I did hear the sound get duller with increased bias and brighter with reduced bias, but the standard bias and auto-tuning sounded about the same to me. That's the expected result with any good-quality tape which was manufactured close to the IEC standards -- it shouldn't need that much bias adjustment to sound good.

Doing cassettes in the digital era is all for nostalgia. Once you've learned the nitty gritty things that makes them work so well, you'll never want to settle for less. And knowing that you've squeezed every drop of performance from your deck and cassettes, gives enjoyment while you relax and listen to your music.

The third one is definitely different, the high-end of the drums, etc. ,seems much brighter, I guess. I'm not an audiophile, so I don't have the vocabulary to say exactly how it's different, but the third one is very noticeable. The others, I'd need to pay close attention to to see if I can find anything.

As usual, great informative video. Learning to do a good bias adjustment is a very important skill to learn for good recordings. I hear a huge difference. The last one was the balanced one, second to last was treble boosted. I adjust bias by recording pink noise into audacity from the deck. Source pink noise to tape pink noise, I match volumes with the gain and solo back and forth to compare. I want my source in audacity to come from the deck to audacity during recording the tape, not the original source. I even go as far to split them to mono and compare left source channel to left tape channel, right source channel to right tape channel. I go by ear and listen for the highest frequency hiss I can hear, very quiet in the background against the roar of lower frequencies. I want them to sound pretty much identical, but when in doubt a very small amount of under bias is always preferable to the smallest amount of over bias. Not only is a loss of treble not acceptable, the tape hiss (I do not like NR at all) contributes slightly to what I hear in the test and I want to account for it. You are right about making sure not to over drive the recording volume, I have learned that before you start to hear any distortion, you start to lose a little treble, cymbals and what not get a tad quieter just as you start to over saturate the tape. Easy to miss and I bet this mistake happened a lot in the day. I can usually push a type 1 to +1 db, only allowing it to barely bump +2 from time to time, this is after listening out for treble loss. Some types of music (heavy electronics like carpenter brut) need to be driven to either 0db or barely touching +1db in order to have no treble loss.

@GaryKeepItSimple

10 ай бұрын

That sounds like you have got it sorted.

@musicstevecom

7 ай бұрын

So which one is the one w the 150hz and 7k setup? @@GaryKeepItSimple

@GaryKeepItSimple

7 ай бұрын

@@musicstevecom This was done on a different machine. The effect would be the same as autotuned if you did this way kzread.info/dash/bejne/hoN5p6yLeK_fXdo.html. get back to me if I have misunderstood. cheers

Oh yes there's a difference when you turn that knob - I akin to a 'granular' type sound some peaks rising some lowering but not too extreme - to my ears.. kind of like more sugar on the top or not .. - but on some decks some crazy stuff can happen. It's not changing the sound in an emphasizing manner .. but it's optimizing it for the tape

Incredibly interesting video. I watched with great interest. Thank you so much.

@GaryKeepItSimple

9 ай бұрын

Thank you too

Great video ! The most controversial comments in this video , would have to be ; I can't hear a difference. I can hear the difference on the phone speaker.

@GaryKeepItSimple

10 ай бұрын

I have got old😔

@vidtech2630

10 ай бұрын

@@GaryKeepItSimple ☹️

The last 2 sound brightest but, to me at least, there's not much difference between those 2. Big difference with the first 2, that also sound similar to each other

@GaryKeepItSimple

10 ай бұрын

it is only 1 db difference., and well out of my old ears frequency range.

@lesgl

10 ай бұрын

Yes the min manual bias and the Auto tune tracks are more clearer with added treble response interesting that the manual bias does do a good job cleaning up a recording..gives auto tune a run for it's money

That was actually a bad music sample for this. You need music with high splash or crash cymbals, and deep bass (Tom Sawyer by Rush). On my 3 head decks I simply start a test recording and switch between source and tape while turning the Bias up or down until they are perfectly matched and no way to tell between source and tape. Then rewind and start your recording. I can still hear to 17,000 Hz so Bias changes on a tape are very audible to me. Less Bias means more treble range, More bias cuts the highs making the tape sound muddy.

@GaryKeepItSimple

10 ай бұрын

This tune is the best I can find on KZread music library . I would love to give a mix of commercial recordings showing the best or worst but copyright means I cannot.

Well, first recording have some distortion in higher frequencies.

@GaryKeepItSimple

26 күн бұрын

The bias has an effect, but it appears that the only way to get a proper recording is to try it first. Record level has more effect on a recording than bias adjustment.(Assuming the deck is set correctly in the first instance) and the tape has not deteriorated. I have seen some reports of tapes that have slipped from type 2 settings to type 1 with max adjustment + to get them to record but that is not a normal thing. I would not record anything I wanted to keep on a tape like that, no matter how good it sounded when recorded.

Could not hear the difference, I have mentioned before I use TDK SA TDK AD TDKAR just peaking at plus 3 I check the treble and bass the high end no roll of and no distortion in the bass that I can hear 😊

What's the name of the song?

@GaryKeepItSimple

10 ай бұрын

The song is "Where We Wanna Go " by Patrick Porticos. it is in the KZread Audio Library. It is one of a few tunes that sound impressive in the library with good dynamics and sound quality. It sounds good from the get-go. Most yt library tunes are OK for background or mood settings but suffer from wow,fllutter phasing and other effects musicians like to add.

listening on quite cheap earbuds and i couldn’t hear any difference