Bruh... headphones is actually right on both counts. Having a mixer doesn't expand your recordable tracks.

Here's a pretty interesting vid on tape splicing:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=sp ... &FORM=VIRE

Here's a great breakdown of track configurations available in the reel-to-reel format:
https://www.petervis.com/Cassette_Tape_ ... rmats.html

like i said before, why would anyone splice tape today?
people spliced VIDEO back in the 60s and early 70s before digital systems came to be
audio cassettes can't be spliced, and why would you want to?
you make a mistake, you do another take
splicing reels was used for changing scenes in a video recording before you could use digital systems to do this instantaneously

none of my cassette decks are multitrack (stereo, yes so two channel max) and i have recorded live music with several tracks on the most piece of shit mono tape deck you can imagine

so can you tell me why either of those things matter?

get multiple reel to reel decks recording at once with your different tracks if you REALLY NEED and then mix them in post (BUT THIS IS ONLY NECESSARY IF YOU'RE RECORDING LIVE EVERYTHING WITH SEVERAL TRACKS SIMULTANEOUSLY) and even then, you don't really need it. you can just use a mixer that records into one reel to reel deck.

btw, two track stereo is all i would need in a reel to reel

Video and audio editing went hand in hand in those days. Audio was recorded separately and had to be manually synced. If they cut footage from a video recording and were recording live audio with it, the audio tape had to be cut and spliced also.



To fix them or make tape loops. When your homeboy's hoopty ate your Return to the 36 Chambers tape and you had to rip it out of the deck with the tape pulled out and wrapped around the hub, a little precision scotch tapping could allow you to listen to the rest of the undamaged tape.



Recording wasn't always a end user thing. Most musicians didn't record their own music or even had knowledge of how to. A band might record an album in Detroit and send the reels to a guy in London to mix and master. Engineers had to work magic when they couldn't have the musicians on site.

Besides the music industry, you have to remember most all audio broadcastings used tape in those days. A radio station might do a 4 hour interview with someone, but only had a 1 hour segment to air it in. So, they had to chop it down. Or a musician might be commissioned to write a song for a tv commercial. They write a 2:30 minute song, but it's a 45 second commercial. Someone in a "Cutting Room" has to chop it to fit. Sure they could bounce to another machine or patch it through to another track, and they probably did as audio tech became more advanced, but anyone knows that has worked with tape for a while, it degrades the more you record over it. Big budget productions always used fresh tape.

A number of other reasons engineers would splice tape - Tape machines like all mechanical things fuck up. Older machines didn't have auto stop, they would get to end of the reel and rip the tape off the supply reel or stretch it. Starting the tape from a dead stop, over and over would stretch the beginning also. Engineers would add leader tape to protect the magnetic tape or so they could use all of the recordable media. Just like turntables, old tape machines took a split second to get up to running speed, they might add leader tape to this portion and punch in afterwards. They also used color tape to have visual cue markings on the reel. They had paper tape and time coded tape that would get spliced in. They would splice to add more tape to a reel. Tape loops were created to play sounds on repeat, much like a sampler is today. A theater play might need 5 minutes of the sound of ocean waves. For a engineer to sit and dub this over and over would have been time consuming and would take hundreds of feet of tape, where as they could do it with say, 8 feet by making a tape loop.

What's a tape spliced block used for if audio engineers didn't cut tape?
Why did the open reel tape machine become the industry standard, when there were closed cartridge machines were available, if engineers didn't need a hands-on way to edit tape?



Well, if your making really basic recordings all you may ever need is 1 stereo track. But you want to record a 10 piece drum kit or a 6 piece band, you'll probably need more tracks. The other part matters because it's history, some of the techniques, terminology, and functions on our samplers, that we used to make beats and sound design, were invented by tape wizards over half a century ago.



Why would anyone want to make beats on a 20 year old sampler?
Why would anyone collect records, when 50 of them take up over a cubic foot of space and smell like death and decay, when they could carry thousands of albums on a chip the size of a finger nail?

Because audio nerds love fucking with arcane tech.

Next week, we discuss the virtues and pitfalls of DATs...

Lol, remember when Alesis used to sell these huge machines called ADats? You had 8 digital tracks on a VHS tape. You could chain a few together, but you had to get some other box to allow you to use them all at once. Then hard drives got cheaper and even Alesis gave up support on making them.

I wonder if anyone out there made tracks with those lately? Lol.

@null sweat

ok so basically everything you said is conjecture, or irrelevant or extraneous or whatever word i'm looking for

there's absolutely no reason why anything you said matters in a modern situation

correct?

yeah i use samplers and sample vinyl for the audio quality and artifacts. i make music on samplers for the workflow, and to keep everything with that sound quality

splicing tape doesn't give you any kind of advantage in anything, it's just pointless. sure, you can do it if you want. comparing it to using samplers or listening to records? no. you're trying to equate it with something it is not comparable to.

i literally already stated that the only time splicing tape was used was for videos. i already stated this. you reinforced what i said. but for some reason, you're trying to prove me wrong or come up with some exception??? yes, videos are paired with audio. yes, you have to make sure the audio works or is continuous or does whatever you want when you're splicing video reels. so why are you trying to act like you proved me wrong? i already stated this.


sure, there are certain situations if you're purely fucking with analog recording only reel to reel yadda yadda etc that you will need more tracks or multiple reel to reel decks, but with modern technology, all of that shit is outdated and pointless. sure you can still do it if you want to. i can shit in the street if i want to.


point is, OP was trying to point out disadvantages of reel to reel decks. today? there are none. compared to cassette? no. just price and maintenance. other than that, they are superior.

I don't seem to understand your broken sentences. Can you type a complete sentence?



Is this a question or a statement? Because I've already answered it above. Can you define what you consider a "modern situation" to be? Because this forum is filled with cats making music on samplers that were discontinued a decade or more ago. In the world of technology, a decade ago isn't "modern".



If your working with tape, it gives you a lot of advantages, which I stated facts on above.



I didn't compare jack shit. Your taking what I said out of context. You asked why anyone would want to do what the fuck they do, and I replied with a similar rhetorical question and answered it.





WTF is "time" splicing? I didn't reinforce anything you said or act like I proved you wrong. I did prove you wrong with quite a few facts. You stated in your broken ass sentencing, about video editing (not sure why we are talking about video editing) as it was the only kind of tape that was spliced.



Multi-tracking is outdated with modern technology?! What the fuck are you trying to say here? You don't seem to understand very much about recording at all.



The title of this thread is "The Virtues and Pitfalls..." Do you know what virtue means?



Cassette tape decks were never considered professional audio equipment. Anything that has RCA's on it is considered consumer grade. Anyone that calls their self a audiophile should know this.

The guy's name was Holgar Czukay. Died sadly, couple of years back.
He was a bassist and a driving force behind a German band CAN.
The CAN was literally responsible for the whole boom of EDM in the late 70' and early 80' - bands like Kraftwerk, or Depeche Mode among others, probably wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for CAN.
Sounds like a bold statement, but it's true. You know WHY, Zendan? Because this guy, Holgar Czukay was keen on snipping tapes and gluing them back together. He was LITERALLY a pioneer of that. And he went to technicians and constantly asked for a box that could loop sounds. Not delay them, but loop them without sound degradation.
He wasn't the only one asking for this back in those days, but he was prominent enough for the people to take him seriously and that's the moment the first drum machines and Samplers were introduced.

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/holger-c ... nd-beyond/
Nice article about the man, though you can dig up a lot more yourself if interested
It was never only about video, that's my point. And hip hop, jungle, techno and everything else wouldn't have, or would wait a while, for the luxury of using Samplers, if it wasn't for this dude with scissors and glue snipping audio tapes

@null sweat

not all cassette decks use RCAs bruv

anyways, you're obviously pissed off and not taking the time to read my reply, so i didn't read yours.

chill, peace

so why are you crediting it to this guy?

you know the mellotron was invented in the early 60s right?

what's your point

i never said that tape splicing wasn't useful BACK IN THE DAY. already talked about why it was necessary back then.

like i already stated a hundred thousand times, i'm talking about the use of a reel to reel deck in a situation TODAY; said over and over that i'm referring to this moment in time, right now.

we actually have digital samplers now, we even have whole DAWs on personal computers. there's no need for splicing tape. do it if you want, like i already said. people can do whatever the hell they want.

but sure guys keep tryna nit pick me for whatev reason it's cool lol

You know this guy started out in the early 60',right? Which is precisely my point. Because of him, and guys alike - they invented the damn thing. And if you really wanna be nitpicking, the term sampling was coined by in the late 1970s by Kim Ryrie and Peter Vogel to describe a feature of their Fairlight CMI synthesizer. Designers of early samplers used the term to describe the technical process of the instruments, rather than to describe how users would use the feature.
Today we might even say that the first ever sampler was actually Chamberlin from the late 40' which had small tape decks inside.

Perhaps I got it wrong, didn't mean to attack you, just got the feeling you said they never really used it that much for music in the early days.

video reel splicing and cutting audio tape for looping are completely different. i never mentioned the latter. anyway, it's all good. seems that we agree on everything regardless of if we realized it earlier lol

That's beside point, cassette decks still aren't pro audio gear.

I ain't pissed, I curse a lot and I don't appreciate dudes spreading misinformation. If your gonna act like a know-it-all, than be a know-it-all. I broke all your posts down, point by point, bulletin style and you don't think I read them? I felt the same about you. Self project your image much? You have posted on here where your telling dudes to READ THE MANUAL (like your fucking screaming at them) and your not even reading the post to realize they got a problem that isn't in the manual. For someone that likes to say "read the manual" all the time and "only samples vinyl" or just makes beats in general... this is fucking GOLDEN ---->



READ THE FUCKING MANUAL, AUDIO GURU!

please quote me on the time i referenced the manual when the problem wasn't assessable through its use

i don't think i know everything, which is exactly why i asked that question in that second quote.

i don't DJ, and i don't own the manual for any 2 channel DJ mixers, so? yeah.

anyway, absolutely nothing i said is misinformation. you're taking everything out of context or misunderstanding. LoopmantrA and i came to an understanding; maybe if you reread my replies you will realize that.

the reason why i know you didn't thoroughly read my reply is because regardless of the fact that you broke it down bit by bit: in one of the quotes you replied to, you misunderstood and are replying to some kind of misread idea you had of it.

But you own a turntable, right? 9 out of 10 turntables/record players need a preamp. This is basic shit most beatmakers know regardless if they DJ or not.

It ain't my fault if I can't understand you.

Here's the post: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=26295

The OP is having problems with missing banks, even LoopmantrA cosigns on the weird problem. His last post -



Then you follow up telling him to do what he has already done and to read the manual. Why would you tell him to try what he has already tried with no success, if you had read the post?

fool, i told him the solution, and it is mentioned in the manual. go find my reply and reread.
RE-READ
told him what he was doing wrong and how to do it correctly.