How I record my cassette tapes (The hard way). 

Personally it's the sound the amplifier make's when it's goes "plung" that does the trick. As far as I know it's a overheating relay that switches when things are 'cool'. The buzzing sounds of the media player is a bad fan, I should replace it but am a bit to lazy... Futhermore, you should check out his music, it's in the descr... ow never mind 😉

Thanks! Must admit sometimes it's a bit of a burden to start a new recording but that's mostly because I need to stay close to the deck while it's busy, can't risk something going wrong... But in the end it's worth the time holding a tape that you made yourself 😊 I remember the craze when CD's where getting popular, my parents bought loads of them, music, games and of course blanks. My dad used to run the computer 24/7 to 'ahum' borrow files from the internet and burn them to disks. We had stacks and stacks of discs both legal and... not. He used to sell the latter around town. Now the funny thing is, I still own the CD's my parents had back then, I copied them all to the computer and now use them to record them on tape. I actually started with tapes in 2007 because I did not had an mp3 player, but really wanted my own music collection, I could still buy them new from the electronics store. Dirt cheap of course! Even though I got my first mp3 not a year later, I still have those tapes and sometimes I got back to them and played them again. It's these tapes together with the vinyl resurgence that got me into this hobby in 2013.

I came BACK to cassettes cuz I like the way they roll off the high end, Like to record weird shit at weird speeds (a lot of "dictation-y" recorders have pitch control), and overdriven tape is much better sounding than clipped digital.

It's all about how much time you want to put into making a 'good' recording, if I wanted I could simply grab a average volume, press record and let the thing do it's job. Not to mention I already put in like 2 to 3 hours beforehand making the playlist before I can even start the physical part. BTW I also still burn CDR's but only to use them inside my car which still uses a CD-player.

I must admit I've been playing with tapes since 2007, though I remember them from when I was younger (turning 31 by end of this year). I also restore a lot of Hifi, almost everything you see in the beginning has been restored in the past. Buy it broken, pull everything apart, re-lubricate and replace what's necessary. For me it's the combination of music, tinkering and plain old devices that makes it worth my while. I actually don't even have a tuner in this setup, and never listen to radio anymore. Where I live, they mostly play contemporary commercial music, with lots of commercial breaks and hosts talking uninteresting stuff. Though I can still understand the idea of recording of the radio if it is worth the while. Especially with radio shows, they get lost to time easily! My 2007 tapes (which I did record of the radio) have a lot of nostalgic radio tunes and fact breaks from those days, even one silly advert which still makes me laugh. The tapes take me back to the days when I recorded them, which are a fond memory for me! Keep doing what your doing, it's nice to hear someone else's take on recording tapes in these days!

I would suggest one alteration, record the radio shows to digital first and then onto tape. That way you have a high quality original.

Thanks! I thought the same of it. Blends in well with the wood and metal (black) finish on the devices. Nice to hear you have a similar setup, what does it consist of may I ask?

Well about the tabs, I have so many good tapes laying around that I never re-record onto them once finished (unless the recording failed, but I keep the tabs in until I took a complete test with my headphones on). Otherwise I simply stick some tape over them and re-record anyways. The manual winding is sort of unnecessary, the deck in the video backwinds about a sec of playtime, it's more to gives me a precise indication on when I need to press record on the deck. For the warped beginning I use a intro music of around 11 seconds which mostly picks up on this problem and sometimes it even sounds pretty nice hearing the intro being warped and stretched only to come back to proper levels just before the music starts. What I do not like however if fast winding of my tapes, the physical winding on the spools always looks very bad and uneven afterwards, also sometimes the tape tends to slide a bit left and/or right pressing onto the film of the casing making it run very stiff or even getting stuck on the next playthrough. This Teac deck is a 3-head machine (not all of mine are though). Together with the bias setting make this my go-to deck for recording, I have a Pioneer CT-F1000 which still needs repairs, I like to also use this for recording in the future but that's something for later. I had one accidental re-recording when I hastily pressed both play an record at once on a cheap deck, probably pressed it so hard it went past the safety mechanics of the deck, I only realized it after a minute or so when I saw the record light burning faintly. So I'd rather remove the tabs anyways that let them be. To finish, manually adjusting the levels while recording gives me a more appreciated feeling, knowing I put so much effort in making them, opening my drawer of tapes and looking at them all knowing how many hours went into them warms me. It also make's me feel a bit scared knowing what all could go wrong when using them but that's the risk that goes into this hobby anyways.

@@tapehead-jeff You read my feelings. I too like the physical media, the fact that you have to take care of it and it will eventually wear out. Concerning the uneven spooling of cassettes I've never had seizures or hard turning problems because of it but I've found worn out seized slip sheets in pre-recorded cassettes. Even BASF cassettes with the Security Mechanism still spool quite unevenly. Probably the best evenly winding cassettes are the TDK SA from the 80s, the ones strewn with button bumps in their slip sheets, they spool very evenly despite not being obvious as they do not have a big window on the hubs.

hmm making on big Wav file is not that of a bad idea to do! Take's some time to set up but make's it easier to use when actually recording, also making it easy to set up spaces between the songs breforehand. I do however like to do it manually, it gives a tape that bit more feel to it when I finally get it out of my deck still warm from recording. Also when I open up my drawer of tapes and look at them warms my heart knowing how much time went into each of them :D Sorry for the late reply though, somehow I overlooked your comment! 'Groetjes terug' ;)

Because that's the hard way.

I've seen a video about some Beatles (master dupe?) reel lately, they had to re-spool them onto another hub anyways, but can understand why you would do something like that, even though cassette tape usually does not really have this problem the tape can get a little sticky after many years of not using it. I usually erase old stock before using so they have already been through a full playthrough when I start recording on them. Hence the small paper with the word "LEEG" (Dutch for empty) inside the cassette case at 10:00

Ja Helder, ehh clear, leuke video trouwens

@@giottodiotto1 Hahaha, Ja beda... Uuhm Thanks 😂

Yeah, I write them down every time, noticed that when you make a true mixtape (with different artists and songs) they vary greatly in level where with the same artist (as in this case) the levels don't really differ much. That last part is something I never thought about. I simply thought the formulation of the tape is the same both ways but nice tip! I'll keep that in mind the next time I record a tape!

We'll you can count me in, I got 3 'digital' flip-clocks and two* antique clocks of which you hear one ticking in the background. It used to be the driving mechanism of a church clock tower once. It's hard to show any picture via Google since it's unique. In large description: It's almost full brass with small steel parts to prevent heavy wear (like the anchor piece). It got no housing so only thing you see is the gears and braces, one massive leaded weight and the tailpiece. Furthermore there is a small enamel display to tell minutes and hours (which was actually used to know what the real clock on the tower was displaying). It still has a fork on top that used to drive the display on the clock tower, it has no use anymore but it's still there. I have to wind it up with a big 'key' which looks more like a crank in size. I can only wind it during daytime otherwise my housemates wake up by the clicking of the gears when I do so. Changing the speed is done by raising or lowering the weight of the tailpiece and changing the time is done by lifting a metal part on a spring that unlatches one specific gear and rotate it manually until time is correct again. Bought it from an antique store for a bargain since it was not working anymore, got it restored by a clock maker a year ago (which was no bargain). I have no clue one where it came from, it could have been local but it could also have been from somewhere far abroad. Only thing sure is that it's at least a 100 years old looking at the parts and how they are made. It has no chime btw, (I don't like that anyway). It's very nice to hear it tick when you go to sleep, some people hate it but it sounds like music to my ears. In short description however: If you know what steampunk is, this clock screams it! *I got another antique clock in storage which is interesting too but harder to describe, uses a steel ball on a seesaw, on every end of the swing it pushes onto a rod which makes the seesaw flip so the ball will slide to the other side (in a W shaped path) to push the other rod (and this continues until the spring is unwound). EDIT, I got two video's of the clock I made last year, I'll upload them and send the link in another comment under this one, give me a sec.

Here's a link to the video I just uploaded on this clock: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xYRBXYpO_JA.html

Grazie! 😁

Nice to hear someone else about using analog media in these days. What you say is true, no matter how good the source and tape is, there is always something that affects the quality of a recording. But in a sense that is what makes tape media so interesting to me. It can take a long time to fix and fine tune a player/recorder especially when they are very old! I also have multiple decks with different uses. My TEAC deck is used for recording (and playback sometimes). I have a Philips double deck for playback and a Pioneer deck which I intend to use for both recording and playback (still have to fix it). Besides that I have multiple other media types which I use a lot, both for recording and playback. Thanks for sharing your take on the story!

True, I like them for their ease of fixing, the mechanical parts show themself how they should work, figuring out how electrical parts works is a whole other thing. Also I noticed that way older machines sometimes still work without service while newer machines have to be completely overhauled to get even a bit of life out of them. Besides it's also much nicer to see, feel and hear the machine at work rather than with cold electronics being silent.

Why go through all the hassle when it is as simple as that indeed! 😋

Thanks! It took me a lot of time getting, repairing and setting up everything. I got more unusual stuff in storage and have another shelf waiting there too. When I finally gotten to buy my own home I want to fully display (and use) the entire setup! 😁

World wide web of course 😉 Ebay to be precise. Bought it in a neighboring country so the shipping expenses and risks are as low as possible. I had to completely overhaul it though since it was barely working on arrival

They come from Ikea, I think they still sell them (at least in my country), there are many different versions of the design as far as I know. I looked it up for you, the design name is "FJÄLLBO" search for this on their website, they indeed still sell them.

@@tapehead-jeff Thanks :)

Not really both, it's 3th party software in combination with some fiddling of my own to make it look and use like Win XP, though it still has the useful parts from win 11. I used Retrobar for the taskbar and OpenShell to overhaul the rest (loading bars, folder view etc.) I manually changed the sounds, pictograms and background as cherry on top. I also used Winaero Tweaker but not sure if any of those changes are still in effect. It does give a few bugs here and there in the explorer part of Windows but for the most of the time it works just fine.

Hi John

You have a sharp eye! Yes the tape is wound 'tight' by the machine even though I progress it manually (in this case it's a fruitless attempt by me). I still do it though, mostly to get a good approximation of the beginning of the tape. Which puts us to the second part about the beginning (and end) of the tape being bad. yes again, though I'm aware of that. That's why I use a intro that lasts around 11 seconds. This part not only catches the bad section but also give a example of the volume to adjust to when playing back. In the end it sounds nice to have an intro, it sort of gives the recording a little extra touch. The most funniest part however is knowing my friends now recognize the intro tunes after they heard them so many times over the years 🥲

Hahaha, I also find myself being less picky about 'the first bit of tape' when there's a clear intro to the music. Generally though, I like skipping that bit as it tends to get slightly worse over time as well. As for the rewinding; Pretty much any modern deck does that, so when I saw you do the manual winding, I thought to myself 'wait a second, that teac is going to...'. And then it did. Mostly using Aiwa AD-F800/810 here (absolute gems for the money and about as good as an entry level Nakamichi) and yup, they do it too. That said all NAK CR/DR/CassetteDeck series do it too. Makes sense, you don't want to know how many people put the tape in with tapeslack hanging out. And then they blame the medium :D. @@tapehead-jeff

@@rollingtroll I worked a lot with older 70's decks before going for this more modern take. On the older models you have to wind the slack out yourself so I'm a bit used to it. I went for the Teac not only because of it's design but also the Bias function which really gives a big difference in recording levels! The Aiwa AD-F810 does looks very nice too! Seems to have all the good functions that a deck should have!

I'm no recording expert, just an old guy who remembers that being a common practice 50 years ago when making a mix tape and wanting as little dead space as possible.

@@peterjohnson1734 But the deck rolls the tape forward as well, so he only added dead space. Better option would be to listen out for tape hiss and start recording from there ;).

That could ba an option, but the quality for duplication anywhere else is mostly mediocre at best. Where I live there is one dupe facility to do such thing but they can only duplicate to ferro (type I) tape which I do not really prefer.

Not to mention the many unnecessary clicks I make while waiting impatiently for the recording to finish :p

ты прав, это бесполезно, но я все равно это делаю

Almost, it’s Windows 11 with third-party software emulating Windows XP

If you try to imply that I did not use narration, no I'm not really the person to talk a lot, I'd rather let the video and sound do the work 😉 EDIT: to be honest, I find my English still contains a lot of Dutch accent in it, which I don't like.

@@tapehead-jeff You should not worry about your accent Jeff, we watch darts here. Barney, Michael Van G.♥️ Anyway, good luck👍🇬🇧👍

@@CdEmm50 Yeah if you hear them talk in what we call "stone-coal English" it sounds quite hilarious. My pronunciation is not bad, but when I make a video with narration I have to do it over multiple times just to get it right. I did made a video with narration nog long ago ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--MnJi59fcgs.html It's nog bad but I can do better though.

Well it comes down to the sound levels of the music I record onto the tapes. Sometimes the music comes from different sources, hence why I always write down the sound levels beforehand. Especially with mixtapes the sound levels can differ a lot. For this recording the difference was not that big though so it may have been unnecessary but since I'm used to it I did it anyway. The manual winding of the beginning (I must admit) is totally irrelevant, the deck winds it back on it's own and you can clearly hear the difference in noise for the lead in and the actual tape itself.

@@tapehead-jeff Ok, so if you're recording tracks from various sources, you'd set the levels for each individual track in the software of your choice as you're building the playlist. You'd make two playlists. One for side A and another for side B. The idea being that when the playlist is played back, the levels that you had set before hand should have them all at pretty much more or less similar levels. No need for pen and paper, let the software do the work! :) If you have a 3-head deck, you can make (very minor) adjustments and tweaks on the fly if need be. Cheers friend and happy taping.

@@summersky77 It sounds like to more logic thing to do yes, but there is a bit more nuance to it. I do make copies of my digital music and form a playlist beforehand, so leveling them should be possible, though I do not really have a simple program to quickly level all songs for both playlists. It would mean I'd had to adjust them on a program like audacity one by one, in which it's easier to do it on the fly when I'm actually recording them onto tape. Also (a more minor thing) it gives me more appreciation when I put in that bit of extra effort to sit out and adjust the levels while recording. On the other hand, when I would record 1, 2 or even 4 hour playlists (on reel to reel for example) it tends to be a bit much of a chore to sit it out. So in that case it would be easier to prelevel them. In the end I still have to stay close when recording and keep an eye out for if anything would go wrong in the proces... BTW, the Teac is a 3-head deck so what you hear on this video is live from the tape, though somehow the sound is very low (I can't put it to high for my housemates). Cheers to you and thanks for thinking with me!

@@tapehead-jeff Hey no prob, man. I have to respect your process because you've thought things out well. And the pride of effort put forth, well hey...that's a feeling we all enjoy, I'm sure. I hope you took my original jest as friendly ribbing. And you're welcome. All the best!

​@@summersky77 No, absolutely no hard feelings ment :) I actually find it nice to hear how other people's opinion about it. When I tell people about my hobby I'd like to compare it with other hobby's for instance "Some people like to tinker with cars, others tinker with dusty old cassette tapes" The effort and dedication is what make's it worth doing it for me, together with fixing the device's themself.