Best Methodology for Re-recording Old Cassettes?

[jerry Guerr]

I have gone through my extensive collection of old Jazz, Rock , and Classical tapes , and now am going to re-record them, onto my stock of Good old type II cassette tape.
I started out with about 400 old tapes, and after I threw out the ones that didn't sound any good because of either worn out tape or bad original sound or performances or were physically bad, I ma left with about 250 nice, rich sounding old tapes.

Now, what I am not sure about is whether or not it would make a difference to utilize one or more of my High end tape decks to do this ( I have a few Naks, Pioneers, Tascam and JVC decks), or just to use a nice decent Yamaha dual cassette dubbing deck .
It would sure be easier to just use the dubbing deck, and the quality of all but a few dozen or so of these tapes is just low quality generic commercial tape with very good but not great sound.

Would the best decks make an improvement to the quality of the re-recorded sound over and above the mid grade Yammie dubbing deck? Also, Isn't "high speed Dubbing" beneficial to re-recording fidelity?

 

[KentTeffeteller]

It is not, no double deck as good as better singles. Best deck to dub cassettes is the deck that recorded them.

 

[jerry Guerr]

Is there any other forums than this for tape talk?:

 

[jerry Guerr]

It is not, no double deck as good as better singles. Best deck to dub cassettes is the deck that recorded them.

I appreciate your condensing an entire 30 minutes of thought out query with many points of concern to only one minor point I was trying to adress, not quoting it for context, and being terse and curt with the answer.

 

[Satcom123]

If I was going to do what you want to do. I think I would evaluate which tape machine/deck has better specs and such. Usually they are the single cassette decks. Which deck are you going to keep long term to use as a player? You might consider using that one to record on.

When I record I use the most hottest levels that I can. Without distortion of course. Will you use dolby? That's another question.

I have about a hundred recorded cassettes that I've recorded from records over the many years. They still play very good. Some dating from the early 70's.

The Nak sounds interesting. I don't own one. Never had the cash at the time.

I have a Teac 97RX, HK-3500, Akai GXC-750G, and several others.

Good luck on the recording and let us know how it goes and settings and such that worked for you. :thmbsp:

 

[turntabletym]

I've used some Maxell cassettes wich improved recording +1DB at original source, the results were fantastic, i found that picture

 

[KentTeffeteller]

Typically, Nakamichi Dragon decks are often used by studios who transfer archival cassette tapes due to the automatic azimuth correction. Are the cassettes you're transferring pre-recorded tapes? They are a varied lot in quality, some are superb, some are only OK, some have serious issues. High speed recording is a convenience and not ultimate quality. Many a double deck (especially auto-reverse models) tend to have lower quality head azimuth stability and tends to be lesser on mechanical stability. Azimuth and mechanical stability is critical to good cassette recording and playback. Apologies if I was terse. Speed can also be an issue between decks and can be corrected when transferring to the PC.

Important side note: Dubbing decks tend to magnify speed and azimuth faults on tapes due to the copying process being an additive one. One reason why early cassette duplicators used a common capstan between master position and duplication positions. These issues are very magnified at cassette speeds.

 

[steerpike2]

Also, Isn't "high speed Dubbing" beneficial to re-recording fidelity?

Exactly the opposite. The source machine - running at double speed - has to try to cope with wavelengths half the size of a machine running at standard speed. It just cannot match the performance achievable at standard speed.

Machines that copy both sides at once are at an even worse disadvantage - two four-track head systems, each contributing to azimuth errors!

 

[jerry Guerr]

Thanks everyone..much obliged.
I guess the only fundamental concern that remains is jut how good a deck do you need to copy a very good quality, but not audiophile quality material.
My guess is that a very good quality single deck would be sufficient, and that a top quality deck would be overkill for this purpose?

 

[Retroman98]

Thanks everyone..much obliged.
I guess the only fundamental concern that remains is jut how good a deck do you need to copy a very good quality, but not audiophile quality material.
My guess is that a very good quality single deck would be sufficient, and that a top quality deck would be overkill for this purpose?

My own opinion, of course, but I always try to use the best deck for recording purposes. I don't think that it is overkill; the sound quality, tape handling, speed accuracy, etc., will be better and the final results more satisfying.

 

[steerpike2]

My own opinion, of course, but I always try to use the best deck for recording purposes. I don't think that it is overkill; the sound quality, tape handling, speed accuracy, etc., will be better and the final results more satisfying.

I would use (and I have seen this advice published a while ago) the better of the two machines for playback. Getting high frequencies onto tape isn't as demanding as recovering them. Cheap machines can generally record a wider bandwidth than they are capable of playing.
Less noise is introduced by the record amplifiers than by the playback amplifiers, so there again, it pays to use the better electronics in the playback portion.

For parameters such as wow/flutter - it's cumulative - your recording will end up with the sum of both machines speed deviations, so no preferred choice for that.

If the source cassette is recorded with Dolby, and you want to retain it and generate a Dolby copy, use Dolby on, on both machines. Turning Dolby off on both and hoping that the Dolby encoding will be transferred in the dub is likely going to result in level mismatches, and Dolby is very sensitive to that.

 

[Ragnar_AT]

In my experience even decent dual well decks (Aiwa AD-WX 808) tend to add motor noise to the dubbed tape, worse so in high-speed mode (perhaps the higher frequency of the faster motor is more noticeable). My Sony TC-WE525 does the same. Good enough for casual listening, but not for high-quality copies.

 

[oldvinyldude]

As I understand what I have read, Nakamichi decks with real time azimuth correction would be the best source deck, because they will tend to correct for those errors to give the best source signal to the target deck.

I also have heard so many say that tapes recorded on a Nak deck just never seem to sound as good played back on another deck-but I have no Nak deck to confirm this.

I would record on the best single deck (no dubbing decks here).

My understanding of the Dolby issue:

If the original was encoded with Dolby b, then use that during playback on the source deck.

Use whatever Dolby encoding you wish on the target deck, as long as you know that you will have that decoding on the deck(s) where you wish to play the tapes. For instance, most car decks did not have Dolby c. This may or may not be a factor.

Personally, I would choose, if available, the best 3 head dual capstan deck with Dolby HX encoding deck that I had, as the target. I would probably also use Dolby b encoding, as I like to play tapes in my car still. If I ever hang with a tape head like myself, and wish to share a tape, they will always have Dolby b available. Dolby HX encoding is single ended, and will benefit any recording. Dolby B or C can be used in addition to Dolby HX.

There are others who may correct me on the above though......

 

[FAB1]

Thanks everyone..much obliged.
I guess the only fundamental concern that remains is jut how good a deck do you need to copy a very good quality, but not audiophile quality material.
My guess is that a very good quality single deck would be sufficient, and that a top quality deck would be overkill for this purpose?

Not sure what you mean by Rerecording but if you are recording over used tapes I suggest using a bulk eraser first. If you are dubbing to spanking new tapes...nevermind.

 

[AnalogDigit]

Your better off to use the deck that is best for playback. Clean the heads, capstan and pinch roller before any recording or playback. Use the same noise reduction for what is recorded on the tape.

I would not use high speed dubbing on a dual deck.

The TOTL dual decks are okay, but for the best results use two single-well decks. If possible, the deck recording should be a 3 head deck or a decent 2 head deck. You will just have to experiment which combination give you the best sound.

 

[blownsi]

I may get flamed for this but why re-record them onto cassette? Why not use reel to reel or to something digital?

 

[Franksta]

I may get flamed for this but why re-record them onto cassette? Why not use reel to reel or to something digital?

Well Brownsi I hope WE don't get flamed but I wonder the same thing! Here's what I would do..........

I would use my best single tape deck that has the best record playback specs. I would then record a master recording to the HD on my computer with the Dolby engaged based on the original Dolby (B or C) used on the tape. You could then record that master back to any source you wish even the same tape deck you used to play originally.

You could even "remaster" it on the way back out by using a good player software like J. Rivers Media Player (free) which has some good DSP and EQ settings that would probably improve the sound. There is other software available that you could tweak that master recording with. For example the DEPOPPER software that I use to take the pops and clicks out of my LP recordings also has a hiss filter and a low filter function if needed.

Personally I like to make a Minidisc recording from many of my sources. Even that remaster from the computer would be great going back to a minidisc. There is no added wow and flutter no speed variations and azimuth problems don't exist. I use a MD deck on 3 of my systems and then play the disc on a portable in the car hooked to the AUX input on the cars unit. It seems that the recording on a minidisc sounds better than the original sometimes even though in reality it is a compressed format itself. It is not hard or expensive to pick up a home deck and portable MD system to give it a try. And if you don't like it it's not usually very hard to resell it either.

Just some food for thought. Good luck! Franksta

 

[Bigerik]

Well guys, this is the tape forum, and there are lots of guys here who actually prefer tape to digital media.

 

[jsixis]

I vote for dumping them to a hard drive then recording them back to a tape, if for no other reason if they are rare and you already know about tapes why risk losing something you enjoy?

 

[slow_jazz]

When I plan to record over a previously recorded tape I will run the tape once thru with a blank signal and then run it through a second time with good signal.