Still mastering from an ATR-102 half inch or quarter inch on a Studer A807 all analog path between. I also have some vintage Neumann & Neve vinyl cutting EQ's in the rack as well which also sound stellar with tape. Client chooses the loudness so please... name your dynamics!
Completely custom analog signal path from tape including processing and A/D conversion. All elements either modified or built from the ground up specifically for my studio.
I still think tape (especially 1/4" 15ips) makes the best sounding CD's, and while it's only a small percentage, it's still viable.
Custom ATR-102 here with choice of stock repro or unbalanced output from the padnet, into all analog chain right up to A/D. On a good day no digital shenanigans necessary.
I ran some custom tube repro electronics for a while too on my old Studer transport, but I feel this machine beats them handily when bypassing the penthouse. Though I never got to do a controlled A/B.
Still getting lots of stuff coming in on tape, both 1/4" and 1/2". Actually seeing an increase as 3 or 4 new places locally have moved back to mostly tape for both multitrack and mix.
If you're making the effort to mix to tape you want to make sure your mastering house has made excellent tape playback a priority, and is working with tape frequently. Last thing you want is for your tape to be the first thing on a dusty machine that hasn't been turned on in 6 months.
If you're making the effort to mix to tape you want to make sure your mastering house has made excellent tape playback a priority, and is working with tape frequently. Last thing you want is for your tape to be the first thing on a dusty machine that hasn't been turned on in 6 months.
Very true. If your engineer has to search for his MRL tape (or doesn't own one), proceed with caution.
As long as we're sharing, I've developed a bit of a habit and have accumulated 14 decks (not counting the ones that have slipped through my fingers). Five of them see regular use to cover various formats, speeds and preferences.
We have three machines here, Studer, Ampex, and Otari, 1/4" and 1/2". I don't see nearly as much tape as I used to, but when it comes in it's still a joy to work with.
To the original poster's point, most guys mastering from tape will process analog before putting it into the workstation for CD prep. I don't know of any who simply load it in and work all digital. Dynamics are thankfully starting to make a return too. I don't know if we'll ever get all the way back, but certainly there is a wave of resistance to the crush.
Here in the UK, the DIY punk scene is pretty much cassettes and a bit of vinyl for new releases! Vinyl is expensive, cds are boring, tapes are cheap and there is a historic relevance/nostalgia factor people seem to love.
I release cassettes
Joe, when working on a project which will be released on cassettes, what kind of media do you use to print the final master ? I mean : if you're giving back a cassette, this will induce one more loss generation when duplicated, but on the other hand, a CD cannot be copied to tape at high speed ? From what I've heard, high speed cassette duplication brings a final product of lower audio quality than X1 or X2 , due to head/tape contact being more loose and head bandwidth limitations.
Can you please enlighten me about this ?
From what I've heard, high speed cassette duplication brings a final product of lower audio quality than X1 or X2 , due to head/tape contact being more loose and head bandwidth limitations.
Can you please enlighten me about this ?
The specs on a good high speed system are far in excess of all but the very best cassette decks. High speed systems have much better electronics and heads, can be properly calibrated, and they are (were) professionally maintained on a regular basis. All mechanical tolerances are much tighter in a high speed system where the tape is not running in a shell, etc. The heads alone cost more than many high end cassette decks. It's a completely different world. Moving from analog to digital bins also made a huge improvement.
Of course some of them ran out of spec and with worn masters from time to time, but the same can be said for any Nakamichi or KABA system in play at the time.
Thanks Greg, that's very interesting. Could you please elaborate about the analog and digital bins ? What is used as master ?
I dont know much about cassette duplication...
Earlier systems used an endless loop of tape (typically 1/2" 4 track at either 3 3/4 or 7 1/2ips) with a mark of some kind (reflective tape, hole punch) indicating the beginning of the next cycle. The bin loop master playback machine would run at high speed, anywhere from 24x to 120x (there may have been some 160x systems) and feed a bank of slave decks that would run at the same rate. Bins were the size or refrigerators and slaves were the size of a clothes washer. Later systems replaced the bin loop tape with a high speed digital system, though I have never worked on one.
Open reel cassette tape on hubs (some were 17,000' and more) would record program after program. That tape was then placed in a loader that would automatically wind one program into an empty shell, cut splice, do it again, until the tape was gone. I'll never forget the smirk on the face of the operator who first handed me a hub of cassette tape on a pancake - as it nearly fell apart in my hands. Threading those machines quickly was quite a skill.
I haven't seen a system running in more than 10 years but I did spend a great deal of time keeping them running back in the early '90s.
If Techno producers were mixing down to tape, I'd be stoked!
But, that ain't happenin...
I'd be interested to try mastering to tape and cut the vinyl from that.
Alas, the Loudness War is 'alive and well' in Electronic Music. So not doing digital limiting in some form might sound like a nice idea, but probably won't get you to the Beatport Top 10.
The one analog limiter I'm intrigued by is the ridiculously expensive ADT one. Analog look ahead circuit
__________________
Paris Minzer
Dynamic Mastering
Los Angeles DynamicmasteringLA@gmail.com
Earlier systems used an endless loop of tape (typically 1/2" 4 track at either 3 3/4 or 7 1/2ips) with a mark of some kind (reflective tape, hole punch) indicating the beginning of the next cycle. The bin loop master playback machine would run at high speed, anywhere from 24x to 120x (there may have been some 160x systems) and feed a bank of slave decks that would run at the same rate. Bins were the size or refrigerators and slaves were the size of a clothes washer. Later systems replaced the bin loop tape with a high speed digital system, though I have never worked on one.
The memories/nightmares... being stuck in a room listening for DAT source dropouts off the 1/4" quarter track. Duping was at 16x or 32x, although of course still an analogue pass for EQ and Dolby B encoding even when it came to digital duping, with 40Hz pulses for end of program.
Joe, when working on a project which will be released on cassettes, what kind of media do you use to print the final master ? I mean : if you're giving back a cassette, this will induce one more loss generation when duplicated, but on the other hand, a CD cannot be copied to tape at high speed ? From what I've heard, high speed cassette duplication brings a final product of lower audio quality than X1 or X2 , due to head/tape contact being more loose and head bandwidth limitations.
Can you please enlighten me about this ?
When doing stuff for my label I make a tape master and duplicate the actual tape, because it's cheap. Simple as.
For mass produced stuff done with a bin loop at Tapeline, I just provide em with a digital master file.
Thanks Joe. I assume that the digital master is a .wav/.aif at any relevant SR /bit depth. One file per side ?
Back in the 90s, I was running a very small scale amateur cassette label (releases were so few that I could carve each cassette shell by hand - plastic was better at the time and allowed this). Tapes were duplicated from cassette masters and the result was pretty decent on type II tapes.
Just thought I'd post this here, had a cool session mastering from Studer B67 to Ampex ATR100 on Tuesday, for dub artist The Breadwinners. We'll be cutting the vinyl from the tape recorded on the ATR.
My last all from tape project was a couple of years ago. Big time production from Nashville. Great music and a GREAT artist to work with. We still get asked to go to tape for "analog warmth" for a couple of clients. I got rid of my 1/2" machine a couple of years ago since it was not getting much use. Unfortunately more and more of my mastering is being done ITB as it gives me a lot of flexibility when the incoming material needs some work
Great topic and I am glad to see so many people still are working with tape.
Analog Rules
__________________
-TOM-
Thomas W. Bethel
Managing Director
Acoustik Musik, Ltd.
Room with a View Productions
Oberlin, OH 44074 www.acoustikmusik.com
Doing what you love is freedom.
Loving what you do is happiness.
Celebrating 18 years in the mastering business in 2013
Pulling tape, editing, baking, observing under colloidal ferric viewer...
Sometimes process on load in. Sometimes archival migration with only purist capture. Covering anything from need-to-know-what's-there kind of transfers to actual full blown CD premastering...
Doing a migration of a late litergical composer's personal archive right now involving 1/4-track stereo and half-track mono, as well as two-track stereo at 3.75, 7.5, and 15 ips.
Working with ATR-102 and Mike's crystal vari-speed box. Some of the recordings were done "...in the field."
Still rockin' tape here (Studer A80), although we don't see as much as I'd like. We have a nice all-analogue chain as well to sweeten things up on their way to digital immortality.
I agree with Dave, 1/4" 15ips is the sound of rock and roll!
we also do full analog mastering with a studer C37 , Telefunken M15 with preview deck and neumann cutting lathe Reverse-Primecut - Mastering studio, Barcelona, Spain
it is the best way to do good sounding records.
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