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- From: lstowell@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell)
- Newsgroups: rec.audio
- Subject: Re: How do I use a "bias fine adjustment?"
- Keywords: cassette decks, gizmos, misplaced instructions.
- Message-ID: <183273@pyramid.pyramid.com>
- Date: 27 Aug 92 18:12:34 GMT
- Sender: news@pyramid.pyramid.com
- Reply-To: lstowell@pyrnova.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell)
- Organization: Pyramid Technology Corp., Mountain View, CA
- Lines: 37
- Originator: daemon@sword.eng.pyramid.com
-
- In article <1992Aug25.193502@sees.bangor.ac.uk> mather@sees.bangor.ac.uk (Paul Mather) writes:
- >My cassette deck has a "bias fine adjustment" control on it. I remember
- >reading in my instruction booklet what this was and how you used it.
- >
- >What does this control actually do? I know it varies the recording
- >bias, but since I don't know exactly what role the bias has when
- >recording, I'm a little in the dark about why you'd want to adjust it?
- >
- How to adjust it will depend on whether or not your specific deck
- has SEPARATE record and playback heads....
-
- If you have an FM tuner which you can make produce hiss when
- tuned BETWEEN stations (you may have to defeat "mute"), this
- makes an excellent source of a bias-adjustment signal.
-
- Record the hiss at moderate levels. I'd recommend -10 to 20 dB,
- as unless your deck has HX Pro, you might run into other problems
- near 0 dB.
-
- o If you have separate playback and record heads (so you
- can do off-tape monitoring), listen to the monitor output
- and the input (switch between same). Adjust the bias
- control until the two sound alike in the upper treble.
-
- Some folks do this on every individual tape, some on each
- batch of tape, for critical recordings.
-
- o If you don't have real-time monitoring, you'll have to
- record sections of the interstation noise and then play them
- back. It's not really a problem, as you'll rapidly
- discover that turning the bias one way boosts treble, the
- other way cuts it.
-
- In either mode, the goal is to make the recorded interstation noise
- sound as much like the original as possible. Bias affects mostly
- the quality of the upper treble...and the effects are usually pretty
- obvious.
-