{"id":368,"date":"2026-06-11T23:39:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T21:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frankdoorhof.com\/music\/?p=368"},"modified":"2026-06-13T23:45:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T21:45:46","slug":"gear-a-comparison-with-tape-vs-digital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frankdoorhof.com\/music\/2026\/06\/11\/gear-a-comparison-with-tape-vs-digital\/","title":{"rendered":"Gear : A comparison with tape vs digital"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today it’s about having some fun<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As you all probably know I love to record music and experiment with old\/vintage gear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we record music we are capturing instruments (digital or analogue) onto a medium.
My first business was a small recording studio which I ran with a friend of us and at that time we had a few effects, a console and a tape machine with 8 tracks. And trust me for a small studio that was pretty ok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a hiatus of 17 years a few years ago I picked up playing guitar again and because I think you learn the fastest by doing, I started writing songs in which I incorporated parts I wanted to learn, modes, certain repeating patterns etc. It’s so much more fun creating than just playing to a backing track or metronome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I saw how much you could do with just a laptop it blew my mind.
\nIf we ever had this when I was 17-18 I would still be stuck in the attic at my moms house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as with photography I also love analogue.
\nSomehow it was all perfect, and plugins are cool, but the sound of a real tube amp…..
\nAlso when you want to buy the best gear available it’s incredibly expensive for gear that is probably absolute when your OS is upgraded and the gear is not.
\nSo my eye caught some gear on “marktplaats” and it’s amazing what you can get for under $100,00 and top gear that you dreamed of your youth…. $200,00
\nSo I started collecting some 19″ gear and in all honesty it’s much more fun and it sounds a lot better in my opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But than… it was still digital.
\nSo I tried a reel2reel tape, well I tried a few and all were huge disappointments. I don’t want to spend a lot of money and what I wanted to spend was so bad it sounded more Lo-fi than Lo-fi should sound.<\/p>\n\n\n

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That’s till we found something in the attic.
\nMy old Yamaha KX630 and to my surprise it still worked.
\nSo a quick head clean later I found a C90 cassette and wondered…..
\nHow would it sound if…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that’s what I did.
\nI was working on a new song “Shaman shuffle” and decided to “master” one version fully with digital in mind.
\nThan reset my whole thought process, dump the RAW (pre master stereo) track to tape and back via an old IntellifexII and run the same mastering process but without trying to emulate the digital version. Meaning I would get two completely different sounding end results IF my idea of inspiration and “feel” for the media is in fact true. The balance between the instruments is of course fixed, a RAW file is a fully mixed stereo track with all the effects, in the mastering process the song is “Finished” this is often a very critical stage and as a hobbyist don’t judge me to harsh \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below are the results
\nV1 and V2
\nI think it’s clear which is digital, but I think the character of both is totally different and I wonder which one has your preference.
\nTried to get the levels as close as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

V1<\/p>\n\n\n\n