Recording audio with cassette tape

[Mike Chailland]

Hey all! New here and new to S8/8mm. I’ve gone down the rabbit hole completely with the hobby and just finished shooting, home processing and scanning my first ever roll of Ektachrome 160g (Process by 4/1983). It was mostly a test to check my camera and to practice with home processing in my darkroom.

I purchased Lenny Lipton’s book and have been consuming every page but obviously most of the info is out of date but still a lot of useful information.

I have a passion project to make a full analog short cheesy horror film with a few of my friends to project next year at my friends annual Halloween party in his pole barn. We’re talking full on fog machine and creepy lights into the viewing area.

Now my friend was an audio engineer in his early days and has experience with reel to reel recording and editing. He still has a 1/4” reel to reel set up and really wants to do some audio work on this project. I originally was just going to show it as a silent film or maybe try to find an old score to play on a vinyl while the movie projects. But we’re gonna research recording and playing on tape.

Is there a feasible way to do this today? I’ve read all about double system syncing and crystal sync but unfortunately my camera is unable to do that (Minolta XL-401). So I’m trying to figure out the best way to do this. So far I’ve come up with slating the head and tail of the film with a tape recorder. Trying to have no dialogue and mostly just suspense sounds and some recorded guitar parts (on a classic Fender Champ tube amp of course). And then editing the tape (I have no idea how that works so I’m going to have to talk to my friend about that) and then basically playing both the projector and tape player over speakers at the same time? If that makes sense.

My plan is to shoot on Tri-X. We have a lot of 3d printed miniature villages for DnD that I want to use as some forces perspective shots, etc. We also have 3 full wood shops to build other set things (probably not needed but who knows) and we’re fortunate that one friend actually built movie sets for a living back in the day.

I still need to purchase a projector. I’ve been looking at a Eumig 610 but would love any recommendations. I purchased a Minette S-5 viewer and a splicer/tape so I’m good on that front.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I know that this seems insane and probably not worth it (at least that’s what people keep telling me… “use your phone, why not just digital, etc”) but I really love doing things the hard way.

Thanks again for any help, feedback, etc.
also, here’s a link to my first ever home processed/scanner S8 film. Not great at all but it was all a practice run. Tonight I’m going to process new Ektachrome 100d so hopefully that’ll be better.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Hi!

When you slate the start and end of each take and when your scenes have a maximum length of 30s, then basically any recorder will do. But (sorry for this „but“) you would need a frame by frame transfer of the uncut films and align the sound to the video on a computer. That’s because this will give you to the opportunity to change the speed of the sound without changing the speed or to simply cut a silent split-second here and there.
(Yes, you could also do it the complete analog way, especially when you have a duoplay capable projector. But this causes a lot of wear on the projector and film. And after maybe 30min of projecting, rewinding, re-recording, … the bulb might become so hot that it burns a hole into the stopped film. I‘ve been through all this in 1990s. )

[Mike Chailland]

Thank you for the feedback! I’m still trying to do it the old analogue way but you gave me an idea that maybe I can edit digitally with the film cut/edited digitally as well to syncs the audio and then maybe re-record the digital audio playing back over speakers onto tape then cut/splice the film to match that? I’d just really love to have both an analogue video and audio but that might be pushing it too much. I suppose I could just have the audio edited digitally and then play that back while screening the 8mm on projector.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

You can get your film striped and then transfer the sound from the computer onto the film’s soundtracks. When using a service like „Movie Magnetic“ for the striping, they will record the sound for you.

Or you can use a device like the Synkino: https://www.filmkorn.org/products/synkino/?lang=en

[Osi Osgood]

The only real issue I could see is that you would have even more "hiss" to the super 8 🧲 track, which has a fairly high amount of hiss to begin with

[Mike Chailland]

Oh wow that Synkino might be what I end up using! Defeats the analog audio purpose but if I can’t figure out the reel to reel then that’s probably my next best option. Thanks!

And that makes sense, Osi. It’s a shame we can’t get modern audio S8 cartridges made.