Recording to Cassette

[zindan]

i don't know who bomb squad is, but lench mob is literally the most primitive, basic, no skill style rap/beats in existence. if you prefer that to the intricacy, complexity, and pure ingenuity of otis jackson jr.'s instrumentals, you have horrible horrible taste, and your ears probably don't work. i feel much pity for you and your condition /:

so basically "if you like this better than that, then you are wrong"

i'm sorry you don't understand a joke! it's called sarcasm. i'm sorry it doesn't translate well through text.

the OP in that thread was talking mad shit, so i was playfully talking shit back. really i'm just voicing my opinion, but i added shit talk sarcastically to mirror his actions.

[Sharris]

You guys might find this interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHSYCOxeeUU

He uses 3 cassette recorders to record his guitar playing & his Prophet 08, then he layers the 3 recordings. I think it sounds awesome.

I was actually working on a OP-1 beat battle, the due date was last night, but I watched the above video yesterday morning & it really inspired me. I bought a $15 portable cassette player/recorder like a year ago & a bunch of cassettes for a buck a piece, but only used it once right after buying it. So I decided to grab a cassette rhythm roulette style (ended up being Barbara Streisand) & sampled the first 12 seconds of the 1st song for my beat.

The audio quality was amazing & it was from a shitty cheap cassette recorder/player, yet so warm & creamy. I am now obsessed.
I've been wanting a multi track cassette recorder for a while but kept putting it off. Now I think this will be my next purchase. I think it would be worth the extra time to fuck with cassette's.

Was gonna include the beat I made, but it's just a microwave Op-1 beat, it's the first complete beat I made on the Op1 & I don't think it's a great example of cassette sound quality (Op1 has low noise floor, we couldn't master or use anything else, ect). But I'm def excited for my upcoming cassette journey

[saf90]

Same here, just started to record to cassette because I'm now more confident about my beats and might be time to release a tape. My dad gave me a really dirty multi track recorder, it got some true grit. I also coped a more classic tape deck (yamaha kx393), less dirty but I think it'll be better to record a full beattape. Now what I want to do when I get more time is : recording the samples on the multi track as it an interesting wow/flutter, do my shit, (smoke some stuff), record the finished/mastered, then smoke some more . Also from my small experience, it's good to have the levels hitting red on the tape deck, it wil bring some nice saturation, especially on the low end.
I also had kind of a dumb question: is it better to master the beat individually then send it to the tape, or master after the tape ? Or no difference ?

[zindan]

Same here, just started to record to cassette because I'm now more confident about my beats and might be time to release a tape. My dad gave me a really dirty multi track recorder, it got some true grit. I also coped a more classic tape deck (yamaha kx393), less dirty but I think it'll be better to record a full beattape. Now what I want to do when I get more time is : recording the samples on the multi track as it an interesting wow/flutter, do my shit, (smoke some stuff), record the finished/mastered, then smoke some more . Also from my small experience, it's good to have the levels hitting red on the tape deck, it wil bring some nice saturation, especially on the low end.
I also had kind of a dumb question: is it better to master the beat individually then send it to the tape, or master after the tape ? Or no difference ?

some of the cheaper, shittier, lower fidelity (more tape saturation, tape compression, distortion, lower frequency response, etc.) tape machines require you to mix your songs according to the frequency response of the tape machine. some of the more expensive, hi fidelity machines sound exactly like what you record into them (i have a nakamichi bx300 but one of the fucking belts is out rn )

[zindan]

people say i don't contribute anything to the forum, then when i do, they ignore me.

[saf90]

Yo, sorry for the late reply, a lot of school work recently... Funny that I see your reply just when I was doing some tests with the two tape recorders ! As you said, the most recent one (yamaha kx 393, pretty basic) is too neutral and doesn't had that much to the sound. The shitty 4 track recorder on the other hand really had some grit, and maybe a little bit too much on the low end, I'll try to mix it down. Now what I like to do is: fully compress the beats with vinyl sim, then bump it to the tape, then compress the bumped beats another time, this time with vinyl sim comp halfway up. That hiss is something
If anybody's interested to compare, I can upload the same beat with different tape processing

[zindan]

Now what I like to do is: fully compress the beats with vinyl sim, then bump it to the tape, then compress the bumped beats another time, this time with vinyl sim comp halfway up.

mmmm... you can do what you want, but i just want to let you know, i would never recommend adding two layers of compression

could you link me an example?

[saf90]

Well it really depends on the beat, sometime it's too much but for that kind of stuff I really like the double comp https://soundcloud.com/milesant1/lo-sid ... unted-hiss (the beat at 1:50 is more interesting imo), or is it too much ?

Actually I was trying to figure out this beat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHUT7xUz-do and I think that much sidechain/the hiss coming when cuts the sound if from double compression

[zindan]

sorry it took me so long, i'm lazy as f, i was gonna listen to your beat but it looks like you took down the link

[zindan]

no it's not from double compression

seems as if the guy just added a hiss track to his beat, added a really loud, heavy kick, maybe sidechained the kick, and compressed it once most likely!

i kinda still want to hear your double compressed beats if you would fix the link, my bad again

[saf90]

I'm kinda late but same link work for me (in private mode tho), https://soundcloud.com/milesant1/lo-sid ... YwN#t=1:49(second beat, 1st one is shitty). But yeah actually now that I'm relistening to it it seems that double comp is way too much

And for Yotaro's beat I think you're right, not even a true sidechain imo i'm pretty sure he makes everything in the box and it is just the 404 compression

[zindan]

you can def get the sound you're going for without double compressing, trust me

experiment





sick beats btw i'm giving you a follow