes, but there is a bit more nuance to it.
I do make copies of my digital music and form a playlist beforehand, so leveling them should be possible, though I do not really have a simple program to quickly level all songs for both playlists. It would mean I'd had to adjust them on a program like audacity one by one, in which it's easier to do it on the fly when I'm actually recording them onto tape.
Also (a more minor thing) it gives me more appreciation when I put in that bit of extra effort to sit out and adjust the levels while recording.
On the other hand, when I would record 1, 2 or even 4 hour playlists (on reel to reel for example) it tends to be a bit much of a chore to sit it out. So in that case it would be easier to prelevel them. In the end I still have to stay close when recording and keep an eye out for if anything would go wrong in the proces...
BTW, the Teac is a 3-head deck so what you hear on this video is live from the tape, though somehow the sound is very low (I can't put it to high for my housemates).
Cheers to you and thanks for thinking with me!
@@tapehead-jeff Hey no prob, man. I have to respect your process because you've thought things out well. And the pride of effort put forth, well hey...that's a feeling we all enjoy, I'm sure. I hope you took my original jest as friendly ribbing. And you're welcome. All the best!
@@summersky77 No, absolutely no hard feelings ment :) I actually find it nice to hear how other people's opinion about it. When I tell people about my hobby I'd like to compare it with other hobby's for instance "Some people like to tinker with cars, others tinker with dusty old cassette tapes" The effort and dedication is what make's it worth doing it for me, together with fixing the device's themself.