Tim-Thanks for the info. Very interesting. -Mickey -----Original Message----- From: Tim Gillett Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2020 4:54 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Delayed Channels on Cassette Tapes Hi Mickey, I didnt mention summing to mono because I wanted to get across the basic idea first. Also, there can be problems adjusting azimuth in mono on certain stereo recordings. Say a musical piece has a strings backing which was initially recorded as a mono track but in mixing to give a fake stereo effect the producer has slightly delayed say the left side of the strings re the right. It sounds OK in stereo but summed to mono the strings now partially cancel out, sounding distant and indistinct. If we adjust azimuth for the clearest string sound, we now have the wrong azimuth for other sources such as the important centralised vocal. In that case the vocal is the azimuth reference. The strings are still out of phase but that's how they were meant to sound. Less common is a stereo tape recorded with a head with gap scatter. One head gap is slightly behind the other in time. I have some high speed duplicated music cassettes with this issue. Correct azimuth summed to mono resulted in incorrect azimuth (lost highs) in stereo. So I adjusted azimuth only stereo and for maximum clarity. Then to correct the time differential I moved the delayed track slightly forward to match the other. I did this in the DAW, realigning the high frequencies in the waveforms by eye. Cheers Tim. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List" <[log in to unmask]> To:<[log in to unmask]> Cc: Sent:Wed, 21 Oct 2020 15:12:02 -0700 Subject:Re: [ARSCLIST] Delayed Channels on Cassette Tapes Chris-Another tool is to combine the tracks while listening.Making it mono. The azimuth setting is most easily fine-tuned that way--Mickey -----Original Message----- From: Tim Gillett Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2020 2:47 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Delayed Channels on Cassette Tapes Hi Chris, I'm not sure if you know that cassettes are notorious for azimuth misalignment on playback. Experts in tape digitization align the tape replay head to the recorded patterns on each tape being played. It involves carefully adjusting the azimuth screw on the machine's playback head while listening. We aim to extract the brightest, clearest sound off the tape. After this has been done, an Azimuth Corrector tool might be also used to fine tune the small remaining misalignments, especially dynamically changing misalignments which occur too quickly to be corrected by adjusting the head's azimuth screw. An Azimuth Corrector is generally not very good on a true stereo recording as it can struggle to distinguish between intended and unintended inter channel delays. Cheers Tim. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List" <[log in to unmask]> To:<[log in to unmask]> Cc: Sent:Wed, 21 Oct 2020 13:34:11 +0100 Subject:[ARSCLIST] Delayed Channels on Cassette Tapes We are digitising some cassette tapes using Audacity.. A batch of them are stereo, however they have exaggerated separation of the channels (perhaps they need normalisation?), and one channel is a microsecond behind the other. We don't actually need stereo, amd have tried to merge the channels into mono. But this sounds dreadful - the speech part sounds OK, but the music is very 'echo-ie). Another batch have delays from one channel to the other measuring in seconds. How can we time-shift one channel to match the other one? Thanks - Chris B. ------------------------- Email sent using Optus Webmail ------------------------- Email sent using Optus Webmail