What's wrong with dbx?
Vložit
- čas přidán 16. 04. 2023
- If dbx noise reduction can give a cassette deck 90 decibels of dynamic range and signal-to-noise ratio, what's not to like? A lot actually.
CREDITS
Sound On Sound article mentioned in video - www.muzines.co.uk/articles/a-...
Nagra E - Karim Omran, used with permission
dbx 122 - Probably a dbx publicity photo
Revox A77 - s_p_a_c_e_m_a_n from Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom CC BY 2.0
Akai 4000DS - Probably an Akai publicity photo
Tascam Portastudio 244 - CountrySkyStudio CC BY-SA 4.0
Roland TR-606 - Mi das Wouters CC BY-SA 3.0
ARP Axxe = Reverb.com reverb.com/p/arp-axxe
Casiotone 1000P (it might have been this model) - Salvador Calyso CC BY-SAL 4.0
Fender Stratocaster (similar to this image) - Fender_Stratocaster_004.JPG: Stra2casterderivative work: Atlantictire, Public domain
Music - 'The Last Days Of September' by David Mellor, All Rights Reserved
I worked in a recording studio in the 80s and early 90s that did a LOT of ad work. We used dbx NR on all of our production 2 tracks (for the ad tapes) and had Dolby A units for our music 2 tracks and multi tracks. dbx was good if you kept it in house, as I kept the 2 tracks aligned every day. However, taking any dbx masters out of the studio, into another studio, there was a decent amount of pumping and breathing that our "friendly competitor" would complain about.
We did a double blind noise reduction shootout that I used to write an article for R/EP. The systems compared were dbx, Dolby A, Dolby SR, and Telcom C4. For me, the clear winner was Telcom C4, a system that was developed in Europe because the engineer who developed it wanted a Dolby A system, but couldn't afford it. One of our in-house engineers thought he had golden ears. In the playback, he said that Dolby SR was dbx... so much for his golden ears.
Remember, cassette was a format that was originally designed for dictation only, but somehow it was able to reproduce music with better than reasonable fidelity... I have cassettes that are more than 30 years old that sound great. BASF did a series of lab studies and found that 90% of the signal degradation took place within a very short time. In some ways, I wish that we still had cassettes instead of CDs because cassettes were a known quantity. Phillips took in a small licensing fee for EVERY EMPTY CASSETTE SHELL MANUFACTURED AND SOLD!! Although the fee was small, with the millions of cassettes made every year, it was quite an income for them.
I worked for a high speed cassette duplicator for a few years back in the early 90s... what a trip that was. If you kept the systems maintained (which was EASY to do) you could turn out a very high quality product... and they didn't skip like CDs can.
Sorry for the rambling, but this video brought back a LOT of memories. Cheers!
@Jim Rogers, Thank you, I enjoyed reading this.
Good point. Cassettes ij my view do not make disadvantage to listening in compare to CD . For me are even better because I like to make my own mixes of analog music or even record whole radio presentations for repeated later enjoyment. For reproduction I can use cassette player even convinent portable reverse walkman with long connection to amplifier CD does not make it possible at all.
Regarding nose reduction I do not use any. Not because of any tech issues.
I record them on one and play with another recorder to avoid significant issues with recording head wear . All plays as i dreamed . Reason is that I do not find any noticeable gain that would be worthy to confuse myself after with NR knobs settings.
My decks have 3 types of noise reduction HI COM developed by Telefunken, Dolby B and NR expander also develo[ed by Telefunken. . NR Expander seems to work comparable to Dolby B and is is even more reliable to play unknown Dolby tapes than Dolby. Best is Hi COM which alows dymanic range up to 74 dB without noticeable issues which seeme to be great except that with no noise issues i do not hear any gain with it.
I just did a shoebox archive project of live music recordings that are as old as 55 years! My twin brother and I were 5 years, the first year of Kindergarten in Lincoln, NE, so we proudly proclaimed, singing our favorite songs into our father's Telefunken Magnetophon 204 Reel To Reel tape deck as he accompanied us on his classical guitar. Dad crudely transferred those recordings onto the crappiest Memorex cassette tape imaginable, Memorex MRX Oxide Type I tapes. I was surprised at how decent they sounded as I archived them playing back on my Denon and Onkyo cassette decks into my Reaper DAW. My brother and I turn 60 years old this year so it is a total time machine to have these recordings as older musicians. We sang everything from Dylan to Puff The Magic Dragon on this sesh. It is hilarious but precious. The other recordings I have were some of our earliest bands (Paul on drums, me on guitar) around 14 years old, and a high school concert of my first Jazz quintet (me on trumpet). These recordings were mono using our portable Sony shoebox recorder with an electret condenser mic built-in on bloody Type I cassettes! Again, funny performances, but surprising fidelity in some cases. Never count out the lowly cassette for its robust archive capabilities.
These rambling comments are half the joy of this channel!
I will say the Tascam 8 track Syncaset with Dolby S or DBX sounded pretty darn nice until the tape started stretching and going out of alignment inside the cassette shell.
I had a Tascam Porta Studio too. The same model!!! I have been a drummer most of my life and I am now 66 years old. I have quite a home studio now, optimized for drums of course.
what's wrong with dbx? someone didn't calibrate the machine, that's what
Another problem with dbx was that it was incompatible with listening without dbx processing. Listening to a Dolby B tape without Dolby B processing isn't ideal but it's at least tolerable. By the time Dolby C was introduced nearly everybody at least had Dolby B; much like listening to a Dolby B tape without any processing, listening to a Dolby C tape with Dolby B processing was tolerable.
In contrast, listening to a tape recorded with dbx noise reduction without the proper playback processing was just about unlistenable. That made dbx a non-starter for prerecorded tapes, aside from a handful that were made specifically for audiophiles, and it also meant that you couldn't use dbx processing if you were making a tape for somebody else since few listeners had dbx.
I used dbx a lot with cassette. At the time, I was in the organ business and listened to a lot of organ music. The combination of huge dynamic range and slow volume changes made dbx ideal here.
I never could get past the "breathing" or "pumping" effect of dbx. Once heard, it's inescapable in subsequent listening. To me, Dolby S is among the best noise reduction (with HX Pro assisting), however it came to the game much too late to be of any real impact in the cassette deck market.
Seems to be the way so often. A technology will reach its pinnacle to be supplanted by something new that surpasses it technically in performance, workflow and cost.
i have a lot of more modern cassette decks but i never used dolby it limits the quality of sound of the cassette deck that if working with regular manitenance one never hear any hiss ,if that happens ,something is wrong
If I run a blank cassette on my tascam 234 or 133 I get a little 'swoosh ' every few seconds. It's very low, but weird. Sort of a whoosh sound of blood when it's amplified going through the body. Is that DBX effect? The 133 is Dolby ii , but has it also. You'd never hear it unless you turn up a blank spot on the tape.
@@rcary i never heard of that, but a lot of weird noises on old tape recorders, i undertsood what you ment, like air on a blood stream, more or less ,i also can´t express myself better in english , i´m portuguese ,that kind of banana´s republic with nice beaches
I use DBX on my Tascam 388. People love to hit tape hard but in my experience if you record with conservative levels and DBX (as they recommend) it works extremely well on most stuff. No noise and few side effects. So if used properly and carefully, it can be excellent. But I don't do solo piano! Subscribed!
Awesome machine & yes, the dbx noise reduction worked well in combination. UAD could do well to copy the EQ & signal to tape path of that wonderful device for their collection - that would mean them dropping their pretentious attitude for a while though. Can't see that happening. ;-)
I can't see it happening either! @@steveennever9905
Thanks for the magazine plug, David. 🙏👍
Getting me all nostalgic again over my Proton 740 cassette deck! Factory calibrated to XL-IS and XL-II-S tape. Recordings on the latter were awesome. B,C and dbx.
The dbx on it was revelational. Great for rock, pop and most jazz. Not great for solo piano.
It was the only way I got to hear a dbx vinyl I bought. Jaw dropping back in the 80s.
I always thought that people left the Dolby B switch off on playback because it left the extra bright sound which people equated with a more pleasing sound. You give great explanations to all things audio. Thank you
The effectiveness of dbx did also depend on the material being recorded. Today's compressed pop that you've covered would be ideal for dbx on a cassette. You can't unhear the breathing or pumping effect for some material, but it does come down to are you listening to the music itself or listening to what's wrong with the recording and replay process. Some of my vinyl collection I have heard tape dropouts. I've heard the same in some CD re-releases. It doesn't stop me enjoying what I'm listening to.
"Because of its high resolution the CD format can reveal drawbacks in the original source tape." Remember that disclaimer?
for sure! i agree with you
I own a Luxman cassette deck, which I mostly used during the '80s and '90s. With high-quality chrome and metal tapes, I always found slight to moderate increase in bias improved record fidelity. And I also liked to introduce just a bit of saturation by finding the absolute peak signal volume of the entire song and adjusting the record gain to peak at 100% and with some content slightly above. I did not perceive hideous noise. And when played in the car or through my buddies' high-fi's I had the best sounding mix-tapes, by far. (Having the best sounding mix-tapes you could share with friends was important back then! You, certainly, already know this.) As for the Dolby B and C, those sounded great played back through my own system, but hit-or-miss results elsewhere - mostly miss. Have we covered tape AC bias in Audio Masterclass? Enjoy your videos, very much! Your Tascam PS recording with dbx sounds fantastic! Love tape.
Your care over bias and level setting is admirable. Bias is often set by rule, but setting it by ear is likely to be better. I'd like to do a video on bias but whether my Revox still works is an open question at present. DM
@@AudioMasterclass My father and I both had mid 90s Sony TC-K series decks, and dubs I made with Dolby C transferred well between the two. His was a fewer years newer than mine so it had Dolby S, but both had a bias setting function which recorded an alternating low and high frequency on two channels, and the bias level was set by matching the VU meters. Dolby C was a hugely noticeable improvement over B, and a quality type II tape with S took some attention and a quiet listening environment to distinguish from CD. My college had cassette decks with dbx (Yamaha I think) but that's the only place I ever personally recall seeing it.
In the early 2000s I became the owner of a 1/2" 8-track Otari, along with an audio precision system one. With MRL tapes and a smorgasbord of tape stock, I learned about bias and IEC vs NAB equalization the hard way, but never got the chance to put my cassette deck to the same level of scrutiny: my father lost his deck in a move, and mine succumbed to mechanical failure of the loading mechanism. I got a replacement Aiwa deck (with Dolby C) shortly before having to put my studio in storage due to my growing family, but I plan on running it through its paces in the future. (Assuming the system one and supporting PC are still working... I wouldn't be surprised if I'm faced with some recapping.)
I understand the appeal of cassettes as a hand-sized inexpensive physical format, but nobody is manufacturing decks that are capable of extracting the performance that the media was capable of nearly 40 years ago. This seems to have lead to indy record labels releasing type I cassettes with no noise reduction, but are still apparently sufficient for their target market. I found one label that uses a duplicator with XDR and Dolby B and it was a great sanity check -- it sounded head and shoulders better than other contemporary cassette releases.
I still have a dozen or so dbx vinyl records as well as a matching DBX decoder. They were a nice stop gap before CDs came out.
Love the song at the end. Great vid, very informative for this nerd. Edit, I had to listen to the song twice in a row. Subscribed.
Love these videos. I can't believe you've got that demo outro stuck in my head. I wonder if an updated dbx could work for vinyl without the modulation noise.
There was a version of dbx for vinyl. I'd have to search my memory whether I've heard it or not but I would expect it to work quite well considering the signal to noise ratio of vinyl is about 10 dB better than cassette. DM
Check out Techmoan's review of dbx for vinyl
DBX is king! If you align the machine and the DBX correctly, the results are stunning!
a "pumped" sound could be heard as on dolby C but i had 20 year old ears then - now..
Hey can't believe your tascam 244 sounds that good still. Cool tune. There can't be be a lot of head wear on that beauty. I had the Fostex equivalent back in the 80,s and i wore it out with all the overdubs.. bounces etc. Thanks for a wonderful video. off to make another compilation mix on my Pioneer TR 909 with no Dolby. Sounds lush.
Great to hear your track at the end.
just letting you know!! i actually find this channel very useful and inspiring 👍
Thank you. I hope you'll continue to watch. DM
There also was a dbx vinyl record format that failed. Many years ago I had a dbx record/tape adapter and a dbx test record. I remember hearing literary nothing when the music stopped. Even back then, it was hard to find dbx recorded vinyl records. Apparently, dbx encoded records had to be mail ordered. Local record stores did not carry them or even know what they were. I made some home recordings with the dbx adapter on a Pioneer cassette deck. It had the same nearly dead silence on it when the music stopped. I also heard that modulated noise. Particularly on a dbx recorded cassette of someone talking. I still have a Tascam 4 track in a box somewhere. It was the digital version that recored 16 bit 44.1 to an internal hard drive. You could transfer separate WAV files to a PC over a USB v1.1 cable. Each track was its own file I recall.
Good explanation. Thanks. Tasteful shaker.
Compander noise reduction systems are often thrown for a loop by the nonlinearities of the tape decks involved. And the more noise reduction they aim for, the more problems they have. It's possible to align, say, Dolby B to be nearly transparent when a tape is played back on the same machine it was recorded on, but usually not when recording on one machine to play back on another. Today, working as a vintage audio service tech, I tend to align Dolby systems for best subjective results, not the best measurements, and my clients are usually amazed with the results. Of course, this is after aligning the tape deck in the usual manner without noise reduction.
In the early 80's, I engineered in a home studio that used a Teac 80-8 multitrack machine with its associated dbx noise reduction box. I quickly learned that even when I had the machine carefully aligned, it was better to record drum tracks with the dbx turned off. It just could not follow the transients of say, a snare drum by itself. It seemed that dbx did much better with a full mix, and definitely did better with continuous midrange tones, like strings or backup singers. Didn't work well on bass guitar, either.
DBX worked pretty good on the 1/2” 8 track machines of the 80’s, but any smaller formats suffered from a lot of modulation noise.
Search what happened to steely Dan when they used DBX on the multi track machines for ‘Katy Lied’. 😅
The original song at the end was super cute. 🎹 I love it!
Thank you. You're the second person to say they like it. The first was 40 years ago. DM
@@AudioMasterclass 🤣
I enjoyed your composition very much
Sounds great, your “demo” at the end sounds clean.
Reading all the comments leaves me thinking I must be living in a parallel universe. I use dbx all the time and love it. I have several 224x units that I use mainly with my cr7e or whatever other deck I choose to swap in. I must be deaf as I have never encountered any pumping or breathing artifacts, and that is with any type of music, folk, rock, pop etc. I push my levels hard and find that I can swap decks for playback with no issues. My Onkyo Ta 2900 or Technics RS B965 with built in dbx also have no issues with tapes recorded with dbx on other decks. Compatibility these days I find not so much of an issue, as it's really only me who will be listening to my recordings on my units. The only slight difference I find is a very slight loss of high end treble on the recordings, easily compensated for with a tiny tweak of the treble knob on my amp. As someone else quoted, "silence has more noise that dbx". OK a slight push, but I love cassettes, hate intrusive hiss so adore dbx. Yes I also love digital and streaming. I'm not someone who thinks digital is soulless, but no way I'm I consigning all theses beautiful vintage cassette decks to the dump. They were designed and manufactured in an age when tech companies took pride in what they made and were clearly competing to be the best. No money to be made now in these things, so that is all a thing of the past. Wait and see how your new tech stands the test of time.
What Ever works for you, go with it
Love the recording. The quintessential portrait of the foundation of the decades long,and ongoing, evolution of home studio development. @ 54 yrs of age,many things have escaped the grasp of my memories.However,carved in granite are recollections of sitting in front my Grandmother's beloved floor model RCA,AM/FM/8 Track/Phono console,clutching her Panasonic portable MONO cassette recorder, impatiently waiting for the distant FM rock n roll radio station to play my favorite tunes.With a fresh set of C cell Rayovacs and a crisp new Memorex or TDK blank cassette tape loaded
(Rec.+Play+Pause)and on the ready,I captured many hours of my guitar heroes and they,in essence became my guitar instructors.Nearly hAlf century later,with EVH,SRV, Hendrix,Rhoades,Clapton and Dimebag Darrell's stolen licks,leads and tones oozing from my fingers and broadcastimg from my vintage Fender Sratocastor and vintage Fender Tweed tube amp, I'm still amused by the look on my 4 sons(all grown and musicians) faces when they repeat in unison as I'm still proclaiming,"Son,back in my day we didn't need WiFi.WE HAD HI-FI!! Love the channel. I've learned so much.Thank you.🙏. 🤘🏻🤘🏻
another excellent video ------ well done thanks
That closing demo doesn't actually sound too bad, but, as with all things, it IS a demonstration of an 'audio pro' using non pro kit, which probably notches things up a gear anyway 😀. I was senior engineer in a London studio complex that specialised in audio for video and visitor attractions. We used a mixture of Dolby A and SR, as well as dbx type 1. We even ended up using Dolby C on Fostex 1/2 inch 16 track machines for onsite replay at visitor attractions like the Lands End visitor centre in the mid 80s. dbx 1 sounded surprisingly good at first generation level, but second generation copies REALLY began to exhibit the pumping effects dbx was famous for!
Back in the day a friend gave me that type II unit. I was excited as I hooked it up to my Akai GX625 and recorded a CD of Cats. I too experienced that modulation noise and never used it again. I still kept hooked up in my hifi cabinet because it looked cool. One thing I would have liked to have heard is a dbx encoded record which that unit could decode but never did. Finally are you familiar with the Steely Dan alleged dbx debacle? It happened during the production of Katie Lied.
I had that identical Tuscan 244....great fun!
Thank you for posting.
You're welcome
Nice composition!!!
I've never used dbx noise reduction with cassettes. dbx type II was developed for cassettes but also open reel machines running at 7.5 and 3.75ips, so type II was always considered the domestic version of dbx. Type I was used mostly on open reel recorders running at 15ips, though you could get good results at 7.5ips if the machine was electronically and mechanically aligned correctly. At 15ips, type I was a revelation. I could never really notice any noise pumping issues, but the criteria was always flatness of frequency response and a properly aligned machine. If you could hear obvious noise issues with dbx on an open reel at 15ips, usually the problem was the machine, not the noise reduction unit.
In 1975 bought the dbx 119, for my Teac 360 cassette deck. A totally discrete, separate enclosure, model with adjustable gain and, "Compander", pots. So the compression and expansion varied from 1:1 to 2:1. There may have been an Infinity setting too. I still have the pamphlet somewhere but sold the unit decades ago. The auditory," Breathing", introduced made the use unfeasible.
I had a demo of one of these. It was an interesting idea but in practice I didn't like it. Opinions may vary. DM
Love the outro original...sounds great!
Great presentation. You’re demo was good ! I still run my dbx118 in line. Set at around 1:2 and above threshold.
that is not the same principle as the noise reduction in the video
Back when I was a teenager I had a pretty nice Yamaha four track we used to record with and learned the hard way about dbx / Dolby Noise Reduction
I dig your instrumental! 😎🤘🎶🍻
Cool groove!!
I use a focusrite 18i20 and I'm looking to build a vocal chain using analog hardware I'm stuck between choosing dbx or art can anyone guide me in the right direction please
A long time ago in a land far from here (NZ) NEAL made cassette decks. But, did you know that they also made a high-speed version?? Yes they did, we used to sell them. It ran a 3.75ips and was the best sound EVER from a cassette deck. Almost flat up to 18khz not 10dB down like most decks. Sadly, they were quite hard to sell. Everyone agreed the sound was near 100% but you could not change the speed to play normal cassettes. Of course, you needed a C120 to get 60 minutes of play time. This arrangement was short lived however as it contravened the license agreement of Philips.
Just imagine if cassette decks had all been 2 speed, one speed for the sound deaf and one speed for the sound enthusiast. Now that would have given cassettes a real boost in sales.
Interesting solution. Anyway later engineers were able to improve electronic and tapes so much that the same good become popular with 4,7 cm speed In my case my hearing silence all above 13 khz while microphone register it well. Still my reception of quality is not changed but in accordance to what I remember 50 years ago.
Another format that didn't take off the the El- Cassette a larger version running at 3.75 ips the Sony ones we had sounded amazing
@@pauldavies6037 EL cassette was amazing, but very hard to sell. No prerecorded music, cannot play in the car or swap with anyone else. Expensive, but did sound very good indeed.
@@MichaelBeeny Yes another format that cost Sony a lot of money
This brings back memory, the good olde 1970s....
I had a Yamaha MT100 with DBX in the 80s as well. I recorded mostly my band but a few other bands along the way until I upgraded to ADAT machines.
Subscribed! Song at the end could've been in the Napolean Dynamite film, for sure!
I need to watch that film.
What's really amazing about dbx is the absolute elimination of noise between tracks. I understand the problems dbx can have with classical music but the pop & rock recordings I made on a Technics RS-B608R deck with dbx sound much better than Dolby B or C. Ray Dolby was a better marketeer and the missing compatibility of dbx recordings for non-dbx devices gave dbx a real disadvantage. Do you plan another episode of this series with Dolby SR?
Thank you for your comment. I didn't use Dolby SR that much and I will really be struggling with my memory. I might however make some comments on it, and Types C and S too. I'm amazed how much interest there is in audio history. DM
I used to sell the whole range of Technics cassette deck (and TEAC too) in my old and ancient Audio Sales days.
Let me be the tenth fan of your nice song from back in the day! Interesting changes of tone, and an overall relaxing feel. Reminds me of the gently flowing Seeburg licensed background music that someone is putting online now, but with 80s synth tones instead of an orchestra.
Companding was an engineering shortcut in the early samplers - Fairlight I & II, Emulator I & II, Ensoniq Mirage, Synclavier - until CD quality i/o became the standard with Fairlight III, Emulator III, Ensoniq ASR. Along with the anti-alias tracking filters that opened and closed up and down the keyboard range, a not completely realistic but very musically compelling, thick and gritty transformation of whatever was played through the system.
I had, and still have, a liking for the gritty sound of some samplers of old. DM
Can anyone help please. I have a 286s and I have an AT 2020 MIC. When I launch a game on Steam, I get horrible static like humming noise for the people I talk to on Discord. I have tried many solutions to no avail. I have 5800X3D cpu so this is not being overloaded. I have had a few different gpu's but still the same problem. I was using a sound card and even with motherboard sound, it is still a problem. Do I need to run the 286s through a dac?
From the 80's through the mid 90's my studio had a 1" 16 track Tascam 85-16B with dbx. Did a few releases for JSP and a few other labels. I was always VERY careful to maintain that machine. The results were quite acceptable, we were always reviewed against 24 track studios with much better gear.
Used a similar device, the Sanyo NR55 Super D two band compander, connected to a Tandberg TCD3034. I know companders
limit the frequency response but since the deck was flat (-15db) from 11Hz to 26,5kHz, Maxell UD XLII, that was not a problem.
No one at the time was able to tell the difference between a cassette recording, and the source CD
I read the answrers, the Sanyo super D was a TWO BAND compander, so no pumping, and a tape rec/play on that system was as dead silent as that a CD was, it was black. No noise whatsoever
NPR's first satellite system used 3:1 dbx to clean up the 40 dB range satellite channels to give 120 dB range, in theory. They never go there in practice because the output of their studios was far less than 120 dB, and even the electronics in the satellite modulators and demodulators couldn't achieve 120 dB. A few years later I used dbx Type II to clean up a noisy stereo broadcast loop from the phone company from 60 dB to 120 dB (in theory). That seemed to work really well.
What about VHS Hi-Fi? This uses a 2:1 compander similar to dbx. Were lessons learned or is pumping/modulation noise still evident in this format? A lot of Analogue radio microphones also use a dbx like compander and can sound really bad with certain sources.
I think that with hi-fi VHS, people were so pleased to have it compared to previously that its imperfections could be mostly ignored.
Just curious. Why does the boom mike appear in some of your videos and not in others?
Because when it appears it explodes (boom) then they need time to rebuild the room without it; then again in the scene
You're the first with this one. I prefer without, but it takes more time. DM
Seeing the mic gives a warmer, more vintage feel to the video. It's hidden when he has a digital talk.
The challenge with dbx noise reduction is that you have to have extremely well-known characteristics of the tape transfer characteristic and dynamic level compression otherwise you get tracking errors. The more aggressive a noise reduction system is the worst the tracking errors can be and the requirement for a perfect tracking is even more critical. Another often overlooked problem is transient response of dbx. I had dealt with a recording that had pops and ticks in it and noticed that the dvx gate didn't close down quickly enough and you could hear at the end of the pop just a little trailing edge of tape hiss. It only lasted about a millisecond or two but it was definitely an artifact.
I have some old cassette-recordings from the start of the 80's, the non-dolby ones sound quite good, the dolby ones sound muffled.
As mentioned in this video, it's tracking errors - lower output from the tape makes the dolby circuit reduce the treble level more than they should be.
It would be nice with a variable gain between the playback-head and the dolby circuits, restoring the correct playback level, without having to re-adjust the trimmers in the deck, only to adjust them back to their former position, once finished listening to the old tapes.
Some NAD decks had "Play Trim" knobs - don't know if that took care of this problem - AFAIK it was more a treble adjustment than a gain control.
Loved this one.. 👍🏽
You should cover Dolby C and HX-pro. I'd be interested to hear what you have to say about them.
What’s HDR? Do you mean HX Pro?
Here's a link mentioning HDR audio - www.audiokinetic.com/en/library/edge/?source=Help&id=understanding_hdr I might look into this in future. DM
@lespaul667 yes that's what I meant whoops!
@@AudioMasterclass This looks very interesting. Maybe a kind or type of 32 but float?
I had a Portastudio (or was it a Porta One?) in the 1990s. A few years ago I bought a Yamaha MT120S with dbx so I could archive the tapes digitally. It was a nightmare! I had often used whatever tape was lying about, sometimes recording in the middle of another recording, and sometimes even on the wrong side of the cassette so that time was reversed - and in addition, I didn't always remember to switch on the dbx... so I had a right mess in Cubase when I'd finished. For some of the tapes I decided to run them right through, once with dbx and once without, then sort out which version was the right one later on in Cubase (not to mention reversing the reversed sections...) And THEN I started to wonder whether using dbx on a dbx recording that was playing backwards would actually work OK. I mean, it's a companding effect, right? So it has attack and release... oh dear. In the end I decided not to worry about it because the music wasn't exactly stellar :) These archiving projects can end up stealing half your life if you're not careful.
Even the world's greatest philosophers can't answer the question, "When to archive, when to move on?" DM
Okay, I've been humming that demo now for 5 months 😎
Fleetwood Mac “Rumors” multitracks were recorded at -8 dB peak (IIRC) using dbx noise reduction. I know the engineer wanted zero tape compression, hence the low recording level.
I can get that. Analogue tape is always a compromise between noise and distortion. Rumors sounds great to me and I seem to remember there's a 'Classic Albums' vid on the making-of. DM
I had a dbx deck. Mindblowing!
Back in the early 80's my first studio recorder was a Fostex A-8 and a Mackie 8 ch mixer. And the SMPTE tone laid on ch-8 from my Alesis sequencer and HR16-B drum computer. I made a lot of money back then when producers and musicians where like Gods.
I doubt if many producers and home recordists have much nostalgia for SMPTE timecode. But who knows? If I make a video on it I might learn differently. DM
@@AudioMasterclass I hear ya. SMPTE was the only way to lock my Poly-800 and Korg-M1 keyboards to the tape. It worked well once you get the SMPTE tone level right.
I used to work as an online video editor in the ‘80s. All the audio came in on 1/4” two track. The audio guys used dbx, but I don’t think the Otari MX 5050 2 track in the video suite was setup right and we had the weird pumping audio.
This doesn't surprise me. DM
Do you have any docs or advice on calibrating my dbx 222?. Cant find a service manual anywhere.
No. The best I can suggest is a) keep looking, or b) possibly another dbx model has similar internals and its service manual might be of use. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Thanks, I use it on an x10r it works but im sure a calibration would help, excessive chuffing, I know its a symptom of dbx but my cassette deck is way better in that area. There are 12 pots on the circuit board, i have looked at other schematics but they are not close enough to be of any use.
Having used dbx on reel to reel tapes a long time ago, the problem with it is that if you don't have a processor to decode it, the audio is unlistenable. I still have the tapes, but the dbx failed two decades ago.
The video seems to have been censored by CZcams at this moment, so I can't watch it, but, the problem with dbx NR in MY experience is the difficulty in calibration across decoders, and decoders can slip out of spec.
I'm going to ask the obvious question. When dbx was being developed, was modulation noise never experienced during all the testing etc? Maybe it wasn't considered serious enough to bother about?
Have a dbx 2bx expander. It wasn't cheap but worked to a degree with my cassette player.
dbx problems used to be called the picked fence or pumping of the sound. The same thing can happen with Dolby C if the tape bias is not spot on. Both dbx and Dolby C work fine on music with a constant level but they are horrible with piano or jazz music. If you were recording heavy metal or rock music noise reduction was not necessary if you were using quality tape.
The music track reminds me of a Wurlitzer organ demo in the mall.
I had plenty of Q-tips and alcohol. My cassette deck head was clean. Still, I would rather listen to noise than any form of Dolby. To my ears, Dolby turned everything to mud.
Nice piece of music at the end of your video.
I like the track. Give it a rock beat and extend the guitar solo a bit, and you have a great Prog tune. 🤘
It might turn out to be a second-rate Dave Gilmour impersonation but maybe I'll give it a try. DM
It's ironic that we are actually adding artificial noise to some records now.
This is too true. Many plugin emulations of classic equipment have the option to add noise and hum - sometimes you can set 50 Hz / 60 Hz. I've even made a video on DIY noise - czcams.com/video/07ftA-Z0I-E/video.html DM
It is interesting phenomena. I think it has something to do with physiology of hearing.. In real life we experience usable audio acompanied with wide spectrum of outer apparent sounds which we perceive in moments of silence. . In total it sends to us more information about surrounding than only selected harmonics that are for us priority at moment. .
Produced by people audio is cleaned from everything except desired by producer harmonics which may lead to feeling like not whole hearing desire is satisfied. .
. When I listen to my AM radio recordings and it is almost no noise it feels like they possibly may have issue with hi sounds lowered level But when the same a are acompanied by much wider noise which anyway my radio can present it fills up feeling of lack of desired spectrum. It may be compared to music with or without instruments like percussion. With percussion we feel more comfort because our hearing is not stripped forom wide spectrum
It drives me nuts that almost every plugin adds some sort of noise to recreate “analog” feel. 😃
Noise is a part of our world. It required at some level for us to feel that we are in natural environments. Background noise allways exist, otherwise we wouldn’t be alive.
Oh this is an excellent video with excellent exclamations I’ll give you a quick little story about the Harmon-Kardon tape deck in about either 1982 or 83 that I really loved and I would have it connected to a techniques receiver techniques turntable with a nice AT (AudioTechnica) cartridge attached and I would have a clean and I mean really cleaned and De-stat with a static gun thing, an album I could make pristine recordings under that Harman Cardin tape deck with either DolbyC used or with “DBX” NR used (sorry my spellchecker just want to be right there any other way). Anyway I also had a fairly early generation of 1984 techniques CD player and whether I was recording on turntable or from CD player or from a clean De-stat’d album LP I found it difficult to tell the difference in those DBX recorded cassette tapes. I can vouch for how good DBX noise reduction worked!
Hey folks, sorry for me being foggy on details because I no longer have this equipment and having for many years but I’m pretty sure the Harmon Cardin tape deck of purchased in the 1983 time frame had a special version of DBX noise reduction when I can’t remember is what it was called like DBXHE like high extension or DBXHD or DBXHX anyway, it implied that it had a better compounding expansion design than the previous DBX II did. Everything else I’m saying is the same I just was amazed at how good either doll BC NR was or this DBXHX or whatever it was but of course you had to have used it when recording the tape and as well as playback and it’s just, I mean it made my turntable sound quieter. It just had really good quality recordings from a clean record on that techniques turntable with AT cartridge. Loved it!
I think I Kind of remeber stuff - it had DBX HX-Pro setting. I’ve been googling just now until the cows come home and I just can’t be sure of the exact model number of it when you look at CD 91 CD 101 cd 20 one cd 401 model number is a kind of all look similar to what I had.From HK (Harmon Kardon). Great sounding tape deck!
I bought a dbx 3bx DS way back in the 80s, and I still have it in my retro stereo system. You can't buy them any more. I don't use it for noise reduction, but just for dynamic expansion.
DBX was always a bit hampered by beeing a single band compander. Nakamichi's HighComII, a dual-band compander, or Telcom C4, a quad-band 1:1.5 compander, do a much better job in terms of modulation noise. But even single-band companders that work well exsist. Sanyo SuperD and, best of all, Toshiba's A.D.R.E.S. are notable examples. Personally, I own 14 different noise reduction systems, and having tested them all thouroughly, the best ones are Dolby SR, with TelcomC4 as a close runner-up. And both these are also usable with cassette if the levels are kept moderately!
🤦♀ What is that image at the end of the video??
Dolby HX pro was a massive help with the noise problem
Paul McCartney teaches us about DBX. Thanks Paul.
8:50 I have the very similar Akai 1721L. They're OK but don't have very good back tension control, so don't play very small "message tape" reels properly.
This isn't unexpected. In the old days you could get 7--inch spools with larger centres so they held less tape but would play more reliably. DM
Well, you're surely selling yourself short... If that's the right expression. That outro music sounded great. 👍 Part of it could be used as an intro. If there's more like that, then yes, please let us 'suffer' with you. 😊 Also: Agreed, I could really hear that 'pumping' when I tried out dbx back in the day. For me it was not useable.... Greetings from a musician from the Netherlands.
Ideally I would prefer not to use my own music as there is probably only a 5% chance my channel viewers will like it. However the combination of copyright and cost make using my own music a no-brainer.
@@AudioMasterclass I could be totally wrong, but I think that chance is a lot bigger. I think your viewers would appreciate it. I know I did. And it sounded better than what some channels actually use as their intro or outro. Maybe you should do a poll about that. 😎 And yeah, there's that too. No money to pay to use a piece of music. And no bullshit with copyright claims and all that to deal with. If and when I'll get my act together and start my channel up for real, I'll try to do my own music trhoughout the video's. We'll see how that goes. Anyway... I really like the subjects you'tre talking about. There is so much BS on these subjects on other channels. Sooo... Keep up the great content. 👍
I had a DBX "Compander" in the 80's. DBX NR was pretty extreme. It didn't always sound better.
I have two dbx boxes that I have collected over the years, they are the ones that go inline with the ins/outs to the tape deck. I have a number of recordings I have made over the years using dbx, and I have to say that it is superior to Dolby B or C in just about every way. The only problem is that sometimes I want to listen to a dbx tape and I can't be bothered to connect the dbx box in order to hear it properly! I have found that dbx works the best with BAD cassette tapes.. the so-called "type zero", cheap ferro cassettes, and cheaper cro2 tapes. That is where you get the biggest boost in sound quality. Not so much with metal tapes.
I got a used dbx NR unit. My recordings sounded thin. I sure my tape deck had clean heads, did not matter.
Now I understand the strange behaviour of recorded pianos that have that "pumping" modulation sound especially at lower and slower levels. You do not hear only the one sound of the key, you hear additionally a second sound, maybe I am wrong but it sounds like if the pianist always pushes the damper even if he doesn't. It always distracted me when I've heard that. Thank you for that information.
Bear in mind that it may be the damper. Microphones close to the piano will pick this up whereas to a listener in an auditorium the sound is usually unnoticeable. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Thank you! Would you say that this is then bad recording if mechanical noise from the piano is so explicitly recognizable?
@@christophmartin5381 This is a tricky question. The first thing is that the piano should be well set up so that the pedals don't make more noise than necessary. The second is the player, although it's generally unwise to ask a performer to do anything different to what they normally do. After that, it's a compromise between getting the best sound from the instrument through mic positioning and selection. Putting a mic under a grand piano can sound surprisingly good, but of course that's the worst place for pedal noise. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Thanks again ! Even when this is a complete different issue and does not relate to the topic.
@@christophmartin5381 Depends on the song. Amy Grant's song "If these walls could speak" has VERY intense close micing of the piano action and dampers. It works great for the song as a kind of shared secret within the building.
It all has to do with the slew rate of the amplification of the dbx system. It’s personal but with my Technics M255X the breathing was barely noticable and listening to those old 80’s tapes I’m surprised with the quality left on them.☺️ I used Maxell XL2 and XL2S tapes as the TDK tapes had too many drop-outs for my taste. (That was my main irritation!)
Ow and so using a separate dbx2 unit is asking for trouble☺️(cables introduce more side affects where build-in units have short signal paths)
BASF cassette tapes for me always. Agree about TDK - quality was very variable from batch to batch.
Too bad Walkmans and things didn’t have built in noise gates. I guess it would have been too costly and perhaps too complicated for a typical consumer.
When you mentioned about how the CD was mastered. I have two commercial albums I bought on CD where the cassette version sounds better. Anthrax's "Armed and Dangerous" and Megadeth's original version of "Killing Is My Business...". Especially with the Anthrax CD. It sounds like it was mastered through a soup can.
I stil have two DBX Technicss decks both work very well apart fro. Pumping on certain types of Music back in th 80s I also had a reel to reel Deck Phillips N**** 10 inch reel 3 heads , I modified my Technics deck to give me and output that was DBX encoded , this was fed to the reel to reel to record, It could then be played back through the Vinal disk position on the Technics to play it back , it worked extremely well, if you recorded live music it was great, or CDs
Dbx is terrific, specifically 150 series. It works well with the exception of fast attack times like drums. One can DBX almost every other source without issues. Dbx supports about 120 db per second attack time. Achieving 30 to 40 db noise reduction can be achieved on open reel. With drums you can hear the compressor pumping…..
Yup, I had a model II 122 as well back in college and also heard the same pumping and breathing with cassette tapes. Horrible! However, I also had a couple dbx vinyl discs (Virgil Fox pipe organ and Heart's Dreamboat Annie). Those actually sounded quite nice. But... I purchased it for cassettes so it was basically useless for me.
It's interesting to hear your comment on dbx for vinyl. I would expect it to work better than cassette because of vinyl's better signal to noise ratio to start with. DM
nice
Hifi vcrs have that same modulation issue only instead of tape hiss it’s head switching noise.
This is true. In the early days of VHS Hi-Fi there were ads that claimed the sound was CD quality. Obviously this is not so and the ads were taken down. A useful system for its time though. DM
By the way, your song is very good! Sounded a little like Hank Marvin's Fender
Thank you. It's a similar model. I can't remember what amp I used but at various times I had a Fender Twin, Vibrolux, and Champ so one of those. DM
I really loved your instrumental!
Great video here, the one thing you didn't address is that if you bought once deck and recorded music (with built-in dbx)
and then tried to play the tape on a different built-in dbx deck, the signal would pump up and down like crazy.
So you had to pray that your cassette deck wouldn't die.
Dolby was switched on once for about one minute. I felt like I was wearing Gaffa tape covered cotton wool earmuffs.
Dolby - off (ever since)
I'll take a higher floor of noise, over a reduced quality of program any day.
In summary, I suppose Dolby was the "fix" for a problem I personally didn't have. 😉
Speaking about dolby, Way back in' 77 I had a Teac 1/4in two track 15ips machine and as part of some testing of my deck and two or three others I discovered my machine had a full 1mv (unweighted) output noise.It didn't mater what speed or type of tape was used or no tape this was pure playback amp noise. Other machines measured only slightly better(including a 3M 8 track machine). I was used to line amps, phono amps with outputs of 20-30uv. So I did a cheap and non destructive experiment, I took an off the shelf chip (LM381) whipped a tape playback amp together and running on the piece of crap power supply of the Teac the noise was reduced to 100uv. A full 20db improvement.(Also recorded test signals had several tenth's % less THD). This improved the S/N from ruffly 45 to 65db. This could easily have been reduced another 10db with better P.S. and even better preamp. Since then I've thought Dolby was pure unnessary bullshit. If anyone using tape machines had 75db back in those days (or now apparently) then they would have been amazed. Am I missing something here? If the playback amp sucks your stuck with it. Never mind if the fucking heads are aligned or you have the perfect tape formulation. Unless I'm missing something the recording,mixing,mastering studio is truly a chamber of horrors. Dennis C.
I remember Teac reel to reels as being excessively noisy. The later Tascam (same company) stereo and 8-track were about as good as is possible with analogue tape. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Thank You for commenting. I enjoy your videos. My Teac measured 45db(1mv), A Sony using "LOW NOISE FETS" measured 50db, A 3M Studio 8 track the size of a Mini Cooper measured 59db. I achieved 65db(100uv). I don't believe your "POSSIBLE".
My guess is that engineers of the day knew that was possible - big studio reel to reels had those kind of specs - but for the target market the bill of materials had to be kept within a certain cost limit and higher quality components like that would have blown out the manufacturing budget.
@@editingsecrets I hope you are correct. I admit the 3M machine I measured was probably from the late 60's. I should look for specs of newer tape machines. Noise in audio has always been an obsession with me. Dennis C.
Well, I've made COMPANDER, which is same thing as dbx. It was revelation in those days, because on my Pioneer deck was only dolby B and C.
That's would make a great outra for your videos