Are tape recorders still used?

[An_Gadai]

I am considering picking up a big old sturdy Marantz tape recorder for doing a few tunes for my next release. Tape can sound nice in a similar way to vinyl. I have recorded digitally and of course it is superior and more convenient in most instances but the “warmth” for want of a better term of a tape recorded acoustic guitar or synth can be lovely. I am sure there are filters for DAWs that will provide tape hiss etc. but hey the medium is the message.

[Bert_Nobbins]

@Francis_Vaughan

Forensically detecting all bar the most sophisticated modification to a recording on tape isn’t all that hard. One critical thing is that you can recover the bias signal, and you can analyse that to look for glitches. A phase change in the signal can be evidence of a splice, and looking at periodic variations in the bias signal will show you periodic components related to the mechanics of the recorder that provide a whole slew of markers at different periods that make it even harder to avoid leaving traces of modification. Add to that periodic signals in the background noise of the recording itself, and you have something that essentially includes a time dependant fingerprint peculiar to the recorder. Re-recording a new tape will have its own set of new fingerprints, so it gets very difficult.

There is another layer of difficulty to altering what somebody said in a recording, due to coarticulation. Words slide into one another, although we perceive them as separate, and the gaps in speech are often not where they appear to be. That is going to be very hard to untangle when you’re ‘editing’ someone’s evidence.

http://swphonetics.com/coarticulation/whatcoart/

This naturally applies to any sort of recording technology.

[An_Gadai]

@spinky

There has been a lot of music released in the past few years that was recorded on iPhones. R.E.M.'s entire last album, for example.

I could be wrong but I don’t think REM’s entire last album was recorded on an iPhone. Stipe mentioned in an interview “My notepad is my iPhone, and in fact I recorded and wrote this entire record on my phone.” but the wiki article for the album states that “Collapse into Now was recorded in four different cities: Berlin, Germany, Nashville, Tennessee and New Orleans, Louisiana, with demoing taking place at Jackpot Studios, in Portland, Oregon.”

[Learjeff]

@Francis_Vaughan

Forensically detecting all bar the most sophisticated modification to a recording on tape isn’t all that hard. One critical thing is that you can recover the bias signal, and you can analyse that to look for glitches. A phase change in the signal can be evidence of a splice, and looking at periodic variations in the bias signal will show you periodic components related to the mechanics of the recorder that provide a whole slew of markers at different periods that make it even harder to avoid leaving traces of modification. Add to that periodic signals in the background noise of the recording itself, and you have something that essentially includes a time dependant fingerprint peculiar to the recorder. Re-recording a new tape will have its own set of new fingerprints, so it gets very difficult.

Not that that gets you a legally anointed “tamper proof” seal of approval. But you would be foolish to try to tamper with a tape recording and try to pass it off as pristine. Not if the information has significant importance.

Thanks, good points. I assumed we’d digitize the whole recording, make edits digitally, and then re-record the whole tape. But I see we’d at least need the same tape recorder to do it.

@Chronos

That’s just a problem with one particular digital recording program. I can’t imagine that they all work that way. And even if they do, what’s the big deal? Why does it matter how many files there are?

With any audio application, it’s a nuisance to deal with a slew of audio files to represent one time sequence. Of course, with the right application to resplice the files, it’s no problem. But do you know any such script or application? It’s trivial to write, but most folks don’t write code.

This isn’t a problem with digital. It’s a design issue with some (maybe most) digital recorders. It’s definitely how my audio field recorder works: every time you turn it off and turn it on again, starting recording again creates a new file. I can’t append.

An append option would be trivial to implement, and I’d be astonished if there wasn’t a simple, cheap digital voice recorder that can do it, since this does seem like a fairly typical use-case. Once implemented, it blows away the cassette recorder, because importing or copying the data happens in an instant, rather than real time or some fraction thereof (e.g., 1 hour to copy 1 hour of audio, or for fancy ones that copy at 4x speed, 15 minutes to copy 1 hour.)

[Learjeff]

Quick search for voice recorder apps with append mode:

iPhone: ‎Voice Record Pro 7 on the App Store (free)

Android: https://www.dictation.philips.com/dk/products/product/pocket_memo_voice_recorder_dpm8000_series/ ($4)

No doubt there are more.

I use a field recorder to record band rehearsals or gigs, because the built-in mics are far better than my phone’s, plus it can take an additional stereo feed from the PA, and because I might want to use my phone. But for recording musical ideas, I’d far rather use my phone, simply because I always have it with me, and sound quality isn’t important.