Pics of your Favorite Cassette Tapes
- Thread starter Web Police
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Thanks.
Hopefully we can collaborate on a project sometime in the future. That MA-R tribute from way back when was a lot of fun!
Hopefully we can collaborate on a project sometime in the future. That MA-R tribute from way back when was a lot of fun!
Nando.
I am a huge fan of That's cassettes. I have never come across this one though.
Thank you to stuartypoorty from Tapeheads for allowing me to use this image.
Thank you to stuartypoorty from Tapeheads for allowing me to use this image.
Never known about that FM-S... could it be simply a RX with a different name?
Vince recorded one for me, this tape is a beast 
Must admit that one came out truly nice and punchy... my Pioneer CT-737mkII loved it!
CHEERS,
Vince.
but there is a trick, sometimes...
Too much generous, Septi.
Sure, a full and punchy sound is generally what i am looking for and i admit i get such result more or less with any tapes (the last fine touches to the calibration made only by ears are a must here, IMO).
With some tapes i get my usual sound without the need to use dolby but, as you noticed on that "basic" RX cassette, the "trick" i use to get a full-clear-punchy sound on a (good) basic ferric tape like the RX (or the Sony HF and BASF FE-I) needs the use of the dolby B (and, possibly, HX Pro too).
In this situation, not only the dolby B reduces the hiss of these tapes effectively, but if you (manually) calibrate the bias a tiny bit higher than the usual and, at the same time, you raise the sensitivity knob some 0,5dB (or so) over the 'exact' value then the dolby B will decode the sound with a small boost on treble, then you will get back the treble you lost by overbiasing a tiny bit but you will also get a slightly more full and punchy sound on the bass.
It needs a 3-head deck (with tape monitoring) and manual bias fine and cal. rec level to do the trick easily (as you must evaluate the sound by ears AND with the music, of course) but, with some try and error tries, you could do the same even with a 2-heads deck and the internal tuning pots. (i guess that if the deck has also HX Pro it helps a bit more in this as you're working only with basic ferric tapes, after all)
I would like to put in evidence that, most times, i hear people complaining about the dolby B because it cuts the treble so that the sound is muffled... this happens when there is a mistracking to the "negative" side (i.e. the frequency response is off and/or the playback level is off)... but if you misalign the deck to the opposite side (even a boost to the playback level is sufficient to make a marked difference) then the dolby B will decode the sound by boosting the treble... and this is quite what i try to "force" in a controlled way with my trick.
Guys, please, try it... you may begin to really love the way those basic ferrics can sound.
CHEERS,
Vince.
PS: the same trick doesn't work with dolby C (as it's a more complex process) then, when using dolby C, my advice is to calibrate the things just exactly.
PPS: the upper type1 tapes (the "superferrics") may not work equally good with this trick as, generally, these are tapes with some kind of "boosted" response by themselves... then they may easily "over-react" to this trick... but, tweaking them with more care, they can sound wonderful... but, the trick as described above is very good in giving the basic ferrics a noticeable improvement, IMO, and the ones where i had the best results are the basic ferrics with most "IEC standard" bias and response like the Sony HF, BASF FE-I and That's RX.
And this is valid for all your mixtapes i have here, not one sounding different from what you decribed here.
Guys, Vince is an artist regarding tape recording procedures
Guys, Vince is an artist regarding tape recording procedures
Too much generous, Septi.
Sure, a full and punchy sound is generally what i am looking for and i admit i get such result more or less with any tapes (the last fine touches to the calibration made only by ears are a must here, IMO).
With some tapes i get my usual sound without the need to use dolby but, as you noticed on that "basic" RX cassette, the "trick" i use to get a full-clear-punchy sound on a (good) basic ferric tape like the RX (or the Sony HF and BASF FE-I) needs the use of the dolby B (and, possibly, HX Pro too).
In this situation, not only the dolby B reduces the hiss of these tapes effectively, but if you (manually) calibrate the bias a tiny bit higher than the usual and, at the same time, you raise the sensitivity knob some 0,5dB (or so) over the 'exact' value then the dolby B will decode the sound with a small boost on treble, then you will get back the treble you lost by overbiasing a tiny bit but you will also get a slightly more full and punchy sound on the bass.
It needs a 3-head deck (with tape monitoring) and manual bias fine and cal. rec level to do the trick easily (as you must evaluate the sound by ears AND with the music, of course) but, with some try and error tries, you could do the same even with a 2-heads deck and the internal tuning pots. (i guess that if the deck has also HX Pro it helps a bit more in this as you're working only with basic ferric tapes, after all)
I would like to put in evidence that, most times, i hear people complaining about the dolby B because it cuts the treble so that the sound is muffled... this happens when there is a mistracking to the "negative" side (i.e. the frequency response is off and/or the playback level is off)... but if you misalign the deck to the opposite side (even a boost to the playback level is sufficient to make a marked difference) then the dolby B will decode the sound by boosting the treble... and this is quite what i try to "force" in a controlled way with my trick.
Guys, please, try it... you may begin to really love the way those basic ferrics can sound.
CHEERS,
Vince.
PS: the same trick doesn't work with dolby C (as it's a more complex process) then, when using dolby C, my advice is to calibrate the things just exactly.
PPS: the upper type1 tapes (the "superferrics") may not work equally good with this trick as, generally, these are tapes with some kind of "boosted" response by themselves... then they may easily "over-react" to this trick... but, tweaking them with more care, they can sound wonderful... but, the trick as described above is very good in giving the basic ferrics a noticeable improvement, IMO, and the ones where i had the best results are the basic ferrics with most "IEC standard" bias and response like the Sony HF, BASF FE-I and That's RX.
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Too much generous, Septi.
Sure, a full and punchy sound is generally what i am looking for and i admit i get such result more or less with any tapes (the last fine touches to the calibration made only by ears are a must here, IMO).
With some tapes i get my usual sound without the need to use dolby but, as you noticed on that "basic" RX cassette, the "trick" i use to get a full-clear-punchy sound on a (good) basic ferric tape like the RX (or the Sony HF and BASF FE-I) needs the use of the dolby B (and, possibly, HX Pro too).
In this situation, not only the dolby B reduces the hiss of these tapes effectively, but if you (manually) calibrate the bias a tiny bit higher than the usual and, at the same time, you raise the sensitivity knob some 0,5dB (or so) over the 'exact' value then the dolby B will decode the sound with a small boost on treble, then you will get back the treble you lost by overbiasing a tiny bit but you will also get a slightly more full and punchy sound on the bass.
It needs a 3-head deck (with tape monitoring) and manual bias fine and cal. rec level to do the trick easily (as you must evaluate the sound by ears AND with the music, of course) but, with some try and error tries, you could do the same even with a 2-heads deck and the internal tuning pots. (i guess that if the deck has also HX Pro it helps a bit more in this as you're working only with basic ferric tapes, after all)
I would like to put in evidence that, most times, i hear people complaining about the dolby B because it cuts the treble so that the sound is muffled... this happens when there is a mistracking to the "negative" side (i.e. the frequency response is off and/or the playback level is off)... but if you misalign the deck to the opposite side (even a boost to the playback level is sufficient to make a marked difference) then the dolby B will decode the sound by boosting the treble... and this is quite what i try to "force" in a controlled way with my trick.
Guys, please, try it... you may begin to really love the way those basic ferrics can sound.
CHEERS,
Vince.
PS: the same trick doesn't work with dolby C (as it's a more complex process) then, when using dolby C, my advice is to calibrate the things just exactly.
PPS: the upper type1 tapes (the "superferrics") may not work equally good with this trick as, generally, these are tapes with some kind of "boosted" response by themselves... then they may easily "over-react" to this trick... but, tweaking them with more care, they can sound wonderful... but, the trick as described above is very good in giving the basic ferrics a noticeable improvement, IMO, and the ones where i had the best results are the basic ferrics with most "IEC standard" bias and response like the Sony HF, BASF FE-I and That's RX.
Sure, a full and punchy sound is generally what i am looking for and i admit i get such result more or less with any tapes (the last fine touches to the calibration made only by ears are a must here, IMO).
With some tapes i get my usual sound without the need to use dolby but, as you noticed on that "basic" RX cassette, the "trick" i use to get a full-clear-punchy sound on a (good) basic ferric tape like the RX (or the Sony HF and BASF FE-I) needs the use of the dolby B (and, possibly, HX Pro too).
In this situation, not only the dolby B reduces the hiss of these tapes effectively, but if you (manually) calibrate the bias a tiny bit higher than the usual and, at the same time, you raise the sensitivity knob some 0,5dB (or so) over the 'exact' value then the dolby B will decode the sound with a small boost on treble, then you will get back the treble you lost by overbiasing a tiny bit but you will also get a slightly more full and punchy sound on the bass.
It needs a 3-head deck (with tape monitoring) and manual bias fine and cal. rec level to do the trick easily (as you must evaluate the sound by ears AND with the music, of course) but, with some try and error tries, you could do the same even with a 2-heads deck and the internal tuning pots. (i guess that if the deck has also HX Pro it helps a bit more in this as you're working only with basic ferric tapes, after all)
I would like to put in evidence that, most times, i hear people complaining about the dolby B because it cuts the treble so that the sound is muffled... this happens when there is a mistracking to the "negative" side (i.e. the frequency response is off and/or the playback level is off)... but if you misalign the deck to the opposite side (even a boost to the playback level is sufficient to make a marked difference) then the dolby B will decode the sound by boosting the treble... and this is quite what i try to "force" in a controlled way with my trick.
Guys, please, try it... you may begin to really love the way those basic ferrics can sound.
CHEERS,
Vince.
PS: the same trick doesn't work with dolby C (as it's a more complex process) then, when using dolby C, my advice is to calibrate the things just exactly.
PPS: the upper type1 tapes (the "superferrics") may not work equally good with this trick as, generally, these are tapes with some kind of "boosted" response by themselves... then they may easily "over-react" to this trick... but, tweaking them with more care, they can sound wonderful... but, the trick as described above is very good in giving the basic ferrics a noticeable improvement, IMO, and the ones where i had the best results are the basic ferrics with most "IEC standard" bias and response like the Sony HF, BASF FE-I and That's RX.
Your Welcome.
On some tapes it could work better than on others... i am also still keeping experimenting about that... the point here is that, with this trick, the tape would not necessarily sound exactly "faithful" to the source but rather you would be slightly modifying according to your tastes and ears (some albums may need a small "help" to really shine).
Regarding the bias fine, especially on type1 tapes, you can experiment with a tiny amount of overbiasing or underbiasing from the "exact" point but if i tune the bias too much distant than the "exact" value then the distortion performances would easily worsen... Type2 and Type4 tapes are less sensitive to small fine bias variations than the type1, then you have a slightly wider "error range" on your knob when tuning the fine bias.
Then, an eventual overbias (or underbias) on a ferric tape should be very very small to let the job done without having too much distortion and less "powerful" sound... but, by experimenting with "errors" on the sensitivity calibration with a dolby B on, you're more free to "miscalibrate" the things as the worst thing which can happen is that you noticeably modify the decoded timbre (brighter or darker) and, in extreme cases, you will completely eat/muffle the treble or (with the opposite setting) will do the sound too much bright and dynamically compressed so that it may begins to "pump" too much on the mid/bass but it would not change the distortion/power performances of the tape itself in a significant way (unless you're recording too much hot).
With the dolby B and a bit "creative" calibration these basic ferrics can be quite surprising.
But i am realizing that this stuff is completely off topic here... or, at least, it could fit better into a dedicate thread. (i guess i will start a new thread to explain with more details this one and also another "weird" trick with dolby B, in the near future)
Attached a picture of a not too common cassette, below.
CHEERS,
Vince.
On some tapes it could work better than on others... i am also still keeping experimenting about that... the point here is that, with this trick, the tape would not necessarily sound exactly "faithful" to the source but rather you would be slightly modifying according to your tastes and ears (some albums may need a small "help" to really shine).
Regarding the bias fine, especially on type1 tapes, you can experiment with a tiny amount of overbiasing or underbiasing from the "exact" point but if i tune the bias too much distant than the "exact" value then the distortion performances would easily worsen... Type2 and Type4 tapes are less sensitive to small fine bias variations than the type1, then you have a slightly wider "error range" on your knob when tuning the fine bias.
Then, an eventual overbias (or underbias) on a ferric tape should be very very small to let the job done without having too much distortion and less "powerful" sound... but, by experimenting with "errors" on the sensitivity calibration with a dolby B on, you're more free to "miscalibrate" the things as the worst thing which can happen is that you noticeably modify the decoded timbre (brighter or darker) and, in extreme cases, you will completely eat/muffle the treble or (with the opposite setting) will do the sound too much bright and dynamically compressed so that it may begins to "pump" too much on the mid/bass but it would not change the distortion/power performances of the tape itself in a significant way (unless you're recording too much hot).
With the dolby B and a bit "creative" calibration these basic ferrics can be quite surprising.
But i am realizing that this stuff is completely off topic here... or, at least, it could fit better into a dedicate thread. (i guess i will start a new thread to explain with more details this one and also another "weird" trick with dolby B, in the near future)
Attached a picture of a not too common cassette, below.
CHEERS,
Vince.
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I always use this method since you pointed it to me and setting the tape for higher sensitivity always give best results using Dolby B indeed, i have my 2heads decks pre-tweaked in this sense already using tapes like Tdk SA or Sony HF for that so if i'll record a 400 HZ test tone the played recording will be 0.5 or 1 Db higher than it should be ... Dolby recordings are great and basic ferrics makes the party this way
