i love guerrilla audio processing.
cassette is great to me for two reasons - effect and immediacy. in regards to the latter, i have a two track set up at all time from the tape out of the mixer and its dead easy to just reach over and hit record - no need to load programs, boot equipment, plug wires, set inputs - just click and go.
as for effect, i think the best thing to do would be try for yourself don't be afraid to go crazy with it. try soft signals, but the real hard-to-replicate tape fx comes when you drive it all a little harder than you should.
karl blau has some memorable insight when he says that "driving tape too hard can sometimes make the tape sound like hand grenades. its more forgiving than digital because when you overload digital you get unpleasant clipping but when you overdrive tape you can get something beautiful like hand grenades".
you have to watch it though because there is a fine line between tape saturation and totally losing the signal and low bass disappearing...stuff like that.
another important thing to consider is that the quality gets more complicated because its going to rely on the tape and the machine - and both come in a thousand different flavors. i mean you can get a beater tape machine that's noisy and has no low end but gives amazing crunch on snare drums, all the way to machines + tape that is quiet, clean, and adds a nice glue to the overall sound.
those 4-track cassette machines are usually a bit better because they run at higher speeds and have some sort of noise reduction happening.
i don't have much experience with vcrs, but not being able to record without a video signal sounds whack - like a weird 'feature' that some decks have.
i think the idea is that it's slightly better than cassette, but only in special cases and then, its not like worlds better. i always say, try it out, if you like it, roll with it. id love to hear some drums run to vcr real hard - do share when you get around to trying.
regarding vcr here's a blurb from the first google result i found at
http://homerecording.com/vhs.htmlSo if you have a DAT, a good hard-disk recorder, a CD burner, a MiniDisc recorder, or anything like that, don't waste your time with VHS...use them instead! And the other thing...don't run out and buy a VCR just for this...it's not that great and you're better off saving up for a DAT or an audio card. But if you happen to have one around already...
This technique only works with HiFi VHS VCR, not with a regular VCR. HiFi VHS has excellent signal-to-noise ratio and amazing wow and flutter characteristics (for analog tape, anyway). That's because it's clocked by the video signal, and recorded with the video at the same time (it's not digital, though). The ordinary "linear" tracks are recorded separately using Dolby, but aren't much better than a regular cassette.
The only problem is that if you have a dropout, you're sunk...ever watch a rental movie and have it switch from the HiFi audio track to the linear audio track? That's a dropout and there's no way to recover from it, other than the fact that the linear tracks are still there, so you can always get your mix back from them.
Also, many inexpensive HiFi VCRs have automatic compression on the audio tracks, which means you don't set the level, it's automatic. This might be actually a good thing if you don't own a compressor, but people have reported "pumping" and other weird artifacts, so the best kind is one with an actual level control.
Anyway, the whole idea is that you do your stereo mixdown to the VCR directly. On some VCRs you have to record a video signal simultaneously or nothing will happen (just keep your antenna hooked up), and you usually have to set your VCR to "aux" or "ext" input to get the audio from your 4-track rather than from TV.
so i think it's worth trying and if it works in your set up, thats awesome. but its not for everybody.
