VCR vs. Reel to Reel for Recording Music | Can you tell the difference?

"That thing has value to weird musicians!" ROFL!!!

I used to use a hifi VCR alongside 4 and 2 channel tape recorders in the 80s. My VCR was relatively rare in having manual record level and metering. Some VCRs were not hifi, because they used a low speed linear track. Mine offered a spec of 20 -20K and 90dB s/n.

Great point. I'm an Xer that has to work at a PC most of the day. Love my DAW but am very interested in getting "off the grid" and using a VHS would make perfect sense in conjunction with an analog 4-track recorder. I want to get back to pure creativity that doesn't involve a mouse or keyboard. Thanks for the idea and inspiration! Keep up the great videos.

I know this is a little off subject but does anyone have a sony DAT

I recorded the a hip hop album on a HiFi JVC vcr back in 1998. That vcr had an independent audio recording function that allowed you to adjust the input recording gain. IMO nothing sounded better than the warmth of that vcr analog tape. Was able to reduce the hiss because of the independent audio gain function that vcr unit had. At the time my four track unit had stopped working and we did live takes of all the songs for the album. A Shure sm-58 through outboard compressor and slight reverb and the tracks straight through an Ensoniq ASR-10. All ran through a Yamaha 12 channel board right into the vcr. When you're a broke producer/engineer you get creative. Came out great.

Why don’t VCR’s come with headphone knack and adjustable audio input meters?

I think VHS is better in some ways.
I think the sound on a well maintained VCR and tape is better than a lot of DVDs

You get a good, loud, consistent, stereo HiFi sound where as DVD and other digital media you got the whole really quite dialog thing then really loud action thing.

I heard no difference on "good" phone speakers in a quiet listening environment.

i recorded on my ASF Fisher deck from 1982 and a JVC VHS Super ET HIFI and i like the mid-low on the tape deck. think im liking the deck better. is it actually better? this deck was a the only dolby they made. the VHS is JVC model is HR-S-5902U

Heh, there’s a really cool thing you can also do which is put pcm audio on the tape with a special Sony box

HiFi VCR uses companding circuitry to get that crazy high S/N ratio. So depending on the material you will hear the difference as there is a slight delay expanding the compressed audio on playback.

El cabezal de audio no es el circular. Ese es de video, el de audio es el cabezal normal de la derecha.

I liked the vcr honestly

I don’t think you mentioned anywhere in this video that you need a HiFi VCR. In fact, a HIFi VCR has better sound reproduction than a reel-to-reel. The original audio spec on the linear stereo (or the original mono) tracks on VCRs was terrible for reproducing audio, as they simply divided the original linear mono which was terrible to begin with into two seperate left and right tracks.
HiFi VHS surpasses Reel-to-Reel.
EQUIPMENT Freq. Response W&F Dyn. Range
Linear VHS 50Hz - 8kHz 0.200% 45dB
Reel to Reel 40Hz - 25kHz 0.040% 65dB
HiFi VHS 20Hz - 20kHz 0.005% 80dB

Additionally, if you get a higher spec HiFi VCR you will get independent L and R input level control. Some of the cheaper, low end hi-fi VCRs had auto gain control on the audio input, and this can add noise during quiet periods. The high spec ones with the independent level imports did not have auto gain control, or more precisely, the auto gain control was disabled, unless you set the audio recording levels on auto.

I could hear the hiss on the R2R, VHS had some rf noise because of the (not recorded) Picture, but it did sound as good as your R2R.

Great channel man. For these tests I think you should be using more hifi input sources. Drum machines are already very lo-fi so the higher end of the spectrum (were the most difference is imo) is not really being tested here. I though 1: PC, 2: Reel, 3: VCR but unsure about 2 & 3. PC was obvious because of lower noise.

i absolutely love your show =)

I also use VHS to for mixing or backups.

The spinning drum head is only for the video NOT the audio. To the far left you will see the erase head and to the right of the spinning drum is the linear audio head. No sound is picked up from that video drum head. The VCR is great for audio recording Just make sure it has "HiFi" written on it else not so great.

I'm interested to try this at heavily levels, saturated, as I know how reel to reel behaves with the levels cranked but haven't tried with hi-fi VCR.

great video

3 had the best low end and even sound 2 had a louder mid bump

That's all small time bands/musicians used for decades until PCs/interfaces got good enough. Really want the experience? Four track with gain fairly cranked -> BBE -> VCR for mixdown (have to play with levels of course). That's like all early-mid 90's electronic/dance/indie anything.

Use to use a PcM converter into VHS tape for earlier than DAT digital masters.

Doesn't record audio using the drum, it has a separate audio head. How about doing Betamax next time, not as cheap as VHS unfortunately.

I used to use the Alesis Digital Audio Tape (ADAT) which used Super VHS tapes to get 8 tracks. You could synchronise 16 machines to get 128 tracks. It was good fun. Alesis now use hard drives.

Number 2 sounded best to me, glad I found it was reel tape. Back then they used really high end reel to reel recorders like Ampex 24 track.

I didn’t hear THAT much hiss with the vcr, though. And I already knew that vcr’s could be used for music: Radio Shack used to put some music CD’s on vhs tapes at one of the stores here in Houston in the 80’s (before Stereo VCR’s were available) just to have music in the store.

dang these beats are funky

I used to mix down to my stereo VCR in the late 80’s with my Tascam Porta One…… then play that mix to a new tape on the four track (Tracks 1 & 2 for stereo) so I would two more tracks…… I would do it one more time so I would be able to record eight tracks…..

So funny but I had guessed that 2 was VHS and I actually found 1 and 3 to be less distinguishable. I wonder if all the different ways we hear has to do with individual human loss of certain parts of spectrum as we age?

I used to take my old VHS recorder to gigs I played over the last 30+ years, and get a line-out from the desk. As the mix was for the space, not the stereo mix it was pretty hit and miss, but was really good otherwise. I have about 80 vhs tapes that have the whole gig, usually arnd 3 sets on each.

This was so cringe to watch. Just hear for the recording review...no bells n whistles with shades.

I have a VHS handycam that record directly on tape, I'm wondering if there's a way of using it in my productions, gonna try

This channel is exactly what I needed, thank you! <3

some of the first affordable multi track digital recorders that came out were the Alesis adat SVHS 8 track tape machine..I remember trying my Mitsubishi vhs recorder in the 80's it was a hifi deck but when only recording audio into it, it seemed to have some flutter in the sound... parhaps vcr decks got better over time because my deck was early on...

Very cool and informative vid as always. What immediately comes to mind are successfully transferring any recordings done on blank VHS tapes to digital ( for combining tracks, etc.) , the hiss and how to eliminate it without the classic noise reduction, and how to actually check recording levels while recording onto VHS.

I recorded a band on a Mitsubishi Hifi Vcr. Cd sold well, sounded great

have you tried using an outboard noise reduction system with the VCR to take out the hiss?

they used to master CDs using a VCR with a Pulse Code Modulator. This was before DAT.

I have pretty good ears.. I couldn't tell the difference between any of them.

lovely irony that yr VHS deck is badged 'sony'....

this technique of recording stereo FM audio in the vertical guard-band was also used in betacam SP decks from around 1989 to 1993, when digibeta first came along.

So you went from cassette to reel to reel and VCR. Lol. Wtf buddy. Better experiment would be digital to reel or VCR.
As the way you've done it it's only as good as the cassette you came off.

my guess was: 1 - reel2reel, 2 - cassette, 3 - vhs

i wasn't expecting cassette to be noisier than reel2reel, that surprised me though haha
on hifi vhs, the audio quality is great i think the bitrate is a bit lower than 44.1khz but pretty close to near-cd quality (for me anyways)
but on 2 head vcrs, the audio quality is about half that (which sounds about right since on hifi vcrs, there are usually 4 or more heads on the drum)

I honestly can't tell the difference at all.

Does the VCR offer any of the magical compression and saturation qualities that reel to reel devotees swear by?

The VHS has a surprisingly tasteful low end bump.

When we played live, I would record all the audio off the board into a VHS tape. 2 hours of audio on one tape! The frequency response of a HiFi VCR, is really good!