Show us your studio!

[nyarla]

nothing too fancy here..

except the akai tape deck is sort of fancy, in a way
and the wm-d6c walkman i just got! that thing's super fancy yeah

[(o)(o)]

Ooooh some tasty retro HIFI there can we get a moneyshot on that?

[nyarla]

ok
self indulgent backstory.....

i, slightly perversely, decided to Get Back Into cassettes a few months ago. i've gotten in the habit of turning off all the computers and phones awhile before bed, just reading in nice dim warm lights... very relaxing... so i bought an awful old plastic boombox and some blank tapes, figured i'd make chilled bedtime mixes and be able to listen to them on something with no screen. i'd been listening to music only on headphones for years. it was lovely having some quiet music filling the room while reading in bed...

that boombox started making horrible clicking noises and one of the decks died so i bought this basic entry level 1976 (older than me!) Pioneer system from a guy. i don't know that much about hifi stuff, but the guy lived near me so i could easily pick it up, and the tape deck looked interesting. also he'd recently refoamed the speakers and reckoned they sounded great. they do, though i have nothing to compare them to. it's been years since i listened to music out loud, i'd forgotten how different it is from headphones.. listening to old stuff with big drums and reverb, the impact is *amazing*.. i live in a house with other people and thin walls, so don't get much chance to turn it up loud, but when i do..... !



as a kid i only ever had the cheapest k-mart boombox and walkman... never had a proper deck/amp/speakers.. like most people my age i guess(?) tapes were my life..recording stuff off the radio, making our own little fake radio shows etc.. so much fun. i didn't know or care anything about audio quality or how to record stuff so it sounds good. anyway as an old man now, i do, and wowsers... been quite surprised by how good tape can actually sound. it's amazing. i know it's kinda fully hipster or whatever you wanna call it but i genuinely get immense enjoyment from tapes now i don't take them for granted, in all senses except taste (so far). they look so cool and feel so nice in your hand, they're so satisfying to physically use... my old deck smells nice when it's running, electronicsy smell like dad's shed when i was little... a linear analogue medium which suffers degradation over time, where speed can be flexible and things sometimes blur into one another, feels good for my soul. OR SOMETHING. (i'm sure proper analogue heads already knew all this but it's all pretty novel to me who's been using nothing but laptop+headphones for years ) ... also it's way less hassle to record music onto a tape than to get it on my iphone, haha. though of course it's all pretty impractical and a strangely, backwardsly luxurious thing nowadays....



twitter video of Pioneer deck: https://twitter.com/nyarluu/status/7560 ... 05/video/1 so clunky & chunky!

anyway this deck is out of action ATM, needs belts replaced and possibly a new pinch roller. i bought new belts for it but after downloading the manual and opening it up, got too scared to attempt putting em in. fixing things in the physical realm is not something i've ever really done...just software side.... got a guy who fixes these things lined up to check it out, but he has a months long waiting list.. i might have a go myself eventually.... so in the meantime i bought this newly serviced Akai deck (also from '76) off him. it rules. glass & x'tal ferrite heads (i just like saying "x'tal") sound so bright, it didn't even sound like tape at first, took me awhile to get used to.




Akai vid: https://twitter.com/nyarluu/status/7806 ... 48/video/1 .. check out the cool tape run LED strip!

and then, it was my birthday the other day and i got this-


it's rad. seems in great condition. it came with the orig fitted leather case. lovely. reading up on this walkman a bit, it's basically a full (mini) tape deck, quality-wise. i always wanted a recording walkman.. i'm in heaven. line in, line out, powered mic in, headphone amp seems amazing!? even has dolby NR C. (i haven't even been using NR at all so far, hiss is fine...)

ok bye



edit: oh yeah got a Pioneer turntable with that system too. i have never used vinyl before. bought a couple Brian Eno records from a charity shop...nice. but then the power on it died... bwooooowww... it comes back on sometimes when you wiggle the cable, dodgy connection i guess? i'm not bothered, i don't have the space or money to get into vinyl. as cool as it is, i'm much more interested in tape because i can make my own...

[kel]

fuck you, i'm going to have to buy a cassette player now

can't wait to get some speakers set up tho, defo got a bad case of headphone fatigue myself.

[Governmentyard]

There's 8 cassette players in my house, they never went away!

[phattslagg]

Damn, Nyarla, that's some serious 70's hifi porn there!

[(o)(o)]

The Sony WMD-6C is an absolute Classic!! I so wanted one

Yes genuinely on a par with a decent hifi deck.. popular as a convenient field recorder too. They run £300-400 now on ebay in good condition.

Reminds me.. I put an Arcam CD transport that cost £1300 in the shed "temporarily" several months back..

Great pics btw lovely stuff!!

[phattslagg]

The Sony WMD-6C is an absolute Classic!! I so wanted one

Yes genuinely on a par with a decent hifi deck.. popular as a convenient field recorder too. They run £300-400 now on ebay in good condition.

I still have mine - got it out a couple of months back after about 15 years in the box, and it works great. I also brought my Technics RSB-965 up from a 10 year spell (unboxed) in my damp cellar and that still works, too

[nyarla]

nice

yeah i'm in love with the walkman. its recordings sound at LEAST as good as that akai deck to me, maybe a bit better even. it cost about the equivalent of 250 GBP. i saw a pristine, still-in-box one on UK ebay the other day, asking price 1200 GBP!

i haven't experimented with different cassettes yet.. just sticking to Type I. i saw blank tapes in a shop here about 5 years ago, but they're nowhere to be found now.. there are good places online you can order new tapes from (in all sorts of pretty colours!) but, of course, the shipping to australia is v expensive. only one local place i've found (which only does transparent, uncoloured. boo!).. mostly i just buy unopened boxes of old good ones off ebay. there seem to be plenty.

[(o)(o)]

I'd start looking for type II (chrome) .. the jump in sound quality from type I is considerable.

These were the best I encountered of this type...



Followed by...



Never found a type IV (metal) that my machines liked (went through quite a few decks..)

[nyarla]

(o)(o) - yeahhhh i know they sound higher quality, but.. kind of a dead end. if i want to do some high quality field recording i have a zoom h4n also type I is cheaper and works everywhere. i really like how they sound. i am content. i do have one chrome tape which my grandpa gave me, something he recorded on reel to reel in the 60s and later transferred to cassette. still sounds ace!

[noodles]

I finally cracked and did it.
The Moog Sub Phatty is in my humble home. I'm so happy .
Can't wait to get a Beatstep Pro and really get this beast going.




The backlit buttons are way more gorgeous than this in reality, more of a deep orange amber the way it should be.
Colours betrayed yet again by my shitty Canon camera and it's approximations of reality. grr.

[kel]

nice one, that looks like a good setup, you could do with another speaker mind :A

[(o)(o)]

Enjoyed a visit last week to a great studio tucked away in Cheshire.. *



To the right is an OTARI MTR90 2" 24 track
Mac Pros running Pro Tools, transferred to tape
Under the monitor a couple of Neve 1073N
The desk is an extremely delicious SSL AWS924..
Crown amplifiers drive a pair of PMC MB2S

The sound quality is world class I'm in heaven



One of two great sounding live rooms... ambient mics provided natural reverb on a separate channel.. and what a beautiful decay that room has..


*Not my studio...

[(o)(o)]

My babies are back..



The previous pair lasted 20 years!!

I've heard many of the top headphones.. AKG.. Sennheiser.. Grado etc.. Electrostatics too. IME nothing is as honest and accurate and Mmmmmm.. as the DT990Pro