2" tape : 30 ips : is anybody out there?when did the speed change?stories..thoughts

[themaidsroom]

i know i like tape.....i use tape almost seven days a week.....
is anyone here old enough to recount their first experience
with 30 ips ? when did it arrive ? was it a big deal ?
did it arrive with ribbons and bows ?

this year i have been going back and forth between 15ips and 30 ips......
i like both....
i am curious to hear others articulate their thoughts.....
or to watch the thread fall like lead through the cracks
in the 1's and zero's


thanks,

be well


- jack

[edvdr76]

For me, the first time I heard 30 ips, I wasnt too shure what I was listening to. I just knew it sounded a lot punchier than it did on 15 ips. Ever since then that's all I use all the time at my studio. GP9/ 30ips. No Pro tools at my place.

[RedWallStudio]

I'm recording at 15ips on 499. I think the bottom end sounds bigger than at 30, but the noise is also substantially increased. Honestly though, the big reason for being at 15 ips is to fit more material on a reel of tape.. which is the only way I can sway bands away from pro-tools... they all love the sound, just don't want to pay for it.

[wwittman]

I first saw 30ips in the early 70's when 16 tracks appeared.

I never saw a 30ips 4 tk or 8 tk before that.


15 still sounds better to me.

[themaidsroom]

can you say 30 ips sounds thin ?

[RedWallStudio]

Before my 2" MCI, I had a 1"Otari MX-70. Even that at 30 ips sounded fatter than pro-tools.... no brainer. My buddy has a Studer that has 16 and 24 track headstacks. His 16 track at 30 ips sounds as fat as my MCI 24 track at 15ips (really close I think).. but with less noise. Personally, Id take the 24 tracks though.

[themaidsroom]

i use the 16 track and the 8 track at 30 ips all the time and while i can still
hear more bass at 15 ips, the overall resolution of 30 ips is phenomenal.....

they are really two different sounds.....i find 15 ips GP9 to be less forgiving
than 30 ips in terms of distortion.......

what i have loved over these three years that the maid's room has existed is
watching the conviction of one engineer and artist who wants to print as
hot as possible, and hearing what's interesting about that sound and then
seeing the same conviction in another artist or engineer's face as they tap the
meter bridge of the A827 and say "never above - 10, never, i want the
transients to go on forever......"


be well


- jack

[Bassmec]

Originally Posted by RedWallStudio

Before my 2" MCI, I had a 1"Otari MX-70. Even that at 30 ips sounded fatter than pro-tools.... no brainer. My buddy has a Studer that has 16 and 24 track headstacks. His 16 track at 30 ips sounds as fat as my MCI 24 track at 15ips (really close I think).. but with less noise. Personally, Id take the 24 tracks though.

PT is not a treatment its what your Mic's sound like, You will need to add treatment/colour to taste. Even use a record head and playback head in a project box if you like. Comparison is only relevant if the differences are part of the analysis. Your main sonic advantage is owning a recorder with 24 fast attack compressor/Limiters in one box. How FAT? is protools with 24 Sta Level's.
Regards.•:*¨¨*:•. ¸¸.•´¯`•.Mark Fairfax-Harwood, Engineer Springvale Studios

[audioez]

Originally Posted by themaidsroom

while i can still hear more bass at 15 ips, the overall resolution of 30 ips is phenomenal.....

The impression of more bass comes from the natural head bump around 100Hz @ 15ips.

While working at 30ips the head bump is about an octave lower around 45-54Hz.


ez

[themaidsroom]

for many projects, i would rather bump the 100 hz with eq
and preserve all the detail that the 30 ips allows.......

i am curious about dolby for 15 ips......i have never used it....
they can be had for about 3 grand at this
point.......again.....the subject of dolby brings about very extreme opinions from
different engineers......

one thing i have noticed is that tape has found new fans in younger and younger
musicians......someone somewhere asks them to use tape in lieu of the box,
and without any agenda they let their ears make the decision.....music is not
virtual, nor graphs, nor statistics, nor charts of the representing medium,
or words alluding to how it sounds, but the sound itself -
the beautiful ability to get lost or found, deep in a moment......

i am pondering builing another studio with at least two tape recorders......
i believe that if twenty one and twenty two year olds can gravitate towards
a medium that they have been told is "dead", that there are decades of life
in it yet........


be well


- jack

p.s. wtf is atr magnetics ?

[RedWallStudio]

My friend owned a Dolby SR unit. I never saw him use it and asked him what the deal was. He said is shaved off the top end no matter what he did, and the box ran way too hot.

Tape is far from dead, just taking a well needed rest.

[chrisrulesmore]

Wouldn't the eq standard (NAB vs. CCIR) have as big of an impact as the tape speed?

I'm new to the analog game, but my Studer A80 is 99% done and running in 'time-capsule' condition. We are going with 30ips NAB to start, running GP9 calibrated to +6, but I've read that 15ips CCIR is what you want if you are going for the vintage UK sound.

-Chris

[themaidsroom]

i have heard the same.......i know albini uses the 15ips ccir......i have used it
and worked on some albini tapes just a few weeks ago.......the ccir did not jump
off the page like 30 ips to my ears......that being said his drum sounds were
simply amazing..........having more than a dozen e-22s's hanging out must be hip....

congratulations on that a-80......there is a studio near here in nyc called dangerous
that has a pristine a-80



be well


- jack

[vernier]

30 ips was here from the beginning on 40's full track machines. As for mix down, the first two to use it were Jimmy Page and Stephen Barncard, 1971.

[Han]

I have a very old Philips Pro master machine from te late fifties that runs 15 and 30 ips.

[rlnyc]

Originally Posted by edvdr76

For me, the first time I heard 30 ips, I wasnt too shure what I was listening to. I just knew it sounded a lot punchier than it did on 15 ips. Ever since then that's all I use all the time at my studio. GP9/ 30ips. No Pro tools at my place.

Punchier? at 30ips? you mean "more articulate"?

"punchier" at a faster tape speed? i don't believe it. i think slower tape speeds are punchier, and that is what i have always heard.

at 15 ips, the tape is slower, and sits under the presenting energy longer, which i interpret as punchy. at 30ips, the tape goes by faster - the signal is printed on twice as much tape per second, so you get extended high end and greater clarity and definition. where do you get punchy from that?

best regards,
rlnyc

[wwittman]

[QUOTE=Bassmec]PT is not a treatment its what your Mic's sound like, You will need to add treatment/colour to taste. QUOTE]


no.

ProTools, and its convertors, are what ProTools sounds like.

Right now I am mixing a record to both 1/2" analogue and ProTools at 96k/24 at the same time.

So during printing the mix i can punch a button on the desk and listen to either CONSOLE OUT (the live mix), Tape Playback (which obviously has a delay from the repro head), or PROTOOLS MIX (back though it's A-D and D-A).
and all three sound different.

the ProTools mix does NOT sound just like live.

and you can do thins during recording as well.. desk out of the live band playing NEVER sounds just like the PT encoded signal.

you can prefer one or the other, and you can certainly say that one can make good records on one or the other, and I'm not saying "Pro Tools SUCKS" or anything equally stupid and juvenile...

but it's ALSO naive (if not juvenile) to repeat this mantra that says "digital sounds JUST LIKE what you put into it"
it NEVER does.
and if you really can't hear ANY difference in a direct A-B of console out and digital playback, then I'd suggest you're in the wrong business.

You're not listening carefully enough.




as far as 30ips... the big diff is in the bottom end...
the head bump occurs in a different place than with 15ips and I tend to prefer the smoother, appearing, bottom of 15ips.
30 always sounds a tiny bit cloudier, or tubbier, to me.

[wwittman]

Originally Posted by audioez

The impression of more bass comes from the natural head bump around 100Hz @ 15ips.

While working at 30ips the head bump is about an octave lower around 45-54Hz.


ez

I think you have that backwards.

30 has a bump in the 120 area... 15 has the bump way down lower.

30 also rolls pretty sharply down on the low end.

[Mark Ettel]

> think you have that backwards.
30 has a bump in the 120 area... 15 has the bump way down lower.
30 also rolls pretty sharply down on the low end.<

ww has it correct here. One of the reasons that 15 ips has a head bump on most machines is the fact that the architecture of the heads is optimized for flat response at 30ips. Very long wavelengths are difficult to reproduce so extra sensitivity is need in this range. Another factor is the "fringing" effect that occurs at long wavelengths, where low frequency energy is picked up by adjacent tracks. A 50hz signal is almost two feet long on the tape at 30ips, and that energy "bulges" out and is picked up by the tracks next to it. What this means at 15 ips is that a head bump, centered around 50hz depending on the machine, of 6db or more can occur. This usually won't happen on a machine with heads optimized for 15ips.

>and all three sound different.
the ProTools mix does NOT sound just like live<

I've worked with just about every type of recording system an the only thing that has sounded so close to the buss that it was probably the cable run back to the console that made the difference was Direct to Disc recording. I'm talking about vinyl disk, not hard disc. Back in the day when I was a young whippersnapper, I was privileged enough to be involved in a couple of the D to D projects Doug Sax used to do with Bill Schnee engineering for his Sheffield Labs label. The playback from the lathes was simply amazing. Flawless. When Bernie Grundman opened his own facility next to Ocean Way Recording, we did quite a few D to D's there. During tests, we could monitor the disc while it was being cut with a phono cartridge playing the disc right after the cutter. Perfect. It's amazing how accurate a mechanical system could be. The only thing that came close was an Ocean Way modified Ampex ATR 102 running at 30ips, which was backup for the lathe. The new DSD recorders sound excellent, but it took all that to approach the sound quality of a heated ruby cutter head making a little squiggly groove in a piece of acetate. Amazing isn't it.

[themaidsroom]

Originally Posted by Mark Ettel

The only thing that came close was an Ocean Way modified Ampex ATR 102 running at 30ips, which was backup for the lathe. The new DSD recorders sound excellent, but it took all that to approach the sound quality of a heated ruby cutter head making a little squiggly groove in a piece of acetate. Amazing isn't it.

trying to find things more valuable than money,


- jack

[Mark Ettel]

My previous post got me thinking of some of the other D to D projects. When Bernie first moved in, we were so excited by the potential that one of the first things I did was mix direct to disk. I was mixing a major rock band and we had this idea of mixing the single direct to disc. The first time we did this, there weren't any tie lines yet between Ocean Way and Grundman Mastering, so we just had some mic cables running down the hall, out Ocean Way's front door and down Sunset Blvd. into Bernie's front door. We had to have a runner standing guard so no one walking buy would disturb the cables. It worked great and the label was blown away by the sound. We had fader automation, but had to perform pans, effects sends and EQ changes "live". Bernie ran two lathes at once so we could make enough parts for manufacture. It was hectic since we had to have good timing so that after the lead in grove was started, we would hit play and start the mix. Another thing was that since it was D to D, there is no preview for the cutter, Bernie had to manually adjust the pitch of the cutter as we went. Ahh, those were the days ;-).

Oh, one more thing about the Sheffield sessions. I just wanted to add that one of the interesting things is that there were no compressors or other processing done to the individual mics or the mix fed to the lathes. It was full dynamic range, no limiting, no tape compression, no nothin'. Makes the capabilities of these lathes even more amazing I think.

[themaidsroom]

great to hear that dynamic range.....

[stevep]

Studer 820 with Dolby SR at 15 ips. NAB

SWEET !


What comes out sounds just like what goes in !


And if I want a bit of compression I can Smack it!




steve





.

[Philip S Bova]

I record to a restored 16 track Ampex MM1000. 30 IPS on this machine sounds way ballsier than other decks I've used. 15 IPS sounds has a cooler saturation effect though and is reminicent of the american hit parade sound circa 1969 - 1972.

psb

[audioez]

using a sound technologies freq analyizer. After performing a record cal.

I'd throw the deck into record, and perform a sweep funtion while monitoring on repro tracks 9 and 16, and those were my findings. The tape machines I was working with were A800, A80 and MTR90

I guess I'm crazy and stand corrected

ez

[Sounds Great]

For future reference. This shows how much it depends on the machine & the speed. Of course it also depends on how the machine is set up, head condition, age of components, etc.

The Unpredictable Joys of Analog Recording

[theother]

Originally Posted by themaidsroom

i use the 16 track and the 8 track at 30 ips all the time and while i can still
hear more bass at 15 ips, the overall resolution of 30 ips is phenomenal.....

they are really two different sounds.....i find 15 ips GP9 to be less forgiving
than 30 ips in terms of distortion.......

what i have loved over these three years that the maid's room has existed is
watching the conviction of one engineer and artist who wants to print as
hot as possible, and hearing what's interesting about that sound and then
seeing the same conviction in another artist or engineer's face as they tap the
meter bridge of the A827 and say "never above - 10, never, i want the
transients to go on forever......"


be well


- jack

I played around with 30 and 15 and ended up almost everytime with 30ips.

There is nothing I find more interesting with 15. I know many do and I tried really hard to find it. Maybe it doesn't work for my kind of music. 30 sounds more defined in the low end.

I don't have more low end with 15 because I align the machine so I don't have to much of a bump (unless I want to have one).

I had an Otari 2". But now I only use a 1/2" Studer 820. Always 30ips with GP9.

[Jleal]

I use an otari MTR-100a at 15ips with dolby SR, sounds sweet !

[Drumsound]

Originally Posted by rlnyc

Punchier? at 30ips? you mean "more articulate"?

"punchier" at a faster tape speed? i don't believe it. i think slower tape speeds are punchier, and that is what i have always heard.

at 15 ips, the tape is slower, and sits under the presenting energy longer, which i interpret as punchy. at 30ips, the tape goes by faster - the signal is printed on twice as much tape per second, so you get extended high end and greater clarity and definition. where do you get punchy from that?

best regards,
rlnyc

See that's why words like "punchy" can be quite misleading. Your definition of NOT punchy "extended high end and greater clarity and definition" is exactly how I would describe punchy.

Anywhoo, like both speeds, but I prefer 30ips.