{"submission_id":"1958087","keywords":[{"keyword_id":"790","keyword_name":"music","contributed":"f","submissions_count":"6652"},{"keyword_id":"5694","keyword_name":"tape","contributed":"f","submissions_count":"792"}],"hidden":"f","scraps":"t","favorite":"f","favorites_count":"4","create_datetime":"2019-08-22 10:24:47.401196+02","create_datetime_usertime":"22 Aug 2019 10:24 CEST","last_file_update_datetime":"2019-08-22 09:57:08.124893+02","last_file_update_datetime_usertime":"22 Aug 2019 09:57 CEST","username":"SpaceCat","user_id":"11629","user_icon_file_name":"145814_SpaceCat_doxeaqo.gif","user_icon_url_large":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/usericons/large/145/145814_SpaceCat_doxeaqo.gif","user_icon_url_medium":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/usericons/medium/145/145814_SpaceCat_doxeaqo.gif","user_icon_url_small":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/usericons/small/145/145814_SpaceCat_doxeaqo.gif","file_name":"2822989_SpaceCat_tascam488test1.mp3","file_url_full":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/files/full/2822/2822989_SpaceCat_tascam488test1.mp3","file_url_screen":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/2822/2822989_SpaceCat_tascam488test1.mp3","file_url_preview":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/2822/2822989_SpaceCat_tascam488test1.mp3","thumbnail_url_huge":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/2822/2822989_SpaceCat_tascam488test1.jpg","thumbnail_url_large":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/2822/2822989_SpaceCat_tascam488test1.jpg","thumbnail_url_medium":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/2822/2822989_SpaceCat_tascam488test1.jpg","thumb_huge_x":"300","thumb_huge_y":"169","thumb_large_x":"200","thumb_large_y":"113","thumb_medium_x":"120","thumb_medium_y":"68","files":[{"file_id":"2822989","file_name":"2822989_SpaceCat_tascam488test1.mp3","file_url_full":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/files/full/2822/2822989_SpaceCat_tascam488test1.mp3","file_url_screen":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/2822/2822989_SpaceCat_tascam488test1.mp3","file_url_preview":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/2822/2822989_SpaceCat_tascam488test1.mp3","mimetype":"audio/mpeg","submission_id":"1958087","user_id":"11629","submission_file_order":"0","full_size_x":null,"full_size_y":null,"screen_size_x":null,"screen_size_y":null,"preview_size_x":null,"preview_size_y":null,"initial_file_md5":"c6ec661516ecbc8faacba771a25110c2","full_file_md5":"c6ec661516ecbc8faacba771a25110c2","large_file_md5":"","small_file_md5":"","thumbnail_md5":"06cca423c500c6a372ce5207d915b324","deleted":"f","create_datetime":"2019-08-22 09:57:08.124893+02","create_datetime_usertime":"22 Aug 2019 09:57 CEST","thumbnail_url_huge":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/2822/2822989_SpaceCat_tascam488test1.jpg","thumbnail_url_large":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/2822/2822989_SpaceCat_tascam488test1.jpg","thumbnail_url_medium":"https://nl.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/2822/2822989_SpaceCat_tascam488test1.jpg","thumb_huge_x":"300","thumb_huge_y":"169","thumb_large_x":"200","thumb_large_y":"113","thumb_medium_x":"120","thumb_medium_y":"68"}],"pools":[],"description":"Just posting this as a little sort of proof. Please remember the quality you hear is limited by the mp3 format I had to convert to to post this track and your own system's specs. I could email someone the raw wave but to fully appreciate how good it sounds, you'd have to magically teleport into my room and listen straight from the tape. \n\nThis recording was made on a 2nd hand, beat up tascam 488, on tape that's 40 years old, with record levels set low and outputs set high, for worst case noise floor scenario. \n\nI've been messing around with tape based stuff for years. A lot of people on line, mostly people born after 1996, keep telling me how shitty tape technology is. Mainly because they have the ignorant \"old stuff sucks\" mentality and they weren't alive during the golden age of tape. \"not even close to being as good as digital\" is what they usually say sighting examples of horridly cheep throwaway tape and tape players from 1999 made in china. \n\nWell, it's bullshit it turns out. Tape is GOOD. As I've been claiming for years (because I know better). Simple consumer cassette tape from the 80s, on a portable 8 track studio recorder from the 80s, produces recordings with as high quality as my digital recording interface. With the added advantage of all the warmth of analog. \n\nSee, we actually had things figured out 40 years ago. The digital age of audio was a sale's gimmick invented by the greedy. Only reason studio engineers loved it, was non-linear editing. Something they desperately needed more and more to cope with making progressively less and less talented musicians sound good. \n\nIt is particularly infuriating how one of the original selling points of digital was how it had \"so much more dynamic range\" than tape or vinyl. I can't speak for vinyl but my tascam 488 tape deck has way more dynamic range than my digital recorder. In fact ever since I got my first digital recording interface, I've been frustrated at just how easily the damn things clip (overload/distort). It's not gentle overloading either, it's glitchy shredding of the sound. The kind thing that makes a recording unusable. Where as tape has a natural compression when overloaded. If you overload a tape a little here and there, the recording is still plenty usable in most cases. \n\nOverload a digital recorder just once, even slightly, and you've got serious problems. I've lost count the number of times I've had to re-record a take because my damned digital interface clipped. The optimum volume level is such a narrow sweet spot too. It goes from practically no signal to clipping with a slight turn of the knob or moderate increase in the instrument's volume. I've had several, not exactly super cheep interfaces and they all had this problem to one extent or another. When compared to tape, digital recording does NOT lend it self well to recording dynamic material. Maybe if you spent like 5K on some super duper interface but why even bother, for a 10th of that, my tascam records it all with no problem and no loss of quality. \n\nI hate to say it but the evidence is pretty damning against digital at this point. I've been at this recording shit since like 2004 and yeah, it's actually easier to just click record on the tape deck, get some great takes and then later, if I need them in the computer, just carefully bounce them over to my digital rig. The ONLY thing digital has brought me that's indispensable is the ability to write digital music sheet and via midi have it play instruments. This of course could be accomplished though without digitizing the sound it's self. Only the instrument control signals need to be digital. So even that perk is technically superficial. \n\nThe irony is, the industry pushed digital to dehumanize the art of music, and to make shitloads of money. They didn't realize the internet would destroy their precious profit, do to the ease in which digital music is copied and redistributed. The tragedy of this though, is, the rampant piracy also destroyed the income of most any underground music artists. To this very date, even successful underground music artist will admit, they can't make enough from their music to make ends meat. Digital has also allowed big tech companies to constantly fuck with the customer. Charging them over and over excessively for the same product. Locking them out of using their own purchases on other systems. As well as rampant spyware and other nefarious big business behavior. \n\nWhere in, tapes were a perfectly balanced solution. They retained the analog nature of music, while having a respectfully long yet finite lifespan. If you loved an album so much you listened to it all the time, in about 10 years, you might need to replace it. Industry would continue selling product without screwing over the customers OR the musicians. Tapes were also perfectly portable. A portable tape player for headphones back in the 80s was about the size of modern phones, I'll be it a good bit thicker. By now we would have had miniaturized tapes to the point there would be no issues what so ever with size or battery life. Not to mention, with some ingenuity, non-linear editing would still be possible with digital controlled analog machines (the technology actually already exists). \n\nAll this hasn't even touched the issue of data loss. Digital music is actually more fragile and finite than analog recordings. I have cheap cassette tape from the 70s that still sound good, where as with digital I'm always scrambling to keep from loosing stuff. Buggy updates, OS issues, viruses, HD failure, file corruption, switching to a new PC. Every fucking time, I gota gather all the music back up and import, sort, name, replace, AGAIN. After so many years, I've given up importing my listening music into my computer. I just use my CD player or tapes for crying out loud. Which is why I kinda don't bother buying much music that doesn't have a physical copy anymore. \n","description_bbcode_parsed":"Just posting this as a little sort of proof. Please remember the quality you hear is limited by the mp3 format I had to convert to to post this track and your own system's specs. I could email someone the raw wave but to fully appreciate how good it sounds, you'd have to magically teleport into my room and listen straight from the tape.
This recording was made on a 2nd hand, beat up tascam 488, on tape that's 40 years old, with record levels set low and outputs set high, for worst case noise floor scenario.
I've been messing around with tape based stuff for years. A lot of people on line, mostly people born after 1996, keep telling me how shitty tape technology is. Mainly because they have the ignorant "old stuff sucks" mentality and they weren't alive during the golden age of tape. "not even close to being as good as digital" is what they usually say sighting examples of horridly cheep throwaway tape and tape players from 1999 made in china.
Well, it's bullshit it turns out. Tape is GOOD. As I've been claiming for years (because I know better). Simple consumer cassette tape from the 80s, on a portable 8 track studio recorder from the 80s, produces recordings with as high quality as my digital recording interface. With the added advantage of all the warmth of analog.
See, we actually had things figured out 40 years ago. The digital age of audio was a sale's gimmick invented by the greedy. Only reason studio engineers loved it, was non-linear editing. Something they desperately needed more and more to cope with making progressively less and less talented musicians sound good.
It is particularly infuriating how one of the original selling points of digital was how it had "so much more dynamic range" than tape or vinyl. I can't speak for vinyl but my tascam 488 tape deck has way more dynamic range than my digital recorder. In fact ever since I got my first digital recording interface, I've been frustrated at just how easily the damn things clip (overload/distort). It's not gentle overloading either, it's glitchy shredding of the sound. The kind thing that makes a recording unusable. Where as tape has a natural compression when overloaded. If you overload a tape a little here and there, the recording is still plenty usable in most cases.
Overload a digital recorder just once, even slightly, and you've got serious problems. I've lost count the number of times I've had to re-record a take because my damned digital interface clipped. The optimum volume level is such a narrow sweet spot too. It goes from practically no signal to clipping with a slight turn of the knob or moderate increase in the instrument's volume. I've had several, not exactly super cheep interfaces and they all had this problem to one extent or another. When compared to tape, digital recording does NOT lend it self well to recording dynamic material. Maybe if you spent like 5K on some super duper interface but why even bother, for a 10th of that, my tascam records it all with no problem and no loss of quality.
I hate to say it but the evidence is pretty damning against digital at this point. I've been at this recording shit since like 2004 and yeah, it's actually easier to just click record on the tape deck, get some great takes and then later, if I need them in the computer, just carefully bounce them over to my digital rig. The ONLY thing digital has brought me that's indispensable is the ability to write digital music sheet and via midi have it play instruments. This of course could be accomplished though without digitizing the sound it's self. Only the instrument control signals need to be digital. So even that perk is technically superficial.
The irony is, the industry pushed digital to dehumanize the art of music, and to make shitloads of money. They didn't realize the internet would destroy their precious profit, do to the ease in which digital music is copied and redistributed. The tragedy of this though, is, the rampant piracy also destroyed the income of most any underground music artists. To this very date, even successful underground music artist will admit, they can't make enough from their music to make ends meat. Digital has also allowed big tech companies to constantly fuck with the customer. Charging them over and over excessively for the same product. Locking them out of using their own purchases on other systems. As well as rampant spyware and other nefarious big business behavior.
Where in, tapes were a perfectly balanced solution. They retained the analog nature of music, while having a respectfully long yet finite lifespan. If you loved an album so much you listened to it all the time, in about 10 years, you might need to replace it. Industry would continue selling product without screwing over the customers OR the musicians. Tapes were also perfectly portable. A portable tape player for headphones back in the 80s was about the size of modern phones, I'll be it a good bit thicker. By now we would have had miniaturized tapes to the point there would be no issues what so ever with size or battery life. Not to mention, with some ingenuity, non-linear editing would still be possible with digital controlled analog machines (the technology actually already exists).
All this hasn't even touched the issue of data loss. Digital music is actually more fragile and finite than analog recordings. I have cheap cassette tape from the 70s that still sound good, where as with digital I'm always scrambling to keep from loosing stuff. Buggy updates, OS issues, viruses, HD failure, file corruption, switching to a new PC. Every fucking time, I gota gather all the music back up and import, sort, name, replace, AGAIN. After so many years, I've given up importing my listening music into my computer. I just use my CD player or tapes for crying out loud. Which is why I kinda don't bother buying much music that doesn't have a physical copy anymore.
","writing":"","writing_bbcode_parsed":"","pools_count":0,"title":"Tape is 100% vindicated","deleted":"f","public":"t","mimetype":"audio/mpeg","pagecount":"1","rating_id":"0","rating_name":"General","ratings":[],"submission_type_id":"10","type_name":"Music - Single Track","guest_block":"t","friends_only":"f","comments_count":"4","views":"62","sales_description":null,"forsale":"f","digitalsales":"f","printsales":"f","digital_price":""}