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The Lofi Magic of VHS Audio [video]

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Re: The Lofi Magic of VHS Audio [video]

#41

Post by redconfetti »

zackmorris wrote: post #23
WirelessGigabit wrote: post #3

This was the first reason I got hooked on Stranger Things. The music. It reminds me of a time and space I've actually never lived in. And it probably never existed like that. Yet growing up it is very much how I believed North America looked like.

It pretty much was just like that (I was there). One of my favorite "biographical" movies that nobody's ever heard of is Explorers: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089114/ The "More like this" section at the bottom has some other goodies, although a bit campy: Flight of the Navigator, *batteries not included, Short Circuit, Harry and the Hendersons, etc. Mainstream movies like The Goonies and The Breakfast Club are unc…

I really loved the first part of The Explorers. The ending was just so camp though.

Re: The Lofi Magic of VHS Audio [video]

#44

Post by mortenjorck »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #33
mortenjorck wrote: post #29

The video makes a good comparison in the frequency domain between the original and processed audio, but the high and low frequency attenuation is only half the story. The other key part of the VHS sound is the pitch modulation caused by slight inconsistencies in the speed of the tape going past the heads. In a synthesizer, this can be mimicked (and often is, in "lo-fi" presets) with a sine wave modulating the oscilla…

There are many shades of plugins for the effect (and related media), but you lose that edge of chaos—most of the sounds that are so popular are the result of happy accidents because of that chaos and randomness. If you play around with these plugins enough you'll find them pretty deterministic. That said, they're pretty great, and highly portable. And I'm going right out to get the one you linked! And for posterity t…

Arturia makes a tape plugin modeled after the Mellotron tape system. It's my go-to for less gnarly tape sounds:

https://www.arturia.com/products/software-effects/tape-mello...

ChowDSP has an open-source tape plugin. I haven't used it too much (I use the iOS version), but it has a lot of parameters:

https://chowdsp.com/products.html#tape

Re: The Lofi Magic of VHS Audio [video]

#45

Post by chiph »

SoftTalker wrote: post #16
Aloha wrote: post #9

Mono only VHS decks were not uncommon (and I wouldnt be surprised to hear that the last VHS decks made were only mono) because mono only pre-produced content - even with NTSC MTS TV Audio, mono only broadcast originated programming was not unusual. I'd love to see him doing this with the VHS HiFi signals, which were.. IIRC, significantly better than MTS Stereo/FM Stereo (particularly in L/R channel separation) - so b…

Yeah VHS HiFi was pretty good. Standard VHS audio wasn't even as good as cassette tape as I recall. People also built data backup devices using VHS tape machines. At the time anyway, the data density of VHS tape was pretty good.

VHS HiFi was very good, but you still had some tape hiss. So I used a dbx 224 compressor to record my 4 hour mix tapes. I couldn't share them since no one else had a dbx box, but it was good for long background music where I didn't have to get up and change CDs. So, like a reel-to-reel but much more compact.

Re: The Lofi Magic of VHS Audio [video]

#46

Post by zoklet-enjoyer »

f5ve wrote: post #20
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should check out Alex Ball's deep dives into analog synths of the 70s and 80s. Particularly the full documentary on ARP.

Factoid tidbit: The popular, groovy, timeless, excellent Inspector Norse by Todd Terje was made *entirely* with the sources from the ARP 2600. Drums and all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebjXsc0UjdQ

Behringer sells a 2600 clone for $500. Price just dropped so I've been trying to justify not buying it. I really don't need it

Re: The Lofi Magic of VHS Audio [video]

#47

Post by zoklet-enjoyer »

prpl wrote: post #42

I remember hearing people (DIY) were mastering to HiFi VHS or SVHS in the 90s because the quality was pretty good and tape was cheap. That’s not the same thing we are talking about here

It's still a thing. I want to try this out but I have a 4 track and my vcr doesn't have stereo in

https://facebook.com/groups/528835951138452/

Re: The Lofi Magic of VHS Audio [video]

#48

Post by ShadowBanThis01 »

ofalkaed wrote: post #36

Back in the previous century I used three VCRs as a multitrack audio recorder, I kept spending more money on synths instead getting a proper multitrack and mixer. It started out as a 6 track setup but mixdown was troublesome to say the least so I switched to a 4 track setup with bounce down. Two VCRs were recorded on and their outputs ran to a tuner which had two record ins that could be used at the same time and eac…

Wow, you used non-Hi-Fi VCRs? I used a VHS Hi-Fi unit as an audio recorder, and also to bounce tracks from a POS Tascam four-track.

Before DAT, Hi-Fi VCRs were by far the best audio recorder you could buy for home use. The only problem (which I pretty much never heard talked about) was a "purring" noise that would accompany high-frequency sounds. I suspect this was caused by switching between the audio heads on the spinning head drum.

Re: The Lofi Magic of VHS Audio [video]

#49

Post by cancerhacker »

zackmorris wrote: post #23
WirelessGigabit wrote: post #3

This was the first reason I got hooked on Stranger Things. The music. It reminds me of a time and space I've actually never lived in. And it probably never existed like that. Yet growing up it is very much how I believed North America looked like.

It pretty much was just like that (I was there). One of my favorite "biographical" movies that nobody's ever heard of is Explorers: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089114/ The "More like this" section at the bottom has some other goodies, although a bit campy: Flight of the Navigator, *batteries not included, Short Circuit, Harry and the Hendersons, etc. Mainstream movies like The Goonies and The Breakfast Club are unc…

You might enjoy the archives of Over The Edge[1] which I always felt like it captured the zeitgeist of 80s culture. (Edit: better link to internet archive [2])

[1] https://kpfa.org/program/over-the-edge/ [2] https://archive.org/details/ote?

Re: The Lofi Magic of VHS Audio [video]

#50

Post by jdalgetty »

ofalkaed wrote: post #36

Back in the previous century I used three VCRs as a multitrack audio recorder, I kept spending more money on synths instead getting a proper multitrack and mixer. It started out as a 6 track setup but mixdown was troublesome to say the least so I switched to a 4 track setup with bounce down. Two VCRs were recorded on and their outputs ran to a tuner which had two record ins that could be used at the same time and eac…

Got any links to your music?
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