bustatunez Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 IE, not as a VST effect, but literally recording your mix onto tape, then immediately recording the result back into your DAW? A producer friend of mine mentioned he swears by that technique. I'd imagine you'd need to make sure you're going in digitally (RCA?) to a fairly high-end machine, use the best quality cassettes you can find (what would that be?), and hopefully record it back in digitally. Anyone tried it? Might be worth a shot for warmifying acoustic tracks. (Or perhaps a complete waste of time, but it's fun to try new things ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analoq Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 Recording something onto tape elicits two things: 1) Soft Compression The oxide layer on tape is organic, it doesn't response to dynamic changes quite like digital. You end up with what is roughly a 1.5:1 compression on the recorded material. This is the "saturation" 2) Bass emphasis When the heads on the tape machine aren't perfectly aligned (they often aren't) you get an emphasis in the lower frequencies, a boost around 200hz IIRC. This is the "warmth" Tape has other idiosyncrasies but they are not desirable, e.g. bleed-through. So I'd say the 2 things I mentioned are what your producer friend is swearing by, whether he realizes it or not. And if you're talking about using tape for recording, you're talking about a reel-to-reel tape machine, not something that uses cassettes -- thus making the barrier to entry for this sort of experimentation prohibitively expensive. Well, a cheap Tascam 8-track or similar ilk could work, it just won't yield very good results for a full mix. Running selective tracks thru inexpensive tape would be fun to try, though. cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishy Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 Like analoq said, that would be a very expensive effect, and you may aswell just doctor the effects above. Also I think that if you want that effect, you should be recording straight to tape anyway, its way more fun (imo). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutritious Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 Speaking of this, I may have the opportunity to pick up an old school reel to reel tape machine for free from a relative's old home studio (he's since gone digital - actually designed and built digital multi-track recorders). I'm trying to decide if it's worth it, though, based on the possible musical applications. Thing is, there is some work invovled in upkeep. Namely "baking" the tapes in a special type of oven a couple times a year or so to keep them in working order. I've heard great things about tape saturation, but I guess I'm trying to figure out if it's worth the trouble to achieve the effect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishy Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 I thought baking (apart from the initial production of the tape) was only used really as a temporary fix for binder degradation so that you can recover data? I don't think that its a necessary storage requirement. And whatever effects you get from it probably isn't worth it unless we're talking master tracks of commercial releases. (Not 100% sure if I've remembered this correctly, hopefully analoq can back me up on that) But to answer your question, if its free, go for it. Tape is getting pretty expensive. A top end 30 minute 24-track reel can be upwards of £300. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analoq Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 Fishy's right about the baking. If I had an opportunity to experiment with tape recording for cheap, I'd go for it. I've certainly not intended any disregard towards our faithful old medium; I'd love to do a mix on tape sometime, I just haven't wanted to spend the money. cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 Yeah, I know some artists who also swear by that technique of recording to tape and then back to Pro Tools (or whatever.) Interestingly, when I tried recording some drum sounds to tape - specifically, kick drum - it sounds like the bass actually got kinda weaker instead of more powerful. The exact OPPOSITE effect I wanted, not to mention more noise. This might have been a bias issue though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Pezman Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 This makes me recall the analog/digital debate, and the last time I participated in that I was several years younger and knew far far less than I do now. At first I thought the argument was purely scientific: You get a continuous signal, no breakup. But, of course, the bit resolution is set high enough that our ears will never know the difference. Then it was a "sound coloring" issue. Analog had a "warmer" feel. Having never grown up on analog I really can't comment, but I wish I knew what the hell they actually meant by that. Then someone stepped in and said that digital was most likely to get you the sound as it sounded. Given that, I knew the debate was over right then, because now you're free to color it however you like. Which is why I can't imagine tape would be worth all this. Just use one of many plugins to emulate the analog, if you so choose. At least, that's how I understand it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bustatunez Posted February 6, 2009 Author Share Posted February 6, 2009 Well yknow what this all makes me wonder though: Why can't we have a device that does this for real, but as a simple digital interface? Basically I'm thinking of a USB device that sends an audio file digitally to the device, it has some kind of an audio interface inside that it uses to play and record to tape, then with some latency (physical space between heads) play and record BACK to digital audio. There's a website http://tank-fx.com/ that actually does a very similar thing, but with reverb. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixto Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 Well, there's always this. http://rupertneve.com/products/portico-5042/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
audio fidelity Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 a tape - what a great format - a medium that degrades everytime you play it - but analog surely has a sound and feeling all of it's own tape is expensive but you don't need a 24track reel for a master honestly, i wouldn't mind doing it all for anything that is not heavily electronic - it's coming back in a big way - but i would want to do some reading before i jumped into it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radiowar Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 i've always wanted to do this because i'm convinced that's how Boards of Canada get their synth sounds, but all i have is this little casette recorder so the best i can do is layer it with digital Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jago Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 Man, this thread brings back memories when I took electronic music in college. The final project was a composition that MUST use the reel-to-reel tape machine, which I think was a 4-track recorder. I also had to use the mini-Moog that the school owned, which was an absolute blast to use, and I learned a lot at how sounds were created. Ah, patch cables....good times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suzumebachi Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 back in high school an eccentric musician friend of mine layered songs together using 6 or 7 of these old hunks of crap: ...not that the songs were any good or even listenable mind you, but those junky old tape recorders can probably be bought for a dime a dozen. yes i realize you're all talking about reel to reel, but i thought i'd offer a more cost effective and potentially hilariously embarrassing solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoozer Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 back in high school an eccentric musician friend of mine layered songs together using 6 or 7 of these old hunks of crap: Your friend simply took a page out of Brian Eno's book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m68030 Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 I found this in the trash one day: It worked great.. I always wanted to use it for something in a remix, but never did Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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