VHS recorder

Is there any point in recording drums\samples or even whole track to vhs casette? Will it saturate sound like usual sound casette?
I can get some really old vhs recorder\player.. main thing is - it made in ussr and called ЭЛЕКТРОНИКА

No, there is no point. For reasons already mentioned here:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=134532

Yes.

If you want a type of tape sound a VHS or Beta will give it to you. Be warned, it is not quite the same as cassette or reel to reel. Depending on the make etc... and quality of the signal routing. However you want to find a pretty nice older one for best effect. Older ones that have meters to let you see the level of the incoming signal are perfect. You can see when and how hard you are hitting the tape. And they are not as great as a reel to reel, which you can find pretty cheap nowadays. Of course if you are just putting samples on and then resampling, a tape recorder will work too. Anything you use to process your audio is going to leave its own particular mark.

You can actually get a decent master off a VCR if you don't have anything else. A VCR with input meters can actually sound better than a cassette player. But if the player is a Nakimichi and the VCR is a Sanyo or something then I would go for the better quality. And a caveat is most VCR's need a video signal or they won't print to tape. However you can line in an old playstation just showing the intro screen or something. Or do what my friends and I do sometimes, record a movie on the video part of the tape while printing your audio to the audio part. Fun results, new soundtracks!

Also, keep in mind, if you are doing this just for you, it is great. But if you are archiving I would use a friendlier format as the VCR isn't something that a lot of places will have. Wouldn't it suck if someone came up with what they said was an awesome recording of their band but they needed a Beta with this kind of signal coding to read it?

If you want to experiment, do it! There is nothing lost by trying new stuff and seeing what happens. It is nice to ask people for their advice, but it is up to an individual to try some stuff out themselves. Who knows, maybe you can't use it for the reason/s you originally had in mind, but what if you stumble across some other nice way to utilize it? One of my favorite uses for an old VCR is in my live setup. I have scads of tapes that I have random stuff recorded on. I just hit record for whatever amount of time seems right on some news or religious show or whatever then I rewind or FFW the tape and record other stuff. Eventually the tape becomes full of random audio, makes for a nice background soundscape or random samples. Have found some cool melodies from snippets of a few shows jammed together then filtered.

EDIT : Experimenting should never be underestimated. For example, I know that the VCR prints the audio to one edge of the tape, the rest is used for the video signal. So I cut a length of VHS into a cassette width size and made a loop cassette with it. With the audio part of the VHS in the cassette you get the audio. But when you run a strip with video encoding...oohhh...NOISE! HNW type stuff. Really nice. I would not have found this without doing it and it was fun. So, in case I haven't said it enough. Experiment!

Have fun!

http://www.myspace.com/vhshead

oh thank you guys. if it will be no difference between original and resampled stuff, i will use the recorder just like standalone recorder..

drabbuh wrote:http://www.myspace.com/vhshead

Sick, some nice morning listening to be had

Well. As has been mentioned. Unless you suspect it is a pretty high end VCR with meters for you to monitor your input signal, you may want to look into a friendlier format if you are just using it for archiving. Why not just get a dual deck cassette recorder? Then you can make dubs of your recordings. But trying to do it on VHS means you will have to keep that player in order to have the right playback.

Or even better a stand alone dedicated recording device? You should be able to find a 4 track, reel to reel, or DAW on ebay or pawn shops for pretty cheap.

However if you are broke and the VCR is cheap/free and you just need something then go for it. It will be a great confidence builder to be able to hear your mixes back. Just keep your eye out for a better way to record.

Archiving on an obsolete format are we?

Archiving is meant to "preserve for the future". VHS machines are now LEGACY FORMATS. They are being phased out. Even if you were to go digital, you have only 14-16-Bits of DR and the degrading luminance signal to deal with.

Am I missing something here? As an experimental tool - yeah sure, why not. Whatever floats your boat (if you enjoy dropouts and glitches to your recordings, that is).

But as a way of securing your recordings for future playback?

Why not write your memoirs on some biodegradable toilet paper while you are at it?

Get yourself a computer and a soundcard and record your mixes in lossless PCM.

Shostakovich wrote:Why not write your memoirs on some biodegradable toilet paper while you are at it?

dude's in russia

mr_debauch wrote:

Shostakovich wrote:Why not write your memoirs on some biodegradable toilet paper while you are at it?

dude's in russia

So what's your point? They don't have toilet paper in Russia?

"you may want to look into a friendlier format if you are just using it for archiving. Why not just get a dual deck cassette recorder? Then you can make dubs of your recordings. But trying to do it on VHS means you will have to keep that player in order to have the right playback. "

And maybe dude's poor right now. You know, no money?

As I said, if that's the case, then whatever will work is what he should do. But if he can afford it, something else would be better.

EDIT :

And, to be very clear. There is NO format that is safe from degradation. Absolutely none. And most especially NOT computers. Geez, with the # of things to wrong with a computer...I am happy to have something dedicated. The real advantage of computers is ease of copying. But if you can afford it, keeping your important files etc. on one medium is foolish. Much better to have a couple of mediums or at least a couple of drives.

Shostakovich wrote:

mr_debauch wrote:

Shostakovich wrote:Why not write your memoirs on some biodegradable toilet paper while you are at it?

dude's in russia

So what's your point? They don't have toilet paper in Russia?

you said it not me


but on a serious note, I think the idea of the VHS player would be more of an effect rather then for actual storage. And honestly I dont know how it would turn out since I have never tried that... could have some neat results. for sure though, save on your computer after.

way back in the day i used to record my music to vhs all the time. i've still got hours and hours of it and it still plays fine. if you use a good quality hi-fi vcr, and good quality tapes recorded at the slowest (sp) speed, the quality is very close to DAT.

if you were short on cash, this was a great way to get lots of high quality recording time for cheap back in the day. nowdays just recording to hard drive would be cheaper and easier.

as far as getting special 'sound' out of vhs, you have to go in the opposite direction: record on crappy gear using the lowest quality setting (ep). you can also intentionally damge the tape or mess with the tracking as it plays back for that 'warbly' sound. you wont really get any tape saturation or analog-style warm sounds out of it, tho.

im not going to archive tracks on VHS, ill use it just for recording, when recording done, i will turn VHS back to the digital using my mpc. i could use my PC for that but there is 5 meters betwen my pc and mpc, so its not really possible to use pc as recorder.

drabbuh wrote:http://www.myspace.com/vhshead

nice