New Product Idea

[Kiwiburger]

I've suggested this idea in forums before, and although i think somebody was going to build one, I haven't seen anything yet.

The big problem is that the tape loop would wear out. Degraded sound might be ok for a delay, but isn't really the idea for "tape sound". And the whole device may as well be a tape machine anyway (you could make you own loop with an available tape machine). So economics would be a major issue.

The Rupert Neve Portico tape emulator www.rupertneve.com is a very interesting idea. Mr Neve is a legend, and he believes that most of the tape sound didn't come from the tape, so much as the total signal chain, including the tape heads. So you can get most of the tape effect, just not the wow and flutter, which I don't like, and could fake with a vibrato plugin if I wanted.

[Led]

Or you could buy a 1/4 inch 2 track. You can get some real nice ones cheaper than emulators, and it's real. Don't forget in a small box like you're talking about you still need to be able to align it if you change tape brands or your one stops getting manufactured. There a re even some nice valve tape machines like Rolas going for a song nowdays. Oh, and you can use it for tape delay to if it has varispeed. I pity tha fool that don't try it.
Cheers

[DaveH]

Not a bad idea. But it gets back into head alignment. Maintenance
of a mechanical device Stuff like that.

It would be interesting to see how long the “loop” would hold up
before it needed replacing.

The Portico 5042 attempts this having a “tape” sound by using
a special “head”electromagnetic coil with pick to get a
“saturation” kind of sound. No mechanical parts. (Just a user of
one of these units).

[jonnyclueless]

Originally Posted by Kiwiburger

I've suggested this idea in forums before, and although i think somebody was going to build one, I haven't seen anything yet.

The big problem is that the tape loop would wear out. Degraded sound might be ok for a delay, but isn't really the idea for "tape sound". And the whole device may as well be a tape machine anyway (you could make you own loop with an available tape machine). So economics would be a major issue.

The Rupert Neve Portico tape emulator www.rupertneve.com is a very interesting idea. Mr Neve is a legend, and he believes that most of the tape sound didn't come from the tape, so much as the total signal chain, including the tape heads. So you can get most of the tape effect, just not the wow and flutter, which I don't like, and could fake with a vibrato plugin if I wanted.

The tape would wear out, but as I said, it could be changed every song, or even eveery pass if so desired. And since it would only need a small piece of tape to loop, it wouldn't require the size of a full machine and could be quite small.

[Kiwiburger]

It's still not significantly different from any reel to reel tape recorder. There are plenty on the market, so it's probably not wise for anyone to attempt to reinvent the wheel.

I like the Neve Portico concept - haven't bought one yet (I have the Portico 5012 preamp though).

I like Voxengo Analog Flux Tape Bus in the meantime - and I see Aleksey is working on some new theories, so his next tape emulator should be amazing.

[jonnyclueless]

But reel to reel decks are huge and bulky. I am talking about something pretty small. And due to the lack of a need for larg reels full of tape, it wouldn't have to be so big. It's great that someone is trying to make a good simulation, but I would still love it if I could get tape, but not have to have a big machine to do it. It would be reinventing if it was the same thing, but I am not talking about the same thing. Talking about compact. The advantage not being tape, but size.

No big reels and no big spools of tape means no need for big motors, no need for big reels, etc etc. Just something portable.

[Kiwiburger]

A while ago I wondered if this could be done with floppy disks ... imagine just slipping in a new floppy when the old one wears out.

It's magnetic media, right? There must be companies sitting on old floppy technology that could make something happen over USB ...

Actually, recording to wire happened before somebody thought about gluing rust particles onto plastic tape.

Maybe all that is required is a spinning metal disk?

But from a magnetic point of view, I can't see that this would sound much different from a stationary metal disk. Or, for that matter, if the record and playback heads are placed head to head ...

I think Mr Neve got the concept right.

[u b k]

the thing is, good quality reel to reel decks aren't big and bulky because they need to hold big reels of tape; they're big and bulky because they're full of the electronics required to make the machine work. open up any deck and you'll see slews of circuits and wires, but very little empty space.

i got a studer that's 19"x24"x8" and weighs ~60 pounds, and that's for two tracks of tapey goodness. if you want 8 or 16 tracks, things are only gonna get bigger.


gregoire
del ubik

[jonnyclueless]

Originally Posted by u b i k

the thing is, good quality reel to reel decks aren't big and bulky because they need to hold big reels of tape; they're big and bulky because they're full of the electronics required to make the machine work. open up any deck and you'll see slews of circuits and wires, but very little empty space.

i got a studer that's 19"x24"x8" and weighs ~60 pounds, and that's for two tracks of tapey goodness. if you want 8 or 16 tracks, things are only gonna get bigger.


gregoire
del ubik

An extremely good point. But I would imagine with todays technology it would be possible to make the circuitry smaller and more efficient. It would also require a lot less features, such as counters, memory locations, etc etc.

[DeepSpace]

Originally Posted by u b i k

the thing is, good quality reel to reel decks aren't big and bulky because they need to hold big reels of tape; they're big and bulky because they're full of the electronics required to make the machine work. open up any deck and you'll see slews of circuits and wires, but very little empty space.

Broadly speaking, that's true, but quite a lot of that circuitry is devoted to power supplies and control shunting for the transports and the servo and capstan motors - and of course the motors themselves. In most of the decks I've seen and worked on, the circuit boards required solely for signal path to and from the heads on a per channel basis is in fact relatively compact.

[DaveH]

How about this approach ……………

A hard drive has a magnetic recording material in either
an aluminum or grass disk.

It is read by a magnetic head.

Now instead of storing 1’s and 0’s and using
Manchester encoding or some other “digital” scheme.

Do a custom analog head driver, go to an analog
scheme and get that tape sound off a hard drive.

[joeq]

Originally Posted by DaveH

How about this approach ……………

A hard drive has a magnetic recording material in either
an aluminum or grass disk.

It is read by a magnetic head.

Now instead of storing 1’s and 0’s and using
Manchester encoding or some other “digital” scheme.

Do a custom analog head driver, go to an analog
scheme and get that tape sound off a hard drive.

there's simply not enough "tape" on a hard drive. The quality of an analog recorder is largely a factor of track width and tape speed.

a round hard drive that is 5" in diameter will give you slightly under 20 square inches of surface area. A half inch tape running at 30 ips will use up 20 square inches of tape in 1.3 seconds.

to fit any reasonable amount of time on on the disk, you will have to either make your track width very very tiny, your "tape" speed very very slow, or you will have to constantly re-record over and over the same spot. All of which will result in a very very degraded sound.

a digital recorder can go over and over the same spot because the quality only has to be good enough to distinguish a '1' from a '0'- there is no nuance involved.


The big fat wheel of tape is precisely the point of a quality analog recorder, I don't think there is any way around it.

[synthoid]

If you put down separate (and WIDE) read and write heads you could do it using a disk drive. You would write the data and read it back off 1/2 rotation later. It would have a latency but hey so did tape.

-synthoid

[T_R_S]

How do you deal with different bias setting for different instruments. Drums need different bias setting than vocals or guitars etc.
Go a buy an old Studer or a MCI they cane be had for well under 4K now.
Then you can have a bunch of different bias/recording levels settings on each track.

[wwittman]

Originally Posted by T_R_S

...Drums need different bias setting than vocals or guitars etc...

they do?

[jonnyclueless]

Originally Posted by T_R_S

How do you deal with different bias setting for different instruments. Drums need different bias setting than vocals or guitars etc.
Go a buy an old Studer or a MCI they cane be had for well under 4K now.
Then you can have a bunch of different bias/recording levels settings on each track.

Cost is not the issue. It's really about portability and convenience. Plus (at least for me) I am only talking about 2 tracks for running an entire mix through before hitting the DAW. I find myself often printing through a ATR-102 in repro before going into the DAW (as well as direct). Because there often isnt a budget for tape, and often no /2" machines at studios, it would be nice to have something somwhat portable to tote around that could be comparable. To lug a 1/2" or 1" deck around would just not be worth it, especially since 1/2 the time I end up using the digital signal over the tape.

[thenoodle]

............."How do you deal with different bias setting for different instruments...."
...."Drums need different bias setting than vocals or guitars etc...".
....."Go a buy an old Studer or a MCI ....then you can have a bunch of different bias/recording levels settings on each track....."
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W-H-O-A ! If all of us from back in the R-E-P days of the 70's had forseen that in the year 2006, there would really be comments like the one above, there would have been a stunned silence by the entire industry.

Gotta drag out a few of my mrl tapes and remember where the tones are for "Marshall stacks". I also don't quite remember where the guy on the test tapes says "250 nanowebers for cowbell"

[synthoid]

yeah it was such a bummer in the old days to be the guy who had to ride the bias control while taping a live band.

"dang, could you play that once more?"

-synthoid