Hi all,
I decided to see how well the Field records guitar straight in without interface; turns out I recorded into portatrack and the recording had a lot of background hiss. This got me testing the different tape tracks. I thought it might be interesting to share the results.
So here is a recording with straighgt guitar in OP-1 Field, recording directly on tape using the mic button (turning ochre turns input from stereo to mono! Found that out now too).
- First take is the studio 4-track, very clean sound
- second take is the disc mini, clean sound but compressed and some higher harmonics are added (artefacts)
- Third take is porta 4 track, very noticeable hiss, but nice saturation and wobble on the track
- final take is vintage 4 track, less hiss, saturation and wobble.
It occurred to me that teenage engineering reproduced the limitations of recording to the different mediums. For the porta and vintage it is needed to record high amplitude (db-meter going to nearly 0db) so that afterwards you can lower the amplitude in the mixer and the hiss will go away. This was standard procedure I think back in the days.
With digital recording it was the other way around; record lower volumes (I think aiming for -12 to -16 db is common) and then afterwards turn up the gain.
So this should also be applied with the different tape modes!
Here is the file: Proton Drive
Please feel free to add corrections, other observations!
Rocksoul
3 Likes
Hi, this is my first post here, I’m a bit confused as I managed to sign up during some elevated spammer activity, so, thanks for having me 
As for the topic itself, this is certainly interesting to me, as I also play the guitar and just recently managed to find an adapter and try recording for the first time.
These are some really cool observations. The porta-track hiss is barely audible in your recording. I don’t fully understand these reproduced limitations - are you suggesting that it’s “better” to record with specific low or high input signal setting (I guess you mean the red thingie in the tape recorder section?), and than manipulate the tape drive settings to attain a suitable volume level with low hiss?
This seems kind of difficult to wrap my head around, and even more difficult to make this work with the op-1’s internal synths and drums.
I have also experimented with such recordings and got mixed, although interesting results. My first problem is that:
- I had channel issues, perhaps due to a bad 3,5-6,3 mm adapter which is easy to partially disconnect.
- on passive pickups (single coils), even when cranking the recording input level, it is still quiet (I understand that I’m recording direct in without any amplification
- I also tried using a strymon cloudburst pedal, which is able to solve the stereo issues, as it has a stereo/mono switch, I was expecting the signal to get a bit louder using that, it sounded really nice, but still too quiet
- I also experimented with the vocoder and found it to behave amazingly good, but I’m a bit confused about the way this works - it feels like sometimes I’m able to simply play and the vocoder does its magic, and other times I need to hold a key, which is not what I want.
Here’s a couple of samples - first one using a strat and the vocoder working, and the other with an acoustic guitar (with a preamp), where the spring reverb gave a rather nice effect. I converted it to mono so it’s not as lush.
Im having lots of fun with these DI recordings, but I would love to be able to record in a way that would enable me to also record synths without getting a major headache.
You can change line input from stereo to mono with the ochre knob.
2 Likes