Sorry, I didn't clarify, but the tape player I was buying is $45. I was doing it more as an experiment. I was more wondering if anyone knew how to set it up. Notably running it in a recording chain, without having to transfer to tape and back.

 

Wow! I wish I could afford that. I'm new to this forum and wasn't aware there were people here that were as experienced as those who have replied to me. I bought a Library of Congress C-1 for $45, and I am going to give it a try. I might get like 2 or 3 plug-ins too and just stack the hell out of the master to see what it sounds like, hah.

 

That is just a matter of Multiplication on a large forum. There are probably 20,000 years worth of experience that read all the good technical stuff for fun, between all the many people reading. In one thread, people will recycle samples of dolphins and the next it's Mozart.

 

Usually yes, when it's a deck with three heads. Note that maybe not all NR systems are available in this mode.

A freq. response of maybe 40 Hz - 16 kHz with a very low dynamic range of around 6 bits typical.

It seems to be for playback only without a recording function.

The speed of a tape deck is approx. 1.8 ips (4.75 cm/s). The distance between heads are not standardized.

 

Last edited: Nov 11, 2022

Ok put in the simplest way possible and you likely know a lot of this...

The technical version - up to half the sampling frequency, the harmonics are preserved perfectly in the digital version. Above half the sampling frequency, the digital version is not identical to the analog version. A full-bandwidth analog synth oscillator can indeed put out harmonics above the Nyquist frequency of your A/D conversion. Usually this will in fact be "lost" in the digital recording because it'll be removed by the anti-alias filter on your ADC. If it wasn't, that harmonic energy would fold over into the audible range and sound bad [this is aliasing]. There is speculation as to the effect that the ADC can create due to the phasing that occurs above 22khz with the aliasing that can impact the uppermost frequencies that we can hear (if you were recording at 44.1).

You cannot avoid data loss. That's impossible. While converting from analog to digital, there are two factors to be kept in mind - sampling and quantisation. Sampling (in layman's terms) refers to how often you take a snapshot of the analog signal, hence a higher sampling rate means more accurate representation of your analog signal. According to Nyquist's theorem, the sampling frequency has to be greater than twice the maximum frequency of your analog signal. Quantisation is how many bits to assign to each snapshot (sampled value) of signal. At time t, the amplitude of your signal is x. Say x is 3.124 and you only use 3 bits - 011 (decimal 3). You are losing information by not assigning adequate bits to represent these values digitally. Ideally for accurate representation, you'd want to keep sampling rate high and quantisation error low. Keep in mind that this blows up the size of your digital signal, making subsequent signal manipulation time and space consuming.

In English...
In recording, using an analog patchbay, a Studer Tape machine multi-track that can record up to 128 tracks on 2" tape, an analog Neve desk and NOTHING digital... it will record PURE analog. This is sound moving through the air, is in its intended original form and recorded that way (sinusoidal).
When you then attempt to convert Analog to Digital, it connects the dots attempting to recreate the already existing information from the sinusoidal waveform and loses a lot of the information as explained more in detail in the section above.

While I will not argue that the ear cannot hear a lot of what it loses, the unfortunate part which seems to be prevalent is that digital has never sounded like Long Play records do and never will (LP's). It is that missing warmth generated by what is lost.

The plugins "We have created analog warmth - BULLSHIT and a CROCK of SHIT.
Wow and flutter is what happens when the tape is faulty or flanging (the flanging effect came from the flange of a 2" reel being manually played with on a reel-to-reel). However - Some emulators (Neve and others) do good digital reproductions of early gear.

If you asked me is digital more pristine? No argument and no contest. Absolutely. But analog in and analog out (mastered) will never sound like pure analog once it has gone to digital. Sending digital back to analog - I have to ask.. .WHY?!??! - As someone said in another post, invest their money into something else. Just my opinion.

SUMMARY
In my opinion, converting digital to analog is like converting a 44.1K file to 48K and expecting it to sound better. It won't, it will sound the same except with a larger file and empty space that contains nada. If perfect conditions are met, DAC will be the same without the extra space created in the digital mentioned above. Theoretically, depending on the quality of the analog gear and tape used, DAC can also potentially sound worse instead of the same.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Nov 11, 2022

What is this please? And how do you measure this very special kind of distortion?
And in how far does it differ from the usual "unnatural" harmonic distortion?
I thought a sinetone does not have distortion because otherwise it would not be a sinetone?

 

Last edited: Nov 11, 2022

Sounds like a lot of fun, dont listen to the "digital is equal types" maybe some acustica stuff
but hardware reacts different to gain and or overdriven circuits, it isn't a question of better or not

But the exploration, i think that is worthwhile alone.
you may not need a tape, an analog mixer might do the trick (old Mackie VLZ)

some (Tapes/recorders)are so clean that it is "difficult" to get the sound you want ("old" Nagra).

But you´ll get a sound anyway

too bad all the cheap Tascam´s (388 especially) are way overpriced now
or the ones who use"normal tapes"


but a "normal" Tapedeck is still an interesting option, might be best for (some)stems, imo.
or a half measure with tape adapters


so you see, there are a lot things to explore before you jump into Ree2Reel
and loads of fun finding out what might suit you

 

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Last edited: Jun 4, 2024

why are some people so obsessed with tape?
i dont know why people want distortion and all of that tape crap on their tracks
the only thing i need is crystal clear audio without the noise polution

 

this is audio moving through air. The +'s on the second image are how digital interprets it.
You will hear many people say nothing is lost. Often, those same people try to hard sell you that digital is as warm as analog. When you push highs in analog it is not harsh and painful as it is in digital. Most of those people have never recorded in an all analog studio. They probably are not old enough to have done so. I am and have done so.

The disadvantage of analog is the tape itself. It has a lifespan. Tape stretches and loses oxide over time. Digital audio's lifespan is only dependent on the backup mechanism. It's a better system but anyone who says digital sounds the same as analog has never done a lot of time in a pure analog studio. Also, if you gave them only the wires and plugs and asked them to wire an entire 128 channel patchbay to the desk, across five recording rooms to the console rooom, they probably could not.
Digital is simpler and easier and more pristine. However, it does NOT sound like analog.

It is interesting that people who say it does not lose anything, never say "I grew up playing / recording in analog studios as digital came in before it was replaced." Like most things humans do, they don't know what they've got until it is gone. Now it's a re-creating war...

If they did they'd never say it did not lose anything. anyone who listens to an LP on a Rega III turnatable with NAD / Luxman gear with great speakers that are fairly true (e.g. Gale GS401's) and then the same album on a CD player on the same gear can hear all the warmth missing. It's not just the turntable or the CD player. It is the sound itself.
At no point did I say the ear can hear the frequencies missing in digital translation but you can hear the missing warmth which I pretty much said. A large amount of people who grew up with this, far more meticulous than I, have said many times that it is what digital does not capture that causes the difference. Obviously, this is a perpetual debate.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Nov 12, 2022

But how do you display through a measurement the difference of a sinetone created digitally or analogue? Do you have an example for an oscilloscope or what ever device showing any difference?

Because this picture is of course not a measurement of anything. It's....a beautiful thought that may or may not...or something like this.

 

Last edited: Nov 12, 2022

Er, nope.
Firstly, the second wave isn't the same as the first (see right half) secondly, you only need two points in digital audio the reproduce a sine wave by 100%.

An LP adds distortion and reduces the high freqs (and the dynamic range). That's what we call warmth. Of course they do not sound the same.

 

True, but do you wish to add perfectly to that statement of reproduction? or not? Mapping and recreating perfectly are not the same thing.

 

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Last edited: Jun 4, 2024

Er, can it go any better than 100%?

There's a difference between a perfect reproduction and a preferred sound. Nothing wrong with preferring an LP but it's not perfect at all.

 

Ok, my comments are more just about people who are using tape to saturate recordings to gain that analog sound, but this can be either subtle or very nice outcome. A tape player like you describe I would save for something like a special effect almost like a novelty. For me, it would be a waste of 45$. I do not think you will get much more than a small normal amount of saturation from any magnetic tape and the usual mechanical inconsistencies of any tape machine or even a cassette recording. Might be cool, might be a waste of your 45 bucks in the long run. Your time involved in the experiment could probably be your biggest loss on the whole thing. Anyway, good luck with your sound, it could turn out cool and unique. You could probably get a similar effect from a simple free saturation/warble type of plugin. I use the Softube Saturation Knob plugin frequently and it is a free little thing. Im sure you could find another to combine with it and get something similar to compare it with. And nothing to recycle later.

As stated by others already, if you do not record this input to the tape you will get little out of this but some additional noise. You could probably just buy a short HOSA cable for about 10 bucks and get 10x the noise too. It ships free with most of their cables without any additional effort.

I'd rather spend the time and google find a few simple free plugins. Or look in my Stock Logic Daw plugins first. overdrive/soft distortion on the Studio VCA compressor. And then lo-fi style damage it any other ways you have available to you in your DAW.

The largest indicator to me, that I was wasting my time and money on this is the amount of conflicting information and opinion you already have been given and the time posting a thread, etc. Gain = +0dB so far. But lots of new stuff to read. Books look nice on shelves when you are done reading them. This thing will end up in a landfill.

 

Last edited: Nov 12, 2022

Didn't find it as quick as you did.

 

I have a reel to reel which I've used in a hybrid kind of way over the years for some things, with some interesting results.

Unless you are prepared to spend a lot of time re-discovering a lot of lost skills, like maintenace and calibration,
and sourcing tape that isn't degraded it can be an expensive nightmare.

Like anything else in life, it all depends how much time and effort you are willing to put into it in pursuit of whatever it is you're trying to achieve.

 

Has it been picked apart to death yet? Engineers who draw Stair Steps when they know they are an incorrect representation of something are often the same kind who will load an incorrect drawing into a machine and make a bunch of things that are all defective. One incorrect assumption inside an experiment does not lead to correct confirmation of a hypothesis. A correctly conducted experiment leads to correct observations, and sometimes when an initial hypothesis being confirmed as true is the end goal (in totality often on YT). it skews accurate interpretation of recorded data/observations.

Im going to watch this about 20 times and see all of it. I am only at the part where he begins to cover Dither. It's not that I have heard him say anything incorrect so far or anything to suggest this, it's just complicated material and it's on the internet. He is clearly far from some BS artist and a clickbait, and I don't mean to suggest even that.

 

Last edited: Nov 12, 2022