Dumping down to 1/2" ... worth it?

[Matthew Murray]

I've been thinking about the medium upon which I dump down my tracks. Since I'm summing and bus compressing OTB anyways, it wouldn't be much more of a stretch to send it on out to tape to send to be mastered, rather than come back into the box.

The question is, if everything is tracked digitally, do you still get a decent "Tapey" benefit by doing this? Or would it be better to just go back to the DAW as I already am?

[nathanvacha]

well, try it and see. that is really the only way you'll decide if it's worth it to you.

I think it sounds better, but maybe it's on a case by case basis.

if all your automation is itb, maybe dump twice... once to tape and once back to the converters...

...let your client pick.

[dbbubba]

I am sitting here listening to 26 year old tapes that were mixed to 1/4" 15 i.p.s. w/o any N.R. and you just can't get cycmbals to sound that way on digital.

Sure sounds cool!

I kinda' like 15 i.p.s. more than 30 sometimes.
You can't beat 1/2" for rock stuff though.

DB

[heyman]

Absolutley. Make sure that machine is calibrated. Also, your converters D/A will have a big effect on the final result as well.

[Bob Olhsson]

Running cymbals with digititus through tape isn't going to make them sound like they were recorded to tape!

[kats]

I think it's a bust. It seems to me at this point your using a tape machine as an effects box, rather than any perceived advantage in fidelity by staying in the analog realm. Sooooo, might as well save the headache and use an effects box.

[Mike Caffrey]

So, if you wnat the sound of a Les Paul through a Marshall, you'd recommend playhing through a Fender with an effects box?

Every piece of eletronic gear or signal processor has a sonic signature. Tape emulators don't sound like tape, they sound like tape emulators. That means somtimes they will be the best choice for the job, but they are not going to give you the sound of tape.


You will definitely hear the quality that tape imparts if you print your mixes to half inch, but there's no guarantee that it's the right choice for the music. Run the tape in input mod an print digital versions too. There are many times where I've used the digital intro and outro in mastering the analog for the body of the song. It's a great way to hide the tape hiss in quiet tracks.

Printing to tape is going to give you hiss, and extra passes through your converters and you might not feel that what your sacrificing is worth it, even when you hear the desirable qualities that tape imparts.

It's always going to be a case by case decision.

[kats]

Mike, not to be argumentative, but it really depends on what you consider the desirable qualities of tape to be. Most people who still use tape do so because they feel they're getting a higher fidelity recording by remaining in the analog realm throughout the whole process. I doubt they go through all the trouble because they can use tape artifacts like compression as a creative tool.

[Sounds Great]

Originally Posted by dbbubba

I am sitting here listening to 26 year old tapes that were mixed to 1/4" 15 i.p.s. w/o any N.R. and you just can't get cycmbals to sound that way on digital.

Sure sounds cool!

I kinda' like 15 i.p.s. more than 30 sometimes.
You can't beat 1/2" for rock stuff though.

DB

1/2" at 15 ips is the way to go.

Rock and roll!

[pigpen]

what the last guy said

[Mike Caffrey]

Originally Posted by kats

Mike, not to be argumentative, but it really depends on what you consider the desirable qualities of tape to be. Most people who still use tape do so because they feel they're getting a higher fidelity recording by remaining in the analog realm throughout the whole process. I doubt they go through all the trouble because they can use tape artifacts like compression as a creative tool.

I do and I know of other people who do as well. It's been a great help in fixing problem tracks that people have brought me.

It's also possible to get tape tone without hitting the tape so hard that it compresses.

[kats]

Sure Mike, that's cool and I'm not at all saying that dumping digital to stereo master tape can't be subjectively beneficial. But let's call a spade a spade here.

Doing this is using a tape machine as an effects box, and that's all I'm saying.

Lets look at another common practice in many top studios. Recording to 2" 16+ track and then dumping into PT. Most consider this subjectively better sounding than direct to digital. But what are they hearing? It can't be the fidelity of the recording, this flies in the face of common logic. If digital cannot record true to the source, how the hell can it record a tape of the source any better? That means what we are perceiving as "better" using this practice is the tone that tape is adding (or taking away) from the original source. Nothing wrong with that either. But that is an effect, not a "truer" representation of the original source.


Now let's look at this from another angle:

last month i transfered
a beautiful recording done by albini at electrical into pro-tools at 192......going back and forth, the band could not believe how different the sound was, immediately......
the depth just goes away.......even at 192

Now this is a different ball of wax all together. This quote from themaidsroom suggests that the conversion was not able to capture a true representation of a tape of the original source. So what we have here is a higher fidelity recording of the original source, coupled with the inherent tone of tape getting damaged through digital conversion. What your left with is the effect of tape (or at least part of it).

Now OTOH, there's another argument that could make sense. Perhaps the artifacts of using tape as a recording medium make the source appear to be deeper/wider - more separation than the original source actually is. So eventhough it gets converted to digital, losing some of that depth of field, the perception of greater space over recording directly to digital remains due to using an exagerated source (tape) to convert to digital.


Anyhow, just thinking outloud during a coffee break.

[dbbubba]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Running cymbals with digititus through tape isn't going to make them sound like they were recorded to tape!

Dumping to analog won't change the entire sound to the point that it would sound like it was cut on 2" or any analog format, but it might improve it. Couldn't hurt to try!
I was just making a comment about the "good" points of analog.
I have always liked how cymbals, vocals and other stuff with high freq. information sounded on analog MUCH better than it does on digital.

Truthfully, up until rather recently our entire perception of popular music was based upon hearing material recorded on analog tape. Yeah, yeah, there is older stuff that was cut to disc and I even have a copy of Licoln Mayogora's direct to disc sessions somewhere in my LP collection, so it's not an absolute. It is pretty close to why film looks better than video in many cases. Video is getting closer, VERY FEW films are released in video for theatre projection. Now if popular culture quits wanting to experience film and prefers to watch films at home the "beauty" of film could be a forgotten thing. The same thing applies to audio.

Still, there seems to be a consensus going on that digital is somehow more "true" and closer to "real life" than analog in recording mediums. This is simply not true because NEITHER is a mirror image of reality and when you think about it, VERY FEW recordings are intended to be a mirror of reality.

It is painting a picture. By recording and producing music we are basically putting a picture frame around a musical idea. We are trying to either please ourselves or a listener. Pleasing one's self is a HUGE part of what we do because ultimately the artist and people creating the "piece" need to be pleased by it. Second it should please the other listeners. The other listeners who were not part of the creation process have very few "clues" to go by when they listen to the audio event we have framed.

Case in point:
I have always thought that Peter Gabriel's "Shock the Monkey" was supperbly recorded piece of music and I thought that the instruments were so very cutting edge. Now that I have been able to download the original tracks (yeah.. I realize that they are just .mp3 files) and I can hear the parts individually I come away with a whole different opinion. The "magic" I percieved was largely due to the MUSICIANS (imagine that!) because when that record came out I was already using a Linn drum, Prophet, a Musicman bass through a harmonizer, guitars, so the sounds were not that diffrent than what I was using. We didn't have a Fairlight or any sampler, but those sounds are not what make the track work.

I should start a whole tread on this phenomena, I guess.

Hell yeah.... running the mixes through analog tape COULD improve things!

Wasn't there a Roling Stones record that was from a cassette?
Was it "Get Your Yah Yahs Out"?
It was mixed partly at Summit Audio in Dallas (at least they listened to the tapes there while recording in the early '70s.)

Danny Brown

[Mike Caffrey]

Originally Posted by kats

Sure Mike, that's cool and I'm not at all saying that dumping digital to stereo master tape can't be subjectively beneficial. But let's call a spade a spade here.

Doing this is using a tape machine as an effects box, and that's all I'm saying.

Yes, using analog tape as signal processor - sounds kind of familiar to me.

Your previous post said that you don't think people go through all the trouble for jsut the tape tone, but you example of tracking to tape and dumping to digital is just that.

I completely agree about the disctintion between the openness of analog and the flatness of digital and how you should (or do) lose it once you make the transfer. Theoretically that should happen when you get to mastering and output a CD for duplication, even if you've stayed analog all the way.

[Sounds Great]

Originally Posted by Mike Caffrey

I completely agree about the disctintion between the openness of analog and the flatness of digital and how you should (or do) lose it once you make the transfer. Theoretically that should happen when you get to mastering and output a CD for duplication, even if you've stayed analog all the way.

The effect is cumulative though. That is why some older recordings sound half way decent on CD (when done right).

[Meriphew]

I record to HD and mix to 1/2". Love the results.

[kats]

Originally Posted by Mike Caffrey

Theoretically that should happen when you get to mastering and output a CD for duplication, even if you've stayed analog all the way.

Ain't that the rub

But at least there will be something to be gained by re-mastering once the CD format dies (hopefully soon).

[dbbubba]

Personally I think that the result of the digital revolution is that more people can afford to set up a half-a$$ decent rig and put it in a confined space because it is smaller than analog stuff.

The combination of the small spaces (face it, most recording spaces ARE smaller these days) and the fact that digital recording is so in-your-face causes recordings to be rather confined sounding. Everything is "in-your-face" and competeing to be front and center. Close mic'ing and digital can be a scarey thing at times! Analog has sort of a guaze effect that puts a distance removed to things.

It helps I think!

This is why an anlog recording of a group playing in a great sounding room sounds so good. The space!

Danny Brown

[planet red]

Ive tried going thru a 1/2" machine in mastering a bunch of times and very rarely like what it adds..

I've gotten to mix to 1/2" a couple times and liked it a little better... but wont make it sound like it was recorded to tape.

Most of the time to me it just clouds up the image a little... which is cool if its a little too seperated and boring sounding.. but not cool when you're trying to clean things up in the mix..

[RoundBadge]

I usually mix to Digital and 1/2 inch tape..then decide later..
Sometimes the tape wins ..sometimes not..
Nice to have the option though..[my best friend just gave me his M79]
But trackking all analog is a no brainer..especially rythym stuff.
..seems nobody wants to spend the xtra money lately though.
..cheapo's !

[Mike Caffrey]

Originally Posted by kats

Ain't that the rub

But at least there will be something to be gained by re-mastering once the CD format dies (hopefully soon).

I think it's dead as a format and is primarily a delivery medium at the moment.

I've been considering releasing tracks as data on a CD or DVD (rather than playable) with the expectation that they'll drag everything into iTunes.

[RoundBadge]

Originally Posted by Mike Caffrey

I've been considering releasing tracks as data on a CD or DVD (rather than playable) with the expectation that they'll drag everything into iTunes.

Sounds like a really good idea Mikethumbsup

[bonneybear]

Yes..... Did it last night . awsome . actually it was to a 1/4" 3m m79. it adds a dimension that was not previously there....