Yeah, so obviously the AM (meaning early afternoon in 'Moose time') has turned into evening while I was dealing with the same freakinβ mook situation that started the other day...
Sorry for making ya'll wait. If youβre THAT impatient, skip the bottom of the post where the answers are revealed!
Otherwise keep reading onward & I'll tell 'ya how we got schooled on this one.
First of all, I'd like to give a big "Thanks!!!" to everyone who said they dug the production & engineering on the tune. You can find the band here;
heropattern.com & the record is called "Cut You Out". It's a few years old, you can probably order it through 'yer local store or just order it off the bands site, if you do that tell 'em Moose sent you!
To give 'ya a bit of the history on "Cut You Out"...from the VERY first pre-production meetings the band expressed a desire to keep it all on tape & not hit a computer at any stage of the record. I guess it was half a desire to have the analog sonics & also based on a REALLY bad experience cutting stuff with a 'name' producer & Foolz Toolz.
Really, the desire was to make a rock record that sounded like it was straight outta' the 70's...because as Homer Simpson has so eloquently stated; "Everyone knows rock achieved perfection in 1976!" More so they figued that with two guitar players in the band they should avoid the wall of guitars & keep it to 2-3 tracks at any given point...no keyboards were allowed on the record because nobody plays 'em live...all that kinda stuff.
To that end it ALL stayed on 2β tape. Drums were punched & takes were cut together with a razor blade where needed which really, wasnβt too often. I even created a backwards intro on one tune by flipping the tape over & slicing awayβ¦who needs a DAW for that???
This 'Pros' Toolz
So yeah...all the music stayed on 2β tape the entire time and when we started the mixing process I decided to run the Studer & the Mytek together for a couple three reasons. We listened to the mixes coming off the console & then against the A80 on repro & the Mytek going round trip back through a DA for just about every song IIRC.
All levels were matched to within .1dB at 1kHz and 10kHz so that volume wouldnβt factor into it & influence our decisions.
In blind tests we ALL picked the tape master as being sonically superior for a multitude of reasons & the bottom line is that we agreed it was more musical and just more REAL.
We (I?) fully expected the digital prints to be used for nothing more then reference so we could listen outside the studio & as a backup in case **** happened to the reels on the way to masteringβ¦like FedEx decided to stick βem next a shipment of speakers on the plane even though I ALWAYS mark those boxes βMagnetic Mediaβ in about 5,000 places.
The day of the mastering I got a call from BB...Iβll NEVER forget itβ¦
First words outtaβ his mouthβ¦βWhere did you get the digital from?β
Immediatelyβ¦my head was filled with all kinds of bad thoughtsβ¦maybe FedEx DID stick the reels next to speakers or they were dropped & bent so we gotta work from the digital βsafetiesββ¦
I asked him what happened to the analog & he said the reels were fineβ¦but the digital sounded βbetterβ then the analog.
Cue a long discussion about where the analog tones were lining up & MANY calls between Euphonic, myself & the bandβ¦
We told him to use whatever sounded best, because after allβ¦isnβt that the WHOLE point?!
It seems like most of yaβll picked up on the same things that we noticed, the differences in the snare, bass & hats being the βobviousβ differences between formats.
Iβm a little surprised that nobody noticed any kind of difference in the noise floorβ¦
I see people on here all the time (probably NOT people with
actual hands-on experience!) that say running analog at 15ips is too noisy. Well, if that was REALLY the case then the slightly increased noise from running both machines at 15ips wouldβve been a dead giveaway right?
But instead I see comments like βitβs hard to tellβ and βa matter of tasteβ so I guess that theoryβs out the windowβ¦
If βya guessed that A is the analog youβd be wrong.
A = Digital
B = Analog
Amazing how subtle the difference is right? Granted, it's a 2-track mix...the buildup across 20-30-40 tracks is WAY more dramatic & noticeable.
Thanks βfer playing!
Now go record some good music that
matters!