Cassette Alignment Tape?

Recording Techniques, People Skills, Gear, Recording Spaces, Computers, and DIY

Moderators: drumsound, tomb

Post Reply
User avatar
A.David.MacKinnon
ears didn't survive the freeze
Posts: 3819
Joined: Wed May 07, 2003 5:57 am
Location: Toronto
Contact:

Cassette Alignment Tape?

Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Fri Jun 22, 2018 8:26 pm

Here’s a question I never thought I’d ask, can anyone recomend a good quality alignment cassette? New tapes rather than new old stock would be preferable.
I’m running 4 and 8 track cassette machines (a Yamaha mt44 and a tascam 488), regular and high speed. Type II.
It’s 1989 over here.

drumsound
zen recordist
Posts: 7474
Joined: Tue Jun 01, 2004 10:30 pm
Location: Bloomington IL
Contact:

Re: Cassette Alignment Tape?

Post by drumsound » Sat Jun 23, 2018 9:46 am

I wasn't aware you could align those machines.

Sorry, I'm no help.

User avatar
markjazzbassist
tinnitus
Posts: 1050
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2011 11:33 am
Location: Cleveland

Re: Cassette Alignment Tape?

Post by markjazzbassist » Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:26 am

dave i found these, i cannot vouch for any of them. MRL never made them their site says, they said STL used to make them but stopped in 1999. not sure if you could find a lightly used one of those.

http://www.gennlab.com/alignment_cassettes.html

https://www.duplication.ca/test-tapes/

http://www.ant-audio.co.uk/index.php?ca ... ment_tapes

User avatar
A.David.MacKinnon
ears didn't survive the freeze
Posts: 3819
Joined: Wed May 07, 2003 5:57 am
Location: Toronto
Contact:

Re: Cassette Alignment Tape?

Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Sat Jun 23, 2018 11:48 am

Thanks Mark! Genlab looks like a good bet. Looks like I’ll need separate tapes for each machine. Gotta figure out if the 488 is alignable first. I know tha mt44 is.

User avatar
Nick Sevilla
on a wing and a prayer
Posts: 5555
Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:34 pm
Location: Lake Arrowhead California USA
Contact:

Re: Cassette Alignment Tape?

Post by Nick Sevilla » Sat Jun 23, 2018 12:21 pm

The FEW times I had to print on a cassette tape (for Jon Anderson of Yes), I used to use a Tascam tape machine,
with individual input level knobs. One of these machines, 122 mkIII.

Has two alignment tones, calibration for inputs, etc. Try to find one of these if you really need to do this often enough.

How to align it to your console / DAW output? Make your Zero match -10 on the cassette. Usually that would do the trick.

Image
Howling at the neighbors. Hoping they have more mic cables.

User avatar
A.David.MacKinnon
ears didn't survive the freeze
Posts: 3819
Joined: Wed May 07, 2003 5:57 am
Location: Toronto
Contact:

Re: Cassette Alignment Tape?

Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Sat Jun 23, 2018 4:25 pm

I forgot to mention that I’ve got one of those as well. It makes a killer tape echo.

Matt C.
suffering 'studio suck'
Posts: 434
Joined: Wed Apr 15, 2009 9:43 am
Location: saint paul, mn

Re: Cassette Alignment Tape?

Post by Matt C. » Sun Jun 24, 2018 12:51 pm

A.David.MacKinnon wrote:
Sat Jun 23, 2018 4:25 pm
I forgot to mention that I’ve got one of those as well. It makes a killer tape echo.
I don't mean to hijack the thread but I've gotta ask about this - I've got one of those Tascam 122 machines as well that I'm trying to fix in order to use for tape echo. But upon closer inspection the record and playback heads are really close together physically, which made me concerned that the delay would be too short. But you find it to be usable?

User avatar
A.David.MacKinnon
ears didn't survive the freeze
Posts: 3819
Joined: Wed May 07, 2003 5:57 am
Location: Toronto
Contact:

Re: Cassette Alignment Tape?

Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Sun Jun 24, 2018 12:57 pm

Totally usable as a delay. I have no idea what the delay time is but it’s comparable to my old Otari MX5050. Veri-speed let’s you tweak it a bit and running one channel into the other doubles the delay time.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 41 guests