unlimited tape tracks! using repro monitor mode?

[am radio]

Unlimited tape tracks? monitor with repro head to mixer to computer? what about recording digitally with good converters then throwing onto tape? I imagine that is not as good as going signal straight on tape, then to computer. Can you use same tape over and over? you would lose quality? anyone doing this? I would love to simplify this to get the best of both worlds. This guy on youtube is kind of doing this, but he uses the same tape over and over, I can't understand why he says he can use same tape over and over with out losing quality oxide whatever, when using the repro head, isn't he still recording onto the tape too?

How to integrate analog tape with your DAW Part 1 - YouTube

[tha]-[acksaw]

[QUOTE=am radio;7242679]Unlimited tape tracks? monitor with repro head to mixer to computer? what about recording digitally with good converters then throwing onto tape? I imagine that is not as good as going signal straight on tape, then to computer. Can you use same tape over and over? you would lose quality?

There are folks who record digital and then dump to tape post editing, for mixing.

The only sonic issue that I've heard discussed is the debate of harmonics. Digital is time based sampeling, where tape is not samepling, it's capturing a constant signal over time. I've head people say that they feel you lose something when recording to digital first. Something to do with the harmonics and distortion not being exactly the same when the signal is digitally sampeled compared to the continueous write to tape. Most digital signals are gonna dump information above our hearing, and some folks say this loss of information does has an effect on the audio we can hear. Whether or not there is truth to this based on who you talk to. Same with the noticable difference.

Originally Posted by am radio

I can't understand why he says he can use same tape over and over with out losing quality oxide whatever, when using the repro head, isn't he still recording onto the tape too?

I think most people would agree that playing back tape over and over will cause the tape to degrade. How much depends on who you talk to.

But when you pull from the repo head while printing to tape, you are pretty much printing the audio to tape just slightly before you pull it off the repo head. The time interval between the two is nothing. The write head is before the repo head on a tape machine, if I'm remembering correctly. Maybe what guy is saying is, if you print to tape, and pull from the reop head at the same timer (same pass of the tape), the tape isn't losing any quality during the same playback pass. So the tape isn't losing quality based between the write head and the repo head if it's the same pass. You could agrue that if you write to tape, then rewind and playback, then send it out to the repo head, you might lose a little quality compared to when you wrote it during the first tape pass. I feel pretty safe saying, if there was any quality loss, it would be minimal if at all. But the more tape gets run through the machine, the higher the risk of loss. And the longer the tape sits after the initial recording, the higher the risk of loss is. How great that loss just depends on who you talk to, how well it's sorted and take care, etc.

Hope that makes sense.

[Kiwi]

The tape will surely wear out. No different from tape delay machines - except a full reel of tape will last longer than a short loop.

It's basically recording to tape first - the fact that it's a very fast efficient way to do this doesn't change much.

If you are 100% certain you want tape sound, this would be the way to do it. Because to do it after the fact means two extra stages of digital conversion, which seems a shame.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by Kiwi

The tape will surely wear out. No different from tape delay machines - except a full reel of tape will last longer than a short loop.

It's basically recording to tape first - the fact that it's a very fast efficient way to do this doesn't change much.

If you are 100% certain you want tape sound, this would be the way to do it. Because to do it after the fact means two extra stages of digital conversion, which seems a shame.

Agreed, the tape will wear out, without question.

However, it won't be wearing out with your priceless masters on it -- and, crucially -- you will have an ongoing 'QC test' as you monitor what goes into your DAW. Keep a fresh blank handy for comparison (because the wear will -- if the tape machine is in good physical alignment and properly tensioned, etc -- be gradual and you may not notice the degradation on a day-to-day basis).

Don't give into the temptation to just make a tape loop and run that -- unless you are very disciplined about changing the loop frequently. (A loop would have the advantage of never leaving you in a lurch at the end of a reel in the middle of a take. But the disadvantage of highly accelerated wear. Honestly, I would not go that route. I used to use short tape loops in my echoplex (removing the tape cartridge -- which wore out fast enough, actually) for experimental sounds (and it was a lot of fun, actually) but, dang, that short loop would wear out noticeably in a very short time. Hours would be a stretch.

[am radio]

thanks for the replies, i don't fully understand why there would be 2 "extra" stages of digi conversion if you throw it out after...and also if you did it this guys way yoou would still be limited to the number of tracks on the tape machine... or can you just re record tape tracks and have them accumulating on the computer, so... with out monitoring the one's you record over on tape?

[Kiwi]

If you track your analog signal via tape deck, into the DAW that's only one stage of conversion. You could stay fully ITB from that point on, and never need another converter until the consumers music player.

But if you track digitally, that's one stage of conversion. Then if you decide you want tape sound, it's got to pass through a D/A converter, through the tape deck and then back into the DAW via an A/D converter. So that's 3 stages of conversion, compared to 1.

Not a great problem if you have excellent converters. But in the interests of analog purism, it seems a bit silly to use 3 stages of digital conversion to get true analog tape sound, if you can do it with 1.

But if it sounds good, thats all that matters.

[Kiwi]

If you have unlimited tracks in your DAW, you can multitrack as many tracks as you want - regardless of how many tracks your tape machine has.

For quality - you would be better of using a two channel tape machine. The multitrack versions have less tape available per channel and it's a bit of a compromise. But if you want to record a full drum kit or band at once, you'll need as many tape tracks as you can afford.

Actually - an advantage of this, if you want say 32 tracks of analog tape goodness at once for a band, you could use any four 8-track machines in this way, and they wouldn't need to be synced up in any way. The time delay wouldn't be equal for each machine, so you would still have to manually align them up - easily done.

[am radio]

Originally Posted by Kiwi

If you have unlimited tracks in your DAW, you can multitrack as many tracks as you want - regardless of how many tracks your tape machine has.

For quality - you would be better of using a two channel tape machine. The multitrack versions have less tape available per channel and it's a bit of a compromise. But if you want to record a full drum kit or band at once, you'll need as many tape tracks as you can afford.

Actually - an advantage of this, if you want say 32 tracks of analog tape goodness at once for a band, you could use any four 8-track machines in this way, and they wouldn't need to be synced up in any way. The time delay wouldn't be equal for each machine, so you would still have to manually align them up - easily done.

VERY interesting... i see i see, so... you are monitoring off the mixer right? so it doesn't matter what track you record on the tape? or re record over? just keep using just 1 track on the tape, until it stops? I think I grasp this a little more now.. cheers

[am radio]

thanks kiwi

[am radio]

so 2 track tape, for stereo > tape > mixer > computer...
won't be needing more than 2 tracks at a time over here...
what size tape would be best quality?

[drbob1]

I think tape wears in a couple of ways. It wears mechanically, becomes stretched and doesn't move thru the pinch roller as smoothly. It also develops some magnetic changes IIRC. You can minimize that by bulk-erasing it after every pass but the tape is not going to saturate? as well after repeated uses. I'm not sure how many passes it takes for things to start going downhill but I've heard it's noticeable in 5 or 10?

As to quality, the faster the tape goes thru the machine the better job it can do at high frequencies (although I've seen people that argue that 15 ips is better for bass than 30 ips). Also, more width to the tape keeps the tracks farther apart with less interaction between them. So, ideally, a 1" or 2" mastering deck at 30 ips. I think that'd likely be overkill for most of us and the tape is pretty expensive. Maybe the sweet spot would be a 1/2" deck with 2-4 tracks?