#198 - 26th October 2024 - Tape

Cello's TASCAM tape machine - https://www.jrmastering.ch

This seems to be the week of vintage mojo.

After Thursday's master class with, around, and about the SSL4000, I'm in for another treat: A nice mastering engineer from Switzerland - Cello Hertner (https://www.jrmastering.ch) - got a new toy.

A TASCAM tape machine. In fact, the one in the picture.

In a WhatsApp group that we're both members of, he asked if anyone had a mix ready to be mastered so he could play around and take the TASCAM on a test drive.

I already listened to two of the three tracks I sent over. Sharing is caring but I can't do it before they are all released which is another two days for two tracks and at least another month for the other.

Now what am I hearing so far? Added dimension for sure. A bit more bass which might also be coming from reduced high frequencies. I did not A/B compare mix and master yet.

Is all of this coming from the tape? Difficult to say. Cello did not tell me what kind of processing he applied, but I'm quite certain it was more than just a conversion to and from tape. He wanted to do a proper mastering of the tracks after all and judging from his studio pictures, there are other analogue toys in those racks that might as well be responsible for what I'm hearing.

The important question is: "Does it sound good?". Yes, very much. I gotta ask him tomorrow about his process(ing).