Producing a Song Entirely on a Cassette Recorder 

Is mono cassettes became popular... than we would have 4 hour cassettes and CD wouldn't be able to complete with the time

Mike Oldfield became world famous with his production of Tubular Bells, a 45 minute long song created from just this same process.. You know it as the theme to the exorcist.

Stereo tape makes the tape wider not longer

That was freaking amazing can you listen to it while you're adding tracks ?

@@72marshflower15 Fyi: Tubular bells was recorded on a professional Ampeg 2" 16 track machine (i think it was a MM1000 model). It involved more than 250 overdubs and thousands of punch-ins, that could only be done with these very robust and precise broad tapes. The first demos before the start were produced on 4-track 1/2" tape to develop the recording schemes.

same

Same here

Agreed!

+1

me too 😂

It sounds like a demo

​@@UltraCodex66 "maybe music doesn't need to be so overproduced" ...

This song could use a little bit of working, but as some of his friends said, it feels human, it feels natural, and I really like that.

Exactly, although I'd argue that an 8-track would be more reasonable. That way you can mic kick, snare, x2 overheads, x2 drum room, bass amp and x2 guitar amps in one take ("live" of the floor) and then be able to add the vocals, harmonies, solos and other smaller stuff afterwards (keys, percussion, sound FX, etc.) Nothing sounds as good as rhythm track where everyone's playing together and playing of eachother, especially recorded to tape and using analog effects

Great song

that was a very comment

@@ailyas3556 That was an extremely reply

@@Deuce_B a pretty response

@@benjs.mp4 That retort is certainly constructed.

Bro I feel you I’m high too lmao

Really? I call it dull and muddy. Even the 1/2" tapes sound inferiour in comparison to a digital master. Had to live with that kind of 'studio' for some years (the money ..) in the 80s and hated it. Best experience (not): You have everything finished and then the tape is scrambled while rewinding. Congratulations! Go to start and try again! Everyone who used these things at the time would never want to go back to this crap. If You really like that muddy sound, take a good recording and use Your EQ to smash it. ;-)

So, that was the "fatness" everyone used to talk abour, referencing analog recording. Cool. It sounds great.

@@dalrok Well, that's just like...your opinion. Man.

@@stinghouseproductions8502 Yes, it is my opinion, and is based on my experience as a musician who used these machines in the 80s and years of studio work. Starting with the Fostex X-15, Tascam 246 we soon took a mortgage and switched to a used Teac 80-8 8-track tape & Revox B-77 2-track for mastering. Later we got a Studer A800 MKIII 16-track 2" & Tascam 32-2 until 2019, when we switched completely to digital, after working in parallel with digital (RME) IFCs. We sold them, because even the bands, that came because we had the analog machines, only wanted the digital mixes, when played to them in blind A/B, because they had so much better dynamics and transparency than the analog ones despite the high quality of our analog equipment. We still do our mixes the same style we did for analog, no 'compression wars'. So they sound like analog on steroids and the bands like them. I'd never want to go back to cassettes with their heavy crosstalk and muddy 'fat' sound (that You can expect from a tape, where 4 tracks have only .15" in total at a comparatively slow speed of max. of 3 IPS in comparison to a 2" 16-track (where a single track has .125") at high speed 7.5-30 IPS.

​​@@dalrokdude I made music on 4-track cassette recorders for years. I love the sound. When I listen to my old stuff from the early 90s, it sounds so deep. Sure, there were limitations (like bouncing tracks down from 3-traks to 1-trak to get more tracks, the ever-present low-level hiss, syncing recorded tracks with what you were recording into open tracks, etc.) Those limitations brought out innovation. An example is discovering how to get intense, ducking-style compression by using radio shack Y-adapters and pushing the levels of the 2 inputs hard, adding distortion pedals, etc. I got an incredible sound that could NEVER be recreated or emulated on my DAWs, through my attempts to get more input channels.

Lmao light gang

Even with unlimited tracks bouncing is useful because my CPU _is_ limited. Saves a lot of lag to bounce a group of tracks with memory intensive plug-ins when the settings are all set & they don’t need to be doin their tingtang in real time 🤷🏽‍♂️

Using Reaper I don’t have such limitations but that seems like a good idea to prevent me from chasing my tail around the mix... Thanks!

Do the same things, but on the PC

Same here man!! 😂

I could not agree more!

also makes a BIG difference to use a mic pre-amp with a compressor built in.

Great advice. Thank you!

ALL OF THIS IS TRUE. Such a pain in the ass, lol. Aficionados out there, no offense but I dont miss it 🙂

Right! Record hot! But check out my other post for reverb options.

We are twins dude! I did the same thing. SOS Between 2 decks. But I had Dolby B and later had 2 cassette decks with Dolby C. Expensive Metal tapes kept the top end present. Those recordings from 1986 - 1995 blow me away. No hiss and they good sound. Thanks for sharing. I stereo miked those pans and posts. I used a wall as kick or just the floor with my fist. I made my own electric guitar. Took a $3 Radio Shack mic and through it into the guitar sound hole. Right to the bottom. The mic got plugged into an old Sony portable quarter inch mono RTR. I would then turn the recording level all the way up until it was nothing but distortion. Then I would mic the RTR speaker and record that. Great sound. I made bass just like you did except with the $3 mic thrown in to the sounding hole. The mic would exaggerate those bass frequencies. I got a real 1960's boomy bass sound. The bass was recorded direct. The output of the RTR went to a Radio Shack 5 band equalizer where I would turn down the 1, 3 and 10 khz frequencies, but turn up 60 and 240 hz all the way up to +10 db.

That’s how my brother and I did it in the late 70s/early 80s. But we used two old dictation-style tape recorders.

Prove it

I didn't have a drum machine, I used to use a suitcase as my bass drum and a cardboard box as a snare, I used to use my clock a lot to help me know how much time I had recorded, we had no tech but we still made countless cassettes of 4 track music

@@valley_robot prove it

Actually these days vintage gear gets more love than ever. Stuff like tape noise what was considered a negative side effect is actively searched for. Who ever hates old gear cause it's old has no clue of making music

RU-vid is full of videos of young people playing with old tech. The stuff is cheap on eBay (except for the old tech that's actually good).

Excellent. .. many Souvenirs !

Well I am older than the unit and still deeply grateful we moved on ...

@King of Iron Fist You edit video using a razor blade and tape?

Totally agree! The taping continues...

@Lil Yeet what do you mean

Would be great to hear some of your music! N if you feel the need to sell some of those high bias cassettes I’m all for it haha

Jpc I’m in my 60s, I have had a similar journey , lol. I love my (what I now have) , a Yamaha MT, which is the most hi fi cassette rig ever. Don’t eschew the new, I have plugins of tube compressors and classic 60s tape rigs which get you as lo fi and analog as you could ever want, plus there’s extra features you can dick around with not possible in “analog nature”, such as changing the pitch of 1 track without affecting the others, and 100s of wild capabilities. Reaper has a demo you’re supposed to pay for, but not required, and they don’t gay down anything, the demo version is identical to the paid version. You may be missing out on more adventure and crazy expressive possibilities than you realize. Try it, man, then if u don’t like it, nobody gets killed, or Little Susie’s puppy won’t die, etc

Chrome (high bias) tapes make a huge difference on 4 tracks.

@@mandelbro1 Thanks for your reply! Will do!

Go and do it. You don’t have to impress Gene Simmons, just express.

@@gwugluud why would you want to impress Gene Simmons? ;^)

They’re around 300 great machines tho

No compatibility issues, no viruses, no updates that break things, no having to deal BOTH your recorder AND all the things that go wrong on a computer. And most important, you can QUICKLY get down those moments of inspiration before they disappear. No matter how rough, a good idea won't be lost while you fiddle with a computer. If you can get by with 4 tracks, a LOT less hassle!!!!

I worked all summer, saved up $500 and had my friend's dad buy a Fostex 4-track recorder on his credit card. My parents wouldn't do it because they thought it was a waste of my money. Long story short, our band recorded a record, dubbed 50 copies and sold them at school to our friends. 1997 was the beginning of my DIY recording career. Small time stuff. Still doing it. Ha

Yup. The Tascam 424.

@@BernieRunnsCool story 🤟

Having heard your demo in the Discord, I have to disagree with the shity-ness

@@mandelbro1 haha well I mean, I wouldn't really be an artist if I didn't think my stuff lowkey sucks but somehow is the greatest shit ever

Completely disagree. This kid has mad talent. Lyrics, playing, his whole sound is rich. Then he does the Portastudio. WOW!

Shity? Sound of the 80s, I still prefer it.

@@mandelbro1 I'm a gen Z who would really like to record on that kind of machine

There certainly a real struggle with these formats, but the extra focus that it necessitated from you must have had a positive impact on your performance

I could bounce tracks on mine but after you bounce two tracks into one, you were stuck with it. No undo :)

Thanks! I agree

Love this

Fcuk perfectionism, just create 😃

Oh as a Gen Z , I definitely want to buy it for my band!

What buzzing?

First off, very cool vid. I'm personally interested in more videos à la "making a song using only...". For example, that little drum machine. Can you make a song just with that and vocals?

i am interested in more stuff about songwriting, like songwriting essentials...

This was freaking sick!

Songstuctures simple and complex and the balance between having too much variation or too little in a section

I took all my old 4 track recordings and imported them into my daw ( desktop audio workstation lol ) now , i can add more tracks digitally. What ends up happening is amazing.

My pleasure :D

I forgot to add the days of quadrophonic albums and mixes on other playback deceives the reel to reels and even the 8 track cartridge recorders were 4 track machines just labeled as left and right front and left and right rear. Anyway my dislikes of the 424MKIII which I had to fix were the transport buttons that failed after heavy use but I modified with some extra plastic to make them spring back up and easy touch and the single motor drive which stays running constant when the unit is powered up. I also modified that by putting a micro switch between one of the leads that powered it. That way the belt and motor can be off and the mixer on while you premix inputs prior to recording.

Or pass your music to a audio engineer @kbquest_ on insta to do it for u. 🙂 (FREE PROMOTION FREE REAL ESTATE FOLKS)

Oh lovely cover, man. Beautiful soft harmonies!

The Beatles recorded sgt pepper on a four track

So did thousands of other artists.

Thank you so much 😊

TDK made some of the best tapes available actually, in different price ranges. The channel "Cassette comeback" makes nice videos about cassettes, demonstrating many different brands and types. ru-vid.com/show-UC5yaZs2wSx-uqnXBkWmyqBQ

"The Dark Knight" audio cassette

The TDK type 2 SA had a great price to performance ratio. It was my favorite brand and model back when i was in middle school in the early 90's. I recorded classic 1970s Rock, old school Hip Hop and R&B on those at the time. When i was in High School my taste changed in music and i discovered Grunge and Metal music. I decided to try one of my father's 1989 era TDK type IV MA audio cassettes. What a world of difference. I noticed greatly reduced WOW and Flutter especially on my inexpensive portable players (Lennox Sound and Windsor.) I used audio cassettes till 2003. After i purchased my first digital audio player (Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox 3) i Stopped using audio cassettes. Back in 2016 i revisited the audio cassette after purchasing a modified 1986 released Fisher Price PXL-2000 video camera. I find it so interesting to be able to not just hear but to also physically see via a recorded video stream the quality differences between audio cassette formulations, brands, country of manufactures and release years. That video camera is sort of like the ultimate stress test for audio cassettes. For example the tape speed is incredibly fast, faster than any high speed duplication dual deck. The audio tape in general was never designed to be recorded onto at such a high speed. There is a small margin for tape ribbon imperfections which can be seen in the recorded video (lower resolution, moire patterns and visible artifacts.) I would love to make a RU-vid video about this but there are more than enough videos on the Fisher Price PXL-2000 video camera.

Couldn’t have said it better myself

Ok Boomer

Right on! I bought Tascam 414 because I hate recording in a DAW. I also despise the overproduced mentality of today's music. Real human music has feel and well... sometimes mistakes. But that's what makes it interesting.

@@YellowJelloMusic You guys sound like morons. You can record on a daw exactly the same way as on a 4 track recorder. Just don't over produce it. It's not hard. You're just a hipster.

Don't think anyone can make the robotic/quantized argument given that the biggest hits of the 80s were very much produced, played with sequencers, triggers, and drum machines like the Linn Drum and LM-1 which feature *automatic quantizing*.

nice to see all these people comment on this, music brings people together no matter the age range

@Busta Speeker who hurt you?

I believe this machine has a 10 kHz shelf and a 100 Hz shelf, which are amazingly useful. So useful, that I will often limit myself to these EQ adjustments even in a modern production (if well-recorded)

And get vaccinated

@@boddhiswaha5446 worst part

Punks have been saying this for decades. Don't rely on consumerism; use what you have.

to rely on what i have or to produce what i have i have to have bought or "consumed" first this what i have , its what economists have said for years