Back in the very early 1990s, a high school friend loaned me his new Led Zeppelin CD box set for one day. Lacking both a CD burner and sufficient free time to make a mix tape, I decided to just record the whole thing using the HiFi VHS recorder. In a moment of inspiration, the family camcorder was connected to provide a video signal while aimed at the CD player's track display. (This made it easier to find the start and end of songs later when dubbing them to cassette...)

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

Very cool!

VHS hi-fi played a major role in my life! Not only did I copy CDs with it in the early 90's, I also recorded every episode of a college radio show I used to do from 1995-2000 with fantastic sound quality. We won some awards for that show, featuring alternative music, comedy, news, and live bands, so I'm super proud of it and wouldn't have the hundreds of 3 hour episodes saved without VHS hi-fi. I've since digitized all of it, and I need to turn it into a retro podcast. 😀🔊

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

You definitely need to turn that into a retro podcast! How cool!

I once worked at a place where we had prerecorded concerts for transmission. We would record the music using a PCM adapter in the video signal on the tape, and also on the Hi-FI tracks. The linear tracks would be for cue and time code. We'd play the tape out via a video/audio microwave link and a PCM adapter at the other side would feed the transmitter, with the Hi-FI tracks as the backup in case of PCM failure. It worked great, and was much easier to automate than an open reel tape since you could get VHS pro decks that had serial control.

Back in 80’s used a base VHS HI Fi recorder to record off the radio, and then create mix tapes from it. Worked great!

I did have a friend that recorded music to VHS....I thought it was kind of strange at the time. Had never heard of anyone recording music to VHS at that point\ I thought he did it just to get 2 hours of non-stop music. You couldn't get that on compact cassette and CDs were limited to 1 hour 14 minutes...

Wow, how cool. That sounded more organic and dynamic than my HI-FI vhs tape deck sounds. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to audio and believe me I noticed it. There is no doubt that the vhs recording sounds like it should sound, even though it is a very very clean fm signal and should not color the sound, but it does and it sounds better than the original source. By the way, keep that tape deck. They are the best

The eloquent intro alone gained you a sub. I love the idea of VHS HiFi audio, it's the hidden gem of HiFi audio. Still working on supplying a quality VCR with independent L/R record levels. But am all aboard on VHS "mixtapes"

@VintageElectronicsChannel

4 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching and subscribing!

I'm a musician. In the 90's I used VHS to master from my Tascam 8 track recorder. My friends thought I was nuts. Then they heard my masters Ha!

Sounds better then ever with FM RF capture and hifi-decode thanks to the vhs-decode project 😉

Made loads of FM recording on VHS tape. Still have a couple of legacy decks to play them on.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

5 ай бұрын

There have been quite a few people mention recording FM radio on VHS. I wish I'd thought of that. It was a great way to make long recordings.

Just tried this now with my old VCR & amazing result! I wish I'd thought of this in the 80s when I was a kid busy taping endless hours worth of music off the radio. I was forever running out of blank tapes.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

I'm with you there! I think I played around with it once back then. Not sure why I didn't use it more.

In the 90s a friend was recording the legendary "HR clubnight" which aired weekly on radio from Frankfurt/Germany on VHS tape. Even if VHS Tapes were much more expensive. The quality was one reason the other relevant archievement of VHS recordings was no "tape loss", because nobody lend his "master" tapes because of the weird format 😂

In the early CD days Rock 101 in Greenville SC used to have a Show called the Midnight Tracker they played CDs and I got a HI Fi VCR it has a 2nd channel switch if you turned it on anything coming through my stereo got recorded with whatever TV channel I was watching so I recorded lots of CDs on VHS on Fridays they played 6 CDs all night Good Days I could use my equalizer to play around too later on I bought the real CDs I liked from my VHS tapes

Yep, I have always done it. I had a JVC HRD 750 EK and used to record 8 hour party mixes and record from the radio - also had a Mitsubishi SVHS video and they were both excellent. I just pressed play and the music went for 8 hours ! . Wish I still had the machines

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

I honestly don't know why I didn't think of that back then.

I used to record the Music Choice channels from DirecTV and pick and choose the songs I wanted and transfer them to minidisc. The sound quality was great for what it was considering I was using the SLP mode.

Ive been in the broadcast industry here in Australia for well over 20 years, I gave this idea a try back in the day & the sound as you said is superb but theres 1 killer problem...Because the audio is recorded in diagonal stripes & syncronised & kept at the right speed by sync pulses or sync tones, any little glitch totally throws the sound off for a second or so. Also any little impurities or shed tape particals cause a momentary loud buzz in the audio. The tape speed is 5 meters per second or something like that & lays the lower frequency audio deeper into the tape layer with the megahertz video signal on top (depth multiplexing). The video signal is used as high frequency bias. Cheers Daniel.

been doing this for years Sansui 9090 on tape deck setting , Marants 6300 turntable ,Sony SLVR 1000 VHS deck. recorded LP's straight on tape i call them " giant cassettes" sounds just like the record to me

It is, with the exception of professional analog studio recorders running, say, 2-inch tape at 15 inches per second. The reason is simple. The tape is much wider, allowing for a better signal to be recorded onto the tape than that possible with narrower recording tape. A hi-fi VCR running at its fastest speed will record a better audio signal than a cassette deck costing two or three times as much money.

Posso garantirti,e questo video e' la prova,che il suono del VHS e' perfetto,ho realizzato delle mie videocassette audio che lo dimostrano.ho provato dei videoregistratori con gamma dinamica di 90 db,e alcuni che addirittura andavano oltre!,che altro dire....

Yes! Just check the specs for s/n ratio, dynamic range, wow and flutter. I had a really nice Mitsubishi hifi VHS deck that I used for pure analog audio and it outperformed my Nakamichi. The only reason I don't use it today is due to lack of parts availability. It finally broke a belt I couldn't find a replacement for.

“Poor mans”? 😁 You should know how expensive some of them players were back in the day! But I’ve used my Yamaha HiFi deck to make some mix VHS tapes before, they do sound great honestly.. Just got my Toshiba SVHS up n running, might do a vid on her, you’re good encouragement. She was retail $4k back in 91. Crazy!

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

They were definitely pricey, especially the pro-sumer models. But an average music enthusiast could have had acceptable results with an off-the-shelf VHS HiFi model, so it wouldn't have had to be expensive back then.

@indecent0079

4 ай бұрын

@@VintageElectronicsChannel yeah for sure as long as they were real hifi. Many early cheaper models were mono, then they all went stereo for a while and then as they started cheaping out later many went mono again. I have some early NEC that were among the first real stereo hifi, they still work and and have great meters to watch. Then their later models went mono again. Plastic crap weigh 4 lbs compared to the 30 lb beasts 😁

I also use vhs tapes for audio recording. I bought several professional Panasonic recorders and a lot of used VHS tapes for cheap. I also have R2R and high tape recorders like the Dragon and the 700 from Nakamichi, but the sound on VHS is amazing. Downside is the heads are very sensitve and older consumer recorders are getting old now and do not last very long. I have bought over 10 recorders in the last 5 yeats, but the all broke. The professional recorders (for example my Panasonic AG7750) are relative cheap and seem to be build to live forever. One downside on the professional recorders: they need active cooling and the fan is noisy. Great video.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching. It's good to hear from people who have used the format for audio recording through the years. And you're correct with your observation about professional recorders: they are loud!

I used to use a couple of VHS Hi-Fi audio only tapes during Christmas time at my business. Outside of the trouble to make hours long Christmas music tapes I found the results quite good. I also played around dubbing CDs to VHS Hi-Fi with very good audio results. I was in earlier years a reel to reel fan so that probably plays in to my interest. I remember buying the first consumer Hi-Fi VCR the Sony BetaMax Sl-5200 when it came out. As we know Matsushita pretty much killed BetaMax in the marketplace (they made it easier for any manufacturer to license VHS and even Sony did so) and it didn't take them long to introduce their own version of VHS Hi-Fi. I think the best of those may have been the Mitsubishi decks of which I had two eventually when S-VHS Hi-Fi came out. I grew tired of chasing the VCR Hi-Fi thing and when it was possible to create digital video (audio earlier) using a computer and blank discs I pretty much relagated all of my VCRs to the scrap heap. Your video makes me wish I'd had better judgement, lol.

I used VHS Hi-Fi Audio for many years from 1986 up to the early 2000's. It was a great audio archiving format giving damn near digital audio quality on cheap (compared with reel-to-reel) tapes, and at £5 for eight hours of stereo audio (or 16 hours split track mono) in Long Play mode it represented great value for home use. Tape to head speed in SP mode was the equivalent of about 102 ips on open reel. The greatest problems with the format were tracking issues (resulting in a "motorboating" buzzing sound) and sometimes incompatability between decks. DAT actually suffered from a lot of the same issues as it used the same rotating head drum (albeit in miniature) as a VCR. Dropouts on the tape would also cause either a quick sound glitch or a mute in the audio. This could be minimised by using high grade (rather than standard grade) blank tapes from good manufacturers like TDK, Sony, Maxell, etc. There is also a low level noise that comes from the head switching system in the VCR, but it was pretty much un-noticable at normal audio levels. I used the format mainly for archiving radio broadcasts, and only recently finished transferring all the tapes to digital audio files. It was definately one of the "best kept secrets" in the audio world at the time.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

4 ай бұрын

That's been a recurring theme since I posted that video: archiving radio broadcasts. I don't know why I didn't think of doing that back then. It would have been perfect.

I used hifi vhs a lot for home music. What was your role in broadcasting? I was an engineer in Post for 10 years until tape formats died off then moved into studio engineering for the last 20 years.

After I discovered (by accident) how good the sound quality was, I used it as a R2R. It's the next best thing to a Studer.

I wasn't listening under the best conditions, but it seemed to me that the lower end was better defined on the digital source. But the VHS still sounded really good. I myself have only used VHS Hi-fi once for audio, and that was for a back-up copy from a 30 ips master. I still have that back-up, and I'm very happy with it - it still plays very well. (I also have the original master, which eventually got passed on to me, but I don't have a deck to play it on, so I'm not able to compare them now - but I thought the comparison was favourable back in 1992!)

In PAL the LP still had indistinguishable audio quality from SP, perfect for recording radio broadcasts.

@danosmixedgrill6067

27 күн бұрын

LP only effects the linear tape speed not the helical head to tape speed. Hifi audio not effected exept maybee a bit more noise due to the diagonal tracks being thinner & jammed up closer topgether.

@SFtheGreat

26 күн бұрын

@@danosmixedgrill6067 Could be, the change is minimal though. There were some decks dedicated to audio, for example my Panasonic doesn't even support video in LP mode, only audio.

VHS HiFi as well as Betamax HiFi have an inherent problem with HiFi or AFM (Audio Frequency Modulation) audio. These VTRs wrap the tape half around the video head drum so to get continuous recording, they have at least two heads. VHS has separate video heads for the AFM audio while Betamax uses the same head for video and audio. However the issue is the same. On playback the machine must switch back and forth between the two heads 30 times a second. The rather loose mechanical tolerances in consumer VTRs expose a tape tension shift at the switch point which in turn causes a large DC shift in the FM signal. Now for the video, this is hidden on the last few scan lines that weren't visible on CRT monitors. And as we know video is comprised of 30 frames or 60 half frames (fields) per second. So we can hide things between the frames or fields of video. But audio is continuous and does not have an inaudible area to hide unwanted artifacts. So this head switch causes a 30hz buzz (with harmonics) in the demodulated FM carriers. To minimize this issue they employ a full bandwidth DBX type compression system in the electronics. Like all DBX technology noise reduction and to some extend Dolby B, the result is breathing and pumping that can be very audible in certain types of music and film / TV dialog. So while AFM specs are impressive, it's that pumping and breathing that is not measured or quantified in the specifications. True digital audio recording with rotating heads has the advantage of being temporarily stored in a memory buffer and laid to tape faster with time compression. The reverse is done on playback. This gets around the head switching being impressed on the audio signal. Both Sony and Panasonic offered 2 additional AFM audio channels on some broadcast formats. But here the tape tension is servo controlled and the head switch artifact is much less a problem. However AFM was rarely used on broadcast formats. The reason is that AFM audio becomes part of the video signal. So any video edit will take the AFM audio with it. The 2 linear audio head channels could be edited separately. And the linear tape speed was much faster in Sony Betacam (not Betamax) andPanasonic M2 formats so the linear audio was not that bad. The later digital VTRs had separate audio tracks laid down by by the rotating heads and could be independently edited.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

Well said. Thank you for the additional information. You can actually hear that compression and breathing at the very end of the recording, in the softer parts.

@KR1275

6 ай бұрын

@@VintageElectronicsChannel Beta Hifi PAL had separate rotating audio heads as well.

@sc0or

6 ай бұрын

Everything is false. Heads switch at about 15kHz. Several 1.8MHz drops are nothing. From DBX they use ONLY a licensed signal level detector for a volume auto-leveling (when you have 150kHz of a carrier frequency deviation, you don’t need any of compander)

@andydelle4509

6 ай бұрын

@@KR1275 Yes, that's correct. The NTSC Betamax video FM carrier bandwidth left a hole between the bottom and the down converted AM chroma at 688khz. so they were able to squeeze in four AFM audio carriers. VHS and PAL Betamax did not have a wide enough hole in the bandpass so Sony had to resort to depth recording with separate heads as well for PAL. The reason NTSC Betamax used four AFM audio carriers is the video heads azimuth was optimized for the luminance FM frequencies and would not work for crosstalk cancellation at the AFM frequencies. This is also the reason both VHS and Betamax did a chroma carrier 180 degree phase swap between the two heads. Only azimuth recording consumer VCRs had this issue due to lack of guard bands.

@andydelle4509

6 ай бұрын

@@sc0or Where are you getting your information? The head drum rotates at 1800rpm. Each head records a field. That's 1/60th of a second. Two fields a make a frame at 1/30th of a second. So it's a frame per drum rotation - 30hz Where do you get 15khz from? The horizontal scan? Each video track contains 262.5 lines. Some units may have had auto level on the AFM channels but no true audiophile would ever use auto level on any tape deck. There is a compander circuit in both Beta and VHS HiFi, look in a service manual. You have a lot of other frequency bands being laid on the tape as well, the AM chroma and the FM luminance. Do you understand Bessel functions? Widening the AFM deviation only makes this issue worse. There is a balance and the compander is part of the solution. I have an out-of-print book that explains the entire process as well as other references. But KZread won't let me provide links. I am a accredited EE with close to 40 years in broadcast systems engineering. I have extensive experience with just about ALL VTR formats, both broadcast and consumer.

Fine and dandy. I tried this when I got my first HiFi VHS deck. I noticed while the sound was very wide range, there was also a problem with some fine crackles that would happen if the head got even slightly got out of alignment or the tape had very minor defects in it. I later got a very expensive Akai SVHS HiFi deck with more heads in the specs and better hifi resolution according to the sales brochure. And sure enough, the same problems with the old deck were heard in this one as well. Even when using nothing but Maxell HGX Gold high end tapes. There was also a big problem with music scanning and issues with the tape counters drifting enough that if you went to the end half of a 2 hour SP recording speed tape, you could be off by several minutes when trying to cue up a particular song. So I went back to my Nakamichi and Pioneer tape decks that were easier to use, sounded perfect and used tapes I could actually use in Walmans, and in my car decks. It was a nice gimmick for the VHS industry though, I will hand them that.

@TheReal1953

6 ай бұрын

I agree with you on most of what you said but.....I don't think that the high-end professional editing VHS machines were ever made with any kind of express purpose to record just hi-fi stereo. It was all about video editing with hi-fi stereo as a perk.

A buddy of mine had a Sony-HIFI unit top end, we did music on his machine and it sounded great.. I would like to get a decent working VHS hifi to add to my analog/digital formats, Cassette, RTR, DAT..

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

I think a good VHS hifi deck is a great addition to anyone's setup. It's one more thing to mess around with and enjoy.

The quality of VHS Hi-Fi recordings depends on several factors, such as recorder quality, condition of the recorder (dirty heads? old parts?), type of cassette and condition of the cassette (some formulas deteriorate over time). This experiment used a JVC video pro and a Maxell S-VHS Pro cassette. For example, low-cost hi-fi videos and cassettes that are not at least VHS Hi-Fi will have inferior results. Cassettes for hi-fi recording are thicker as the hi-fi signal is recorded below the video signal. I returned to unpacking my Panasonic AG-8700, which only has balanced inputs/outputs and an exclusive line for hi-fi cards. Without a doubt, VHS Hi-Fi is one of the best systems for audio recording. It beats the best cassette decks without any problems, such as the Nakamichi Dragon or Pioneer CT-95, which were the ones I heard on my system. However, it has some problems, such as audible dropouts, especially on some tape formulations. I also agree that the 15IPS reel-to-reel is superior, mainly because it doesn't have the same problems with dropouts. However, VHS Hi-Fi does not have a few thousand and one complexities of reel-to-reel. In fact, looking at the pros and cons, the discontinued Tascam DA-3000 is probably the best deck... but we're now on digital...

HiFi sound had serious problems that didn't show up in traditional analog audio tests. For example, measuring S/N from silence to the loudest level produced an excellent number (claimed to be 80dB), but when sound or music was actually recorded, there was "switching noise" which wasn't there when silence was recorded. This noise was extremely bad when mid-high frequencies (3-8Khz) were recorded to HiFi tape. Try the harmonica solo at the beginning of the Supertramp album (I can't remember which one) and you'll see what I mean!

@johnshaw359

5 ай бұрын

Yeah, I always thought the sound was 'a bit steely' but good enough for FM radio grade transmissions. VHS HIFI used FM signalling to record, IIRC.

Still doing it 😊

And this vertical audio track is exactly the biggest drawback in VHS audio, because the track VERY fragile and prone to tape aging. In fact this is why the HiFi stereo track of a VHS is the first thing to go bad and disappear if a recording ages. The Machine will then constantly switch back and forth between the Linear Audio and the vertical stereo track, resulting in nasty sound. And even when you playback the recording you made on a different machine, can cause problems. I never liked VHS for audio recording, though i knew it was possible and sometimes used my VHS recorder to set the timer to record a longer Radio Show on FM. But i much more preferred the robust reliability of linear formats cassettes and reel to reel. With a proper set recording volume (and perhaps some Dolby C) Signal to Noise ratio was the least of your worries. And in fact Dolby C sounded way better than Dolby B. All of my cassette recordings still sound fine. However the HiFi stereo of my VHS tapes (no matter of recorded myself or pre-recorded) are all basically becoming Mono tapes. VHS audio recording is really ONLY good as an intermediate format if you plan to digitize or copy your recording to a different medium. Or to a CD recorder.

Great Video! Although I mostly used 2/4 track reel to reel, I also used to use BetaED HiFi for long archive recordings in the early 90s which had way less dropouts compared to VHS. In fact, any video tape format using metal particle tape was less prone to dropouts and would store longer due to metal tapes being harder to demagnetize and needed higher bias to saturate. That being said, I moved onto DAT in the mid/late 90s in addition to still using reel to reel. The other problem was compression on hifi due to FM noise introduced during head switching etc. But I believe this was not a problem for normal listening. As for being a poor mans reel to reel? - I agree for most casual listening but hifi cant come close to my reel to reel. For Example, my pro 2 track open tape recorder running at 15ips is capable of recording and playing back 18hz to 53khz (spectrum sweep on record/playback measured on oscilloscope ) with 78db .. With my pro DBX unit under EQ that can goto 10hz to 60khz with 91db... Thats higher than CD right so no hifi system can come close. Only when they introduced digital pcm on video did dynamic range equal CD. high end audio interfaces now can surpass my reel to reel obviously but I still love tape in all its forms.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching. Beta HiFi is something I only messed with very briefly in the early 1990s. I'd like to get my hands on a working machine and really dig into that one.

I've had my JVC HIFI VHS(ZENITH BRANDED) recording my newest LP albums acquired for a few years now and it is awesome. Even on Extended play . My old Akai 747 RR is in the closest . And the VCR fits in the small rack :)

@danosmixedgrill6067

27 күн бұрын

Extended play does not effect the rotary head to tape speed, it only lowers the quality of the old linear audio track on the tape edge. If you use the hifi heads mounted on the drum the only difference is track width as they are jammed up closer together, maybe a bit worse signal to noise ratio/

@crosleyfiver8686

27 күн бұрын

@@danosmixedgrill6067 That's a thought that the S/N ratio might be higher due to the slower speed. I've got plenty of tape, so will go back to 2 albums/tape :)

Great video ❤ But louder is always better. To my ears the digital file examples presented here sounds louder than the VHS examples. For verification and confirmation, I analyzed all of the music examples in the video with regards to LUFS (Integrated EBU R128), and the digital file examples measure on average -19.35 LUFS. The VHS examples measure on average -21.11 LUFS. That is almost a 2 LUFS difference in favour of the digital files. My ears were right. The digital file examples are louder and thus have a big advantage in this listening test - even for the normal guy listening.

Yes, I do seem to hear a little compression, especially in the highs, since the basses don't come through very well here on my laptop. Nevertheless, it sounds great. Even slightly warmer I would say. Good analog beats digital always. I'm a professional musician for 35 years now and have gone through the transition from analog to digital, both in Hi-Fi as in instrument amplifiers. Digital is just not as pleasant, has less impact on us, is more boring even though it might be more "perfect". The thing is our ears and brains aren't so "perfect" doesn't move us as much. Nice Video.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

4 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching. I agree, analog is much more pleasing to my ears.

it should be emphasized that VHS HI-FI machines should have 'level controls' for setting loudness of the audio signal on the tape. Only very early HI-FI units had this. All other HI-FI units of later years use Auto Level Control, which jacks up the record volume in quiet passages and lowers volume in loud passages, which isn't very good.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

Excellent point. Machines without manual control for recording are not going to yield very good results.

@craigavonvideo

4 ай бұрын

Yes, although any machines I had right up until the late 1990's had manual audio controls on them.

I've recently acquired a Panasonic NV-H75A, (the A being for Australia, so its a PAL recorder). Got it for only AU$25! It was an early HiFi model, so it has level controls and bar-graph VU meters:- it is specifically designed to be able to do HiFi audio recording. When I was in my 20s I bought a 2nd hand, near new, JVC HiFi recorder. My mate and I used to make 8hr party mix tapes from CDs on 4hr VHS tapes recorded in Long Play mode. I spent a lot of time tweaking the internals of the JVC. I disabled the video recording so the tape only had the audio recorded. This would help minimise drop-outs. I also tweaked the dbx-like compression attack times so there was less compression/expansion artifacts:- yes, HiFi VHS uses dbx-like encoding/decoding. Keep in mind, since the recording system is Audio Frequency Modulation, mistracking between record/playback compression/expansion is minimal. In addition, you could hear a little switching noise as the heads switch from one side of the drum to the other. Running at long play meant any tape drop-outs were quite noticeable. The NV-H75A only has standard play and it will be interesting to see what the Panasonic sounds like compared to the JVC. Its not your "beast" however, you could argue the NV-H75A is a prosumer grade machine. Do like the analog VU meters on your beast :)

@VintageElectronicsChannel

3 ай бұрын

I'm hearing more and more from people who made mixes or long audio-only recordings on VHS HiFi back in the day. It never really occurred to me to do that back then. I missed out. And yes, I LOVE the analog VU meters. I'd rather have bouncing needles any day.

@darinb.3273

2 ай бұрын

​@@VintageElectronicsChannelAnalog meters are awesome for sure, however if the balance of max S/N is to be achieved digital meters respond instantly to the input sound. What I mean is there's the mass of the indicator hand having to travel to the peak of the audio signal that takes time to move especially from rest to the deflection point, a single drum beat for example. Anyway digital meters have no mass to start moving and can respond extremely fast.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

2 ай бұрын

@darinb.3273, that's very true. Digital meters are definitely better for that.

@darinb.3273

2 ай бұрын

@@VintageElectronicsChannel I hope my post wasn't too long for not saying much 😋. I am curious about the audio program you showed during the comparison. I use CoolEdit Pro and on occasion Audacity.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

2 ай бұрын

@darinb.3273, I use Samplitude Pro X7. I've used some version of that software for the past 20 years or more. I've tried others, but I keep going back to Samplitude.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I used VHS to record late night radio. In part, it was the quality, but also the fact that SLP gave six hours of recording time, far more than my dual cassette deck could do with C120 tapes. Tell this to newbies today, and they'll say, "wHy DiDn'T U usE YoRe CoMpOOtEr??!?" ignorant of the lack of hard drive space and (at best) 16bit audio cards. VHS was about the only format outside of expensive reel to reel systems.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

Add to that, a VCR was easily programmable as well. Set the timer and forget about it.

I still like my cassette and reel-to-reel! You just can't go wrong with it!

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

I'm with you on that!

@TheReal1953

6 ай бұрын

Except that to maintain a top-end cassette machine or RTR, you have to have specific tools and knowledge. Naks, for example, require their own specific calibration/test tools. So unless your's an EE and have all that stuff, you'll have to pay someone to maintain your machine(s) or learn from someone who's done this professionally. The folks that used to do this have largely retired or died out and it hasn't been taught in tech schools for decades.

The VHS audio was a bit more “stiff” and less open, but still very respectable. One editing tip-you can try adding a 1 or 2 frame audio transition to make the switches less abrupt-sounding. The sudden changes may have made the difference seem bigger than it was.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

I had actually thought about a short crossfade, but I didn't want to mask any transition and skew the perception.

@randolphblack2554

6 ай бұрын

Audacity may help with those switching artifacts by filtering them out with the aid of an amplifier with a high slew rate to reduce audio smearing from the Audacity filtering action. It might be a good AI app.

@hjorte.

6 ай бұрын

@@VintageElectronicsChannel What you did here (no transition) is much better for A-B tests. Even better would have been also to compare the exact same part of the song repeatedly.

@C.I...

6 ай бұрын

"was a bit more “stiff” and less open" These words don't really mean a lot without you telling us what "stiff" and "open" mean in objective actual audio terms.

@michaelturner4457

6 ай бұрын

@@C.I... I guess it's similar to when some peeps("audiophiles") use terms like "warm" or "cold" when describing audio.

you are lucky to have that jvc hi fi !

@saren6538

5 ай бұрын

whats the model ?

@VintageElectronicsChannel

5 ай бұрын

It's a BR-S605UB

When tried I couldn't believed if the sound is actually the captured one or maybe I am wrong I am still listening to the digital source being still direct monitor… I remember I was testing for the first time and I was using my Focal Sprit professional headphones… No way…! How was it possible to have such clean sound like digital with the analog character and it's benefits?! That was the one of the best moment in my life as a composer and producer that now I have an analoge master recorder! How much do you usually drive the gain? And what is the safest area? As I tested different input gain from my RME convertor to the tape, I could get different characters that I loved all( one soft clipped, the other one like very gentle brick wall limiter and also one whit no change)

@VintageElectronicsChannel

3 ай бұрын

In my experimentation with it, I've tended to play it safe. I don't let it peak above 0 much at all. Since there isn't much noise, it doesn't seem as important to drive the recording as hard.

@alibirang9921

3 ай бұрын

@@VintageElectronicsChannel Thanks. Can we expect VHS to give the same analog character as reel to reel master recorders or even tape emulations? Or just consider it as a very flat alternative of CD?

@VintageElectronicsChannel

3 ай бұрын

@alibirang9921, I don't think it has the character of open reel. The compression that's introduced to the recording during the modulation seems to make it flatter in my opinion. I feel 15ips 2 track open reel is far superior, but for those who don't have that equipment, VHS HiFi is a fine alternative.

VHS HiFi is very good, Beta HiFi too, but there is a downside. Compatibility between machines wasn't always guaranteed. One of the things that marred VHS and Beta HiFi was the errors introduced by poor alignment during playback and noise caused by the head switching point. Oftentimes, a tape recorded and played back on the same machine sounded fine, but problems could be heard when played back on a different machine. The other problem was the pretty tortuous tape path that videotape has to endure which caused a much more rapid wear to the tape than a reel-to-reel tape recorder. VHS and Beta HiFi tapes used for music were played much more often than movies. Watch a movie, and you may not want to watch it again for a good while, but music is different, we can all appreciate hearing the same piece of music time and time again, it doesn't get boring so quickly. But to play a videotape over and over again through a tortuous tape path, passing a spinning head slicing its way across the tape at high speed could soon cause the tape to begin to show signs of wear. Tape dropouts were way more audible when the spinning heads lost signal compared to a linear recording because we are dealing with an FM carrier, and once the signal falls below a certain threshold becomes very noisy. For me, a 2-channel 2-track reel-to-reel tape recorder running at 15ips taking advantage of the high output tapes we have today from the likes of ATR Magnetics and RTM with IEC equalization will blow VHS and Beta HiFi out of the water.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

2 ай бұрын

I agree 100% with everything you said. That's a good point about the more frequent playing of music and the resulting additional wear on the tapes. I hadn't thought of that. I agree, a 2 track 15ips recording on new tape is my preferred format for music.

I build one myself (1982) and overhold the recorder a few years back. Also made a part 2 of the video, describing this VHS HiFi. See: kzread.info/dash/bejne/kWRns7GJorXAk9I.html (and part 2) You are wright, there is some compression, as you; I can not here it!

BTW, the old "youtube algorithm" does not invalidate the comparison. Both samples are fed thru the same algorithm so on our end it should have the same defects on both samples, and thus, be practically invisible. It is good enough that if you hear a difference in a blind test, it probably is there. If you don't, you are unlikely not going to hear any differences in any further tests in any other system. And nice to see Samplitude being used.. It used to be my favorite, before i become infected with the Reaper virus. It was nicely tuned for theater and such style productions, more than protools. In one version at least you could have 255 projects at the same time, making the workflow totally different from linear in and out, to a branching rivers of sub projects that combined all to one, simple main project...

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

I was referring more to video compression. Someone watching the video at 360P likely would have the lower quality audio and not be able to hear any differences. I've used Samplitude for a long time. I started with it way back when it was Magix. I think 2003 or 2004.

Did that, only problem was dropouts on tape

George Harrison also like that way

Back in the 90's, after years of a difficult relationship with my Technics cassette deck (I don't think the Azimuth ever stayed correct for more than a couple of months, and then, not even for all cassette brands at the same time ... a classic story), and not having budget for the many blank CDs for all the music I wanted to copy, I ended up using an old VHS Hifi VCR I acquired from a friend to store hours and hours of music in LP mode on 180min tapes. It was not 100% perfect all the time, if you pushed the volume, you could occasionally hear some specific noise when tracking was not totally optimal, but it had better dynamics and bandwidth than what any audio cassette or even a nice XLIIS could produce, the closest you could get from a CD, at a fraction of the price. It had one major issue, I couldn't share those tapes with friends or listen to them "on the road", but I worked this way for many years before playing with the Fraunhofer institute's first MP3 encoder and then rest is history.

hi had a vhs hi-fi till i was getting drop out and the same with betamax hi-fi i dig all my 100ub betamax out to do a deep check on the wear i fine alot of hea wear what do i do i had some first gen betacam tape used ones the testing and checking i fond the betacam audio run's 6x the speed on the liner audio the audio on betacam is miles better than vhs audio i bagged alo tof new sealed betacam sp tapes at low price's the video you have is a BR something or later i have 2 br6800 uk models note a top line otari mtr 12 can out do any home deck i some love to watch video's on here

I used to always use a HiFi VHS for audio only mastering back in the day, 1988-94. the only problem was a 'pumping' effect in the recordings.

@sc0or

6 ай бұрын

You shouldn’t use a recorder with a volume auto-leveling. There is no other reason for the ‘pumping’

@andydelle4509

6 ай бұрын

Yes the pumping is a result of the AFM processing which included a compander. If this is argued with by some here, I can send you documentation via private Email that explains how it works,

@NeilVanceNeilVance

6 ай бұрын

@@sc0or Hi. I used an AKAI VS-F600 that had manual left and right recording faders so no auto-leveling was used on my recordings. Perhapes the pumping is simply a trade-of off / artifact of the scanning head and method etc.

@NeilVanceNeilVance

6 ай бұрын

@@andydelle4509 Thank you Andy! yes I do believe the pumping is an artifact of the hele scanning etc. Thank you man! cheers.

@andydelle4509

6 ай бұрын

@@NeilVanceNeilVance There is a compander circuit in the chain. That is what causes the pumping. This just like most noise reduction technology of the day. Compress on record and expand on playback. I have an online book that goes into the AFM audio system in detail. But KZread rejects my comment when I list the title and author.

I sure those industrial machines did everything better. Loved the VU meters.

Привет из России, мы до сих пор слушаем музыку на vhs ❤🤟🔥

@VintageElectronicsChannel

4 ай бұрын

Hello! Thanks for watching!

The best tape format is reel to reel running at 15 inches per second.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

I agree 100%. That's my go-to format when I want the best quality. It's also the best show as well.

@Badassvidsz

6 ай бұрын

30 inches per second. actually with 2 inches wide tapes . but 15 is no doubt super super good indeed and with DBX you are the boss

@poofygoof

6 ай бұрын

@@Badassvidsz 15 vs 30 depends where you want the head bump to sit.

@erwintimmerman6466

4 ай бұрын

Well yeah but that doesn't leave you a practical recording time outside of a studio. With a tape more expensive than the original you might as well play the original.

People start letting people know about mode switches in VCR players people can't never get rid of VCR players everything proven online how clean out a mode switch in a VCR player

I did this yrs ago.....bought a professional editing VHS machine (two actually). You have to 'blacken the tape', the machines are not made to do just audio and so you work around that. The results are great, but it is better to buy an ADAT machine that is more suited for the task. What I will tell you is that, yes, it works, but it's twitchy.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

Tape was striped with video black prior to recording. An old habit from my broadcasting days.

@jamesm90

6 ай бұрын

You only need to black the tape for insert editing. Crash record and assemble doesn't need a blacked tape. As I'm sure Mr vintage electronics knows.

@TheReal1953

6 ай бұрын

@@jamesm90 That's not what the manual says for ADAT, which uses the same SVHS tapes. There may be a difference in machines/formats.

@andydelle4509

6 ай бұрын

@@jamesm90 He is referring to a Black Burst video signal which is a black screen with all sync pulses present. Some HiFi VCRs needed a video signal for the head servo to operate correctly. Otherwise the AFM recording would be scrambled. It did not specifically have to be true video black, any video would work to lock the machine such as just tuning in a TV show. I know some HiFi VCRs did have an internal sync generator to get around this audio only recording problem.

you unfortunately have to get technical to compare the two -- hifi VHS doesn't have the saturation qualities that are considered desirable for linear tape. it's also not common for the AGC on the input on hifi VHS to be defeatable; if it doesn't work with your source material, too bad. it was never a poor man's reel-to-reel, it was a poor man's long record format that was good enough for some applications. also watch out for pilot tones on the output... I never needed the MPX filter when recording off my FM receiver growing up, bit definitely needed it for dubbing off VHS.

@pokepress

6 ай бұрын

You probably already knew this, but in case someone reading this is confused, both FM radio and analog broadcast TV use a high-frequency pilot tone to let the receiver know there’s a stereo signal. Radio uses 19 kHz while TV is around 15.7 kHz.

the better one WAS S-VHS Hi-Fi and PAL

I did it in the 90s in my teens years using my Panasonic F66, it was better then any tape player at the time and the tape duration was a bonus

Can you skip tracks?

@VintageElectronicsChannel

2 ай бұрын

It would be similar to a cassette or reel to reel: you'd have to note the counter position.

I bought a JVC VHS-HIFI deck with LED VU meters to record audio. Video was a secondary purpose. Too bad I sent it to the scrap yard years ago.

Great Video VEC! In the 90s this was my chosen format of choice as I couldn't afford DAT or MDs to record CDs, Mixtapes, Demos, Radio and anything else I could think of, I even used them at live gigs for backing, nuts. It may not be perfect but it was an audio life saver for me and still rejoice it. I have uploaded a video having some fun capturing the audio quality , still sounds great. kzread.info/dash/bejne/eJNk09uGo63JlKg.html

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching! Great video, too. I checked it out. Sounds great!

You didn‘t quite match the levels (the VHS was quieter) - so at this point comparison is impossible. Louder signals will always sound better to our ears.

DIGITAL FILE HAS MORE "VOLUME" (DYNAMICS?) THAN VHS HIFI TRACK.

Well, I don't know the recording well enough to say for sure, but to me the piano sounded dissonant at times, and I heard some bursts of noise several times. I had a VHS Hi-Fi machine when they came out, and tried it for recording back then. I was not impressed. When I switched from records to CDs, it was a BIG step up! Recording on VHS was like a step back. No VHS Walkman either...

Vhs tapes don't stop playing at all everything proven people like myself are fixing broken vhs tapes with Scotch tape it starts playing again with out no problem's everything plus i clean out mode switches in VCR players everything proven it starts playing again with out no problem's everything proven online how clean out a mode switch in a VCR player

Almost as good as CD quality? CDs cut off at 20k while good analogue goes way beyond that! CDs are definitely not good as reel to reel , although SACD comes very close! Idk why people still think"regular CDs" are so great, I agree with "Bernie Grundman" that "it's not done yet" is what he told an engineer back in 82! CDs sound clean, but they fail to capture the realism required for proper HiFi!😮

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

I agree 100%. Since my content is generally directed toward what I'd consider the "average Joe" when it comes to audio/video technology, I use that reference since most average folks consider a standard CD to be excellent quality. It's definitely the best quality most families have had in their home, at least until very high quality digital files became available. Even so, I'd rather listen to my 15ips 2-track machine. For me, that's the best balance of quality and convenience.