Using VHS videotape stock for audio recording

Has anyone tried this? I know it's at least theoretically possible because VHS uses a linear tape head for the audio track and because there were audio decks with a single small head on the end for video dubbing. I think they were called "layback recorders".

 

A friend of mine did this back when WXRT in Chicago (or was it NPR?) played "Let It Be... Naked" in its entirety prior to release. He said it was due to superior sound quality over whatever else was available to him. I'm pretty sure he only used the stereo audio track section of the tape and recorded on a VCR. I know this because my cheap VCR played it back.

 

I have done this too to record off of FM radio. It sounded okay, but not great. however, I suspect that was due more to the sound quality of the FM stations - which was not great. The particular station uses way too much compression in their audio chain.

 

I should have been more clear, I meant using it as reel-to-reel stock in a conventional audio recorder. A half inch machine of course (or slit for 1/4")

 

When I was in a band we would always record our performances on VHS. However, that was twenty something years ago and I don't remember much about it.

 

Try it - won't do any harm to the tape machine but I'll be surprised if the biasing and EQ requirements of the tape are the same as normal ferric oxide audio tape. I'm pretty sure video tape is formulated to operate at the higher frequencies suitable for video.
You won't get much playing time though. Not much tape in those VHS cassettes and they ran at slow speed.

Nicam recoding onto VHS could sound pretty decent back in the day.

 

You can still get "pancakes" of 1/2" videocassette tape pretty cheap. I don't know how it will bias up or what its characteristics will be: I thought someone has probably tried it. Those layback recorders had conventional Ampex electronics so they can't be radically different, I would think.

 

Ah, I though you meant removing the tape from cassettes

 

I used a Hi-Fi VCR as a mastering deck for my Tascam Porta One 4 track cassette. I also used a Betamax. And the Sony PCM converter (early digital) that worked with a Betamax. Then I had a DAT machine.

We refer to those as the "bad old days".

 

Well, I used to own a recording studio and had a high end JVC VHS Hi Fi deck and as an experiment mastered some 16 track stuff to it. Sounded pretty darn good to me! As Steve said above, the 80's are over...don't see the point with cheap recording technology but if you just want to have some fun, why not? It will definitely work.

 

I was in a recording studio in the 80's where they used VHS tapes for audio - some machine they had. But if you want to pull it out and use it on a reel you could. It's tape. You can pop open 8 track carts and hi 8 video tapes too. All magnetic tape.

 

I've recorded albums onto VHS before. As I recall, it sounded very good. But I had a crappy HiFi VCR with no input volume.

Very good if you want to keep that analog warmth, without the hassle of cassette and the expense of reel. I used to call it "a poor man's reel to reel."

But putting the tape on a reel to reel deck, I have no idea.

 

I dont think the quality is good enough to even bother doing this.

I get what he is saying, but VHS used tape that was very thin, and was solely meant to move extremely slowly.

At an "real speed" ( 7 1/2 IPS or even 15 IPS ) it would just not hold up or stretch or something. Its just not the same stuff.

 

I used to use the VCR as an audio only recorder, runnimg at the 2 hour speed for a T-120 tape and since the VCR head spins and the size of the tape is gigantic, you can get very very good audio out of some machines. I still have a decent VCR and a bunch of tapes, maybe for fun I'll record a "comp" and see, I mean hear, how it sounds. But I know nothing about cutting tapes up to fit other types of recorders.

David

 

For a start the idea of slitting the tape from 1/2 inch to a 1/4 inch standard ...it is a simple case of "forget it". Firms like BASF and others when it was 'the big thing' went to great expensive lengths in providing such tape for 1/2 video, open reel and cassette needs that were first factory manufactured it in far larger width rolls. . It was then PRECISON cut under extremely tight tolerances down to the other required sizes. That same precision , one would expect ,is not available to a D.I.Y user, now.

On the other hand, people forget that although video tape moved at standard speed at a slow rate through the case mechanism holding it......the spining drum head of the video machine recording and playing the tape back "for all intent and sonic purposes" then was tricked so to speak: TRANSFORMING IT into something sonically equivalent to that expected from a 15 I.P.S tape travelling across a stationary head in a normal open reel sound recorder.
Another way of looking at it : In such a mechanical configuration, the tape head gap does not get the chance to see the cut off point in the actual tape head gap that it otherwise should.Rather than moving tape that across stationary head, here you have moving tape just "kiss-contacting" a spinning head.

 

Not suited for the purpose. Too thin, too low output. Too many dropouts. Hi Fi VHS is not a good option for archival purposes or if it needs to be played back on different machines, tracking incompatibility abounds. And also that non defeatable compander which is audible on some content. 7 1/2 IPS upward half track open reel much better, more stable and compatible and on good tape stock more archival. If you want to record audio on videotape, get a PCM adapter and a Beta or U-Matic machine.

 

Your signature ("The past is never dead. It's not even past." - William Faulkner) makes me doubt your comment. Or is it the other way around?

 

not for everyone ...

 

Yeah, that's what I think when I hear of people paying big bux for a freakin' turntable.

 

The 80's, the only decade in which CDs and LPs had to spin vertically

 

The very first CD I ever saw was spinning virtically in partial view as in the machine above. It was in a high-end audio salon. After listening for a couple minutes the guy next to me left in a huff. "Just what I thought. I hear DIGITALIS," he said.

 

I think vhs videotape is more like chrome than ferric plus it's much thinner than even 1.0 mil tape. I tried recording on 1" video tape one time (which is also like chrome) on an Otari mx70 1" 8 channel recorder and it sounded like an improperly eq'd and biased cassette recording on chrome tape. 1" video tape was also very thin (not sure how thin compared to vhs tape).
I always wanted to try recording video on 9 track 1/2" computer tape and recording video on 1" ferric audio tape.