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So, I’m thinking about dipping my toe into tape recording, but I’m worried about finding a reliable source of new tape. For cassette, it looks like Maxell still makes new tape, but it doesn’t look like there are any new reel-to-reel options?

I want to do tape recording because digital stuff hasn’t been any fun to use in my experience, and tape seems to be very immediate and easy to use.

There's companies making reel to reel magnetic tape. What size? Most small reel to reel machines are 1/4" and there's plenty out there for that. RMG/EMTEC, ATR, sometimes there's NOS stuff that's usable, but I'm iffy on that stuff personally. A lot of older tape used to degrade, slough off chemicals, it can get nasty. The last time I bought tape was almost 10 years ago, but there were new companies then and analog recording has only gotten more popular since then, I think.

If you just Google *1/4" reel to reel tape* it will come up. Even some of the big box type music stories carry it.

The recording part is fun because you're using a big machine and seeing it work while you record. Its the editing that sucks. Usually folks will record to tape for tracking and then dump takes into a DAW and edit from there. Then you can reuse the same tape over and over to get the compression and saturation you want on the front end.

I’ve never done a ton of editing after recording anything. I just record/re-record tracks, maybe bounce the tracks if I run out of space, and when I’m happy with how everything sounds I just save it.

Currently I see myself doing that process on tape, and recording the output from the tape directly to the computer with no additional editing.

whoismarykelly wrote:The recording part is fun because you're using a big machine and seeing it work while you record. Its the editing that sucks. Usually folks will record to tape for tracking and then dump takes into a DAW and edit from there. Then you can reuse the same tape over and over to get the compression and saturation you want on the front end.

This is what I used to do. I have a Tascam 388 machine, I would do some basic tracking, dump it into an HDD recorder I had, then bounce the tracks down on the machine, record more tracks and so on. Sometimes I'd have to manually align the tracks a little, so I'd leave in a stick click at the beginning or something.

I was looking at Studer/Revox A77's yesterday, as they seem fairly cheap for what they are. Thomann has tape apparently, but I dunno if it's the right type.
https://www.thomann.de/gb/recording_tape.html

Cassette right? 4 track or 8?

Psyre wrote:Cassette or reel?

Either? By the specs, some of those Marantz cassette recorders have nearly identical specs to reel-to-reel stuff when it comes to recording frequencies. As far as reel stuff goes, it seems like there’re a million different units of extremely differing quality. Some of the big names are crazy expensive, but everything else is cheaper than a modern multitrack recorder. And sorting through those machines to find the “right” one for me is a little daunting.

I’m mainly concerned with longevity and how easy it is to maintain the machine and get new tape for recording. Reel stuff seems a bit more complicated that standard cassettes?

01010111 wrote:I’m worried about finding a reliable source of new tape. For cassette, it looks like Maxell still makes new tape, but it doesn’t look like there are any new reel-to-reel options?

I think those are reversed.

To my knowledge RMGI & ATR are manufacturing larger (1/4" and up) format analog tape.

I also read an article a few months back that indicated narrow format (specifically that loaded into 1/8" cassette shells) has been out of production for years and the stocks are running low, the article was about a company embarking on making NEW tape, so running out completely won't happen, and it filled me with joy.

I think I went with tapes.com last time I ordered up a batch of cassettes (year and a half ago or so).

I think the consensus is that tape probably won't run out, but it also won't get cheaper. Of greater concern is getting a deck that is serviceable.

http://www.splicit.com

sells r2r tape and other stuff.

crochambeau wrote:

01010111 wrote:I’m worried about finding a reliable source of new tape. For cassette, it looks like Maxell still makes new tape, but it doesn’t look like there are any new reel-to-reel options?

I think those are reversed.

To my knowledge RMGI & ATR are manufacturing larger (1/4" and up) format analog tape.

I also read an article a few months back that indicated narrow format (specifically that loaded into 1/8" cassette shells) has been out of production for years and the stocks are running low, the article was about a company embarking on making NEW tape, so running out completely won't happen, and it filled me with joy.

I think I went with tapes.com last time I ordered up a batch of cassettes (year and a half ago or so).

I think the consensus is that tape probably won't run out, but it also won't get cheaper. Of greater concern is getting a deck that is serviceable.

This is interesting. Intuitively, it makes sense that cassettes would be more expensive than tape, and the small format would likely mean making some sacrifices in sound. Which makes the recent cassette renaissance a little weird, especially if new cassettes haven’t been manufactured in a while. So, maybe I ought to go with tape...

I don’t doubt that keeping/maintaining tape/cassette machines is only going to get more expensive (kind of like film cameras....). But the immediacy of the format and the quality that you can get make it really exciting to me.

In short: fuck DAWs, fuck digital recorders, I want something fun to use that I can rely on for years to come. Which sounds more and more like tape over cassette...

DAWs are still pretty great though (I'm on a fuck MIDI phase right now, so more power to you)

Super interested in tape recording, so keep it coming eg: if anyone's got a reel to reel setup, pics.

If you love DAWs, why do you hate midi? From what I understand, there’s so much cool midi stuff you can do with a DAW that’s much harder to do with hardware? That’s the only thing that really tempts me about DAWs, tbh.

I know there’s a ton of cool and weird stuff you can do with DAWs, but that doesn’t really interest me that much. Because I really don’t think they’re fun to use at all. Tape’s a little impractical in some ways, but it sure seems like it’ll be a lot more fun to use than Windows

I'm in the opposite camp.

The minute digital was viable on my budget, I jumped ship from my eight track reel and Tascam 488 cassette (the latter for band practice/portable jams/live recording etc).

I do not miss the hassle.

And I treat the DAW just like tape , I even still have a 10s or so leader at the beginning of tracks in the DAW.

I don't do crazy edits (if it all), etc.

The process won't make you make better product, just give you a different method of getting there.

I love midi either with or without a DAW. I have made the digitakt the center of my setup and have it controlling a few synths. All I have for tape right now is a cassette recorder that I can bounce everything to and then bounce that to my DAW. I have also thought about must mixing everything down in my DAW and then bouncing that to tape, and back. I know legowelt uses this technique for some tape saturation even if it is just cassette.