Cassettes: Master Recorders, Duplicators, and More

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alexevansohio
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Cassettes: Master Recorders, Duplicators, and More

Post by alexevansohio » Thu Aug 21, 2014 8:29 pm

Hi TapeOp folks,

Recently, I've been working on more or more releases destined for cassette. I'm also in the process of starting a small record label, and will be releasing many things on cassette. While its obviously not an ideal format, I have some cassettes that I think sound good, and I'd like to do everything I can to make it sound good.

I've recently gotten it in my head to start duplicating cassettes in-house. Cassette hardware seems to be quite cheap these days, and both the cost saving benefits and the DIY nature of the project appeal to me. Plus it means I can do fairly short runs at short notice and things like that. So originally I bought a very cheap Telex Copyette 1 & 3 duplicator from the 70s, mostly based on price. I discovered that its mono and doesn't sound great, so am now in the process of purchasing a Telex ACC4000XL, which, after a fair amount of research, seems to be the 'best of the best' in terms of high speed cassette duplicators, and probably the best option for duplication without getting into open reel bin duplicators and that sort of thing. If I'm wrong on this and should be looking in a different direction, please tell me that. As I've said, I'm new to this.

I'm now on the lookout for a mixdown cassette recorder. It seems like the Tascam 122 models are the industry standard, and the XLR inputs are VERY appealing (I'll be pumping masters out of my Apollo Duo into the cassette deck to create cassette masters for duplication, so finding a deck with balanced inputs would be fantastic). Unfortunately, these are fairly expensive and difficult to find in good working condition - most seem to have been run to the ground in radio stations for the past few decades. I can set the second pair of outputs on my Apollo to +4, but still unsure whether I could straight from those TRS outputs into RCA jacks... would that be an issue? I'm not used to interfacing unbalanced and balanced gear together like this, so I'm sorry if that's a silly question or anything. If that wouldn't be an issue, does anyone have a recommendation for a decent master cassette recorder with RCA jacks? Affordability is key, but so is reliability and sound quality.

Finally, any general cassette advice? I've been reading up on mastering for cassette and all that, but beyond owning a bunch of cassettes and owning a cassette 4-track that I occasionally use, I really don't have much experience with the format, so anyone who could offer insight would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Alex

alexevansohio
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Post by alexevansohio » Thu Aug 21, 2014 9:02 pm

Also - tabs in and tabs out. I'm imagining master cassettes must be tabs in, but I can duplicate everything on tabs OUT cassettes, so they can't be taped over. At least that's the impression I got from chatting with Steve at National Audio Company.

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Post by Gregg Juke » Thu Aug 21, 2014 10:15 pm

Just a head's-up-- Back in the day, when cassettes were the thing, high-speed duplication was looked at as a convenience at home, but not what you wanted when you were getting a run done professionally. "Quality" dubbing was done in real time. A studio I used to work and hang at had a busy (national/international) duping business-- they had 100 Nackamichi decks in their dupe room. I'm not saying that you have to spend millions, but just to give you an idea of the benchmark standard, and that maybe you want to go with a handful of nice decks and figure out how to sync them, rather than one machine that can do a lot of tapes at high-speed; you may be less than pleased with the results...

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Post by alexevansohio » Thu Aug 21, 2014 10:18 pm

Gregg Juke wrote:Just a head's-up-- Back in the day, when cassettes were the thing, high-speed duplication was looked at as a convenience at home, but not what you wanted when you were getting a run done professionally. "Quality" dubbing was done in real time. A studio I used to work and hang at had a busy (national/international) duping business-- they had 100 Nackamichi decks in their dupe room. I'm not saying that you have to spend millions, but just to give you an idea of the benchmark standard, and that maybe you want to go with a handful of nice decks and figure out how to sync them, rather than one machine that can do a lot of tapes at high-speed; you may be less than pleased with the results...

GJ
Gregg - thanks so much for your reply. This is exactly what I'm looking for. It seems like little labels are doing one at a time duplication, which seems kinda tedious, and bigger labels are ordering from NAC or somewhere, which I'd rather not do. Were they just using regular stereo cassette recorders all chained together? I'll look into that.

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Post by Gregg Juke » Fri Aug 22, 2014 7:24 am

Yes, but very high-end decks; the best Nakamichi's. That would seem a little excessive in this day and age. But a handful of decent stereo decks could do you. A lot of maintenance though. They also did a lot of quality control (the ability to monitor off the record head would be helpful for you there, so you can check things in real-time while you dupe in real-time). With the best decks and good QC, they still had a fair amount of rejects.

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Post by Jim Williams » Fri Aug 22, 2014 8:06 am

KABA cassette duplicators were very good. A set of 3 plus the master costs about $5k back in the day. You can probably find some for a hundred bucks. Each slave cuts two cassettes at once, double or real time.

The larger problem with this is finding folks that still have a cassette player.
Cars no longer have them.
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Post by Brett Siler » Sat Aug 23, 2014 3:59 pm

Gregg Juke wrote: they had 100 Nackamichi decks in their dupe room.
That is wild!

Yeah cassette have become in vogue in a lot of underground communities again, especially punk, metal, avant garde, and indie rock. Frankly I'm into it.

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Post by alexevansohio » Sat Aug 23, 2014 7:21 pm

Brett Siler wrote:
Gregg Juke wrote: they had 100 Nackamichi decks in their dupe room.
That is wild!

Yeah cassette have become in vogue in a lot of underground communities again, especially punk, metal, avant garde, and indie rock. Frankly I'm into it.
Likewise! There's something i really like about the format. The high end situation is a little bit of a bummer, but I like the sound of cassettes generally, and the whole DIY aspect is super fun.

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Post by JGriffin » Tue Aug 26, 2014 1:48 am

Gregg Juke wrote:100 Nackamichi decks in their dupe room.
These days even Naks can be found for cheap.

The place I worked at had binloop dubbers. I think that was considered better quality than dubbing tapes in the shells, realtime or no.
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Post by Gregg Juke » Tue Aug 26, 2014 2:52 am

Not at higher speeds, DWLB. Real-Time is still the way to go. But I think one reason they did it that way was they kind of "worked backwards;" they didn't always use 60's and 90's. They had machines for loading their own tapes, which they did, so someone that wanted 100 5 or 10-minute tapes with "Bird Calls of the Northeastern Forests" could get their custom-loaded tapes made, labeled, and duped right there (artwork, Norelco boxes too, of course), as well as the major release or Armed Services accounts getting their 1,000-5,000 or more units of 40, 60, and 90-minute jobs done soup-to-nuts as well. They made a lot of dough doing tape duping, then CD's, and they also had a mastering room. It's what kept the studio alive for years; I have no idea how they survived when the "revolution" occurred...

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Post by palinilap » Thu Sep 04, 2014 2:57 pm

JGriffin_formerlyDWLB wrote:
Gregg Juke wrote:100 Nackamichi decks in their dupe room.
These days even Naks can be found for cheap.

The place I worked at had binloop dubbers. I think that was considered better quality than dubbing tapes in the shells, realtime or no.
Yeah I scored a mint CR1A locally for $65 a few years back. Personally, I much prefer to purchase a cassette with a download link than a CD. It provides two possible listening experiences as opposed to one.

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Post by I'm Painting Again » Thu Sep 11, 2014 5:41 pm

you don't need a deck with balanced inputs at all..

if you want to use a -10 unbalanced deck with a balanced +4 output device just put a line level shifter in the path..

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ ... 7Aod-G0AXg

you could also skip the cassette master and make your cassettes sound a generation better by coming off your computer, etc.

you do this with a distribution amp and a bunch of stand alone decks..

Nak dragons were the best decks ever made imo..

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Post by honkyjonk » Thu Sep 18, 2014 4:48 pm

The best thing about cassettes is you can turn them the fuck UP without hurting your ears. Different story with digital. The optimal listening level seems to be a lot lower.
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Post by honkyjonk » Thu Sep 18, 2014 4:54 pm

Also,

last I checked the only place to get the right belts for Nak's is at Mars Communications, and that is a major pain in the ass. Yes, he has the belt for you and he's real proud of mentioning how many he's sold last month, but you won't get one in less than a month, if at all.

I had a ridiculous run around just trying to get my money back and cancel after 6 weeks of nothing. And I'm not the only one. Just something to think about.
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Post by Brett Siler » Thu Sep 18, 2014 8:32 pm

alexevansmusic wrote: Likewise! There's something i really like about the format. The high end situation is a little bit of a bummer, but I like the sound of cassettes generally, and the whole DIY aspect is super fun.
Using a nice deck without Dolby noise reduction doesn't really mess with the high end. If you do have noise reduced cassette this is actually one of the very few applications where a BBE sonic maximizer excels. Dolby SR, S, or C isn't to bad. I hear HX is pretty great with dealing with hiss and high end but I've never used it.

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