Using VCR for recording beats/bouncing tracks: Does it work?

[blavatsky]

In the quest for cheap lofi vintage sound, i've read (and tried) about bouncing mixes (or just drums, etc) to a VCR and back to get a mix of tape saturation , wobble/pitch if its old, analog sound/hiss.

The opinions go both ways on gearslutz and other forums whether this really makes any difference (something about the way the audio is written to the tape), the quality of the built in limiting in the VCR , if its in your mind and just adding hiss....

Any good examples of this working? if so, curious how much which VCR/age of tape makes a difference.

My experience was mixed; tried it one time with drums, could tell almost no difference. But did some weird ambient synth/pad stuff with delay and played it back on VCR and (maybe in my mind) had a noticeable warmth/saturation/old 80s soundtrack feel to it.

[kel]

this is how i record since my dog took a piss on my laptop. i've got one of those tv/vcr combos and i bounce back and forth to record. only thing i noticed is that mixing digital samples and vinyl samples doesn't sound as obvious, it kind of melts them together if that makes sense, just balances them out, which is nice. as for saturation, i don't know anything about it. my last beat on the sp-forums tape 'sea-saw' was recorded onto videotape.

[cartesia]

it does depend a bit on the quality and age of your VCR.. I'm sure some would fuck up the signal with digitalness but not all of them... Perhaps I'll record some waveforms sometime and have a look at what happens to them..

Either way, it does things to the sound.. just decide if you like it or not rather than if its analog or digital.

[CULP]

you will notice minimal to nothing in quality unless you compress the signal. im a big fan of using VCR's for recording tracks and sampling video tapes.
Synths recorded on VCR's played back in LP mode...
FUTURESHOCK

[LimpyLoo]

Hey, for those of y'all that DO use VCR's in yr workflow, would u mind describing your process? This is something I'd definitely like to try...

[sleepy eyes]

hmm yeah interesting stuff i have an old tv with a vcr built in and im interested in the process as well

[cartesia]

I have mine setup on a send/return from my audio interface.

It's hidden away under the desk, I just use the remote to turn it on/set it to record/rewind/play.

[Slumlord88]

Why wouldn't u just use a cassette tape recorder...like an old tascam..?
Seems like a lot more work unless u have a VCR handy I guess...

I do notice a different sound when applied to tape...kinda subdues the highs and does give it a worn feel ...also sounds better in my car and home stereo..

[djmellow]

i was reading about this topic on other forums, and it sounds like if you do use a vcr to record audio it's important that it's a hifi vcr. standard stereo vcrs record audio linearly i guess. but the hifi ones can record pretty good audio. also most vcrs automatically adjust the audio in level, so try and find a hifi one with adjustable line level in.
here's some more good info on recording audio to vhs
http://homerecording.com/vhstests.html

[cartesia]

Why wouldn't u just use a cassette tape recorder...like an old tascam..?
Seems like a lot more work unless u have a VCR handy I guess...

I do notice a different sound when applied to tape...kinda subdues the highs and does give it a worn feel ...also sounds better in my car and home stereo..

cassette is sometimes too much hiss, vcr has a much better signal:noise

[blavatsky]

^ this

I've messed with cassettes and thought about a cheapo 4 track fostex or something; I had one in the 90s and it was awful signal/noise ration and hiss.
Also did the cheapo tape deck thing, and it was just awful sounding (not in a good lofi way, like turn that ish off)

The VCR I picked up is HiFi and was 5$, so I'm really just messing around...I think i'm going to record a beat from the 555 direct to PC, then the exact same track to VHS and see what I can hear. Thinking the age/quality of the tape itself matters too, so I'm going to try to get a more worn one to test with.
I'll post them up when I get it done.

[cartesia]

BTW,

dirty playheads and messed up vcrs give you some crazy cool speed up/slowdown stutter effects.. mine do at least lol

[blavatsky]

Yeah wishing my VCR was a little crappier , I may go back to goodwill and look for an older one...

Anyway, was going to post results, but long story shot no remote for the VCR and I could not switch to line in mode....fucking UGH .... tried all my universal remotes w/ no luck, no clue how I did this before....stay tuned for a sound test, I'll make it work.

BTW, also saw a video somewhere, of a kid using one of those 1/8" adapter-to-tape you used to have in the 90s to play a CD thru tape deck....ran signal through that then out of tape deck for a "real time" tape sound without having to record it. Kinda interesting.

[admbmb]

I've been down this road myself. I was shocked at how hard it was to buy a new vcr or even worse, affordable blank vhs tapes (Walgreens $4.99 for one?). I have a reel to reel that I had trouble ressurrecting and was seeking an alternative to get good tape saturation for drums. I learned that while you can get good quality from vhs if you dub audio, you wont get saturation effects or "head bump" on your drums like you would get from reel to reel tape at 15 ips.

Peep this for reference on "head bump":
http://www.endino.com/graphs/

Also, VHS records audio (in SP mode) at 33.35 mm/s, which translates to 1.31 ips (inches per second). With reel to reel, you get all that audio goodness at 15-30 ips (not so much at 7.5 ips and lower). Btw, cassettes record at 1⅞ ips. I'm more of a fan of getting audio artifacts and character from cassette recorders instead of vhs (smoother workflow and more portable).

Whatever the case, what I do like doing is getting well used vhs tapes from goodwill or a pawn shop and sampling from the warbly goodness. I'd love a vcr where you could manually adjust the wow and flutter.

[tape smoke]

yo blavatski , do you thnk you can record a shit load of drums to vcr and then bounce it to a mp3, dont need to chop them, i wouldnt mind making a kit out of VCR samples, but dont have a vcr.