Mr. Lin
06-16-2008, 04:36 PM
Most of my recording lately has been from CD to cassette, and occasionally from record to cassette, but that involves moving a lot of things around and it's a pain. The majority of what I'm recording has been classical and jazz, so not necessarily the most challenging material for the cassette, deck, etc. So last night I decided to move on to something different for a change.
There's a little-known UK artist from the 80s named Adrian Borland, originally from the band The Sound, then later, from about 1988 to '99 he did a lot of solo work. Unfortunately he was ill and ended up taking his own life by throwing himself in front of a subway train in '99.
One of Borland's many rare CDs, titled 5:00AM, happens to be my favorite, although, until now, I'd always thought it was poorly-produced. I mostly listened to the CD in my car, and I love the music, but the sound was thin, very little bass, somewhat congested at times. I wondered whether running this through my tube preamp and onto a tape might change things a bit, and man, did it ever!
Adjusting the volume level was quite simple. It seemed that even in the loudest moments I could have the recording volume up relatively high (higher than usual) and it still never went into the area where there could be a danger of saturation. This is good, I wanted to keep the noise floor low, and I don't have a lot of options with my Nak BX-1. I also selected a pair of Japanese-made Amperex Orange Globe 12AU7 tubes for the preamp, which I felt would suite the music well with their clean sound, and high level of detail in the upper frequencies.
Many of you know I'm new to this whole thing and I'm still feeling my way around the cassettes that are currently available and some NOS ones. I'd like to tell you I used something new for this but it was very important to me for this to come out good since I like the album so much, so I played it safe and went with the Akai GX60. This tape is making a name for itself in my world, as well as some others around here.:D
Today I pulled the Nak off my desk, put it on the floor and connected it to my primary system. My heart was beating a little fast since I haven't tried taping any rock yet, and I'd be pretty disappointed if it didn't turn out well. However, the sound was just about perfect. In fact, I heard some aspects of the songs that I'd never noticed before. There was bass (finally, and plenty of it), wonderful imaging, the instruments all sounded separated, and the sound was very balanced overall. It was when the second track went from a quiet intro to loud, guitar-driven music that I knew this was a huge success. As had happened last week when I did the same thing with Mozart's Requiem, my girlfriend was even taken aback that a cassette could actually sound so good.
Anyway, that's it. I continue to be amazed at what tapes can do with a decent deck, and I continue to lust after a 3-head Nak with all the fancy adjustments, which I will get within a few months. Then I'll start using some of the NOS metal tapes I have, and it will be time to get serious.:)
There's a little-known UK artist from the 80s named Adrian Borland, originally from the band The Sound, then later, from about 1988 to '99 he did a lot of solo work. Unfortunately he was ill and ended up taking his own life by throwing himself in front of a subway train in '99.
One of Borland's many rare CDs, titled 5:00AM, happens to be my favorite, although, until now, I'd always thought it was poorly-produced. I mostly listened to the CD in my car, and I love the music, but the sound was thin, very little bass, somewhat congested at times. I wondered whether running this through my tube preamp and onto a tape might change things a bit, and man, did it ever!
Adjusting the volume level was quite simple. It seemed that even in the loudest moments I could have the recording volume up relatively high (higher than usual) and it still never went into the area where there could be a danger of saturation. This is good, I wanted to keep the noise floor low, and I don't have a lot of options with my Nak BX-1. I also selected a pair of Japanese-made Amperex Orange Globe 12AU7 tubes for the preamp, which I felt would suite the music well with their clean sound, and high level of detail in the upper frequencies.
Many of you know I'm new to this whole thing and I'm still feeling my way around the cassettes that are currently available and some NOS ones. I'd like to tell you I used something new for this but it was very important to me for this to come out good since I like the album so much, so I played it safe and went with the Akai GX60. This tape is making a name for itself in my world, as well as some others around here.:D
Today I pulled the Nak off my desk, put it on the floor and connected it to my primary system. My heart was beating a little fast since I haven't tried taping any rock yet, and I'd be pretty disappointed if it didn't turn out well. However, the sound was just about perfect. In fact, I heard some aspects of the songs that I'd never noticed before. There was bass (finally, and plenty of it), wonderful imaging, the instruments all sounded separated, and the sound was very balanced overall. It was when the second track went from a quiet intro to loud, guitar-driven music that I knew this was a huge success. As had happened last week when I did the same thing with Mozart's Requiem, my girlfriend was even taken aback that a cassette could actually sound so good.
Anyway, that's it. I continue to be amazed at what tapes can do with a decent deck, and I continue to lust after a 3-head Nak with all the fancy adjustments, which I will get within a few months. Then I'll start using some of the NOS metal tapes I have, and it will be time to get serious.:)