Audio Dubbing

[gerry]

I'm going to be doing a project in the next few months where i will dubbing over a film i have on tape and adding my voice to it.I've been told to look for a vhs video recorder that has audio dubbing which means i can just plug in a microphone but my main concern is how good will the sound be onto tape.Has anyone ever used audo dubbing on a vcr? Thanxs

[smorodina]

Almost all video recorders used to have an audio dub, but you must use a hi-fi machine for the best results. These machines have a high effective tape speed and the noise level is low. I have even 'bounced' the recording between machines to overdub several times with no apreciable loss of quality. It's not like cassette tapes with their low tape speed and hiss. Be sure to use manual level control though, and a decent microphone if possible. Remember, all professional recording was done on analogue tape in the pre-digital age, and because the machines used high tape speeds most of the old recordings still sound pretty good today.

[smorodina]

Although it's just occurred to me that you want to dub onto an existing film and that will use the linear track. The quality is not so good with the linear track, but provided you only want to dub once, it is still acceptable. Any overdubbing or tricks should be done before the final dub in this case.