tracking vocals to tape

[Mike Chav]

so how about tracking vocals to tape and then transferring to PT via some apogees or a prism ad2? anyone doing this? Im sure mixing off of tape would be better but it is not feasible for what i do. ive only tracked to tape a few times---i always mix to it though.

[Benmrx]

Tracking vocals to tape does indeed sound great. What doesn't sound good going to tape?

However, as a producer, I'm a big stickler when it comes to vocals. Which usually means quite a few punches. I have no problem punching in for a single word. I'd much rather do that than rely on Auto-Tune for fixing problem areas.

I would rather cut vocals to disc, and have the luxery of punching what need be, than get a better sound by going to tape. If the project can dedicate 2 or more days per song for vocals, then I might think about going to tape with it, at least for Lead Vocals. But for the usual 1 day per song for vocals schedule that I have to work with, I'd rather go straight to disc, and shoot for a better performance over a better sound.

When I do track vocals to tape, it usually ends up where I'll have the singer do 3-5 takes through the song, and then go through a comping phase. If there seems to be a consitant trouble spot (maybe it's the bridge, or the last few lines of a chorus) I'll have him/her do those sections seperatly.

[numrologst]

depends on the singer of course. Sometimes it's a bitch, sometimes it's cake.

In addition to the singer, it also depends on you are xfering to digital.

Good singer + Tape: 1-2 takes on tape, switch between the two... Or one solid take all the way through

Bad singer + Tape never works though... Much easier to do it on the computer

With our new album we tracked the first 24 tracks to tape. Which 90% of the time ended up including vox. Some vox sounded great to us 8 months ago and sound like crap now. We xfered to digital and have redone most of the vocals and all harmonies and backup vox to digital; plus multiple overdubs.

If you know you are going to xfer to digital then I would say try a couple runs on tape and if it doesn't work out, then just track vox to digital. I am not saying that so you can use autotune... But so you can easily punch one word, or easily comp 5-6 vox takes.

[u b k]

are you tracking TO tape, or just THRU it? if you're tracking thru it (which is what i do), punches are no problem: just roll tape, play the daw, and punch in on the daw as needed.

i'm a big fan of 4 complete start-to-finish vocal takes regardless of format. the first or the second is usually the best, which frees me to encourage some risk taking or alternative approaches on the last two. somtimes some really cool and interesting moments happen when you tell an artist you've already got what you need, so let's do a couple more and go a little nuts.

tape is also the best vocal leveler in the world, it does all the right things to the human voice which means fewer plugs on mixdown.


gregoire
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ubk
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