How to Record from CD to Reel to Reel

Video Transcript

On behalf of Expert Village, Kurt Glaser, KGB Studios, Seattle. Let's continue now with our sessions on "How to use a Two Track Reel to Reel Tape Recorder". On this session what we're going to be doing is we're going to be recording on to the reel to reel from a CD player. And what you see here is the typical layout of what we're using. Let's go through the parts, of course, again. This is the CD player, and we'll use this little connection right here, utilizing this stereo mini plug to go into here as the "output". So we're taking actually a line output jack out of it in a mini stereo configuration, and we're going to interface that with these RCA cables. Now what I like to do, is like I've talked about before, with the difference between balanced and unbalanced, is these brass fittings because they're low noise and they're shielded. These are not shielded, and they're not low noise. And to get the best signal onto the tape, which is what the objective is, would be to use these. But for the sake of this demonstration, we're going to use this. Next piece, of course, is we need to string up the reel to reel onto the deck, so we're going to do that as we speak. We're going to put that up onto the reel to reel, because we're going to record from the CD. And obviously we're using our headphones to monitor the signal to make sure that we get that, and we're going to be plugging that into the deck right here. For all the recordings that I do, we use either ground fault interrupter connectors into the wall off of your AC circuit, or we'll use these little filters. I like using filtering that are three prongs, so that you get the best, again, quietest signal. Ground loop, or ground hum is the worst thing you can have in a recording studio, digital or analog, so keep that in mind as well. Now let's proceed to finish up the hookup. Alright, so we're going to use these and we're going to plug these into the line inputs here, not the outputs. These are the outputs here, these are the line inputs. And so we'll always go red right so we'll seat the right connection in, and we'll seat those in as deep as possible, nice and firm connections. And that's how you hook it up. Typically for line, it's going to be a quieter signal than through the microphone because you pick up the ambient noise around the room. So you like the line input coming right off of the deck.

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