Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

Hey Gang,

Man..I thought this was gonna be fairly easy.SHEESH... .First off, this cassette is a 2nd gen mix from another cassette and to make things worse, its normal bias...Ive got all the tape hiss out of each tune and they're all WAV files now..The whole tape has a low mid "timbre" to it..Even with the hiss, the highs werent that great...Just wonderin if anyone has done this job?...Ive been messin with the parametric and graphic tryin to get the mud out and add some sheen but dang, nothing seems to be the magic setting...How about compression?..These tunes will have to be heated up about 2-3 DB I figure, before they get burned...That may come in EQ and /or compression..Just thinkin out loud here...Anyone with advice , please chime in...This is a PAYIN GIG so I have to do good...

Thanks,
John

I've tried converting tapes to Cd's a few times, but no matter what I do, it still sounds like it's being played inside a box filled with mud. So I don't really know what to tell you. Tapes suck...I'm glad we live in a time where Cd's and mp3's are available to everyone.

I agree, cassettes use a small, narrow tape and don't run exceptionally fast, even new ones aren't great sound quality, so you're going to have lots of trouble getting good copies onto CD.

This is why I run my Tascam straight int othe computer rather than use the built in cassette, for the very little recording I'm able to do. I need to record the NOISE around here for you guys sometime...1-2AM I still have dogs barking nonstop that I can hear in my bedroom, loud enough I can't sleep...same in the day, I was listening to one a few minutes ago and usually they don't let me sleep past about 6AM at best...

Anyway, cassettes are noisy to start with, second generation sucks out loud, and no amount of EQ you do is going to offset the hiss of the heads across the tape and the rumble of the motor that moves it...

All I can tell you is good luck...

Bad recordings on tape are there forever.

Demagnetize your heads before recording on them, sometimes that will help on 1st gen's.

Otherwise, you're pretty well stuck, from what I've seen.

Perhaps there are wizards out there who CAN fix 'em, but I've never met one.

My experience is the same.
All the hours and hours of tapes I've recorded over the years . . .
Now I view it all as a lost cause.
Ouch.
With the amount of time you already spent trying to fix it, you could probably have recorded it from scrarch, and still have time left over . . .
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Actually, if it's a 2-1/2 min song, and you spent an hour trying to fix it, you could have RE-recorded 30 times already . . .
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And - if you should record it from scratch, your playing will probably sound better than the original, because you already know the song well enough to record it.
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Sorry, man, but cut your losses, and start from scratch.
I have.
You'll be amazed at how fast your can RE-record an old song . . . and amazed at how much better than the original it will sound.
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Really, cut your losses, and go for it . . .

Hey Gang,

Thanks for the replies thus far...Yeah Alan, it would be hard to re do this project becuase it was done about 30 yrs ago and I dont think the master reel even exists anymore..I doubt this Cat could sing like that now anyway.. (balls dropped too far... )..Yeah , Ill just SUFFER thru this any see if a buddies sonic maximizer can add to the EQ..He has a TON of plug ins but none of us know how to use them..My CPU is too slow for alotta that stuff...Yeah, Cool Edits HISS- HUM-NOISE eliminator works great so at least I got that out...Yeah , this Cat just gonna have to be satisfied with this project soundin like 1975...

John