Wherefore the Quirky Tape Deck Preamp?

[Judas Jetski]

During our Great House De-Crapping of 2009 I have discovered that I have an unreasonable surplus of tape decks which I have been keeping around "just for the preamps." I do this because "everyone" says that tape deck preamps are a good thing to have around. Apparently, I'm not in the loop with "everyone," because I have no idea what to do with these things.

What I've got is a mess of TEAC stuff (four channels of AR-40S preamp in two 4010S tape decks; also a console-style cassette deck which probably has some pretty good pres). I've also got a Silvertone tube tape deck, which "probably has a pretty amazing preamp" (again according to "everyone"). When it comes to input, none of these preamps take anything more stout than a 1/4" TS phone jack, so it's not like I can really use them for mic preamps.

I really don't have a clue as to what I "should" be using these things for. Are they mostly just for weird, overdriven guitar tone? Or is there some practical application I'm missing out on? I'm recording to tape, and when I do I'm usually using TEAC or Tascam equipment anyway. Is there a point to having these extra preamps around? Should I be trying to find a way to rack-mount these bad boys & put them to work? Or should I send them on to some more enterprising DIY'er?

[The Scum]

The only tape preamp that I know of that was ever really in demand was the Ampex. That's because it was in production for a long time, and it's already a mic preamp, so it's not too tough to hack it out into a standalone preamp.

I don't know this "everyone," and find their wisdom dubious.

The Silvertone might be the platform for a reasonable preamp...if nothing else, something that's already a tube amp probably has a power supply with heaters and holes for tube sockets...but it might otherwise be a rip-n-replace job.

I really don't see why the solid state stuff is worth modding. You might do the tape ecosystem better if you gave to parts to someone who's trying to keep one of those decks running.

Or should I send them on to some more enterprising DIY'er?

Don't put your junk in my backyard, my backyard's full.

[T-rex]

I have heard a lot of people mention doing this with the roberts tape decks because they are tube pre's I think.

The ampex's are supposed to be great but that is a whole other level.

[Spoonie]

I found an old cheap valve tape deck in the attic a while back which i decided might be useful for the pre. So i broke out the soldering iron and connected an xlr at the input and the output cause connectors on the deck didnt work with anything i had. It's noisy as hell and needs to be put through another preamp to boost the signal but hey you never know

[permanent hearing damage]

I have heard a lot of people mention doing this with the roberts tape decks because they are tube pre's I think.

curious about this. i have had a roberts 2 track sitting on my bedroom floor for a couple years now. it is heavy as hell, so i suspected there may be some tubes in it. anyone have any info on this stuff?

[redshift108]

I sometimes use my Fulltone TTE as a mic pre-amp. I run my SM57 out into an XLR to 1/4" adapter which gets plugged into the input of the TTE. I use output setting #2 so the echo is off(or as near off as possible). Then the output of the TTE is ran into the MBox and computer for recording.

[Trick Fall]

You might want to try using an impedance converter to connect a dynamic mic to the 1/4" input. Would be a cheap experiment anyway and they are handy to have around to do things like plug a mic into a guitar amp, pedal, pod etc.

[alkooloid]

I am a tape deck preamp fool.
So far I have 5 Scullys, 2 Ampex 351s, 3 Berlant Concertones,
and have gotten rid of more old 1/4 " consumer tube decks
than I care to remember.

While all of them have their moments, they're all kind of cruddy.
It takes some love of crud to really dig them, but sometimes crud is
the ticket. I just love the smell. Sometimes you want to go beyond the
relatively clean world of the UA 610 into a place of goo.
+ they make killer guitar amps when they include an amp.
Also little tube PA heads rock in different ways.

I really feel that the Boss PQ4 is the key to this stuff, or better
the MW1 guitar workstation with an EQ/compressor in front of the
tape machine. Chain: Mic - phantom box if needed - backwards DI -
MW1 - loop thru comp/EQ chain - guitar level out from MW1 - tape deck
mic in - line out from tape deck. If you use a high impedance mic lose the
backwards DI. It's noisy mostly, but one can achieve some very cool
things this way, none of which can be done another way. Those old school
projector, pa, tapedeck, mixer tube thingies all have a pretty distinctive sound,
or smell as I call it.

Scullys are as close to a more modern sound in this area as I've achieved.
Class A discrete. The mic signal goes through 2 triad transformers in and 1 out.
Germanium transistors. Niiice.
Be sure to get the 280, not 280B.

PEACE!

[acjetnut]

If any of them have three heads, I can see it being useful as an outboard effect (sending a track onto tape then back into the mix. Can help make digital stuff or synths sound more "real".

[Judas Jetski]

Neither of the decks works particularly well. I think there's enough there to produce one spectacular deck and one awesome parts deck... but I don't really want to do that.

I'm already tracking everything to tape, mixing down to tape, composing on tape, etc. etc. etc., so there's not much point in using the things for anything but tape delay, and I've already got two flavors of that as well.

I'm not too sure what I'm going to do with these things. It doesn't sound like they're anything I can really use... I get enough crud in my recordings as it is. I may try using one in front of a pod just to see what it does. Or they may wind up on Buy/Sell/Trade...