Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Simulate cassette tape audio profiles using FFmpeg

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 81 posts

Re: Simulate cassette tape audio profiles using FFmpeg

#51

Post by AnthonBerg »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #18
_def wrote: post #3

What is "wow"?

Half of wow and flutter. The tape speed wasn't perfectly constant, so the pitch wobbled. Wow was slow speed variations (under 4Hz). Flutter was quicker warbles. Both were caused mechanically. The rubber wheel - pinch roller - that moved the tape might not be perfectly circular, the motor that pulled the reels might be uneven, and the tape case sometimes pressed on the tape reels causing variable friction. Analog medi…

If anyone wants a natural example of what tape can sound like, here's an interesting album on Spotify: Alice Atieno by Collela Mazee – https://open.spotify.com/album/6j72tDGcz97abyKDOP3aWp

Kenyan benga music from the early '80s or so. It's got every type of tape artifact. It's horrible, haha. There are even tracks where the tape head seems to be picking up the other side of the cassette in reverse.

It's not supposed to sound like that. Just a result of stewardship and rightsholders and incentives. Someone somewhere has a cassette tape and digitizes it. And uploads it to Spotify. Then it's forever.

(Frankly, I think it's gorgeous. The combination of the music and the recording is accidentally something really special. Laid-back but gently enthusiastic and warm 4/4 music, bright bur melancholy. Sounds like the Mega-Man 1 soundtrack played by a live band? And a really, really good band. And then it's all tragically messed up by the gears of history. Fluttering, swaying underwater. And… it's all so pretentious when I type it out… but it just… there's something about it. It's pretty great music for programming, haha.)

Re: Simulate cassette tape audio profiles using FFmpeg

#54

Post by markedathome »

wildzzz wrote: post #24
secretsatan wrote: post #19

Well i would say wow and flutter is a property of the device playing the tape, not of the tape itself

Crappy old tape and a warped shell can cause wow and flutter too if the tape is sticking or the reels are binding.

Wonder if there would be a preset called "I left the tape on the dashboard too long last summer"

Re: Simulate cassette tape audio profiles using FFmpeg

#55

Post by Lio »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #18
_def wrote: post #3

What is "wow"?

Half of wow and flutter. The tape speed wasn't perfectly constant, so the pitch wobbled. Wow was slow speed variations (under 4Hz). Flutter was quicker warbles. Both were caused mechanically. The rubber wheel - pinch roller - that moved the tape might not be perfectly circular, the motor that pulled the reels might be uneven, and the tape case sometimes pressed on the tape reels causing variable friction. Analog medi…

> Analog media really were a bit crap.

True but I find it strange how many of my favourite recording were made with this "crap" analogue equipment (well before I was born) and how many modern "perfect" recording sound terrible to me.

To me the sound of even subtle autotune is "eww". I can't stand the over compressed, "sugary" sound of current pop music. It's just not for me.

Perfection is Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters where his analogue synth goes out of tune and he brings it back without loosing the groove. The recording is better for that detail IMHO.

I never listen to Nevermind or Collected Ambient Works 1 and think, that would be better if it was recorded with a DAW.

Horses for courses I guess.

Re: Simulate cassette tape audio profiles using FFmpeg

#56

Post by raverbashing »

dylan604 wrote: post #8
massagedpelican wrote: post #5

How would one go about determining what effect to add for each cassette type? I don't know much about cassettes, I'm curious if this was something that could be done by ear or if these are commonly held opinions about the sound of each tape. Again knowing nothing about tape, if I were tasked with this I would probably try to record the same audio to each of the tapes and then compare it with the original.

Similar to how the different film stocks affected the look of the image, the different tape formats would effect the sound similarly. Crudely explained, the more light brown the tape, the more noisy it would be. The darker the tape, the cleaner it could be. If you like the sound of someone standing behind you constantly saying shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, then choose a brown tape. By now, the audiophiles have lots of profi…

Yeah

Tape hiss comes from the particle size on the tape and the amplifier "playing" that random natural orientation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tape_hiss

(I though it was more due to the amplifier but decided to look up first)

Re: Simulate cassette tape audio profiles using FFmpeg

#57

Post by TonyTrapp »

speedgoose wrote: post #52

In my opinion, nothing is quite the same as real analog cassette sounds. It's nice to play around and prototype, but if you really want a good cassette sound effect, you have to use real hardware, for now.

There's a number of VST plugins that get very close - much closer than a static set of filters every possibly could. This is just an approximation.

Re: Simulate cassette tape audio profiles using FFmpeg

#58

Post by varispeed »

TonyTrapp wrote: post #57
speedgoose wrote: post #52

In my opinion, nothing is quite the same as real analog cassette sounds. It's nice to play around and prototype, but if you really want a good cassette sound effect, you have to use real hardware, for now.

There's a number of VST plugins that get very close - much closer than a static set of filters every possibly could. This is just an approximation.

"very" close is subjective. In my opinion it is nowhere near running audio through real tape. The computation capability needed to fully simulate tape in real time is not there yet. To model all subtle interactions, phase etc you'd need to run audio in 10-100+ MHz range.

Re: Simulate cassette tape audio profiles using FFmpeg

#59

Post by 999900000999 »

varispeed wrote: post #58
TonyTrapp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a number of VST plugins that get very close - much closer than a static set of filters every possibly could. This is just an approximation.

"very" close is subjective. In my opinion it is nowhere near running audio through real tape. The computation capability needed to fully simulate tape in real time is not there yet. To model all subtle interactions, phase etc you'd need to run audio in 10-100+ MHz range.

TAAS ?

Tape as a service ? Upload your music and get it recorded to cassette and re uploaded to you ?

It’s all a moot point most of the time since it’s going to be compressed to crap by Bluetooth codecs before reaching most ears.

Re: Simulate cassette tape audio profiles using FFmpeg

#60

Post by raffael_de »

speedgoose wrote: post #52

In my opinion, nothing is quite the same as real analog cassette sounds. It's nice to play around and prototype, but if you really want a good cassette sound effect, you have to use real hardware, for now.

what is the appeal of cassette sound effects / analog cassette sounds? is it nostalgia?
Post reply on HN