Greeting, I have search on google and youtube and checked many articles, including the sticky FAQ http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/the-cassette-faq.1468/ If someone can answer this, my question is the following, what type of tapes are used by profesionnal recording studios? in the 80s, in the 90s, and in the 2000s? is it ferric, is it chrome? metal? Type 1, 2, 3 4? Or is it the recording method that mathed more and not the tapes so much. And if ever you have a source I would like it but it is not necessary. I am new to tape, returning to tapes after almost 20 years. I noticed that my tape collections bought in music shops have no hiss and sound better than the type 1 tapes that I record on (TDK/ FUji) . I have a Pokemon OST, Emenem tape, and a Nut cracker classical music tape, they sound great. But when I play recorded tapes, and bootleg tapes (bought by accident thinking they were real) I get a hiss.
They would mostly be ferric due to cost issues. There are some chrome ones, and those are usually labeled as such on the j-card and/or on the shell itself. Metal pre-recorded cassettes are rarely made, due to cost & the capabilities of the duplicators. They are usually reserved for special editions/releases from audiophile oriented labels. And those fetch a good price these days.
I'm not sure I understand the question. @stuck-in-time is correct in that pre-recorded tapes were usually ferric or chrome. They would have been produced, often at very high speed, by a duplicating house. A shame this doesn't explain what is going on but fascinating stuff I already knew that the tape is usually recorded outside the cassettes, and then loaded into C-Zero cassettes which start out with just the leader installed. That is what the machine at 8:40 is doing. Back to the original question, most recording studios would have been using a high end multi-track reel to reel at high tape speed. The only cassettes you might have found there were Betamax. Literally CD quality as this is what the CD was based on. https://audiophilereview.com/cd-dac-digital/in-praise-of-the-sony-pcm-f1/
godfrey a lot of those pre-recorded cassettes are made using digital loop bins, hence the source of noise is the inherited hiss of the tape itself. Since the music is recorded digitally from digital loop bins, the noise is kept to a minimum. Have a look at Wiki's def here
@stuck-in-time I must have a lot to learn. I gather that, studio made albums are made on what is called (pre-recorded) I always thought pre-recorded was some sort of bootleg. @Longman I see, in a way the recording method is what provides that quality. Like you said they are recorded outside the type whereas I am recording on the cassette tape, moreover, on rather basic equipment. Thank you for the video, I will take a look @TooCooL4 Thank you for the information and the Wiki, I shall take a look Well my question is answered Thank you
The Pokemon cassette was recorded with Dolby Noise Reduction to reduce hiss. What are you playing it on? Does your tape player has Dolby NR? Do you record your own tapes with Dolby NR? Also, when you record them, is your recording level high enough? If not, then when you play it back and make it louder, noise also gets louder. You need to find a balance: too low recording level means additional hiss during playback, too high recording level means noticeable distortions and reduced frequency response. Other things play role too, like the best EQ and bias for a particular tape, but depending on the machine you have, you may not have a chance to do anything about it. I suppose (I don't know for sure, but I hope) that duplication facilities adjusted their duplicators for particular tape stock they were using. Also, what are you recording from? From another cassette, from an LP, from a CD? The cleaner your source audio, the better the recording will be. In the late 1980s duplicators started using fully digital mastering up until the point they would record it to tape. This significantly improved audio quality, in addition to using better tape like Cobalt-doped or Chrome. Early 1990s cassettes are the best.
@CDV I am quite empress, thank you for this information, it warm my heart to hear about pokemon i have no hiss from listening to pokemon I have no hiss from listening to real slim shady Emenem i get hiss from the bootlegs, and from the recordings i made i record and listen from the Mulann (mystik) B-1000 new walkman cassette (recording the masters) my recording source was my iPhone seven using the dongle for 3.5 mm. would pc recording be better? Now that I think about it, maybe the files were mp3 i really need to find myself a cassette set of the Fellowship of the ring audiobook in cassette unabridge (robert inglis) i dont know if the B-1000 records in audio or stereo? I do know it plays in stereo however as it has stereo head my tapes were type 1 fuji and tdk
I doubt the mulann b-1000 has dolby. When i get more money, a sony or aiwa would be nice to buy, if I am still enjoying tape
Mulann B-1000, also known as Panda B-119, recording on RTM Type I cassette - I would not expect much from this combination. You may want to watch this video, if you haven't yet: VWestlife also noticed more hiss than normal. Also, it has automatic recording level control, which is not great if your music has high variability in audio level. It does not have line input. This is not the best recording machine, to say the least. If you don't have a bunch of tapes that you want to listen, I suggest switching to CDs - there are tons of cheap CDs around, and you can buy a high-quality used portable CD player for around $20.
Interesting, I did not know it was also called the Panda. I think I do not mind, however, now the hissing is not a mistery as you and the video have showed me. The reason I used tape is to be able to listen to audiobook at night without blue light flashing and also for the item to remember where I left up which is mechanically done on a tape. I do not know if a cd player can remember as quickly as on tape where I was at, like a bookmark. Iphone and mp3 player can do this but I have to deal with blue light. Moreover, I like to listen to some old tape that I have. I am nevertheless very glad to know the origin of the hiss and the limits of the B-1000. I am interested to get a sony or aiwa, provided that I want to go further with tapes. The fact that I want to buy aiwa or sony already refurbished do mean that it can cost me a lot of money. probably 150-300$ I gather, if already refurb and repaired?
I gather that new CD player have similar audio quality to old ones? Which is not the case for cassette player because the new mechs are cheaply made?
Not all pre-recorded tapes that have the Dolby System written on them and the Dolby double D logo were necessarily encoded with Dolby B. Some were just recorded with HX Pro (a technique that uses sliding bias to improve the headroom) for compatibility with boomboxes and walkmans and car players which did not have Dolby B NR decoding capability, since HX Pro is an encode-only process. HX Pro is a trademark of Dolby Laboratories, so it's also considered a Dolby System. I record at a level a little bit below the point where distorsion starts to increase significanly, in order to have the maximum signal-to-noise ratio possible, but without too much compromise in the other areas. Depending on the tape stock, I use Dolby B or Dolby C noise reduction as well. Some entry-level type Is, like BASF Sound I or SONY HF will only sound decent with Dolby C, because they're very hissy. The very good ones might not need Dolby at all. Of course, this decision does also depends on the type of music recorded: music with a lot of quiet passages will require a higher SNR in order to sound decent. When making Dolby recordings it's important to have the machine calibrated: playback levels, record levels and bias. Even if we make the presumption that most machines were perfectly calibrated at the factory (which is not entirely true), head wear will make readjustments necessary. For the best EQ and bias for particular tape, you need a high end deck that allows coarse bias and REC sensitivity adjustment (like the Nakamichi Dragon, Revox B-215, etc.). However, a well calibrated deck/cassette recorder will perform good enough for most tapes even without making these adjustments perfect. As for the EQ, what's important is to play it on the same EQ it was recorded on (as most decks will only have fixed 120us/70us selectors). Most pre-precorded tapes that use chrome tape stock, for example, were recorded with an 120us EQ for compatibility reasons. In 2021, I really don't see the point of recording from anything else than a digital source (even a lossy mp3 320 kbps will have better SNR than a cassette or vinyl record). This is going to be influenced by the device used to play that digital file; a good sound card, DAC or a DAP will produce better sound than the output jack of an entry-level laptop.
That is a debate that would need a thread all to itself. Back to pre-recorded tapes, those were the ones Record Companies whated you to buy. Have a look at this interesting animated graphic, especially around the mid 1980s when most people had several cassette decks including one in the car. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/anim...ded-music-sales-by-format-share-1973-to-2019/ I actually learnt something while researching pre-recorded cassettes. I had read in an old article that video cassettes always had to be copied in real time. However it turns out that Sony got High-Speed copying to work reliably and ended up with 90% of the market for this type of machine. http://www.digitrakcom.com/TechDocs/SONYsprinter.pdf In the video forum where I read about these someone described setting up a factory in Brazil with 100 of these machines.
@Longman - this would be a seriously heated debate of differences between "Perfect Sound Forever" different spinners, but maybe not here... I got 'converted' from my inbred idea that all digital is just 0 and 1 mantra by sitting and listening at Linn and Naim Audio dealers in Chicago: once I managed to get over the price-tags on their offerings and start listening, that was a turning point in my $$$-spending Nowadays, a generation later, we have some extra insights into jitter and whatnot that affects 0-es and 1-es into being transformed onto Music... but being able to sit, relax, and just Listen is all you need to realize that Rega Planet makes better music than my favorite Discman! this would be the very first time since FOREVER when I totally disagree with my favorite S2G-oer: why would anyone gets into the pains of paying serious $$$ for a well-calibrated Nak deck to have the questionable pleasures of making a tape off a digital source??? You can save $$$ and keep that original beauty 'original' by playing it from your iPhone or a $1k DAC. @Valentin kinda answered my Q to S2G-oers from many moons ago, but I will stick to my own point that the only reason for investing into a decent Nak deck is when you have friends with LPs you can not afford to buy; and your main stereo allows you to hear the difference between the Best of digital and the Best of Analogue. Like the 'lowly' setup by @TooCooL4 (this Dude is Soo cute by saying that his a mid-fi setup!) or my own TOTL Naime-ed LP12... For when I had unlimited funding for my hobby, I did not find a digital front-end which would better 'King Super Analogue' LPs spinned on Linn Sondek... For when I went cheap on the seats at LA Opera, I wished I had stayed at home and never tortured myself at LA traffic!!!
@Jorge I understand your point of view, I think if I pour more money into this hobby I may have a similar one in the future. At this point my collection lacks any truly high end analogue stuff, but has some decent digital sources (including the lossless/uncompressed music), so I try to give tapes the best that I have. Vinyls records of good quality were not that common where I live, it's something that has become common in the past 15 years or so; I only have a very small collection and a low-end turntable. If I would have what @TooCooL4 has, the situation would be completely different. You make me wish to invest a lot more in this hobby !
