Recording audio onto VHS tape without overwriting the picture

[TrackingError]

Hello,

I am making an attempt at recording a music video for the amazing track "Kid For Today" by Boards of Canada. I will be working entirely with VHS-sourced footage, which I will be then finalizing to a second VHS tape. However, instead of using the natural sound from the footage, I am hoping to be able to dub the track directly to the tape. Is there a simple way to do this using the RCA audio-in on my JVC VCR?

Thank you,

Lawrence

[yoda313]

Just use the audio out from whatever source you are using instead of the vcr and plug that into the audio in of the recording vcr.

However if you wanted to do anything with the source audio of course this new tape won't have it.

You'd have to dub the original tape to a dvd (via a settop dvd recorder) and rip that to a computer and then you could manipulate it digitally. Or you could capture it to your computer with a capture card or capture box.

Then you could use any video editor that supports the time line editing and you could dub in new audio. Instead of a simple replacement of audio like you are trying to do you could be more creative and do voiceovers (like a dvds commentary track) or dub in music over the sections you want to. You can also control the loudness of the new audio or the original audio - fade it out so the new is prominent and then fade in again if you wish. (something like windows movie maker but its really for basic use only not sophisticated compared to other programs) but you could do this in another audio program and do audio only but especially if you are new to all things digital a nle (non linear editor) will be a more friendly point and click approach rather than using multiple programs and muxing and editing that way. This would of course require a creation of a dvd or streaming to the web or file playback on something like on ipad or what have you.

Of course you can do your brute force approach just be aware of its limitation.

Plus you might have a problem with the audio gain on it. Whatever the source you are using should have an adjustable audio output - if you use a headphone out jack of some portable audio player you could do it that way for control of the audio. If you are taking - say the audio out from another vcr - then you are getting the full volume out and can't manipulate it.

Do a few tests before you commit to this procedure to make sure you know what you are getting into.

And then there are audio mixers and specialized equipment designed to be more sophisticated in the analog mixing world. I'm sure you could probably get some of this equipment at a reasonable price on places like ebay now that so many hobbyists and professionals are in the digital world.

I'm sure other members here can give you more detailed examples but hopefully this gets you going in the right direction.

[edDV]

If you are trying to do this on a VCR only, you can replace the low quality linear audio tracks but not the HiFi tracks without overwriting video. Better to capture the tape and replace audio in the digital domain.

[jagabo]

edDV is correct, you can record a new linear audio track without disturbing the video if you have a deck that supports the feature. But the linear track is very lo-fi:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS#Original_linear_system

The same can't be done for the hi-fi audio track.

[lordsmurf]

You risk losing the video on the tape.
Do it on a computer.

[misermidas]

I did that a very long time ago.
Actually ,I made a musical clip from the musical scenes of Eisenstein’s movie “Alexander Nevsky” using a CD for the sound track.
I used an S-VHS VCR with TBC for mastering the video track, but even so picture quality was poor.


So I later made the same editing using a standalone DVD video recorder. Quality was not perfect but good enough.


I would do it again with my computer to achieve best quality if I were not so lazy.
Sometime, I may have to do it again in HD.


It does not make much sense to do video editing with VCRs nowadays. For what you want to do, computer editing is the best way. If you really need a VHS output, you can burn your clip to a DVD and then copy it to a VHS tape.


If you are afraid of PC video software, and If you liked and were used to VHS editing, using a standalone DVD HDD recorder can be a good choice for you ,with it you can easily copy between VHS and DVD using a VCR ,it allows simple editing ,but you can’t usually change the soundtrack with that kind of device. So you will have to make a copy from a DVD player using analog audio-video connexion just the same way as with VCRs and audio/video synchronization will not be accurate.

[TrackingError]

I am not at all afraid of computer-aided (NLE) editing. However, I am very fond of the lo-fi worn out aspect of VHS tapes.

Thanks for all your help, everyone. What I think I might end up doing is put together the video on a tape without audio, transfer the tape to a computer, add the audio track, burn that to a DVD, and then dub the DVD to a second VHS tape.