A Beginner's Guide To Cassette and Tape Machines For Music Production

Love tape 🙂

I have an old Tascam 234 4-track that died mid-session, whilst bouncing to ProTools. It made a glorious noise that became a signature to the track I was working on. I still use it as a great mixer. I also had a Maestro Echoplex bite the dust DURING a recording session. Again, a wonderful racket.

Is this the third Green brother? (Hank and John Green)

I start to record my live on a D6C SONY walkman, it gives the recording such a colourful sound, warm, a touch of saturation (analog distortion is actually good) then recorded from tape into the DAW. If someone can recommend a good duplicator but stereo, a decent price perhaps. Nice video

I found a Sony TC-252 for just $25 at a local thrift shop, and a bunch of blank 7” reels (from W. Germany of all places) and I haven’t looked back since. Sounds so much better than an iPad running FL/Garage band

Hi again, I bought a good state Revox A77 stéréo. Now I i'm lost about wich tape to buy. I have been told Maxel and TDK but is that all that fits? Is there any good tips to buy it cheap? And a very naive question; Is it like a small tape recorder, can we erase and record again on the same tape? A great thank you in advance!

What about revox a77? One for sale in town

Thank you for the video. Is Revox A77 also interesting? I find more offers for the A77 than for the B77. Thank you!

Any chance of getting a review/video of nagra r2r and explaining the love of them?

Hi, thank you for the guide. Would you recomend a Nagra IV-D for experimenting?

You have some pretty cool equipment there, very nice...

Tape just sounds better....I even like cassettes better than digital

Always wanted a nagra but too expensive for my taste, settled for a ferrograph reel to real the preamp is amazing, it’s even got it’s own speaker, made an interesting guitar amp for a bit (till it broke) really rate them .
The guy I bought it from said he took it on a job to record sounds in Africa, the thing weighs a ton!!!, unfortunately he did not have the recordings. Really need to get that fixed

Prices are now in the thousands on both of these Nagras

Inexplicably, I recently bought a Realistic SCT-17 cassette deck on Etsy for $65. I blame you Hainbach 😂

When the video started, I saw a Nagra and Auratone speaker. It was right then that I knew I liked this guy!
I used the Marantz PMD cassette years ago in radio broadcasting and they were solid machines!
Love the video! Thanks!

I like your description of the superferro. I went looking for them. They are not available on Amazon. I'm three years late.

Also, please, could you do a video about different tape workflows? Like, the signal path, going from synths, to mixer, to 4-track, to tape deck for copying, etc...

Do you know anything about the Nakamichi 500? Is it a 4-track recorder? How can it be used?

What a great, thorough video! Thank you for all the good advice!!

I'm really curious how does a Nagra adds perceived width and dimension to a mono source, do you have any clues why that might be?

Seeing this renewed interest in tape makes me wonder if there's a company out there that would be willing and/or able to engineer a hardware solution that does all of these magical tape things, but in a way that's cheaper and easier to manufacture and service. It seems that VST emulations will eventually be the only way to do this someday. Maybe that's not so bad, because emulations are getting very very good... but the problem is that the hardware is so much more "variable" than even the most exotic of VSTs. I think the engineering is great, but it might be one of those situations where the only way to get an accurate VST emulation is to salvage the surviving tape machines out there and see if the engineers can think of a way to build a single solution that can be dialed in to replicate any of the greats. Softube has been great, but even they haven't gotten quite dirty enough.

I record for the glory of the music. Not altered and faithful as possible. Would love to have a Nagra. Super expensive. I use 2 TEACs and I am good. Been recording for years.

Hainbach, please help! You just said something that had never occurred to me and I’m in the process of bidding on reel to reels. I record everything through analog preamps straight to cpu through apogee symphony mk2, then use i/o in DAW to run these tracks into analog processors and back, through dangerous audio D/A. It never occurred to me that the signal is being broken up into 44000 pieces each trip!! I’ve often wondered why certain tracks start getting thin after a certain about of processing. I manipulate and move things around in the daw and that’s a mainstay of my work flow, but what just occurred to me is that I somehow only need to do all processing before conversion, then one trip to digital? That will change everything, but that’s what you’re basically saying is best right?

Sigh Hainbach....you did it buddy you finally got me 😂. I just pulled the trigger the elusive unicorn known as the marantz pmd 430 with a varispeed mod output jack installed 😅 i have never been more excited and instantly broke before in my life hahaha. I watched your video and it finally gave me license to own my dream machine . I really Loved this video keep up the great content!!

All these units are about 3x as expensive as described in the video now :(

The prices you´ve mentioned meanwhile nearly quadrupled... However, I was just able to dig a mint marantz cp130 for a price thats almost fair.

What do you think about the UHER CR-240? I can't find out if this one uses the full tape / let's you pitch. Thanks !!!

Are there any producers for Keilriemen for Telefunken Tapedecks?

Still so sad they discontinued 468

Hi! Thank you so much for this video, I've learned so much more than what I expected! I'm already looking for a tape recorder to start exploring with it. All the best!

Lol, I've got Tesla 116B from my friend. He found it in the attic of a house he was renovating. Belts are gone but I will refurbish it for sure (after I am done with Akai GX625)

Thanks so much for the great tips! One further question regarding the Nagras - do you need to ground them somehow?

Those machines audio cassettes recorders not simple tape recorder

Thank you for producing this excellent guide. It might be worth mentioning that, while the old Sony units are great recorders (including the Pro Walkmans), Sony chose to use Center Pin Negative for all their DC power supplies, and when unwitting owners use non-OEM supplies they burn out the units' power board or worse. So many Sony units - otherwise useful - end up as junk for that reason alone.
I have the same Nagra 3b as you showcase and remember my very first impression - after hearing my voice recorded so many times over the years growing up on one or another R2R, and thinking 'but that doesn't sound like my voice', when I heard it on the Nagra, THAT was my voice! I think that there is no better yardstick to measure tonal accuracy etc. than your own voice as you are more intimately familiar with that sound than any other, and the Nagra full track is the best I have heard.

im trying to digitize some original guitar music, im using an ordinary tape player (ONN brand, battery operated) is this good enough for playback or do you suggest a better hi-fi machine?

I have two Sony TC 252 reel to reel tape recorders but need help.Can you please help me??

Nagra 3 & 4.2 are anywhere from 2K AUD on Ebay 🤣I love the descriptors you use to describe the sound, but the price of entry is probably a bit high.

Great video! I'm starting to look for one reel to reel and I've come across an Akai 4000 dbs mkII and a Tandberg 6000x...would you mind to give me your feedback on which one would be the best for experimenting/ambient/drone...etc? I would appreciate it a lot!

Great video. I have a question. Is it possible to give a song a final mastering, and have distribution levels just by bouncing a final mix from a 4 track cassette recorder to HI FI VHS without actually sending your song to a mastering engineer? Someone told me that the HIFI VHS actually masters a recording naturally. I'm not sure what to think on that.

Me pausing to google Nagra prices and immediately being disappointed , lol.

amazing voice

Lo-fi fo' life! \(O_o)/

Background song is wicked, wish I had it

I'm finding it very hard to hear what you are saying. Not because of your accent but it's your enunciation (I'm American), especially in speaking the brands and models.

NOW the nagra is thousands, thanks covid

I'm interested of making a track or two like a they did it before, tapes analog equipment everything like that a true old school edm track

In film school in the 80s I worked in the equipment checkout and later in repair. We had a bunch of Nagras (mainly 4.2s and some 3s and 4s) since they had crystal sync with the arri film cameras. I wasn't a sound person, but I loved those Nagras most of all. You could feel every single bit of the engineering that went into them, and getting to actually open them up for repair was a dream. Every time I see one of yours I just want to touch it. Thanks!

Also band called Kudelski? Lolol.

Also I always thought of that great Nagra sound as "creamy".

“ Zach your gear acquisition syndrome can’t hurt you anymore”

* odd ambience in the ether


“ hi I’m hainbach good to have you back”
Ambience turns a key