Ever recorded a cassette tape?

[Sleepy Lark]

I have several blank cassettes that I am planning on making use of. I'd like to try recording a mix (as in a curated selection laced together in one recording), or perhaps record an album of my own music to tape (assuming I ever produce something I am comfortable with releasing on the internet). If any of you have recorded your own tapes before, do you have any pointers to give on equipment, recording method, mastering, etc?

[Mexicola]

The best advice I can offer is really incredibly simple. Dive in and experiment! Generally, I keep the volume down and eq flat to keep the recording as clean as possible. Make sure your tape heads are clean, but most of all, just get stuck in and find what works best for your own setup. Enjoy too!

[Valotonin]

Personally I have the volume as close to 'the red' (clipping) as possible without it clipping so I don't have to use noise reduction later on. Mexi's idea works really well but, depending on the type of tape etc it can lead one to have to sacrifice the high end. Making a digital mix and then recording it to tape really adds some magic. It feels like nothing is properly in place until it has been layed to magnetic tape and it starts to automatically sound like the mastering fairy has done her work on it. Again, try both of our ideas and see what works for you!

[drillkicker]

I don't know about mastering with it, since cassette tapes are pretty noisy and have objectively worse quality than digital audio, but recording tapes is a convenient way of sharing music with other people. They're small and easy to hand to your friends when you have some new tunes.

[Cupz]

I agree with valotonin. Right below clipping, maybe a tiny little bit over to add sound only cassetes can produce. No point in using tape if you aint gonna use it.

If they're old cassetes, I heard you want to record perfect silence over the entire tape before recording to warm them up and remove any inconsistencies, but that might just be an old wives' tale.

[ParticleGhost]

I record everything on a 4-track cassette deck. go for it!

[Nottoolate]

It's a lot of fun, I have an old tape player/recorder that I've recorded some stuff with and another sysytem that I duplicate the cassettes with. My recorder is in mediocre condition, but depending on the equipment you have definitely just mess around until you find what sounds right. I usually lay out every track in FL Studio's timeline, and adjust the volume with automation clips for each track until they're all about the same level, and then line in record from my laptop to the master tape. I'm also a graphic designer so I create all of my artwork, labels, and inserts printed on matte card stock paper (which is totally worth investing in if you want great looking artwork.) Here's an example of a release I did, everything was done completely by hand: https://svuvn.bandcamp.com/album/a-few- ... -exclusive

What equipment are you planning on recording with?

[Sleepy Lark]

I don't know if I want to purposely record past the threshold. When I want clipping distortion, I do it the cheaty way with a modeling plugin. The tape will take care of the other forms of distortion I find desirable. Good tips, thank you all!
At the moment I do not have any devices that can record tapes (from any source other than another tape). Someone in town is selling a Luxman K-112 stereo tape deck, and I might give it a shot. I could always use a new toy for my stereo!
Other than my own music (eventually), I'd like to record 1979 by Deru to tape. I think that album will sound good, and it will hold me over while I wait for the LP to be repressed.

[re-phaelam-ed]

depress the black Play and red Rec keys at the same time....and you're off.

[Stavorius]

One thing, for fun on regular cassette

[swindeorin]

Always wanted to do it, ive had my music put on cassette for a split release before years ago and i still have some lying somewhere. i always use U-he by Satin to give my digital stuff a tape feel when mastering now... so it seems that at one point i will be releasing tape as I have quite a few blank ones and spare ones to mess with (tape loops)

[swindeorin]

I've now recorded onto cassette tape and I've done a few things with tape loops since 2016.
Also, I have experimented with music-concréte on a microcassette recorder. Very fun