Maybe it’s just the added harmonics, but tape always sounds meatier, warmer and more full. And I’m an ITB producer. What I love about recording lossless and then putting it through a tape machine, is that the tape machine becomes a flavour rather than a limitation that governs the entire recording/mixing process. Is there something to be said about recording to tape initially? Of course. It creates a completely different environment for the performer/producer and encourages bold choices during the session.

the hiss instantly gives the recordings the feeling that you've unearthed some long forgotten demo or performance. Love the work as usual, dude.

I firmly believe that the 1900's were magical. After the year 2000, the magic didn't disappear immediately, but began waning or changing. Maybe we we're all inserted into the Matrix around 1999 (joke, or is it?) I'm glad some younger people seem to recognize that it's worth exploring the 80's, 90's, etc. It's interesting that video games and musical instruments/gear are two of the best ways to experience the past in an interactive way. I dig what you're doing, keep it up!

In the end it wasn't difficult to guess the cassette, it's the sound that moves me the most.

Great recordings, I especially liked the warmth it gave the keys, and the bite on certain notes. Ensembles like this sounds great on tape. Thanks for the video!

The tape definitely softens the harshness of the original files, albeit while adding a bit of noise…., which I like 👍🏼

The tape sounded more airy and transparent compared to the digital recording in most cases.👍😉

One thing to consider is how hard you are hitting the cassette. If you want less subtle results then hit it harder and you'll definitely hear more transient softness, more harmonic distortion, etc. What's incredible is how clear the overall the quality of cassettes can be.

Absolutely love this series! Listening blind is such a great way to really focus your ears and to move past prejudice. Keep em coming!

From my own experience: it does make a difference. I always do it if I can.

One thing I love about tape is that it adds a very natural compression that you can't recreate with an actual compressor. It seems to just soften the transients in a way you can't achieve any other way. Also sssssssssssssssss!!!

I LOVE tape..I get on the turntables set my VCR to record,and start spinning my VINYL records. NOTHING replaces harmonics, a noise floor, and the warmth of analog machines as they warm up..No matter how much digital I use, I master to tape..I can slam tapes and get that natural compression..

Like your editing style, funny to watch (portastudio crash moment :))

Tape wins over digital every time! The ability to get tape saturation not only enhances the warmth of the sound but also gives it some punch.

I got them all right but funnily enough I really liked the digital recording of the room mic. That being said, I would go for what I like, not what is "better"

My plan is to record my digital beats in 2 tape and then back to digital ... Now I know its worth my time. Thanks 😊

🔥🔥🔥 appreciate you creating and posting this.

Dang - fun! Id love to hear the cassett 635a panned hard right and the digital 635a panned hard left - might sound cool .

So it turns out the cassette sounds warmer and and just better in general especially the full mix. The only one I wasn’t a fan of was the keys on tape the hiss really was noticeable.

i hear no difference. but when taking wild guess which one i like more i have chosen digital all the time.

Love the vid. Surprised that cassette was brighter, but I think that the cassette recording was also a wee tad louder? Important to keep an eye on when you're doing a/b's ;) Loved the cassette noise too.

I’m actually making a new batch of promo cassettes with some of my interviews. Making them in real time limits how many I can make, but some folks really want them. It’s weird-some folks go to Pokémon tournaments in cars so old they have a cassette player, some don’t have a CD player in their entire home.

I feel like when you transfer digital to analog tape it takes the harse edge off the sound and makes it sound more natural and easier on the ear.

Very nice! These results surprised me, even as a Portastudio guy. I feel like the real sonic beauty of double speed cassette is mostly lost to KZfaq's audio compression, so your demo here is especially impressive, in that it's still scoring all these points on a very digital playing ground. If it were ever safe enough to try, it would also be interesting to compare one recorded live directly onto tape to a digital one captured simultaneously from the sends of the 424... I guess I'm mostly curious about the sonic affect of the dbx during the tracking stage. Whatever. Awesome video!!

Thank you for this great vid Chris! It answered the exact question I had about running separate audio stems from Logic to Tape simultaneously. I’m gonna need to get an interface that has more than two line outputs. Something like your Apollo. Tape does sound better, and definitely adds spice to a digital recording.

The difference is hardly noticeable in the individual tracks, but with all the instruments you can hear that the digital sounds a bit pushed down, it's hard to explain but it sound less "powerful" but it also sounded more controlled. Nice video man !

I love the older music and just tech like this im actually planning on putting a podcast onto cassettes just because it be cool

Hey dude, that was really cooooool, I love cassettes, but I have to admit that this time - the cassette wins for me again! :) :) The final mix is very smooth and "cassetteclear" sounding to me. Solo parts are somehow - how to say - more wider opened, spatial like... compared to digital. A bit of an unexpected finding, I was afraid it would be the other way around. Piece :)

I just subbed. Love your channel and your energy. Cassettes can sound good if you have a good machine, good tape and good material. I love your EV 635A. I have one in my mic locker. Ever tried Shure SM57s? I love those too! I also have that same 4-track reel to reel that needs some work, but Id give it to you if youd give it a good home! Seriously! Great video, man!

Sooo many things are not considered with the tape and deck in this video. The tape sounded better primarely because it gave a little treble boost which the recording needed. And that's because the tape was underbiased...but that Tascam doesn't allow you to calibrate that. So the effect will vary with every tape. Then there's azimuth, w/f, hiss and more which is also not regarded here. But fun video just for fun. You can't make any statement about tape from this video 🙃

Really cool vibe of the cassette, i love it😊😊😊

You also have to take account for the type of tape. There is/was ferro: the cheapest and slightly muffled sound of which the frequency from 1 to 3kHz was more distinct, CrO2 or chromium with a broader recorded frequency spectrum, sounding fresher, and then there's Metal, that also had significantly more dynamic range, costs more but elas also took it's toll on the tapeheads.

The tape sounded “better” but it was identifiable by the hiss, especially on the piano. Personally I would use a combination of them, tape for drums and bass but leave the piano and ambiance as digital. I understand you’d need to resync and there would be phase problems which is why we have saturators and tape emulators. I don’t think the difference after using them would make it worth putting up with the hiss.

The first one was without a doubt cassette, even hearing it on a cell phone.

I could hear a significant difference from the hiss on the Bass and Keys tracks. Couldn't really detect it on the busier drum and room tracks. I could definitely see digging my portastudio out of the garage to get a little old school mojo on a couple tracks. I suspect that mine will have more pitch artifacts because it's been completely unmaintained, sitting in a detached garage through summers and winters, for 15 years. Excited to find out!

Individually I got just the room mic wrong. That said, I basically picked all the tracks that I like the sound of the most. However, for the full mix, I far preferred the digital version. I'm guessing because the added lower freq content in the cassette tracks were masking the detail in the mids. Both sounded great. Which basically means... ... recording medium doesn't matter. Record good songs, then listen to them.

with my eyes closed, tape all day!

fantastic! Excellent video, my friend. Love this type of content

a very faint hiss gives away the cassette.

I listened perfectly the typical background sound of the tape(hiss) in the keys and the bass, and in the final mix, difficult to listen but noticeable in the ambient and in the drums. Well for your kind of music is a good idea record into cassette because it brings a natural compression tot the hole mix that is very cool.

The drums was the one that makes less difference. On the others was easy because there is some tape hiss that is noticeable on quiter tracks like the bass and the keys. Nice experiment.

That's crazy. Every time that the cassette played I thought it was digital. The cassette sounds better.

Awesome video. For me personally the tape had most positive impact and noticeable difference on drums but tbh what I found most interesting was that I preferred the digital-only version of the room mics. Maybe porta studios lend themselves to a hybrid approach because the final mix really hissed, and using less tape tracks for instruments where the differences aren’t as noticeable might have a positive effect on the final track anyway. Now I just need you to make a video on how I can fix the dead fader in my Porta02.

I love this channel!

All my favorite bands recorded on tape. Some still do...😮

The cassette recording seems to have a smoothness where things flow into each other more listening to it on cheap headphones

Yay! I got all of them right! But to be fair I have shoeboxes full of Tascam 4-track recordings lol

First example, bias is pretty prominent and the snare seems more compressed on the tape. Second, tape bias is a pretty obvious giveaway. Third, same situation but man that "warmth" makes the synth sound miles better at the same time. Fourth, bias again. Full mix, bias again. It's interesting, though. Somehow the tape bias adds a cozy feel. It reminds me of a trick I heard from somebody on Pensado's podcast, where he would add a track of pure white noise compressed to a key input of the lead vox and set the level to just barely audible. There's a degree to which we have gotten used to artifacts from equipment used during recording, and it no longer sounds like "noise" but rather as something like another instrument.

The cassette had more vibe on everything but the room mic, which went well with the accuracy of digital. It just had more dimension.

I could guess in almost every case. Somewhere is hiss, somewhere kinda warmth ...I don't know. Digital is dry and cruel.

Cassette sounded great except for the constant hiss. Digital somehow sounded duller, which surprised me.

I was undefeated on this one, but not bragging 'cause it was the hiss that gave it away every time 😄 tbh I'm not sure which one sounded "better"; I just knew when the cassette was in so I may or may not have preferred it based on that alone

On the keys you can hear the bad w/f on that tape recorder...so very obvious 🙃

I could hear a difference. Individually the analog tracks sounded much better, but combined they seemed to be smearing each other. Perhaps the portastudio would be a good audio capturing device, then mix it digital, and I bet that would sound fantastic.

The magic is recording directly to tape in the studio (some studios still offer it) then recording to cassette. However, anytime tape is involved it always adds rather than subtracts. And using all analog gear (CMOS is fine) is also beneficial to the final sound. I remember when CD started to become real popular in the mid 90s and the only thing I liked about it was being able to select what song I wanted at the press of a button; but in this regard it offered very little over LP. Tape is the best, then Vinyl. (To me)

because of your work i bought aswell a porta two mini and i used to send my drums very hot into it and boom there is the saturation i was looking for it is indeed a very nice idea. love it see ya

LOL!! And here I am recording my old four track tapes to Cubase 12 Pro….. for archiving and maybe doing some track cleaning with new mixes…… love what you are doing in the video…..

I do think the tape plugins can offer the best of both worlds in the sense that you can easily tweak how much tape effect you want to simulate while avoiding the accumulative effect of having the white noise on every track as I find it get's to be a bit too much, but that is still subjective and dependent on context.

I love the glue the cassette adds to the whole mix, however on this particular setup the cassette added some boost to high mids that I found a little unpleasant and harsh sounding.

I only missed one. I plan to bounce to tape for my drum plugin, but with much more peaking

The prime directive: BOUNCE TO TAPE

man, the sketch cassette plugin does a pretty good job of replicating that sound, i hear from your demo.

tape definitely adds color, which I love. but if you can't afford vintage gear CHOW tape model vst is free and does a really impressive job. just make music and record it

i only noticed it on the keys, since they had enough quiet space to hear the noise. i listened on cheap wireless earbuds, which sure that’s far from a pristine listening experience but if it’s not noticeable there does it really contribute much. i like tape emulation and analog emulation plugins, but mostly to get much stronger distortion and coloration

I actually didn't hear any tape hiss for some reason. sounds like you definitely boosted the highs a little on the tape, yeah? sounds good!

I immediately guessed the drums and bass sound because on tape the toms and bass were a little compressed sounding. The keys were interesting because the cassette added a bit more high mids

Very interesting comparison. I actually heard no difference and my guess was only accurate once. :-)

objectively/measurably, digital is always better.... but tape just adds something pleasing to the ear, in most scenarios....

I loved it on the single instruments, especially keys, wasn't as excited on the whole mix due to the accumulated noise. I've been experimenting with sending some tracks to cassette, then back to digital and mixing them in to taste with the digital signal.

Cassette compression is the best

great video once again

Flutter gives it away

Got a sub. Tape is the best

You can definitely hear a more open sound with a bit more definition on the instrument ! Nice

I like the cut of your jib. I give you a sub.

Cassette has a more open and bigger sound, perhaps where all the frequencies can more easily live

I could only hear the difference at 24-bit, 192 kbd recording transferred to vinyl.

Thank you 🙏🏾

to the peeps who BUY music, it makes not a jot of difference! I said BUY! underlined and in bold.

Just listening back through my laptop speakers,I could tell which one was which. I got it right every time..Cassette had depth and 3d and made the drums sound better where as the digital sounded flat and no depth, cassette seemed to bring out every instrument where the digital sounded like all of the instruments were coming out of a speaker and I heard that through these dinky little laptop speakers.

Use cassette tracks on most, pull the room mic from digital. That would be a good mix.

Tape sounded natural and just felt better…Digital sounded as it should cleaner.

Everyone uses Tape , when not as End Product at least a Tape Machine like the Roland Space Echo, or Echo Fix or whatsoever.

This one felt like the old school videos! Very fun. I prefer the 464, def. I recently recorded a show with a 424mkI and the sound quality was 🔥. Still have to mix it down for a release (on cassette!) but was very happy with the raw stuff. Early 90’s units were very high Q

i got them right, because the tape recordings are wider, and the digital recordings seem to sound auto compressed. 👈👺👍

You can feel difference immediately. Especially in full mix (even from crappy mono dynamic, i checked). P.S. Professional tape reel with 30 IPS will be a way more subtle.

It's crazy, but the digital mix seems warmer? The noise floor of the 4 track makes it harsher to me. Might be different if you could transfer to a larger format tape like a 1/2 inch 16 track. Cool video!

in individual channels can't tell but on full mix, cassette has a bit of a hiss that wasn't unpleasant but noticeable. idk what happened but in your video about the wavesfactory cassette pluggin vs real cassette I was able to tell the difference ^^U

I could tell right away butt the one I got wrong was the room sound one ,was hard to know butt I can tell right away from daw to cassette case the computer is to hifi sounded

part of the sound is also the pre amps on your portasound, personaly i prefer fostex, its more dirty imho

Maybe I'm wrong here but unless you have some sort of baddass on-demand analogue audio feed linked to KZfaq, both are digital.

The tape added a lot of color to the bass. Per your sample, I can hear a kind of pumping of hiss. Not as noticeable on the other tracks, but still audible. A little less “attack” on the tape. Now, I’m assuming you didn’t use any NR on the cassette recording. The hiss on the bass track would have been diminished. ALSO, I’d LOVE to hear this in S T E R E O!!! Great recording btw! Now, your next experiment should be stereo digital mix vs. the same mix from 7 1/2 ips RTR. Heck, try it with 15 ips too. As an aside, I took a great album from a sadly de-noised CD edition & fed it to a 7 1/2 ips tape (no Dolby) and it gave it a much warmer sound. They shouldn’t have added NR to a perfectly good recording (I have the OG vinyl). But I digress. Great comparison. Let’s hear a full track in stereo!!!

The cassette tracks were all way noisier. I’d like to hear a comparison with the tape run at double speed- the hiss can’t be what people like right?

I guessed wrong about 50% of the time, maybe more. I still prefer tape for purely fetishistic reasons.

The only one I got wrong was the Sax room mic one, but it was iffy due to being a room mic recording with loads of sound in the recording, no obvious lows, mids or highs that are tells for digital vs a cassette, let alone quiet bits to hear hiss! The rest all caught them, I know my audio engineering well! Ears still work great too! lol

maybe im wrong, but i think that the "effect' of tape is more obvious when you record directly on it... when bouncing digital to tape it becomes more subtle to my (rusty), ears. i love this content, man... you rock Greetings from Chile

The last test would have been a lot tougher if you had excludeded the room mic because the tape hiss was a dead give away. That aside. Across all the channels, the digital has a more "direct" sound in the sense that there is a flat frequency response whereas the casette mex has some high end cut out and bass boost across the board, and all of of it exists in a similar mix. Id be curious if you compared a digitally mixed digital recording, an analog (4 track) mixed digital recordong, a digitally mixed analog recording, and an analog mixed analog recording. Thanks for the demonstrations!

Drums-I couldn`t hear the difference, but, it was kind of nasty unprocessed sound anyway, that I can`t call Hi Fi Bass-YES I KNEW IT. how? Cassete adds hiss noise. The same with keys. First I heard some noise and thought it was cassete, but on the second example there was even more noise. with saxophone and drums in background you don`t hear that much of a hiss, but still, I´ve got it right as well. First of all-TAPE ADDS NOISE. Hmmmm....I do love tape machines, but I would probably stick with reel to reel....as for cassettes...I love them because of nostalgic aspect, but making music with tapes????...well, only if I want to learn to overcome tape limitations, learning some sound engineering skills. But I wouldn`t use the tapes so old, chances that they are damaged are pretty big. And if I would ever make something critical for a client with huge budget, where nothing should go wrong-screw the tape. Digital only. By the way-final mix had hiss as well, for me this is not acceptable. I would at least use some noise reduction, new or NOS tape type 2 at least...As for the mix...Ok, this is small bar recording, nothing fancy, no huge production...To explore tape limitations I would probably try to get some better sounding source. There was a band in USSR, who had no acces to huge studio. So using this kind of analog porto studio they recorded an album at their apartmant, that became huge success and sold over 2 million copies, even metallica covered the title song during Moscow performance. Nobody gave a f---ck about tape limitations, everybody was just enjoying the music. Not my favorite kind of music, but I have a great respect how they pulled it with limited equipement. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gZxpktBlzNq-dJ8.html

Tape saturation and hiss are your friends 🗽📼

bass definitly sounded better in digital imho, tho i thought otherwise. strange how cassete ADDS hiqh frequencies and crisp, well, at least on my audio "system" (circa 97 sa eh 570 technics home hifi tower))). i tried to record audio tapes and what ive got was more warm, less crisp sound on cassete. well, maybe im too stoned rn to understand/hear the difference!