Excellent. I'm 60 years old and you've finally explained to me what no-one has been able to since getting my first cassette recorder in 1973. Thank you.
Totally agree. A single period in my weekly timetable would have stopped me being such an ignoramus. I remember going round my mates house to record a couple of albums from CD / Vinyl on his dad's deck. Neither of us had a clue what the "bias" knob did. Nor did we know the difference between Type II Position tapes and pure chrome. We thought they were all the same. Shameful!
Analog hi-fi gear required some skill and knowledge but it was a mystery to most people who didn't keep up with Audio related magazines and such. Even today I see audio related YT videos full of misinformation by people who don't seem to realize there's literally decades of information out there if you just take a little time to read.
My friend from school used to record chrome tapes with normal type selected on his dad's Luxman tape deck because high end sounds better...... Looks like a big mistake...hehe
I bought a old Mercedes with the Original Becker Mexiko Cassette Radio since I didn't want to install some new Radio I got into Recording my own Tapes. I watched quite a few videos to set up everything right. I don't understand why your guide doesn't have more views it is the best Cassette basics video! Thank you very much!
As a teen recently getting into cassettes, understanding the factors (like bias, EQ etc) taken into consideration during recording was very difficult and I never fully knew what they were all about. This video really helped clear things up
That is the problem people had in the 70s 80s and 90s ,,most never really understood how to make the best tape unless they had a more expensive unit that hardy any one would buy.
I have been in a simlar situation like a year ago or something. I got a 3-Head deck around half a year ago, but I simply dont have enough cassettes for recording on, but new old stock is expensive and i cant really afford them. :(
You shouldn't complain that you are not a graphic designer. You are an amazing presenter!!! And design of your presentation is just that - extremely presentable and brilliant in its simplicity. THANKS A LOT!!!!
Prior to getting a 3-head deck, I didn't even know about the bias and recording sensitivity controls. Real time recording monitoring? Wow what a surprise that was. My old 2-head Technics RS-M14 only had a tape type selection dial (with Type III!) and recording level control. Even without the fine bias tuning it did a decent job. Just having VU meters and recording level control is light years ahead of what I previously recorded with. Also, EDM seems particularly well suited to testing cassette tape recording. Its very challenging having both booming bass and tons of bright highs in one track. Throw in some quiet breakdowns commonly found in trance and you get a good test of tape hiss and noise reduction systems.
I recently paid my tape deck a visit in my parents' attic, but did not have the time to connect it. It's been there for 10+ years, but I want it to work again, so I just bought the official repair manual off Ebay and hope it can be freshened up with a new belt or whatever, in case it should need one.
Grew up on cassette. Spent the late 80’s through the first half of the 90’s as a radio DJ and no radio engineer every explained all this. Great video! Thanks!
I love these videos! I learnt so much!! Before I didn’t even know there was a type 0 cassette and finally figured out what BIAS is. I did enjoy recording the weekend dance shows from Radio 1 on my Sony deck in the late 1990s and early 2000s with it’s basic TDK, BASF, Maxell and BBC tapes 😀 and played them on a cheap Walkman.
I worked as an electronic technician in consumer repair shop when I was young. I've repaired many a cassette deck. We were an Akai warranty repair provider. They made some excellent cassette decks . Their auto-bias system worked well (only on the more expensive models) and their GX Glass-Ferrite tape heads would last a very long time.
Very Informative and useful. I've been getting into cassettes and It's been difficult for me to get a full explanation on everything that goes into cassette recording especially when there are so many different brands, types of tapes and decks and it's like "Ok I just want to record quality audio to cassette why all the crazy buttons" lmao
Been recording tapes for the last 3 years but needed a refresher on bias. That said I stayed because the amount of tips in the video is incredible! I have been dubbed for a long while now but didn't know this video was a thing. Fantastic and excellent 😁
Thank you well I am a blue collar guy. Played tape since 60s and you sir both taught me a lot. You reinforced what I learned on the fly. Really excellent info.
I've recorded hundreds of cassettes between 1982 and 2002 and now I finally find someone who can explain clearly what bias is. Thank you very much and I will proceed to buy a 3 head tape deck!
I just bought a 3 head Denon DR-M20 for 20 euros. It plays and sounds well but stops playing by itself. Is it worth to have it professionally overhauled and repaired?
Thank you for this video. I have been using cassettes as a kid and teenager, but gave up when I grew up. Now I finally understand the basics and I'm ready to start taping again!
The AC erase head generally pops out with the mechanism, it only erases if energised - the modern system being AC bias, AC erase. The permanent magnet erase, of course, had to be kept retracted. The magnetization curve of the tape tends to have a flatter (hysteresis) region at the zero crossing, a relatively linear region above and below, flattening again as it hits overload. The oldest bias method was DC bias, but that only used one half of the curve. AC bias pushes the signal across the flatter region, but excessive bias partially erases the higher frequencies
I have used tapes for a few years now & never understod what the db bias mol/sol statistics where on those tapes. This video changed my entire perspective on how to record my future cassettes. Many tnx for this video Its a gamechanger!
I remember my AIWA AD-F800 does have a sticker labeled to show the recommended bias pot settings of commercially available tape formulations. But I recall certain tape formulations, no matter what bias adjustments you do can never match the source signal. Also, I guess a better way would be to play a 0dB pure sine tone as a source at low and high frequencies so that the bias and sensitivity can be optimized to squeeze the last drop of quality out of any tape. Cheers
I just started recording on cassettes as a hobby to pass the time during the Covid quarantine. I am a little over half way through this video and it is already the most invaluable source I’ve found. I’ll be passing it along to my friends if they decide to get into recording too. Thank you so much.
Fantastic video Tony, it deserves a round of applause. I suspect you and I are a similar age, and I didn't know most of this stuff back then either. I've only recently got my hands on a 3 head deck for the first time, which makes this stuff so much easier!
I’ve been searching for an explanation like this forever it seems! It was explained to me by a guy who sold me my Nakamichi deck a couple years back, but this explanation definitely made it clearer for me! For that I am appreciative! Subscribed! Love your videos. Thanks for your contribution to keeping cassettes alive! Any opinions on some deck’s built in “Auto-bias” features? Are they generally accurate? My Kenwood deck (2-head) has that feature. Also it can be adjusted manually. Just curious. Edit- I see you answered my question at the end of the video and I jumped the gun!
Glad it helped. Yeah, if you have to get a 2 header, those with some auto cal features are a good call and the ones I have a pretty good. The thing I didn't mention in the video where a 3 deck is also good is when using used cassettes. You can hear if they are shot whilst recording and any drop outs too.
Thank you, it is one of the Best if it is not the best mini-lecture I have ever had regarding this subject, awesome, fantastic, with my Warm Regards to you. I wish you had a similar lecture for Reel to Reel, tape Please.
You have made a very beautiful video. Unfortunately when I was searching on youtube to understand Bias, this video appeared on my feed after several weeks. You are a gem 💎
Back in the 80's I didn't have the money to buy a good 3-head deck. Now I have two of them and I love using cassettes. Again. Also I bought a fully serviced very good record player with a good cart and excellent stylus. Lovely stuff, enjoying music like never before,
I just subscribed to your channel after I bought a Denon DR M33HX to record manually with a 3 Head Deck. Now I have a pretty good understanding what to do and most importantly why. Thanks for this Video. i had a beocord5500 before and it did all the work for me, but that wasnt much fun...
Thank you so much for this video. After 50 years of recording and playing my cassette deck, this is the first time I learned how to adjust my bias control and my master fader control and the recording level input control. When I changed form tape to source, I always wander why the recording level is different and did not know that it supposed to be the same by adjusting the recording level input control and the master fader control. Thanks again!
Great video! I'm many years into audio grown up with cassettes and now I finally know WHY some tapes are sounding great on my decks and which did not! I Had a Dual tape deck back in the days, great machine. But it wasn't TDK what was sounding the best on it. It was the Maxell XL2. You made a recording that sound great (in another video) on a tape that I called trash. But now I know why... I Never had a deck with an adjustable bias!
I sure could have used this back in the day. I was so naive and you couldn’t tell me jack. Live and learn! For those who don’t know, this is a must for this hobby. If you are going to involve yourself into this, at least you need to care enough to learn how to make a great tape and be satisfied in your own mind that you’ve done all you can to make it well. Good oh, Tony. A refresher doesn’t hurt anyone who really cares about this and I do! Have you got a diskwasher demag? This is a cassette shell with a magnet in it that you place it in and run it fast forward till it stops then run it in rewind till it stops and your tape path is demagnetized. Let me know. The other way with the wand is a real pain!
Great video Just bought a Sony 3 head deck with bias adjustment as I have never had a 3head deck before because of the price to be honest it sounds good but I never understood how to set the bias properly. Now I have watch the video I have a better understanding of what i'm doing. Thanks for sharing the knowledge great channel by the way.
Never underestimate the pull of explanatory videos! As much as we may already know, the addition of someone else's travels just adds to it. The only ones who do not benefit are the sods who think they know it all, and that we are "teh n00bs".
Top notch explanation! 👍 So this is 100% unnecessary, but I'd like to throw in my favorite analogy for understanding bias (from a Steve Albini recording workshop): He suggested imagining magnetic tape as a bucket of sand. Recording a music signal onto tape is like pushing your handprint into the sand. Pressing down will leave a faint, shallow handprint. But adding a high frequency bias signal energizes the tape's magnetic particles, which is like shaking and vibrating the bucket of sand, allowing you easily sink your hand deep enough to create a vivid impression. Then once the vibration stops and you lift your hand, the handprint (music) is what remains. That always helped me, at least ;)
I worked on A/V and video equipment years ago. Cleaning the tape path will help with preventing the deck from "eating" the tape, but also if the take up spindle has weak torque, or if it's not moving at all that will cause the tape to be "eaten" as well. I saw more machines with weak take-up problems than anything else as far as damaging tapes.
I just watched your UD2 video and thought, man, i really hope he did a vid on all this lingo and procedure he's using. Go back to my subscription feed, BAM, there's a spanking new crash course from you. You said you felt like you needed to up production quality, but omniscience? you are an absolute unit of a man
Thanks for this. I was a child of the cassette-transitioning-to-CD era, and used cassettes all the time for everyman recordings, with absolutely ZERO knowledge on cheap equipment. As an adult, I'm keen to pursue the analogue hobby again, and armed with this knowledge I wanna make my own mixtapes for fun. Really appreciate your content - I just thought BIAS was volume: and now it all makes sense, and once you KNOW, you're able to make cleaner recordings.
I’m learning a lot from your video explanations. Thank you for all your time & effort making these awesome videos. I’m learning and absorbing so much information that I wish I knew 40 years ago.
Great Video. Thank you so much for taking me back to the late 80's. I used to spend hours reading hifi mags' testing, trying out different tapes and calibrating them back then. It almost made you feel like a scientist reasearching stuff methodically. There is another reason for calibrating your tape deck to the record sensitivity of the tape. If your recording level is off due to tapes deviating from reference input level, it will literally throw the Dolby circuitry off its mark since Dolby works as a combined compressor (during recording) and expander (during playback). Especially the popular Type II two-layer tape formulations like the SA-X and XLII-S showed a strong deviation from the reference level which made them almost unsuitable for usage with Dolby on decks that only allowed Bias calibration at 10 kHz but no level calibration at 315 Hz. That being said, the two-layer tapes offered significant advantages in signal-to-noise ratio due to higher saturation over the whole frequency range because the two layers of magnetic material could be optimized for both low-frequency and high-frequency playback.
@@CassetteComeback depends on the music you record. Tape hiss can be very annoying on high-dynamic content like chamber music or acoustic stuff. It doesn't really matter with music that has a constant underlying theme like most electronica, pop or rock. For these kinds of music, I always used my beloved SA-X (the late 80's one with the black shell and the visible white guide pulleys). God I loved that tape's crisp sound. And it was pretty affordable, too. I later switched to the early-90's three-layered SA-XS which I found to be the pinnacle of TDK Type II history.
I had an Akai GX-7 several years ago, and I paid $385.99 for it. Its estimated value now is $1,225.00. It still works, and I've had to replace its rubber belts a few times, but things like this aren't available any more. I'd like to find an expert business who could properly service it. I agree with the other commenters. This was a well-done video. I consider this a reference piece.
I tought my 2 little girls 7 and 9 to appreciate tapes and now they make their own mix tapes They connecf the ipad to their Sony recorders and get songs they like from youtube and record on tapes. They love it same they do with svhs tapes. They love physical media.
Interesting. I have a cassette deck which is my Technics RS-B11W dual cassette deck and it works great and it has an ABS (Automatic Bias System) feature where you can record Type 1 (Normal/Ferric), Type 2 (High/Chrome) and Type 4 (Metal) cassettes. This deck was from 1985. I also have my Audiotronics Classette cassette recorder 148B from about 1983 and it still works and it has an Automatic Level Control and a Manual Level Control and it can record Type 1 cassettes only, and it will not record Type 2 and Type 4 cassettes, and it does not have any recording sensitivity and bias levels, but it does have a built-in Dolby noise reduction which was a decoder can decode the source. But they don’t do that anymore, because Dolby stopped making noise reduction on cassette decks. The Audiotronics Classette was a cassette recorder which was used in schools and in libraries where children can listen to these read-along book and cassettes with an Audiotronics 148B.
The ironic thing is, there seems to be very reasons to buy pre recorded tapes, or make recordings. That being said, for some reason, I still like it. Taking a lossless stream and recording onto type II tape gives a bit of welcomed old school nostalgia, feel and sound, and it’s fun! Just ask my Gen Z kids, who can listen to almost anything any time, but yet they still sit down and listen to whole albums or album sides when it’s on physical media. They love it.
Great video mate, I've been doing recording on tapes since the early 90's back in the school days. I used to record tapes and sell them to my school mates to earn a buck. I've always loved the physical media, its 2020 now and I still record TV programs in VHS Hi-Fi VCRs. About an year ago I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Sony TC-WR770 double cassette deck in pristine condition for a really good price. For the first time in my life I saw something labeled BIAS (Deck B). I had no idea what that was. I played around with it (since that's what I do mostly when I come across a new toy) and I've got an idea this is to do with the bass and treble ratio. But your video really helped me to understand the amazing technology used in physical media and when I do the recording on this deck, it sounded better than CD for my ears. Thank you so much for this video and you've explained it so good. Keep up the good work and thank you for sharing.
First of all, thank you for this. I grew up with cassettes and always thought it was a terrible format. I’m returning to it via reel to reel, and pretty much realized it was a terrible format because I used terrible equipment and recording practices. This is helpful. I do have a question: how can we find out the optimal bias and level for each deck and cassette type? Is it printed somewhere on the tape or deck? Is there a general database for it?
@@CassetteComeback I am a bit confused by this, because (unless I am wrong) the meters on your deck indicate the record level (volume) of the recording and not the bias? In the video I thought you mentioned the L/R meters being misaligned on your deck as indicating incorrect bias. How does that work?
@@GrandTheftWatto If I'm right, the meters while configuring bias actually show a harmonic analysis (the inverse of an equalizer). It's showing the relative amount of 'low' vs 'high' frequency content. You can see the lighted text indicating the function of the meters on the left is different at 11:45
back when I was a kid, I didn't really know any of this. So I just cranked everything up to the max. LOL! I got a little better at it toward the end of the 90's. I remember having fond memories making dubs and best of's from either a record or a CD.
As a teenager in the 80s I knew about recording level and Dolby NR on my parents' HiFi, but knew little about bias. I also didn't have the money to buy a nice cassette deck with these features. Now that I have the money there's not much point. It would just be an expensive toy, but that's OK. I'm happy to watch others play with their expensive toys.
Cheers fir doing this. Dig up my old Tascam 424 recently, and a few days ago a friend gave me a really solid Marantz pmd201 field recorder that I hope to somehow use/incorporate into music production, so I needed this.
Drawback of biasing is that biasing signal partly erases the audio signal while being recorded. Similarly like erase head does. But because biasing AC signal is relatively weak, it affects only most sensitive parts of audio signal, the trebles. That's why stronger bias signal causes higher loss of trebles than weaker bias signal. To compensate this treble erasing, the recording amplifier boosts up the trebles, so that at some point of bias level the amount of trebles in recording is correct. Every tape reacts differently on the same amount of biasing signal (or every other magnetic signal), so the erasing of trebles by bias is at every tape different. If we make bias adjustment by comparing low and high test tones, we search the bias point where trebles in recording has the same level as bass. But this doesn't mean that in this point the bias level is ideal for the particular tape. To be absolutely perfect, first step would be to find best bias level and second step to adjust treble boost in recording amplifier. Since tape decks have fixed recording equalization (or at least in general, not sure if the highest-end tape decks), bias level is always compromise. But for most good tapes it is ok.
A terrific video, Tony. You explained everything extremely well. Many thanks. I really wish cassettes would make a real comeback. I wonder if that will ever happen?
Very informative video 😍😍👍🏻!! Nicely explained 🙏👍🏻👍🏻 I think this will help so many people how to do a good recording on any cassette deck you got. 😃😃👍🏻 Keep up the good work ya 🙏🙏👍🏻!! Also beginner tip: If you are using type 01 cassettes for your tape recordings then pls use 90’s TDK D, Sony HF or Maxwell UR ones. Do not use rubbish type 0s they won’t sound good in any deck😜😜
Good explanation & demo on the Bias topic, It's one topic I have no experience with as I only played around with boomboxes in my youth days. Recently got an mid 80's tape deck & started to play my old tapes.
this has been incredibly useful and informative. cannot thank you enough for taking the time to really break it down. i feel that the tape format is incredibly underrated in general. starting to realize that much of it's decrease in popularity before cd's can be attributed to how blindly we were all using cassettes and how many variables there are to both making and listening to tapes optimally. i've always loved them but have been away from them for years, til recently. it's amazing to find some current music being properly mastered to tape, and to listen to some classics on something semi-decent and i can only imagine how good they can sound when experienced in all their proper calibrated settings. i think when fully optimized they have great potential to be the best format. i love vinyls, don't get me wrong. but i really believe tapes have the potential to sound equally as good and are incredibly convenient and indestructible if you're not completely careless. hopefully some companies start putting out modernized quality decks to get more people making tapes. i'm starting to put my techno onto tapes and this video is one of the most insightful gems out there currently. thanks again!
You earned a sub from me, Mate and I haven't used a tape in years. I find your accent to be excellent to listen to. Sounds like the bloke from Manchester I watch walking all the canals and sleeping in the woods. On top of that. you replied in a minute to a comment of mine on one of your old videos indicating that you appreciate people watching your stuff!
Yeah, I'm not far from Manchester. This is a hobby for me so I appreciate people taking the time to watch and comment. I've not disappeared up my own arse...yet 😂
@@CassetteComeback Sheffield perhaps? I am really struggling to learn the various different dialects of England, Scotland and Ireland. I think Patrick is from in and around Sheffield actually. Wonderful history out there and even more beautiful countryside. Love to visit the Ladybower plughole in person!
@@NOWThatsRichy I quite liked it and it started me on binge-watching his videos. He is what I refer to as a Renaissance Man. Great knowledge and interest in many, many topics. Very entertaining and likeable.
Bravo! I must confess I was schooled. I do still have a couple hurdles left. JVC and other branded deck have additional settings and my TDK Type 2 90s need to be lubed. 1st mission I plan to undertake is to hit the limit of the SOL on a fresh TDK MA 110. Cheers
I thought you did a nice job of explaining some of the basic concepts here. I learned most of this stuff the hard way through trial and error, back in the day. It was frustrating when I learned that my deck, which I thought was decent, was not capable of properly recording to some of the tapes I had. It's funny to think back on how we worked so hard to get rid of hiss and to get flat tape response while now we are nostalgic for all of those things.
If the capstan has gone brown , not shiny . its over for the capstan ? It is chewing tapes up and jerking down speed , the pinch roller has gone shiny after cleaning . I just bought one from the second hand shop . Technics RS TR373 . I took my chance
@@CassetteComeback on to it now mate . There is oil in the works , some one has oiled the gearing thats affected the side 2 pulley on the deck. I have just had a £30 refund and then payed £5 to get it back as side 2 of deck 2 is a problem .
@@CassetteComeback A spot of WD40 has removed the rust from the capstan & clean all after . Pinch roller , I removed the shine with wet & dry paper . The oil issue did not affect the pulley . The shop would of binned it , I fixed it . Thanks for the reply and your Channel .
Hello, my answer please: about MOL and SOL....understand I correctly, when I´m recording, then all types of cassettes (Normal, CrO2...) must match the level of the recording source signal, but will be the result in a different hiss level by playback(with regard to the different recording level by cassette type)?
I have just returned to cassette tapes and found the video very informative. I have the Aiwa AD-F 850 which is a very similar machine so it's as good as a manual (which I don't have) for me. It cost me £20 plus £11 for new belts and sounds great
@@CassetteComeback it was much easier than I thought it would be. I want to make some video of all my vintage hifi stuff, think I'll have to find some music that won't fall foul of UA-cam's copyright rules first though
Great video! Useful for beginners to cassettes as well as a refresher to more experienced users. One thing about the recording levels that you mentioned which maybe could be stressed a bit more (for beginners) is that every tape has hiss (some more, some less). So if your recording levels are low, you have to turn up the amp a lot to hear it at soundlevel x and meanwhile are also amplifying the hiss a lot. If your recording levels are high, you don't have to turn up the amp as much to hear it at level x , thereby also not amplifying the hiss so much. So the 'music to hiss soundlevel distance' (S/N ratio) should be as high as possible , just before distortion occurs, to eliminate as much hiss as possible. BTW: I also grew up in the 80s with bad recordings of hissy FM radio stations, trying to capture my favorite songs without the DJ's talking over the intros ;-) It sounded pretty bad and left me with a bad impression until I got back to cassettes (and tape) a couple of years ago with 2 proper decks (and 2 Revox reel-to-reel decks).
Thanks again Tony. I've been enjoying these things all my life without knowing a damn thing about them. Perhaps I've been lucky because most of the cassettes and decks used were enjoyable. Now that I know though, I'm going to get a three head for sure.
did you mismatch MOL with Sensitivity? Maximum output level (MOL) is usually specified at 315 (MOL315) or 400 (MOL400) Hz, and its value marks the point when the third harmohic coefficient reaches 3% (wikipedia) Sensitivity is the out-in gain (referred to IEC reference)
I could really have done with seeing this in the late 70s, perhaps on the Open University? It would have been worth getting up on Sunday morning to catch it. Many thanks, this is brilliant!"
My Dad was quite into Hi-Fi when I was a kid, late 80's early 90's. His pride and joy was a Nakanishi tape deck. He let me play my tapes on it but said "never touch the Bias knob". I don't think he knew what it did either, I expect the salesperson just said you should really touch that. This was a long time before one could Google it. I also remember that recordings made on the Nakanishi sounded great when played back on it but terrible on anything else. I expect that had something to do with bias. Thanks for the explanation.
Excellent.
I'm 60 years old and you've finally explained to me what no-one has been able to since getting my first cassette recorder in 1973.
Thank you.
Best explanation I've ever heard. 50 years later I finally understand. Thank you!
Grew up on cassette. Spent the late 80’s through the first half of the 90’s as a radio DJ and no radio engineer every explained all this. Great video!
🤣
This should have been part of the national curriculum in th 80s
Or at least an article in Smash Hits 😀
Totally agree. A single period in my weekly timetable would have stopped me being such an ignoramus. I remember going round my mates house to record a couple of albums from CD / Vinyl on his dad's deck. Neither of us had a clue what the "bias" knob did. Nor did we know the difference between Type II Position tapes and pure chrome. We thought they were all the same. Shameful!
I reckon I'd have paid attention and achieved a good grade if this were the case.
Analog hi-fi gear required some skill and knowledge but it was a mystery to most people who didn't keep up with Audio related magazines and such. Even today I see audio related YT videos full of misinformation by people who don't seem to realize there's literally decades of information out there if you just take a little time to read.
My friend from school used to record chrome tapes with normal type selected on his dad's Luxman tape deck because high end sounds better...... Looks like a big mistake...hehe
I still remember that day in 1997 where I finally got it and made recordings equal to CD but even better cause of the added warmth
If you have a formula, would you like to share it?
@@cartoonworld1000 tape + alignment, demagnetization, head cleaning, and proper calibration = ready for the radio
I bought a old Mercedes with the Original Becker Mexiko Cassette Radio since I didn't want to install some new Radio I got into Recording my own Tapes. I watched quite a few videos to set up everything right. I don't understand why your guide doesn't have more views it is the best Cassette basics video! Thank you very much!
Not many are in to cassettes...
I've been recording on cassettes for a bit but its always good to learn more about recording to get the best out of my recordings
Thanks, as someone just getting into cassettes this was really helpful!
Glad you found it useful.
As a teen recently getting into cassettes, understanding the factors (like bias, EQ etc) taken into consideration during recording was very difficult and I never fully knew what they were all about. This video really helped clear things up
Great. That was the whole point of the video.
After Normal, Chrome, Ferro-Chrome, Metal probably today they would have "Carbon, Nanotubes, Titanium" and all. LOL!
That is the problem people had in the 70s 80s and 90s ,,most never really understood how to make the best tape unless they had a more expensive unit that hardy any one would buy.
I didn't. Bang them in and that was it. If they sounded crap, then it was a crap tape...
I have been in a simlar situation like a year ago or something. I got a 3-Head deck around half a year ago, but I simply dont have enough cassettes for recording on, but new old stock is expensive and i cant really afford them. :(
Much appreciated info even for an old cassette geezer like me. I've just been winging it since the 80s.
Most of us were, and still are 😀
You shouldn't complain that you are not a graphic designer. You are an amazing presenter!!! And design of your presentation is just that - extremely presentable and brilliant in its simplicity. THANKS A LOT!!!!
Prior to getting a 3-head deck, I didn't even know about the bias and recording sensitivity controls. Real time recording monitoring? Wow what a surprise that was. My old 2-head Technics RS-M14 only had a tape type selection dial (with Type III!) and recording level control. Even without the fine bias tuning it did a decent job. Just having VU meters and recording level control is light years ahead of what I previously recorded with.
Also, EDM seems particularly well suited to testing cassette tape recording. Its very challenging having both booming bass and tons of bright highs in one track. Throw in some quiet breakdowns commonly found in trance and you get a good test of tape hiss and noise reduction systems.
Great video. Very helpful and not patronising. Love the tone and delivery pace.
I'm just an ordinary bloke doing this because I enjoy it, glad you appreciate it.
This has got to be the best video explaining cassette recording! Thank you!
Totally wonderful and worthwhile video, Tony. Tape lovers everywhere are going to appreciate this.
Cheers!
I recently paid my tape deck a visit in my parents' attic, but did not have the time to connect it. It's been there for 10+ years, but I want it to work again, so I just bought the official repair manual off Ebay and hope it can be freshened up with a new belt or whatever, in case it should need one.
If you're mechanically minded, have the right tools and take your time, you'll get it going again.
Grew up on cassette. Spent the late 80’s through the first half of the 90’s as a radio DJ and no radio engineer every explained all this. Great video! Thanks!
I love these videos! I learnt so much!! Before I didn’t even know there was a type 0 cassette and finally figured out what BIAS is. I did enjoy recording the weekend dance shows from Radio 1 on my Sony deck in the late 1990s and early 2000s with it’s basic TDK, BASF, Maxell and BBC tapes 😀 and played them on a cheap Walkman.
Yeah, Pete Tongs essential selection on Friday nights. Compulsory taping.
Yes 😀😀 don’t forget Danny Rampling and Judge Jules!
I worked as an electronic technician in consumer repair shop when I was young. I've repaired many a cassette deck. We were an Akai warranty repair provider. They made some excellent cassette decks . Their auto-bias system worked well (only on the more expensive models) and their GX Glass-Ferrite tape heads would last a very long time.
Very Informative and useful. I've been getting into cassettes and It's been difficult for me to get a full explanation on everything that goes into cassette recording especially when there are so many different brands, types of tapes and decks and it's like "Ok I just want to record quality audio to cassette why all the crazy buttons" lmao
Been recording tapes for the last 3 years but needed a refresher on bias. That said I stayed because the amount of tips in the video is incredible! I have been dubbed for a long while now but didn't know this video was a thing. Fantastic and excellent 😁
I was half way through watching Eastenders when this one popped up, this is much more worthwhile watching!
😂
"YER BOUGHT A TWO HEAD DECK? YER SLAAAAG!"
Agree
Thank you well I am a blue collar guy. Played tape since 60s and you sir both taught me a lot. You reinforced what I learned on the fly. Really excellent info.
I've recorded hundreds of cassettes between 1982 and 2002 and now I finally find someone who can explain clearly what bias is. Thank you very much and I will proceed to buy a 3 head tape deck!
I just bought a 3 head Denon DR-M20 for 20 euros. It plays and sounds well but stops playing by itself. Is it worth to have it professionally overhauled and repaired?
Excellent tutorial on setting up a cassette deck and learning about levels and bias.
I'm not sure what's weirder, the fact there's a channel all about cassette tapes, or the fact that I watch it. Fantastic..........
Thank you for this video. I have been using cassettes as a kid and teenager, but gave up when I grew up. Now I finally understand the basics and I'm ready to start taping again!
The AC erase head generally pops out with the mechanism, it only erases if energised - the modern system being AC bias, AC erase. The permanent magnet erase, of course, had to be kept retracted.
The magnetization curve of the tape tends to have a flatter (hysteresis) region at the zero crossing, a relatively linear region above and below, flattening again as it hits overload. The oldest bias method was DC bias, but that only used one half of the curve.
AC bias pushes the signal across the flatter region, but excessive bias partially erases the higher frequencies
I have used tapes for a few years now & never understod what the db bias mol/sol statistics where on those tapes.
This video changed my entire perspective on how to record my future cassettes.
Many tnx for this video
Its a gamechanger!
I remember my AIWA AD-F800 does have a sticker labeled to show the recommended bias pot settings of commercially available tape formulations. But I recall certain tape formulations, no matter what bias adjustments you do can never match the source signal.
Also, I guess a better way would be to play a 0dB pure sine tone as a source at low and high frequencies so that the bias and sensitivity can be optimized to squeeze the last drop of quality out of any tape. Cheers
I just started recording on cassettes as a hobby to pass the time during the Covid quarantine. I am a little over half way through this video and it is already the most invaluable source I’ve found. I’ll be passing it along to my friends if they decide to get into recording too. Thank you so much.
Glad I could help
Fantastic video Tony, it deserves a round of applause. I suspect you and I are a similar age, and I didn't know most of this stuff back then either. I've only recently got my hands on a 3 head deck for the first time, which makes this stuff so much easier!
I’ve been searching for an explanation like this forever it seems! It was explained to me by a guy who sold me my Nakamichi deck a couple years back, but this explanation definitely made it clearer for me! For that I am appreciative! Subscribed! Love your videos. Thanks for your contribution to keeping cassettes alive! Any opinions on some deck’s built in “Auto-bias” features? Are they generally accurate? My Kenwood deck (2-head) has that feature. Also it can be adjusted manually. Just curious.
Edit- I see you answered my question at the end of the video and I jumped the gun!
Glad it helped. Yeah, if you have to get a 2 header, those with some auto cal features are a good call and the ones I have a pretty good. The thing I didn't mention in the video where a 3 deck is also good is when using used cassettes. You can hear if they are shot whilst recording and any drop outs too.
Thank you, it is one of the Best if it is not the best mini-lecture I have ever had regarding this subject, awesome, fantastic, with my Warm Regards to you. I wish you had a similar lecture for Reel to Reel, tape Please.
You have made a very beautiful video. Unfortunately when I was searching on youtube to understand Bias, this video appeared on my feed after several weeks. You are a gem 💎
Excellent video, just what I needed to brush up after my cassette hibernation period, thanks Tony!
Back in the 80's I didn't have the money to buy a good 3-head deck.
Now I have two of them and I love using cassettes. Again.
Also I bought a fully serviced very good record player with a good cart and excellent stylus.
Lovely stuff, enjoying music like never before,
Snap. Boomboxes and midi hi-fi for me until the mid 90s
I just subscribed to your channel after I bought a Denon DR M33HX to record manually with a 3 Head Deck. Now I have a pretty good understanding what to do and most importantly why. Thanks for this Video.
i had a beocord5500 before and it did all the work for me, but that wasnt much fun...
Thank you so much for this video. After 50 years of recording and playing my cassette deck, this is the first time I learned how to adjust my bias control and my master fader control and the recording level input control. When I changed form tape to source, I always wander why the recording level is different and did not know that it supposed to be the same by adjusting the recording level input control and the master fader control. Thanks again!
Glad it was helpful!
This is such an excellent video.
I feel like I can take all of this and really dig into any other details I want to research now.
Thank you very much!
Great video! I'm many years into audio grown up with cassettes and now I finally know WHY some tapes are sounding great on my decks and which did not! I Had a Dual tape deck back in the days, great machine. But it wasn't TDK what was sounding the best on it. It was the Maxell XL2. You made a recording that sound great (in another video) on a tape that I called trash. But now I know why... I Never had a deck with an adjustable bias!
Great. That's what I hoped this video would do.
I sure could have used this back in the day. I was so naive and you couldn’t tell me jack. Live and learn! For those who don’t know, this is a must for this hobby. If you are going to involve yourself into this, at least you need to care enough to learn how to make a great tape and be satisfied in your own mind that you’ve done all you can to make it well. Good oh, Tony. A refresher doesn’t hurt anyone who really cares about this and I do! Have you got a diskwasher demag? This is a cassette shell with a magnet in it that you place it in and run it fast forward till it stops then run it in rewind till it stops and your tape path is demagnetized. Let me know. The other way with the wand is a real pain!
Great video Just bought a Sony 3 head deck with bias adjustment as I have never had a 3head deck before because of the price to be honest it sounds good but I never understood how to set the bias properly. Now I have watch the video I have a better understanding of what i'm doing. Thanks for sharing the knowledge great channel by the way.
Thanks, that's why I did the video as I want to help people get the best out of their cassettes.
Super video, i had been wondering what exactly bias did. Thanks 👍
Brilliant - wish I known this back in the 80's!
Snap
Same here
Never underestimate the pull of explanatory videos! As much as we may already know, the addition of someone else's travels just adds to it. The only ones who do not benefit are the sods who think they know it all, and that we are "teh n00bs".
Good call. I don't like snobbery.
Good video. First time I had to close my eyes to “watch” youtube video to actually hear the subtle bias!
Excellently explained in easy to understand language. VERY helpful!
Glad it was helpful!
Top notch explanation! 👍 So this is 100% unnecessary, but I'd like to throw in my favorite analogy for understanding bias (from a Steve Albini recording workshop):
He suggested imagining magnetic tape as a bucket of sand. Recording a music signal onto tape is like pushing your handprint into the sand. Pressing down will leave a faint, shallow handprint. But adding a high frequency bias signal energizes the tape's magnetic particles, which is like shaking and vibrating the bucket of sand, allowing you easily sink your hand deep enough to create a vivid impression. Then once the vibration stops and you lift your hand, the handprint (music) is what remains.
That always helped me, at least ;)
I worked on A/V and video equipment years ago. Cleaning the tape path will help with preventing the deck from "eating" the tape, but also if the take up spindle has weak torque, or if it's not moving at all that will cause the tape to be "eaten" as well. I saw more machines with weak take-up problems than anything else as far as damaging tapes.
I just watched your UD2 video and thought, man, i really hope he did a vid on all this lingo and procedure he's using. Go back to my subscription feed, BAM, there's a spanking new crash course from you. You said you felt like you needed to up production quality, but omniscience? you are an absolute unit of a man
Excellent explanation on the various subjects one usually forgets and/or erroneously takes for granted.
Thanks a lot!.
Thanks for this.
I was a child of the cassette-transitioning-to-CD era, and used cassettes all the time for everyman recordings, with absolutely ZERO knowledge on cheap equipment.
As an adult, I'm keen to pursue the analogue hobby again, and armed with this knowledge I wanna make my own mixtapes for fun.
Really appreciate your content - I just thought BIAS was volume: and now it all makes sense, and once you KNOW, you're able to make cleaner recordings.
That's it. I only found out towards the end of my first journey with cassettes in the late 90s
I’m learning a lot from your video explanations. Thank you for all your time & effort making these awesome videos. I’m learning and absorbing so much information that I wish I knew 40 years ago.
Why in the 80’s we didn't have videos like this? 😭 Thank you so much for the video!
didn't have the internet and You Tube in the 80s :)
@@mevw1962 But VHS existed. And.....Betamax, for those who....you know.
I recorded cassettes for years in the 80s and 90s, and I learned something new here! I need to buy a deck!
Great Video. Thank you so much for taking me back to the late 80's. I used to spend hours reading hifi mags' testing, trying out different tapes and calibrating them back then. It almost made you feel like a scientist reasearching stuff methodically.
There is another reason for calibrating your tape deck to the record sensitivity of the tape. If your recording level is off due to tapes deviating from reference input level, it will literally throw the Dolby circuitry off its mark since Dolby works as a combined compressor (during recording) and expander (during playback). Especially the popular Type II two-layer tape formulations like the SA-X and XLII-S showed a strong deviation from the reference level which made them almost unsuitable for usage with Dolby on decks that only allowed Bias calibration at 10 kHz but no level calibration at 315 Hz.
That being said, the two-layer tapes offered significant advantages in signal-to-noise ratio due to higher saturation over the whole frequency range because the two layers of magnetic material could be optimized for both low-frequency and high-frequency playback.
That's why I don't use Dolby, the hiss doesn't really bother me, especially on type 2 or better.
@@CassetteComeback depends on the music you record. Tape hiss can be very annoying on high-dynamic content like chamber music or acoustic stuff.
It doesn't really matter with music that has a constant underlying theme like most electronica, pop or rock. For these kinds of music, I always used my beloved SA-X (the late 80's one with the black shell and the visible white guide pulleys). God I loved that tape's crisp sound. And it was pretty affordable, too. I later switched to the early-90's three-layered SA-XS which I found to be the pinnacle of TDK Type II history.
I'll agree with you on the SA-XS, that and the HX-S are the best TDK type 2 got in my book. I don't listen to "quiet" music, so the NR isn't needed.
@@CassetteComeback haha, always going for the power stuff I see :)
I had an Akai GX-7 several years ago, and I paid $385.99 for it. Its estimated value now is $1,225.00. It still works, and I've had to replace its rubber belts a few times, but things like this aren't available any more. I'd like to find an expert business who could properly service it.
I agree with the other commenters. This was a well-done video. I consider this a reference piece.
I tought my 2 little girls 7 and 9 to appreciate tapes and now they make their own mix tapes They connecf the ipad to their Sony recorders and get songs they like from youtube and record on tapes. They love it same they do with svhs tapes. They love physical media.
Yeah, my kids are savvy too. They'll treasure those cassettes when they're older. They won't treasure a playlist...
Cassettes must comeback
Excellent, clear and easy to understand, been a cassette fan for years and i never knew what the level calibration was for until now.
A perfectly informative tutorial, which is easy 2 understand.
This answered a lot of my questions when I last tried to record onto chrome. Valuable information!
Interesting. I have a cassette deck which is my Technics RS-B11W dual cassette deck and it works great and it has an ABS (Automatic Bias System) feature where you can record Type 1 (Normal/Ferric), Type 2 (High/Chrome) and Type 4 (Metal) cassettes. This deck was from 1985. I also have my Audiotronics Classette cassette recorder 148B from about 1983 and it still works and it has an Automatic Level Control and a Manual Level Control and it can record Type 1 cassettes only, and it will not record Type 2 and Type 4 cassettes, and it does not have any recording sensitivity and bias levels, but it does have a built-in Dolby noise reduction which was a decoder can decode the source. But they don’t do that anymore, because Dolby stopped making noise reduction on cassette decks. The Audiotronics Classette was a cassette recorder which was used in schools and in libraries where children can listen to these read-along book and cassettes with an Audiotronics 148B.
Sorry for asking for a tape recording tutorial a week ago in another one of your video's comment sections. This answered all my questions, thank you!!
The ironic thing is, there seems to be very reasons to buy pre recorded tapes, or make recordings. That being said, for some reason, I still like it. Taking a lossless stream and recording onto type II tape gives a bit of welcomed old school nostalgia, feel and sound, and it’s fun! Just ask my Gen Z kids, who can listen to almost anything any time, but yet they still sit down and listen to whole albums or album sides when it’s on physical media. They love it.
Nice explanation! It never made much sense to me before. Thanks for breaking it down in laymen's terms.
Glad you liked it, that was the whole point of the video.
Phenomenal video for someone JUST (a few years too late lol) into recording on tape decks. Thanks!
Great video mate, I've been doing recording on tapes since the early 90's back in the school days. I used to record tapes and sell them to my school mates to earn a buck. I've always loved the physical media, its 2020 now and I still record TV programs in VHS Hi-Fi VCRs. About an year ago I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Sony TC-WR770 double cassette deck in pristine condition for a really good price. For the first time in my life I saw something labeled BIAS (Deck B). I had no idea what that was. I played around with it (since that's what I do mostly when I come across a new toy) and I've got an idea this is to do with the bass and treble ratio. But your video really helped me to understand the amazing technology used in physical media and when I do the recording on this deck, it sounded better than CD for my ears. Thank you so much for this video and you've explained it so good. Keep up the good work and thank you for sharing.
Great. That's what I did this video for 😀
Thank you! I haven't recorded in years but bought a Denon deck and plan to. Your primer is absolutely brilliant.
Brilliant I'd learned alot about cassette tapes in one of yours video than any others, most informative.
Glad they helped
First of all, thank you for this. I grew up with cassettes and always thought it was a terrible format. I’m returning to it via reel to reel, and pretty much realized it was a terrible format because I used terrible equipment and recording practices. This is helpful.
I do have a question: how can we find out the optimal bias and level for each deck and cassette type? Is it printed somewhere on the tape or deck? Is there a general database for it?
Not that I know of. Use the meters on your deck, or failing that, your ears.
@@CassetteComeback I am a bit confused by this, because (unless I am wrong) the meters on your deck indicate the record level (volume) of the recording and not the bias? In the video I thought you mentioned the L/R meters being misaligned on your deck as indicating incorrect bias. How does that work?
@@GrandTheftWatto If I'm right, the meters while configuring bias actually show a harmonic analysis (the inverse of an equalizer). It's showing the relative amount of 'low' vs 'high' frequency content. You can see the lighted text indicating the function of the meters on the left is different at 11:45
back when I was a kid, I didn't really know any of this. So I just cranked everything up to the max. LOL! I got a little better at it toward the end of the 90's. I remember having fond memories making dubs and best of's from either a record or a CD.
As a teenager in the 80s I knew about recording level and Dolby NR on my parents' HiFi, but knew little about bias. I also didn't have the money to buy a nice cassette deck with these features. Now that I have the money there's not much point. It would just be an expensive toy, but that's OK. I'm happy to watch others play with their expensive toys.
Cheers fir doing this. Dig up my old Tascam 424 recently, and a few days ago a friend gave me a really solid Marantz pmd201 field recorder that I hope to somehow use/incorporate into music production, so I needed this.
Drawback of biasing is that biasing signal partly erases the audio signal while being recorded. Similarly like erase head does. But because biasing AC signal is relatively weak, it affects only most sensitive parts of audio signal, the trebles. That's why stronger bias signal causes higher loss of trebles than weaker bias signal.
To compensate this treble erasing, the recording amplifier boosts up the trebles, so that at some point of bias level the amount of trebles in recording is correct.
Every tape reacts differently on the same amount of biasing signal (or every other magnetic signal), so the erasing of trebles by bias is at every tape different.
If we make bias adjustment by comparing low and high test tones, we search the bias point where trebles in recording has the same level as bass. But this doesn't mean that in this point the bias level is ideal for the particular tape. To be absolutely perfect, first step would be to find best bias level and second step to adjust treble boost in recording amplifier.
Since tape decks have fixed recording equalization (or at least in general, not sure if the highest-end tape decks), bias level is always compromise. But for most good tapes it is ok.
A terrific video, Tony. You explained everything extremely well. Many thanks. I really wish cassettes would make a real comeback. I wonder if that will ever happen?
Very informative video 😍😍👍🏻!! Nicely explained 🙏👍🏻👍🏻 I think this will help so many people how to do a good recording on any cassette deck you got. 😃😃👍🏻 Keep up the good work ya 🙏🙏👍🏻!!
Also beginner tip: If you are using type 01 cassettes for your tape recordings then pls use 90’s TDK D, Sony HF or Maxwell UR ones. Do not use rubbish type 0s they won’t sound good in any deck😜😜
This was very educational, thank you for taking the time!
Good explanation & demo on the Bias topic, It's one topic I have no experience with as I only played around with boomboxes in my youth days.
Recently got an mid 80's tape deck & started to play my old tapes.
this has been incredibly useful and informative. cannot thank you enough for taking the time to really break it down. i feel that the tape format is incredibly underrated in general. starting to realize that much of it's decrease in popularity before cd's can be attributed to how blindly we were all using cassettes and how many variables there are to both making and listening to tapes optimally. i've always loved them but have been away from them for years, til recently. it's amazing to find some current music being properly mastered to tape, and to listen to some classics on something semi-decent and i can only imagine how good they can sound when experienced in all their proper calibrated settings. i think when fully optimized they have great potential to be the best format. i love vinyls, don't get me wrong. but i really believe tapes have the potential to sound equally as good and are incredibly convenient and indestructible if you're not completely careless. hopefully some companies start putting out modernized quality decks to get more people making tapes. i'm starting to put my techno onto tapes and this video is one of the most insightful gems out there currently. thanks again!
Epic summary! Thanks a lot for going through this trouble of explaining it all.
My pleasure
You earned a sub from me, Mate and I haven't used a tape in years. I find your accent to be excellent to listen to. Sounds like the bloke from Manchester I watch walking all the canals and sleeping in the woods. On top of that. you replied in a minute to a comment of mine on one of your old videos indicating that you appreciate people watching your stuff!
Yeah, I'm not far from Manchester. This is a hobby for me so I appreciate people taking the time to watch and comment. I've not disappeared up my own arse...yet 😂
@@CassetteComeback Sheffield perhaps? I am really struggling to learn the various different dialects of England, Scotland and Ireland. I think Patrick is from in and around Sheffield actually. Wonderful history out there and even more beautiful countryside. Love to visit the Ladybower plughole in person!
@@CassetteComeback That is all to common today ..
@@TechGorilla1987 Patrick's plughole vid was excellent!
@@NOWThatsRichy I quite liked it and it started me on binge-watching his videos. He is what I refer to as a Renaissance Man. Great knowledge and interest in many, many topics. Very entertaining and likeable.
Bravo! I must confess I was schooled. I do still have a couple hurdles left. JVC and other branded deck have additional settings and my TDK Type 2 90s need to be lubed.
1st mission I plan to undertake is to hit the limit of the SOL on a fresh TDK MA 110. Cheers
Ride than MA hot!
Thank you for such an EXCELLENT presentation!
wow great explanation learned alot from this video cheers !
This is over the top. Well done sir.
Ok wow, this has really educated me. Especially about bias, MOL, SOL, and what hot recording means. Great f*cking channel!
I thought you did a nice job of explaining some of the basic concepts here. I learned most of this stuff the hard way through trial and error, back in the day. It was frustrating when I learned that my deck, which I thought was decent, was not capable of properly recording to some of the tapes I had.
It's funny to think back on how we worked so hard to get rid of hiss and to get flat tape response while now we are nostalgic for all of those things.
Things that were magic when you were young, always remain magic...
Man, a huge thanks to you !! Very pedagogic; ultra useful and very complete video !!
Cheers from France
If the capstan has gone brown , not shiny . its over for the capstan ?
It is chewing tapes up and jerking down speed , the pinch roller has gone shiny after cleaning .
I just bought one from the second hand shop . Technics RS TR373 .
I took my chance
Most likely just need a clean, ear buds and isopropyl alcohol and some elbow grease.
@@CassetteComeback on to it now mate .
There is oil in the works , some one has oiled the gearing thats affected the side 2 pulley on the deck.
I have just had a £30 refund and then payed £5 to get it back as side 2 of deck 2 is a problem .
@@CassetteComeback A spot of WD40 has removed the rust from the capstan & clean all after .
Pinch roller , I removed the shine with wet & dry paper .
The oil issue did not affect the pulley .
The shop would of binned it , I fixed it .
Thanks for the reply and your Channel .
@@kallekillerapa All done
The pinch roller just pules out on this deck .
The flywheel belt will not be so easy to maintain later. but worth it
Hello, my answer please:
about MOL and SOL....understand I correctly, when I´m recording, then all types of cassettes (Normal, CrO2...) must match the level of the recording source signal, but will be the result in a different hiss level by playback(with regard to the different recording level by cassette type)?
I have just returned to cassette tapes and found the video very informative.
I have the Aiwa AD-F 850 which is a very similar machine so it's as good as a manual (which I don't have) for me. It cost me £20 plus £11 for new belts and sounds great
Aiwa of this vintage are great decks, easy to work on and very underrated.
@@CassetteComeback it was much easier than I thought it would be.
I want to make some video of all my vintage hifi stuff, think I'll have to find some music that won't fall foul of UA-cam's copyright rules first though
Great video! Useful for beginners to cassettes as well as a refresher to more experienced users.
One thing about the recording levels that you mentioned which maybe could be stressed a bit more (for beginners) is that every tape has hiss (some more, some less). So if your recording levels are low, you have to turn up the amp a lot to hear it at soundlevel x and meanwhile are also amplifying the hiss a lot.
If your recording levels are high, you don't have to turn up the amp as much to hear it at level x , thereby also not amplifying the hiss so much. So the 'music to hiss soundlevel distance' (S/N ratio) should be as high as possible , just before distortion occurs, to eliminate as much hiss as possible.
BTW: I also grew up in the 80s with bad recordings of hissy FM radio stations, trying to capture my favorite songs without the DJ's talking over the intros ;-)
It sounded pretty bad and left me with a bad impression until I got back to cassettes (and tape) a couple of years ago with 2 proper decks (and 2 Revox reel-to-reel decks).
Thanks again Tony. I've been enjoying these things all my life without knowing a damn thing about them. Perhaps I've been lucky because most of the cassettes and decks used were enjoyable. Now that I know though, I'm going to get a three head for sure.
did you mismatch MOL with Sensitivity?
Maximum output level (MOL) is usually specified at 315 (MOL315) or 400 (MOL400) Hz, and its value marks the point when the third harmohic coefficient reaches 3% (wikipedia)
Sensitivity is the out-in gain (referred to IEC reference)
I have the same deck plus one JVC DD-9 long hunted ever since my college back in the 80s. Good job.
I could really have done with seeing this in the late 70s, perhaps on the Open University? It would have been worth getting up on Sunday morning to catch it. Many thanks, this is brilliant!"
Glad it helped!
Excellent video. I need to find out how to set the bias on my two head deck - Kenwood KX-550HX.
Very good Video! Even something new to me old Tapehead.
My Dad was quite into Hi-Fi when I was a kid, late 80's early 90's. His pride and joy was a Nakanishi tape deck. He let me play my tapes on it but said "never touch the Bias knob". I don't think he knew what it did either, I expect the salesperson just said you should really touch that. This was a long time before one could Google it. I also remember that recordings made on the Nakanishi sounded great when played back on it but terrible on anything else. I expect that had something to do with bias. Thanks for the explanation.