Recording to VHS

I think the theory was, you could record more tracks on a VHS tape with better results. Those old fostex tascam porta studios that ran on standard audio taped were garbage when it comes down to quality for the most part. I mean they are and were very affordable and they opened doors for bands who wanted to do a bit of recording in the jam studio... but you would never in your wildest dream use them for anything official or remotely professional sounding.

I find it funny how now days you see people curious about tape and they use things like "warm and thick sounding" or "that rugged bumping tape sound" ... back in the days of cassette we welcomed cd because less noise and the thought of simple regular cd quality just made sense. Even the most hi fi of the most hi fi tape decks still suffered from the downsides to running tapes.

It is amazing that we no longer have to rely on tapes and now we can puts around with it for fun and nostalgia and at the end of the day we have our digital noise free setups that dont require new tape and constant cleaning.

I'm going to research this a little more when I get to the crib. The are some benefits to tape name the signal to noise ratio. I can agree with what mr. debauch said about using cassette. It's simply not wide enough in my opinion and should not be viewed as a viable alternative to 2".

I hear of people using hi-fi VCR systems to record to a VHS format. I was looking around and something concerns me: compression. Isnt it true that most vcrs have an automatic compression as you wont be able to you levels at all?

slomough wrote:I'm going to research this a little more when I get to the crib. The are some benefits to tape name the signal to noise ratio. I can agree with what mr. debauch said about using cassette. It's simply not wide enough in my opinion and should not be viewed as a viable alternative to 2".

I hear of people using hi-fi VCR systems to record to a VHS format. I was looking around and something concerns me: compression. Isnt it true that most vcrs have an automatic compression as you wont be able to you levels at all?

I think if you mean VCR multi track recorders, you would only record at the highest gain without clipping anyways and then mix down the playback to either record onto standard demo cassettes or what ever you plan on doing with the recording.

you aren't going to hand anybody a 4 track recording... haha, because cassette decks only use half the tape.

AntonPD wrote:

dj e.d.e wrote:cause it is tape! are you using a 4head vhs, those sound better,also use good tapes,new tape it helps out. clean the heads too before recording
i usually record to vhs when i play on the radio,pop in a 6hr tape and let it record.

you got remember your not in the digital world when using tape ,you get a nice warm sound thick,not thin like digital.

could you compare it to somewhere between audio cassettes and 'regular' tape? is it possible to record 'hot'? do you know how the circuitry is laid out, no filters or NR or something?

vhs also looks quite easy to use...

i dont know what 'tape-y' is.. its just a feeling i get. probably because of learning the association through watching youtube, and noticing that particular sound always was from videos

not sure ,if the the 4 head recorder is dbx i havent usede mine in a while, my studio needs remodeling again .i got 2reel to reels that i need to set up as well