Tascam To Release New Cassettes For Portastudio

[Shane_B.]

15 hours ago, Tim Smith said:

You would get along well with a friend of mine 40 years working on copiers. At least they haven't all gone away. We had an electrical parts supplier right down the street and we kept some stock. They had almost everything there but occasionally we had to order it. When I worked in the A/V and stereo shop it was a cool job because you could listen to music all day on nice stereos and get paid for it and they brought some really high end gear into that shop. I then went to two way radio from there because it payed better with govt. contracts and all. Police and fire all need it. Then I made a really big jump to climate controls and HVAC. That trade was 80% electrical. Now it's probably more like 90% electrical. I paid my dues and now I work with Automated Logic (owned by Carrier) as a user of their software to manage large installations remotely.. I mean LARGE installations. I manage probably one of the largest in my area with thousands of points. It was ARCNET but is migrating their new hardware to IT based control. 

It's really rare to find a guy who has been a copier repair tech for that long. The toner and developer dust, not to mention the chemicals we used daily, usually caused illness or they had enough of being on the road constantly and dealing with pissed off customers and quit. I did it for over 20 years and I've only ever known three guys who made it to retirement. One made it to 62 and the other two retired early in their mid 50's.

Wow! I haven't heard the term ARCNET in decades. I seem to remember having to get certified to be able to install ARCNET based P.O.S. systems way way back in the very early 90's when they were all starting to switch from their proprietary wiring systems to a 'standard' networking system.

I'm glad you are still working and have moved up. I'm very lucky that my wife found her dream job in the middle of all the chaos 10 years ago. I could go back in to copiers but I don't want to drive here in the KC metro. I'm trying to get in to a factory about 20 minutes from my house but they told me I was overqualified and not to apply again. I hounded them for a couple months. That was a very long time ago. They have huge signs out front along the highway saying they are hiring full and part time again and I'm going to stop in. Maybe there's a different person hiring now and they won't remember they already told me not to come back. LOL. I want something where I'm on my feet moving, not sitting driving. Anything but retail. Uhg.

 

[telecode 101]

wow.. good god. i would never use a tape cassette portastudio. have tapes at least gotten a little more reliable in 2020?

 

when is the shellac cutter coming out? i want to do the thing where i have to stick the little plastic bobby in the middle again.

 

Edited January 4, 2022 by telecode 101

[telecode 101]

On 1/3/2022 at 10:08 AM, Bapu said:

It might be fun to break put the PortaStudio One and create a song on it and only it. Just like the old days.

Nah!

Do it!! make thy Beatles masterpiece. George Martin did it..

[Tim Smith]

2 minutes ago, Shane_B. said:

It's really rare to find a guy who has been a copier repair tech for that long. The toner and developer dust, not to mention the chemicals we used daily, usually caused illness or they had enough of being on the road constantly and dealing with pissed off customers and quit. I did it for over 20 years and I've only ever known three guys who made it to retirement. One made it to 62 and the other two retired early in their mid 50's.

Wow! I haven't heard the term ARCNET in decades. I seem to remember having to get certified to be able to install ARCNET based P.O.S. systems way way back in the very early 90's when they were all starting to switch from their proprietary wiring systems to a 'standard' networking system.

I'm glad you are still working and have moved up. I'm very lucky that my wife found her dream job in the middle of all the chaos 10 years ago. I could go back in to copiers but I don't want to drive here in the KC metro. I'm trying to get in to a factory about 20 minutes from my house but they told me I was overqualified and not to apply again. I hounded them for a couple months. That was a very long time ago. They have huge signs out front along the highway saying they are hiring full and part time again and I'm going to stop in. Maybe there's a different person hiring now and they won't remember they already told me not to come back. LOL. I want something where I'm on my feet moving, not sitting driving. Anything but retail. Uhg.

 

The repair person I am referring to claims he put over 1500 miles on his truck every month. Apparently he worked in a lot of government facilities. If the chips had fallen in another direction I might have ended up in that line of work.

ARCNET is still in use believe it or not. Works great for these applications with each unit having a board with all the points in it. The buildings have hundreds of units. Every board has an address and it's own program that ties into the main interface. Only recently have they started to move to IT based control for these systems. I don't think this is as good. Now you need a router and the addresses have to be changed externally to make IT happy. If the IT system goes, so does the control. The boards can operate autonomous. The main issue right now is the chip shortage. Other than that ARCNET is simple, stable and it works for this very well. With ARCNET I can still link up remotely to the server and see everything. Everything is a branch and we have hundreds of branches.

I hope you can find something you like. If not, it wasn't mean't to be. You seem to be keeping busy enough. Your wife works. Looks like you're ok. I've been using my standing desk here because sitting all day isn't healthy. I'm gaining weight now. I guess there probably isn't much out there in KC?

[Tim Smith]

14 minutes ago, telecode 101 said:

wow.. good god. i would never use a tape cassette portastudio. have tapes at least gotten a little more reliable in 2020?

 

when is the shellac cutter coming out? i want to do the thing where i have to stick the little plastic bobby in the middle again.

 

I knew vinyl was a thing. How big of a thing I'm not sure.  I have one plugin that removes record crackles and another plugin that adds them back in.

[telecode 101]

2 minutes ago, Tim Smith said:

I knew vinyl was a thing. How big of a thing I'm not sure.  I have one plugin that removes record crackles and another plugin that adds them back in.

Yeah. Vinyl is indeed a thing. It does sound better that digital. But not for those who listen to music on cheap to ***** ear buds or phone speaker. I think you need to be a  certain audio phile with high end system to hear it. 

[Tim Smith]

26 minutes ago, telecode 101 said:

Yeah. Vinyl is indeed a thing. It does sound better that digital. But not for those who listen to music on cheap to ***** ear buds or phone speaker. I think you need to be a  certain audio phile with high end system to hear it. 

Yeah most of those systems are not the best quality nowadays. I have found headphones can make a difference if the speakers aren't that great. Someone gifted me a low end record player which I was glad to get because my old turntable needs work. It's ok. Not the best. 

 

Edited January 4, 2022 by Tim Smith

[Jimbo 88]

So I was trying to purge junk out of my basement a week back and found a box of high quality, unopened cassette tapes.  Did not know what to do with them.  Guess I can put them up on eBay.

If i remember correctly (it has been many, many years) analogue tape gets sticky if it sits too long.  Gums up pinch rollers.  Why anyone wants to go back to that is crazy pants to me.

[Tim Smith]

You might be able to get rid of them if you try to sell them online.

About the only tape I can see making sense is the tape used at the mastering end. Using a real Studer to master would be a luxury.

Several well known bands rent those to master. There's an A80 on Reverb for just a little more than 12k. 

UAD plugins probably gets close enough that we don't need a real Studer.

 

Edited January 4, 2022 by Tim Smith

[telecode 101]

55 minutes ago, Tim Smith said:

Yeah most of those systems are not the best quality nowadays. I have found headphones can make a difference if the speakers aren't that great. Someone gifted me a low end record player which I was glad to get because my old turntable needs work. It's ok. Not the best. 

 

there once was a great presentation at a conference on digital audio converters and what you lose in the digital domain which sort of explains why old LPs sounded better. But I can't find it now. The Internet is so full of garbage spam click bait on digital vs analog searches. 

[Shane_B.]

3 hours ago, Tim Smith said:

The repair person I am referring to claims he put over 1500 miles on his truck every month. Apparently he worked in a lot of government facilities. If the chips had fallen in another direction I might have ended up in that line of work.

My last year servicing copiers I drove 45K miles. My calculator tells me that's about 3750 miles a month. I kept track in an excel spreadsheet and still have it from when I did my taxes. In that job I wasn't supposed to be driving at all. I was hired as a manager, but that's not what ended up happening. It's the same place that also took out S.S. taxes out of my check for several years and never paid them in to S.S. It got ugly when we parted ways between me, them, the S.S. office, and the I.R.S..

Prior to that I was averaging between 32K and 36K miles a year. It wasn't uncommon for me to be on the southern border of IA near MO in the morning and the northern border of IA on the MN border in the afternoon. I enjoyed driving in IA. I could drive for hours and see nothing but fields. But it took a toll on my weight. I was enormous. I'm back to near my high school weight now and don't want to have a driving job again.

3 hours ago, Tim Smith said:

I hope you can find something you like. If not, it wasn't mean't to be. You seem to be keeping busy enough. Your wife works. Looks like you're ok. I've been using my standing desk here because sitting all day isn't healthy. I'm gaining weight now. I guess there probably isn't much out there in KC?

Sitting is terrible for you for long periods. It's good to have a standing desk.

There is a lot here but it's all either factory/warehouse, professional business type/IT, or retail/fast food. There's no manufacturing to speak of that I'm aware of and the office equipment repair places have dwindled away. The Ford plant is quite a ways from here but they are always laying people off. I couldn't imagine working there if my home and family depended on it.

My brother has owned his own office equipment sales and service place since the 70's. He's still there, but the only thing keeping him going is taking on contracts from those 3rd party contract sales companies. I could do it from my house. Anyone can do it if you have copier/printer experience, but I would have to go to KC every day and I don't want to do it. Business in his area died years ago and what's left is small mom and pop places and they use disposable equipment from Staples. If I were still home he wouldn't have been able to keep me on and I wouldn't be working for him now so it all worked out in the end I guess.

[Byron Dickens]

3 hours ago, Tim Smith said:

  I have one plugin that removes record crackles and another plugin that adds them back in.

?

Me too!

Strange world we live in.

[Shane_B.]

2 hours ago, Jimbo 88 said:

If i remember correctly (it has been many, many years) analogue tape gets sticky if it sits too long.  Gums up pinch rollers.  Why anyone wants to go back to that is crazy pants to me.

I have some cassettes that are 40 + years old. That has never happened to any cassette I've ever had. I think the whole sticky thing was with certain brands or types of the wide mastering tapes used back in the day. IIRC they bake or heat them to preserve them now after they clean them.

2 hours ago, Tim Smith said:

About the only tape I can see making sense is the tape used at the mastering end. Using a real Studer to master would be a luxury.

I can't find it now, but years ago I saw a website for a studio that used a Studer that recorded in a short loop to save money. They ran the mix to the Studer which had a 30 or 45 second loop of tape or something like that and it played back while recording in to a high end DAC's to capture the sound.

PS Audio built a high end studio that uses Sony's DSD system. It's basically the digital version of analog. As pure as it gets. And they charge you for it too ... Uhg.

[Tim Smith]

@telecode 101 I guess that analog digital debate goes back quite some time now. We have had some involved discussions on the old Cake forum about all of it. There are a few here who understand the nuts and bolts of all of it pretty well at the component level. Since I was an electronics tech I can grasp a lot of it. Probably the biggest difference is that digital makes a conversion while true analog never does. The conversion has such a fine resolution no human ear can hear the 1's and 0's. This is at 44.1 16 bit the old CD format. If we are recording at 96k and 24 or 32 bit the conversion is even more precise on decent equipment. It really is leaps and bounds better than the headroom and noise floor we get using analog.

Analog sees voltage controlled circuits and amplifies the input using transformers coupled to amplifier circuits. At one time it was transistors which are now usually embedded into  ICs. The business end of the amp or last stage is where we can get a lot of noise from an amp. If there is already noise in the 1st stages of the amp the last stage only amplifies it more. Class A is the best, many amps now are class B, class A/B or less. These amps have lot's of noise in the circuitry.  All amps have some noise though. There are mainly IC driven amps now. No tubes. While most amps now are not truly digital in most cases, they are solid state. Manufacturers try to avoid huge heavy transformers and capacitors because they cost more to make. They use the less expensive solid state ICs instead.

As to the accuracy of the music itself in analog .vs digital. Old tube analog had a built in compensation that acted almost like a light compression depending on the amp. Digital does not have this and why I think some people associate analog with a softer sound. With the right plugins and compression though we can get around that in DAWs. The old tubes would "roll off" some of the harshness. We can add a plug in now that does the same thing. At some point, no matter what we do we are going into the digital realm and the way the final file is played and mixed has a lot to do with how it's going to sound. We can't ever really go back to 100% analog from start to finish.

On a good mix mastered well, I don't think most people ask whether it's solid state or tubes. JMOP.

@Shane_B.

I think the economies are changing everywhere. Half of the people over me are working from home today. COVID is creating a bunch of laziness in my opinion. 

 

 

 

[telecode 101]

54 minutes ago, Tim Smith said:

@telecode 101 I guess that analog digital debate goes back quite some time now. We have had some involved discussions on the old Cake forum about all of it. There are a few here who understand the nuts and bolts of all of it pretty well at the component level. Since I was an electronics tech I can grasp a lot of it. Probably the biggest difference is that digital makes a conversion while true analog never does. The conversion has such a fine resolution no human ear can hear the 1's and 0's. This is at 44.1 16 bit the old CD format. If we are recording at 96k and 24 or 32 bit the conversion is even more precise on decent equipment. It really is leaps and bounds better than the headroom and noise floor we get using analog.

Analog sees voltage controlled circuits and amplifies the input using transformers coupled to amplifier circuits. At one time it was transistors which are now usually embedded into  ICs. The business end of the amp or last stage is where we can get a lot of noise from an amp. If there is already noise in the 1st stages of the amp the last stage only amplifies it more. Class A is the best, many amps now are class B, class A/B or less. These amps have lot's of noise in the circuitry.  All amps have some noise though. There are mainly IC driven amps now. No tubes. While most amps now are not truly digital in most cases, they are solid state. Manufacturers try to avoid huge heavy transformers and capacitors because they cost more to make. They use the less expensive solid state ICs instead.

As to the accuracy of the music itself in analog .vs digital. Old tube analog had a built in compensation that acted almost like a light compression depending on the amp. Digital does not have this and why I think some people associate analog with a softer sound. With the right plugins and compression though we can get around that in DAWs. The old tubes would "roll off" some of the harshness. We can add a plug in now that does the same thing. At some point, no matter what we do we are going into the digital realm and the way the final file is played and mixed has a lot to do with how it's going to sound. We can't ever really go back to 100% analog from start to finish.

On a good mix mastered well, I don't think most people ask whether it's solid state or tubes. JMOP.

@Shane_B.

I think the economies are changing everywhere. Half of the people over me are working from home today. COVID is creating a bunch of laziness in my opinion. 

 

 

 

I think it's all really dependent on the music you are making. There was good digital and there was bad digital. There is also good and bad analogue. Using analog does not automatically guarantee you will get good sounding recordings. And definitely  will not guarantee you will get good sounding songs. The quest to keep buying gear that will give you a magic bullet is a fallacy. I can tell you as a guitar player, you buying a $10,000 Gibson Les Paul custom shop pro is not gonna give you a magic bullet. Your sound will sound exactly the same as it's the same fingers and same musical approach and stylings that is driving behind the wheel of that fancy new Les Paul.

 

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by telecode 101

[Tim Smith]

55 minutes ago, telecode 101 said:

I think it's all really dependent on the music you are making. There was good digital and there was bad digital. There is also good and bad analogue. Using analog does not automatically guarantee you will get good sounding recordings. And definitely  will not guarantee you will get good sounding songs. The quest to keep buying gear that will give you a magic bullet is a fallacy. I can tell you as a guitar player, you buying a $10,000 Gibson Les Paul custom shop pro is not gonna give you a magic bullet. Your sound will sound exactly the same as it's the same fingers and same musical approach and stylings that is driving behind the wheel of that fancy new Les Paul.

 

 I have guitars too, can't play any of them lol. Knowing a few simple things about how each kind of chain behaves is key. Clipping  is different in solid state than it is in analog, or I should say, it responds differently. 99% of everyone reading this is probably using solid state digital conversion. Even the guys sitting in large studios don't often use all of that gear any more. It's all for looks mostly. A serious home recordist  might have a decent front end pre amp, maybe combined with a compressor  and an EQ all on one box for tracking vocals and guitars. After that it's all solid state into the computer. Guitarists probably play with analog more than anyone if they use a real amp with tubes in it. Emulations are so good now though, why even bother with that? I sold my last tube amp. 

I think some gear helps, but yeah, it's 99% the person who mixes and plays that makes a difference. After buying a bunch of guitars including a variax guess what my favorite is? My old Martin DX acoustic. It's a 500ish guitar. Not their more expensive models. I also picked up a nice Epiphone Masterbuilt DM500MCE acoustic that sounds wonderful, has multiple outputs for the pickups but I don't particularly like it. Why? It's too big for me. That was an expensive lesson.Feels awkward to play it so I mostly don't. I'm not really big on Les Paul. Too much dirt for me. I prefer Fender because the tones are cleaner if you want them to be. One I haven't tried is the telecaster. I like the sounds it can make. All the way from super clean to distorted. For me a Les is a one trick pony. I still have the first electric guitar I bought. A Laguna HSS. I like that pickup layout that allows me to get a wide variation of tones. But as a lefty playing right handed instruments. lets just say I'm a clumsy finger picker who hates a pick. I'm mostly keys, bass and violin.

I once told my violin teacher my violin wasn't playing right. She picked it up and flew through some Bach or similar with it. It wasn't my violin after all.

[Bapu]

1 hour ago, Tim Smith said:

It wasn't my <insert instrument/equipment name here> after all.

A realization we all come to at one point or another.

[Shane_B.]

2 hours ago, Tim Smith said:

After buying a bunch of guitars including a variax guess what my favorite is? My old Martin DX acoustic. It's a 500ish guitar. Not their more expensive models.

I saw your video of that Martin DX. I have the same one only Lefty. It's a really nice guitar although I wish the DI sounded a bit more natural. There is a guitar shop in Des Moines that has a huge selection of lefty Martin's. I played about 7 of them ranging from $3500 to $500. That DX felt and sounded better than all the ones there. I really don't know what all the hubbub is about high end Martin's. The neck on the most expensive one was so difficult to fret that it actually hurt my hand and was twisted really bad. I've been to Martin's factory. I was born a few miles from Nazareth PA and stop in when I go back home to visit. It's quite a place to visit. The DX's are MIM but they are excellent guitars.

My brother bought me a really nice Ibanez acoustic when I was a kid. I fell on the ice carrying it in from band practice one night and shattered the back in to a thousand splinters. Made me sick.

[telecode 101]

My thing with guitars,  that I found , that works for me is, when you try it, you will know it's the one for you and you just have to  buy it right there on the spot. If you walk away, you will come back a week later  and it will be gone. Happens all the time.

As far as quality goes. It's all relative. I have an expensive Ricky. I hate it. Well make instrument though. I have a few US Strats and a MIM tele.. The Tele is just as good as the US strats. Different guitar but fine for what it's meant to do. My fav is still my old Italian Eko from the 70s. I don't know what they made them with, but they knew how to make a good guitar that plays well.

Edited January 5, 2022 by telecode 101

[Shane_B.]

6 hours ago, telecode 101 said:

I think it's all really dependent on the music you are making. There was good digital and there was bad digital. There is also good and bad analogue.

IRT the music you are making, I'd say partly that and partly the person doing the recording. If you know how to EQ and stage with mic placement I think it doesn't matter if you capture it in digital or on analog. I personally spend 99% of my time fixing bad DI recordings because I don't have a good space for mic'd recordings. But when I have tried to use mic's and mess with placement they always come out better. Time spent placing is the same as time spent fixing for me though.

54 minutes ago, telecode 101 said:

As far as quality goes. It's all relative. I have an expensive Ricky. I hate it. Well make instrument though. I have a few US Strats and a MIM tele.. The Tele is just as good as the US strats.

My thing with guitars,  that I found , that works for me is, when you try it, you will know it's the one for you and you just have to  buy it right there on the spot. If you walk away, you will come back a week later  and it will be gone. Happens all the time.

I had a left handed 83 Gibson Les Paul Black Beauty. Everyone loved the sound of it and wished it was right handed so they could buy it from me because I always said I didn't like the sound. It sounded like a sponge was rammed under the stings at the bridge to my ears. I sold it to someone on the old forum. I mentioned on the forum that I had it for sale online through a local music store and they went online and bought it and had it shipped to them iirc.

The best sounding LP I ever played was an Epi stripped down Studio. That thing sounded and felt great. But I didn't take your advice. I walked away and came back the next weekend to show my wife and beg her to let me get it and it was gone. I think it was like $299 or $399? It wasn't very much at all. It was smaller and light but it sounded and felt great.

I have a LH MIK Epi Sheraton II I got at G.C. in K.C. Man, that's a lot of abbreviations. LOL. I love it. I think I paid $250 W/Epi logo hardshell case. Epi doesn't make a LH Sheraton anymore and I've been offered double for it. I might consider it if they ever get the Gretsch back in stock in the color I want. All anyone has is orange and I hate the orange ones. Want a black one of these. Again, I played one at the G.C. in K.C. and fell in love with it. Put it on the shelf thinking I could find one online and not pay tax. Never happened.