Box 245, Vass, NC 28394

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Box 245 - Vass, NC 28394-0245, USA
 

Demo Cassette
Demo Price $130.00, Includes Full Instrumentation, Lead Male and Background Vocals

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EastCraft... offers as a choice, it's demos mastered on Compact Cassettes because of their wide spread use. They have been accepted by the public and industry as a standard for more than 30 years. Compact Cassettes have made leaps and bounds in their ability to reproduce music faithfully as compared to the first cassettes of the 1960's. But, they are inherent short comings that limits compact cassette to this day.
One short coming of cassette tape is it's slow tape speed of 1 3/4 ips (inches per second). This has the effect of limiting the high frequency response. This factor has been over come by better grades of tape stock and cassette players. Even the cheapest of modern cassette decks will now offer a flat response of at least 15K which is not to bad for a media that in it's early day, had trouble achieving a flat 10Khz band width. They are some mid to high end cassette decks that offer a band width that can exceed 18Khz. Besides, humans are hard pressed to hear anything over 18Khz anyway. Good frequency response depends on quality tape stock and precise tape head alignment more than on any other factor. Some of the first cassette tape stock was made of Ferric Oxide. CRO2 or chrome tape stock picks up where ferric oxide falls off. It offers better noise performance and greater dynamic rage (amount of signal that can be applied to the tape before distortion occurs). EastCraft uses only high grade chrome tape stock that is manufactured by BASF corp. This insures you get the best sounding cassette demo.

Another inherent problem with cassette tape is the background hiss. Dolby labs helped with this. Tape hiss was pushed into the background with the advent of Dolby type "B" noise reduction in 1968 and type "C" noise reduction in 1980. Dolby type "S" was introduced in 1990 and is by far the best consumer tape deck noise reduction system that Dolby Labs offers at this time. They are other types of noise reduction systems available such as dbxI and dbxII but, EastCraft offers Dolby "B","C" and "S" because of it's popularity in consumer cassette decks. If your deck offers Dolby type "S",  I would recommend that you order your demo encoded with this type of NR. It is very clean! Your demo can still be played on any cassette deck even if it doesn't have Dolby NR but, to enjoy it's benefits you must have Dolby turned on. Every demo cassette that EastCraft produces is encoded with Dolby HX pro head room extension. Along with the extended dynamic range that Dolby "S" offers, HX pro gives the cassette even greater dynamic range which adds up to better clarity and a more life like sound. Once a cassette has been recorded with HX pro it will retain it's extended headroom on all other cassette decks.

EastCraft offers the best grade cassette that is available but if your cassette deck is dirty or misaligned it will not sound it's best. EastCraft strongly advises that you have your cassette deck cleaned and aligned regularly to keep it sounding it's best. It's a simple process to align and clean your tape deck. The procedure is outlined below if you feel up to the task.

First moisten a cotton swab with denatured alcohol (not the rubbing kind... it contains water). Gently wipe the play back and erase heads (with the direction of tape travel) . Next wipe the  capstan shaft(s) (the shiny silver shafts located straight above the rubber rollers) to remove any oxide build up. Use a good rubber cleaner to remove oxide and protect the rubber pinch roller(s). Don't use alcohol to clean the rubber pinch roller(s) it will dry them out and make them crack. Spend the extra time to locate a good rubber cleaner and denatured alcohol. American Musical Supply  is a good source for these supplies. Congratulations! you have just cleaned your first cassette deck.

Now that your deck is clean and dry it's time to adjust the alignment of the tape head it's self. You will be adjusting the azimuth of the head. There are some decks that will require the cassette door to be removed for this procedure. If your deck has small hole(s) visible under the door you will not have to remove the door.You will need a small (jewelers) screwdriver. Most decks will use a phillips tip but they are some that require a flat tip screwdriver. Once you have determined which type of screwdriver you need and if you will need to remove the door,  you will place a good quality cassette tape in your deck. If your deck is a auto reverse you will have two adjustment screws. One on the left of the play head and one on the right. The play head will be located in the center of the tape path. The erase head is located to the left of the play head. Play the tape in the forward running mode and adjust the screw on the right of the tape head. While monitoring the tape deck you will hear the sound fade in and out as you rotate the screw in both directions. The object is to adjust the alignment screw for a clear, bright sound. You will rotate the screw back and forth until you find the sweet spot. The key here is to use your ears. Do Not rotate the screw to far in either direction or you can damage your cassette deck. The screw on the left of the auto reverse deck is to align the head for the other direction. On a standard one direction cassette deck there will be two screws but only one is to be adjusted. It usually is the screw on the left of the play head. The procedure will be the same as for the auto reverse deck but with only one screw. Make these adjustments with NR in the off mode. Happy alignment..................