I've got an analog setup, and I don't know how to use it right.

[vintage]

I picked up my Teac 80-8 fresh from the repair factory recently. She's all happy and fixed now and recalibrated + rebiased for Scotch 203.
I hooked it up to my Teac Model 5 mixer + 5EX and did some some test recordings, with drums, bass, rhythm guitar and lead. The recording that came back through the speakers sounded pretty out there. Very neat sounds.
This gear is good, it has potential, I just need to use it better.

Any day now I should be receiving a Bogen tube pre amp that was completely gone over by a tech (replaced all carbon composite resistors with metal films) so the pre sounds silent.
I plan to record one track at a time, and since I only have one compressor (art pro vla) I intend to record the compression onto the tape, on individual tracks. Basically, I have two questions in this post.

First, I'd like to know how you'd hook all this up. Let's just say I'm recording bass guitar. Consider this is all the gear I'm using to tape it with: Bass guitar, bogen tube pre amp, Art pro vla, Art Zdirect passive direct box and finally a Teac Model 5a mixer. In what order should I place all of this in the signal chain?

Secondly, how should I use my mixer after this is all wired right? Let's say I look at my VU meter and I hit my bass drum.....do I want the mixer's meter to read +3? Or 0? And the tape machine, since I'm using DBX noise reduction, do I want the tape machine to read +3 or 0? I've never read anything that tells me how to use this gear right.


When I'm hitting the bass drum, do I place the fader at the shadded area and adjust the input ammount with the mic trim adjust? And when I'm tracking, is the EQ supposed to be flat? Or am I supposed to fiddle with the EQ on the Model 5 mixer before I record? I don't get it? Thanks

[theblue1]

Well... since I owned similar gear... (I had a model 5a and a 70-8)...

First things first -- and this is crucial -- if you're going to use the dbx noise reduction (and if you don't you'll likely see a fair amount of hiss, particularly on your low speed) -- absolutely forget all this groovy stuff you've been hearing about tape saturation -- because, unless you turn off the dbx, if you try to saturate the tape you're going to crash the dbx, which uses what struck many as a fairly crude NR system: it essentially compresses at a 2:1 ratio before going onto tape and then expands at [as close as it can get to] the inverse 1:2 ratio.

By doing so, it attempts to boost the "encoded" signal level far above the noise floor of the tape.

But -- any dynamic mistracking that occurs in between the dbx encoding processes will come back to slam your sound. The worse possibilty is tape drop-out (you'll want to use the tape in the best condition you can find) which will be really nasty when it's "magnified" by the dbx.

But simply hitting the dbx unit with too sharp and loud a transient will "crash" it and produce unexpected results you will no doubt find unpleasant or at least, grossly inaccurate. And running it into the red will likely also produce anomalous results, as well.


One thing you can do -- and that I did with mine -- is turn the dbx off on tracks you might want to use tape saturation on. (Well, since my dbx unit ALWAYS seemed to have at least one dead card no matter how many times I had it fixed, I usually had no choice... but it kept me busy repatching when one card failed almost as soon as I got the previous fixed.)

BTW, watch out for that bass guitar and the dbx -- the transients from a bass guitar will shoot way past the actual mechanical VU meter movement... you may think you're hitting, say -3 dB but you can have very fast transients that go way up... when those hit your dbx, you'll have issues. I used to typically track bass so it came no higher than about -6 dB on a VU meter when I was using dbx.


Now... with regard to tracking with your program compression. Since you only have one compressor and may want to use it on other tracks, I guess you gotta do what you gotta do. Just keep in mind, you can always add more compression in a pinch but 'removing' it is a very unpredictable and usually very unrewarding endeavor. Get the sound you want. You'll be committed to it.


On the Model 5 mixer issues...

Slider faders are for mixing. Trim controls are for setting the proper level going into the channel strip. Proper gain staging (getting the optimal levels at all stages of your process) is very important in the analog world, where there is almost always a noticeable noise floor. Set the trim control so that you're getting optimal level through the channel. The slider controls the level of what is sent to the summing buss. (Most folks call the typical slider controls at the bottom of mixer strips faders -- though, technically, any level control can be considered a fader; the term, AIUI, came from the world of electical theatrical lighting, which predated audio amplification by a few decades.)

Finally -- if your Model 5 is anything like mine, you're going to be fighting noise all along the way. Make sure you make the best use of the direct outs on your channel strips.

When you're tracking a single instrument, you'll generally want to use the driect out and avoid sending your signal through the bus on its way to tape. Any stage you can cut out along the way will help preserve your signal. If it makes you feel any better, even with well-designed contemporary boards built to tighter contemporary noise standards, you still want the most direct route to tape you can manage.

Because you'll mostly be using direct outs, you can then tend to leave your board set up for monitoring, which will cut down on rigamarole.


Congratulations on your step into the brave old world of analog tape! It's exciting. It's fun. It's demanding in its own way... but there's nothing like looking up and seeing those big reels slowly spinning.

IIRC.