The analog recording process explained

[RainbowStorm]

Hi all!

I am very familiar with digital recording, but since I've not recorded anything onto analog tape I don't know what the analog recording process exactly looks like. I know in large that analog multitrack desks are used for capturing tracked instruments. These instruments are routed through the console and tracked onto tape. The multitrack recorder has a playback functionality which allows the engineer to playback the recorded material by routing the tracks back to the console and mix the tracks by using the analog console and analog outboard gear. But this is where it gets blurry for me. I can think of a mixdown process, where engineers mix down the song onto another multitrack recorder through several takes until it is properly mixed and then when further adjustments are needed they use the originally recorded track to re-mix the track. But what about for instance fine tuning outboard effect settings on already bounced down material that else is good enough mixed/bounced? What about syncronization issues involved in this process when a certain part of the original multitrack has to be re-mixed with the other tracks on the bounce multitrack recorder? Is an analog summing console/unit used for eventually summing the bounced/mixed multitracks into a stereo signal and from that summing unit into a DAT recorder/DAW for getting it onto the digital medium? I just have to get a better understanding of this process, since I don't have any experiences in practise with it and I don't know if I ever will be doing analog recording...

Thanks!

[u b k]

Originally Posted by TonyCrazyMan

I can think of a mixdown process, where engineers mix down the song onto another multitrack recorder through several takes until it is properly mixed and then when further adjustments are needed they use the originally recorded track to re-mix the track.

i was with you up to this point, then i got lost.

everyone's process has its own unique flavor, but for the most part it looks like this: once all your tracks are on tape, you simply play back the tape thru the console. each track has its own channel on the desk, and you massage the faders, eq, and any outboard that's inserted, until you have a mix. if you have automation in the desk, you generally write things on each pass; if you don't, you practice and memorize the moves yourself. if you have some tracks in a daw, the daw and the tape are sync'd up via smpte and their transports are always locked together.

when the mix is where you want it, you rewind the tape again, press play, and record the mix to your final medium... which hopefully is a 2-track tape but could be anything that records. there is no bouncing or re-mixing tracks involved.

hope that was helpful.


gregoire
del ubik

[joeq]

Thanks Tony, you just made me feel 100 years old!

[RainbowStorm]

Originally Posted by joeq

Thanks Tony, you just made me feel 100 years old!

Haha!!

[RainbowStorm]

Originally Posted by u b i k

i was with you up to this point, then i got lost.

everyone's process has its own unique flavor, but for the most part it looks like this: once all your tracks are on tape, you simply play back the tape thru the console. each track has its own channel on the desk, and you massage the faders, eq, and any outboard that's inserted, until you have a mix. if you have automation in the desk, you generally write things on each pass; if you don't, you practice and memorize the moves yourself. if you have some tracks in a daw, the daw and the tape are sync'd up via smpte and their transports are always locked together.

when the mix is where you want it, you rewind the tape again, press play, and record the mix to your final medium... which hopefully is a 2-track tape but could be anything that records. there is no bouncing or re-mixing tracks involved.

hope that was helpful.


gregoire
del ubik

Ok, that helped a lot! Thanks! So in other words it's like you simply just mix the recorded played back tracks and mix until you are satisfied with the mix and then you do a stereo take when the mix is finished. The bouncing I was talking about is actually seen as unnecessary then since the automation is message based. How do you store these messages between the sessions? What kind of protocol and sync device is behind this message based communication and automation? Can the messages be exported and imported? How can you recall the settings on your outboard gear all at once between different sessions and projects?

[joeq]

Originally Posted by TonyCrazyMan

How can you recall the settings on your outboard gear all at once between different sessions and projects?

A guy with a clay tablet goes around at the end of each session and inscibes the settings of each piece of equipment in cuneiform or hieroglyphics. The clay tablets are baked in a kiln to harden and preserve them.

Later, papyrus was invented and sped up the process enormously

[RainbowStorm]

Originally Posted by joeq

A guy with a clay tablet goes around at the end of each session and inscibes the settings of each piece of equipment in cuneiform or hieroglyphics. The clay tablets are baked in a kiln to harden and preserve them.

Later, papyrus was invented and sped up the process enormously

Hehe, what a progress!

[dokushoka]

Originally Posted by joeq

A guy with a clay tablet goes around at the end of each session and inscibes the settings of each piece of equipment in cuneiform or hieroglyphics. The clay tablets are baked in a kiln to harden and preserve them.

Later, papyrus was invented and sped up the process enormously

Yeah then, after that, a big asteroid came and wiped out all the dinosaurs.

Man, thank god for Protools.

[max cooper]

I think the move from multi-track tape to hard-drive recording couldn't have been as sweeping as the advent of "Les Paul Tools".

Originally Posted by TonyCrazyMan

I just have to get a better understanding of this process, since I don't have any experiences in practise with it and I don't know if I ever will be doing analog recording...

Thanks!

The concept can be easily grasped by spending a weekend with a Mackie 1604 and an ADAT. Even though the ADAT's not analog, the basic idea is the same.

[dokushoka]

Originally Posted by max cooper

I think the move from multi-track tape to hard-drive recording couldn't have been as sweeping as the advent of "Les Paul Tools".

[neve1073]

Originally Posted by joeq

A guy with a clay tablet goes around at the end of each session and inscibes the settings of each piece of equipment in cuneiform or hieroglyphics. The clay tablets are baked in a kiln to harden and preserve them.

Later, papyrus was invented and sped up the process enormously

What about the dark ages of early automation? People were dropping like flies as the black death spread with ruthless efficiency.

[Stizz]

Originally Posted by TonyCrazyMan

How do you store these messages between the sessions? What kind of protocol and sync device is behind this message based communication and automation? Can the messages be exported and imported? How can you recall the settings on your outboard gear all at once between different sessions and projects?

Wow - ummm, we still use Gigantic Floppy discs to save mixes on our SSL4000 - never did get the Bernouli drives, but that doesn't really come up any more...
Before SMPTE-based automation, you would print mix data onto track 24, and then print any changes during the next pass on track 1, then back to 24, etc.

If you needed more than 24 tracks, you would use SMPTE on both machines, and lock them together with a synchronization device such as a Lynx or SoftTouch, and listen to the lovely wow as the tapes eventually got up to speed and locked.

As far as outboard gear settings, paper and pencil and a very good assistant always came in handy.

OK, I am feeling old now. Time to go play some nice relaxing music on my Edison cylinders...

[dbbubba]

I'm glad that a lot of guys don't know how to work outside of a DAW.

It keeps plenty of mixing gigs like, live music, live recording for radio or TV, corporate AV and other stuff that uses actual consoles open for guys like me! I can use almost any analog console made quite efficiently and therefore always have had a good paying audio gig.

See ya' suckers!

I used to worry about all of the guys coming into the world who think that they are audio guys. Now I figure they will all be busy in their bedrooms making CDs for their friends!

This is good until I need to hire a guy to handle a show.
If he says that he has a "studio" I get really nervous and ask A LOT of questions!
I hired a lighting tech today and he has a DAW on his laptop.
God HELP us!

Rock on!

Danny Brown

[u b k]

Originally Posted by dbbubba

If he says that he has a "studio" I get really nervous and ask A LOT of questions!

just ask him how he typically handles a monitor mix for more than one person, and the first 2 seconds of his response will tell you all you need to know thumbsup .


gregoire
del ubik

[swankdoc]

This thread is rules!


I have this very intricate way of recalling my settings. Its called the matrix. But the matrix isnt perfect.

Analog helped introduce the notion of "its done so call it good, dammit".
Digital helped introduce the notion of "its never over until the rockstar says its over".

[Szorn]

It's funny I've grown up in the digital age but to me analog recording makes the most sense. I was shopping for preamps a while back to use with my Tascam 38, explaining that I'd be using them for the front end and running the tape outputs to the tape ins of my desk. I had the two guys there ask me why on earth I'd want to do this when I could just record to a computer stating how "no one does it that way anymore"...

Mic>Pre-amps>Tape ins>Record
Playback>Tape outs>Desk Ins>Mixdown>LR Outputs to 2trk.

All these preamp to a/d to computer to d/a stuff seems like a long way round to me. Keep your workflow alive and simple. YMMV as the saying goes.

It may help you to learn my iMac hard drive has just died after spending months setting up my recording studio Now looking for another 8 track and a 2 track master. Teac 80-8 and a Tascam 32 budget wise.

[Szorn]

From Dub Scrolls THE INTERRUPTOR: home page

[andychamp]

Originally Posted by Szorn

(...) I had the two guys there ask me why on earth I'd want to do this when I could just record to a computer stating how "no one does it that way anymore"... (...)

Lemme guess: Banjo Mart?

[Blowfish]

Originally Posted by joeq

Thanks Tony, you just made me feel 100 years old!

This! I started on 2"/24 and did my edits on there too, then went to 1/2" for the master

[Blowfish]

Originally Posted by Stizz

If you needed more than 24 tracks, you would use SMPTE on both machines, and lock them together with a synchronization device such as a Lynx or SoftTouch, and listen to the lovely wow as the tapes eventually got up to speed and locked.

Luxury, we flew a headphone mix to one side of the 2 track and SMPTE to the other, then threw up another 499. Many tears were shed on occasion when the SMTPE fell apart during mixdown in another facility.

[Kenton]

Originally Posted by joeq

Thanks Tony, you just made me feel 100 years old!

Me too.

There's also the "mixing in sections" technique of mixing a bit of the song at a time and editing them together on the 2 track with a razor blade and sticky tape.........
Taking polaroid photo's of the desk and outboard gear settings in case you HAD to come back and remix - or having to redo all the automated fader moves because the hire company couldn't supply the exact Fairchild compressor you mixed through the first time...
Happy days.

K.