Sony Walkman Cassette Recorder

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Edgehouse

New member
I'm about to buy a Professional Sony Walkman Cassette Recorder I don't know which model it is, but would the audio quality be sufficient for recording audio for a movie?
 
Is this a weekday?

If you're serious (and sorry for asking) you'll probably not be able to achieve any kind of reliable dialogue sync - that is without pilot tone or crystal sync. If I recall correctly, those professional cassette recorders were often used for radio productions.

Cassettes (again if you're serious) seem like way more trouble than it's worth unless you're going for some sort of odd aesthetic. Even a reel-to-reel Nagra recorder would be a lot of trouble.

Why not buy one of the many cheap solid-state recorders people are using?

There's suffering for your art and then there's suffering.

In re-reading this it sounds harsh. I didn't mean it to be at all - trying my best to only answer in the positive here.
 
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I'm buying a Sony Walkman WM-D6C it's supposed to be the best Walkman ever made.
It's has Dolby Noise Reduction and a recording level adjuster.
 
As dialing wand mentioned - it won't be able to keep sync with the video.
Nevermind the fact that every video camera out there right now will capture better audio than that - so I'm not certain why you'd want to use it for any sort of video production.

You'd be better off feeding your audio directly into the camera.
 
That is an awesome cassette recorder. When I was 8 or 9, my favourite Uncle used one like it to help produce some radio content for the CBC here in Montreal.
 
Edgehouse said:
Syncing isn't a problem, plus the mini-dv camcorder I have doesn't have a mic input.
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I don't think you understand the challenge here.

Recording non-sync with a little digital recorder, like the Zoom, will most likely end up with some drift. But it's constant drift because it results from a slight variance in the sample rate value. Simple time compression/expansion of either audio or video solves the problem in post.

With a cassette, however, the drift is not consistent. It results from varying tension in the tape drive, something that is not regular or predictable. Sync may fall behind at first, but may jump ahead later, and then fall behind, and then jump ahead. It's going to be a nightmare.
 
C2V said:
With a cassette, however, the drift is not consistent. It results from varying tension in the tape drive, something that is not regular or predictable. Sync may fall behind at first, but may jump ahead later, and then fall behind, and then jump ahead. It's going to be a nightmare.
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Yup.

And there's more!

The pitch (tape speed) will also depend on the current discharge state of the batteries. It won't just "turn off" like modern digital devices. The pitch of the tape will change throughout each set of batteries' life.

So, in addition to everything C2V mentioned, there will NEVER be a time when the sound you recorded can be played back at exactly the same speed. In fact, the speed will vary wildly (relative to sync-sound) even during individual recording if, somehow, you could find tape that doesn't stretch and could keep the tension exactly the same (a near physical impossibility with a recorder like this.)

Don't get us wrong, it's probably still the best Walkman ever made, and Dolby NR (B or C as provided) was great when such things were de-rigeur.

But while you can try to use Vegas to synchronize the audio and video, it won't be easy. Not without a million cuts, splices and cuss words.

It is one case where the technology you're trying to use just won't work for the job and will make your life so much harder it's not worth it.
 
No matter how nice it may be, I wouldn't take if if they PAID me $20 (or $200). Unless you are shooting really short (<30 seconds) clips, you are just asking for a nightmare. You are better off with nothing. Really.
 
I own a ZoomH2 and i'd say, for the price, it's a good little recorder. Never been able to sync it "frame-to-frame" in Premiere (or Vegas) but it's not even noticable when you play it back.
I wouldn't try a cassette recorder. Remmember somebody that throw the idea of using a Sony MD recorder once, as it has a mic input on it and that it could record in CD quality (44.1khz/16bit). That would be a better option, after a real audio recorder.
 
Are you kidding Edgehouse? I'm trying to not get into trouble for being rude, but I suspect you are just messing around here. If not, listen to the advice. If so, you are yanking the chains of nice people trying to help you.
 
OK, it's not as dark as people paint it, and it's worse than you think.
There were cassette recorders that were modified for crystal sync and they can be used for dual system. IF this cassette deck were new you might be OK for very short takes. And it probably sounds as good or better than most camcorders IF you have it all set up correctly.

What people have been trying to tell you is that the speed of tape is not consistent. That is why even very expensive analog recorders like Nagra needed some form of sync signal to keep them at the right speed. To have any reliability that sync signal needs to be recorded on the tape itself because tape stretches in use. You can't "sync" it in Vegas or anything else with out lots of time stretching squeezing and the only way to automate that is if you have a good guide track. If you do then, well you didn't need the cassette after all. For $20 pick it up and go gather some sound FX with it but borrow something like the Zoom to do the dialog.
 
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