Inside Two Analog Mixes on the Portastudio with Singer-Songwriter Jimmy Davis

Jimmy enthralled me with his voice, and we recorded it on cassette.
The people:
Jimmy Davis:
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• Last Goodbye - Jeff Bu...
jimmydaavis.com/
Jonah Levine:
www.jonahmlevine.com/
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00:00 the intro
02:09 the gear
03:01 the first song: Today
05:35 the reverb eq
08:00 the vocal climax
09:43 the second song: Follow Suit
13:00 the advice
13:29 the thoughts
15:17 the performance
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[@MadeOnTape]

see Jimmy Davis perform "Today" and listen to the full mix here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hImTq5yGmNWIo8k

[@mitchyyy18]

The hiss is strong 💪 ❤

[@MadeOnTape]

🐍🙌🏻

[@tonygraham4939]

Very very cool😁

[@collinstanley5246]

Sick!

[@marcdanielnelson317]

THIS IS RAD!!!!

[@MadeOnTape]

amazing to see you here dude!

[@jamierodriguez6210]

Fantastic! Can't wait to see more of these analog mixes! Great video!

[@MadeOnTape]

thanks for watching 🙏

[@lu4enp]

What a voice!!!! Great video as ever!! Thanks

[@MadeOnTape]

thanks for watching and listening 🙏

[@JuanMotta]

Thanks for shareing your knowledge, yes i want more!!!

[@MadeOnTape]

thanks for watching 🙏

[@harrisfrankou2368]

Another great video, being a hybrid kinda dude, I always learn something here. Big day yesterday but very grateful for another top video!! and G'day!

[@ritofuturito]

Great video!

[@MadeOnTape]

thanks for watching!

[@moondrums]

Nice video. Great work.We use to use this 4 track in high school for demos. I never thought that they had enough drive or volume, but in high school this is all we had.

[@MadeOnTape]

they definitely have vibe! thanks for sharing. curious if you have any of your old performances on cassette? they’re probably better than you remember!

[@italiad1013]

My tascam portastudio-Jason Newsted brother👍👍👍👍👍 #PortaStudioBestMachineEVER

[@MadeOnTape]

😂🤘

[@_OopsieDaisies]

Sounds great and def excited to see your approach to removing hiss. Watching these videos are making me a little impatient for my porta to get out of the shop. I really like working on tape because the constraints of having limited tracks to work with often make me be more creative in how I create a song rather than on a DAW where I can just add 20 layers of a guitar for an over the top chorus or whatever. Do you have any videos showing how you bounce tracks on your tascam? I've only ever done it on a 424 mkIII that is no longer available for me to use and my porta one definitely has a lot less features and mixing capabilities. Great video :)

[@MadeOnTape]

thank you! i’m glad you’re inspired by limitations like myself. i have a couple older videos that talk about bouncing: this one is general and shows internal bouncing: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZqqYqZeBZdJ8q8U this one shows external bouncing: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eqGZdnd_lLx1Y7c

[@coryponzo1383]

You have now graduated to a Console I would get a PR&E BMX broadcast console. Get some rack eqs. Use it with your reel to reel. When recording Acoustic use a downward expander followed by a compressor, this will lower the floor while keeping the range where you need it. You won't have multi track abilities so do your moves live while recording. You will love the results Grasshopper.

[@MadeOnTape]

I had to look up those PR&E consoles as this is the first time I heard of them! Great advice and thank you for watching 🙏

[@zamal.nobody]

i make techno but i really enjoy watching your videos as i love to work with my tascam. if you ever get a chance i would love to see a similar video but doing an electronic music mix 🙈

[@MadeOnTape]

that would be fun! thanks for watching! 🤘

[@harrisfrankou2368]

I'm putting my RMX through tape when I do heavy synth house kinda stuff. Sounds fatter more '94 than post 2000's

[@soyginna]

Another great video, nice material, nice work. Yeah compressors! I wonder what do you think would be a good compressor for your set up?

[@MadeOnTape]

i have the humble DBX 163x, and recently even got a second one for stereo linking. You know that'll be featured again soon! In this instance, I actually think the over easy compression would have worked quite well. I really just needed the dynamics to be less dynamic so as to be able to hit the tape a little harder. Thanks for watching and listening!

[@soyginna]

@@MadeOnTape Thank you! I didn't know stereo linking was possible on that one. I'm looking forward for that episode.

[@kevmay21]

Really like the nuts and bolts and you sharing your thought process on what you were hearing and making choices on! This is very helpful. So when you brought the faders up to bring the stereo mic up and then at the end back down that must be during final mixdown? How do you do that on the tape tascam? I have a modern digital tascam I have outboard gear hooked to (DP24SD) that I can go into mixdown/master and adjust things during the mixdown. Wondering how that would work on a tape unit. Great video. Thanks!

[@MadeOnTape]

thank you! For my original music, I make this moves while mixing down to my TEAC reel to reel. For Jimmy's mixes, I went straight into the Apollo, and I was just "kissing" a Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor plugin. I was doing this for a little more cohesion and barely had the "needles" moving. This was the first time I tried that.

[@mattwardynski7429]

I'm going to record my friend singing and playing ukulele this week, so I'm glad you made a mix breakdown like this! I noticed you didn't EQ the vocals or guitar (other than for that distant radio effect), was that because you EQed it on the console or because you didn't think it was needed?

[@MadeOnTape]

if I recall correctly, the only eq on the way in with vocals would have been a high-pass filter. I really wanted to capture a raw sound, and all of the mics used provide detail. In a bigger mix, I would also high pass the guitar, but when it's just voice and guitar, there's a lot of bass-to-be-had in that guitar. Long story long, very little EQing going on! We were working so fast, I would have shaved a little off that 4-5KHz range, but i'm fine with where it ended up. Cheers! Happy recording!

[@aliasname602]

Is there also a daw recording mix. It would be interesting to hear the differences.

[@MadeOnTape]

oooohhhhhh if not for this one, that is a video topic i've had on my spreadsheet for a while now. DAW mix vs. portastudio mix. Thanks for listening!

[@aliasname602]

@@MadeOnTape i met to mean, comparison between recorded and mixed on daw vs cassette, simultaneously route the audio signal to the daw and cassette.

[@MadeOnTape]

@@aliasname602 that's what i mean too! great suggestion

[@aaronw8525]

Nice! So where/when can we hear Jimmy's final cassette mixes?

[@MadeOnTape]

you gotta give him a nudge on his IG! 🙏

[@MadeOnTape]

check this out! kzbin.info/www/bejne/hImTq5yGmNWIo8k

[@TheGarageRecordingSC]

Really great video!! Great artist as well, really strong voice! Question, did you find the noise floor troublesome? Felt like I could hear quite a bit of hiss in there on the quiet parts. If so did you do anything to combat it, for the final product? Thanks bud 🤘🏻🤘🏻 Note to self, watch the whole video before making a comment! 🤦🏻🤣

[@MadeOnTape]

stick around! there’s a video on that exact topic coming soon! 🙏

[@TheGarageRecordingSC]

@@MadeOnTape I edited my comment at the bottom. Lol! I should have known you would address that by the end of the video. 👍🏻😎

[@MadeOnTape]

@@TheGarageRecordingSC all good! I'm glad the hiss bothered you as much as it did me hahaha (and that's saying a lot because I usually don't mind a little hiss)

[@BadPenny]

Far too much hiss

[@MadeOnTape]

stay tuned on how to fix it! thanks for watching 🙏

[@rook9309]

Pre-Protools sends? Why not just say direct sends into the tape machine? Lol

[@MadeOnTape]

calling out the creative mind 😂