Recording my schiit

A very interesting thing just happened folks. i was in the mood for recording some vinyl onto R2R though due to logistics felt unwilling to dismantle my main system. Instead i dug out my old Pioneer PL71 and connected to my Schiit Mani phono stage i keep as a spare (in case a valve goes pop in my valve phono stage). Listening directly through cans to monitor recording i was reasonably content with the results. However, on listening back later through my speakers something magic happened between to stylus tip and the recording heads on my ageing Tascam. Not the most beat perfect of transient capturing sound in the world but something rather special. Perhaps it may have been pixy dust or the manifestation of a bygone age but it really sounded pretty darned good. Just thought i would share that with you good people.:)

Ello mate , how are you . If I had a clue what I was doing I would certainly be looking at R2R . I heard Alans at the last NEBO and I've heard Ali Taits in his home , and both sounded stunning . No pixie dust , just good solid engineering methinks .

I've heard fairy dust from my TEAC too, when I did some mastering of a project for a mate. We recorded it all digitally (indeed, although a few parts are on real analogue synths the most part is digital 'soft synths') nevertheless once I'd tracked it all out to the TEAC and back in to the computer something lovely had happened to the soundstage where it was much more natural in its width/soundstage and had greater 'front to back' depth. I did some phase cancellation tests with the original against the master and couldn't detect much to note there but the mid-range subjectively sounded a little more creamy.

Check em out here: https://soundcloud.com/life-classes

Tried to record some vinyl the other week, didn't work well at all. Not sure why. :scratch:

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Originally Posted by Ali Tait

Tried to record some vinyl the other week, didn't work well at all. Not sure why. :scratch:

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Did you do it via the Pre-amp Ali? If you did then try connecting the phono stage directly to the tape recorder, you will get better results that way.

Yeah I did, however it's only the AVC pre, it's pretty transparent. Problem was it sounded ok whilst recording, but was distorted on playback.

I'll give it a go direct.

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Originally Posted by Ali Tait

Yeah I did, however it's only the AVC pre, it's pretty transparent. Problem was it sounded ok whilst recording, but was distorted on playback.

I'll give it a go direct.

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How did you monitor the recording - off-tape, or simply monitored the input signal?

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Originally Posted by Barry

How did you monitor the recording - off-tape, or simply monitored the input signal?

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Ali as Barry is sugesting you have to monitor the ouput from the playback head to hear what you are actually recording.
It could be that the pre amp is overloading the calibrated input level to the tandberg causing tape saturation or the record bias is not correct for the tape type used?.
As Steve suggested try recording directly from the phono stage which is normally a much lower input level than a pre amp.
Anything in the signal path can cause distortion so its best to keep it a simple as possible
Alan

Let us know how you get on Ali.

Will do. Yes, I was monitoring output from the playback head whilst recording. This was why some distortion on later playback was confusing me. Recordings from other sources are fine.