The Tascam 122 mkIII deck was used, along with 14 tapes, to create this set. Some tapes were sampled two or three times, at slightly different speeds and with different noise reduction settings (B, C, and none). Most of the tapes are/were highly regarded among cassette enthusiasts (they’re still out there!). There are type I, II, and metal type IV tapes. The deck has a rich history and is very well known for it’s reliability and performance.

The tone recordings used to make these programs needed some restoration work. This is because of the slower speed of the cassette tape format, compared to the higher speed reel to reel decks. At slower speeds wow and flutter are more of an issue, and these speed fluctuations can be detrimental to the end results produced by NAT. NAT expects the phase characteristic of the sampled sine waves to be at least somewhat close to the original. With wow and flutter, the position of a particular cycle of the sine wave may actually become delayed by several cycle lengths, especially in the higher frequency range.
Adobe Audition’s phase correction feature was used to deal with the wow and flutter, and it works very well. The wow/flutter removal was the only processing done to the signals, and it was used as minimally. I’m not going to give away all of my secrets here, but let’s just say that the processing is less or even non-existent where it is less needed (lower frequencies), and more where it is needed most (high frequencies). Without this correction, a good quality cassette program from this deck would just not be possible. The good news is that these programs sound great!

http://www.cupwise.com/cup/cassette-deck-1/

Download File Size:463.46 MB

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