Umm..wow analog is hard...

[jake-owa]

I've been knocked down a few notches. I had some idea of myself being a decent musician but that was before analog. I now find myself hitting rtz over and over.

I guess this is good, by the time I finish my first song I'll be way better at drums.

I am so tempted to just patch some good loops together and run em back out to 4 tracks of the 16 track but I've sworn to take analog to heart.
It's not easy.

[Son of Mixerman]

Pack it all up and send it to my house I actually find mixing on analog easier. But....loading the reels can be a drag when your in a hurry. Oh..but the sound....


SoMm

[jake-owa]

Well the mixing is easy, I was just talking about the tracking style. I don't want to paste things together anymore but I'm still used to having the option.

Speaking of sound, where's this tape hiss that I've heard so much about? I find my 1" recordings are actually quieter and clearer than anything I've done on HD.

...and god it sounds so rock and roll!

[muttley]

Analogue is a little bit more manual, and a little more time consuming, but well worth the time/patience/effert one has to invest in it.
Slow down a bit, you will be well rewarded in your music.


da MUTT

[regebro]

More time consuming? You hit record and go! Can't be LESS time consuming than that. It's all that bloody fiddling with software settings that is time consuming...

[muttley]

Rege don't forget maintenance on the machines ( open reel) , alignments, calibrations, cleanings, rewinds, fastforwards, T/C dropouts,etc.
actual comands for operations are quick.



da MUTT

[jake-owa]

Yes reg, far more time consuming for someone who used to just play it three times in a loop and paste the best parts together. I now have to record and rerecord over and over.....I'm not that good at my own music yet.

I just give up and end up practicing more eventually...probably better anyway.

[regebro]

Originally posted by muttley
Rege don't forget maintenance on the machines ( open reel) , alignments, calibrations

These admittedly take time, if you don't know how to do it, and have the bad luck of getting weirdly calibrated machines.

Which I did.

But it's more or less a one time operation. All recording software and sequencers I have used have been a constant struggle...

[muttley]

"But it's more or less a one time operation"

Not always, if your studio is busy, with clients bringing in their own tapes, done on other machines,you then have to recalibrate/align your machine to the clients tape to get the best possible playback.
If you rent the tape, and the whole project is done on your machine/tape then it's not a big deal as far as time goes, for the maintnance part.


da MUTT

[regebro]

This is HOMErecording.com.

[sm2k]

It's turning into HOMOrecording.com

[regebro]

For you, maybe.

[jake-owa]

Originally posted by sm2k
It's turning into HOMOrecording.com

A queer will see the gayness in everything I guess.

[jake-owa]

Originally posted by regebro
These admittedly take time, if you don't know how to do it, and have the bad luck of getting weirdly calibrated machines.

Which I did.

But it's more or less a one time operation. All recording software and sequencers I have used have been a constant struggle...

One time? It's just the opposite I think. Software for me has been a set and forget thing. Tape however I've heard it recommended that you calibrate daily for pro use or weekly for regular home use.

I've never heard software that sounds like 1 inch tape though.

[regebro]

Originally posted by jake-owa
Tape however I've heard it recommended that you calibrate daily for pro use or weekly for regular home use. [/B]

Bullshit.

[muttley]

Rege; A lot of people here do rent their studios to clients. This is one way to help finance the ever growing beast. I'm kind of a gear slut.

Also if I'm doing 2or3 projects a week,2 or 3 reels of tape a week, one may have to do a quick recalibration/cleaning/demag/etc during the week. It's all based on how much tape is rolling a week, and how many reels you go through.



da MUTT

[regebro]

Cleaning every day, obviously. How often to demag is a matter of religion, but every week seems reasonable. Calibration needs only to be done when you switch tape type, or if you have an engineer who wants the tape calibrated differently (maybe to pushit harder or so).

This does indeed mean that in a professional studio, you will recalibrate the machines often. Maybe even every time a new engineer takes over. But then again, each project in a pro studio will usually require LOTS of changes to setups.

But other than this, you do NOT need to calibrate once a week. A tape decks calibration does not drift over time or anything like that. A classic problem with analog electronics are temperature sensitivity, but to my knowledge no tape deck exhibits that no a noticeable degree, and if it would, you would have to recalibrate once every fifteen minutes.

[muttley]

The first 2 paragraphs is where I'm coming from.


da MUTT

[Son of Mixerman]

Originally posted by regebro

But other than this, you do NOT need to calibrate once a week. A tape decks calibration does not drift over time or anything like that. A classic problem with analog electronics are temperature sensitivity, but to my knowledge no tape deck exhibits that no a noticeable degree, and if it would, you would have to recalibrate once every fifteen minutes.

Uh..... not entirely correct. Depending on what machine calibrations is done everytime a reel is changed because certain machines are notorius for drifting out of alignment.
Demagging is good, cleaning is good... it all depends on the tape and the machine. Pro studios have to be more strict because they can't afford not to be. But Jake sould probably have a tech come in and calibrate the machine and desk to work and then depending on what your hear on play back you could go a long time without anything but cleaning the heads and degaussing. Its still more work than a hardisk, but well worth it... It has a calming effect on me...

SoMm

[muttley]

Thank-you SoMn


da MUTT

[regebro]

Originally posted by Son of Mixerman
certain machines are notorius for drifting out of alignment.

Really, that bad? Which machines are known to do this?

That then must be some kind of temperature shift, unless there is some other reason for drifting I don't know about, and it can then be held in check by calibrating while the machine is hot. Ambient temperature will change it too of course, but probably less.

All in all, if a machine really would NEED alignment everytime you change wheels, it would be unusable. I guess they just check the alignment each time to make sure it doesn't need realignment...

[jake-owa]

Originally posted by regebro
Bullshit.

I'm just saying that's what I've heard recomended...I have yet to even attempt to calibrate my machine at all.

[jake-owa]

Originally posted by Son of Mixerman
But Jake sould probably have a tech come in and calibrate the machine and desk to work and then depending on what your hear on play back ....

SoMm

I have noticed a discrepancy between the tape machine and desk. The meters on the console will be pegging when the tape machine is well under the red. I guess I would like to try to get the method of this calibration between units down so I could do it myself but you may be right, I should probably have a tech help me the first time through.

[sweetnubs]

I calibrate quite often. Align quite often. demag quite often. I clean quite often: before and during a session. I'm a "quite often" kind of guy . . .but then again my reels are probably turning on an average of ten hours a day. jakey you need to calibrate your meters, an oscillator is a requirement. Also you should be laying tone down to tape so mastering houses can calibrate their equipment. Lots of tones are good. Oh shit your going to need an oscilloscope, an MRL tape, etc. oh my. You should definately get your machine aligned. Now! Then you need learn how to align it or you are going to be paying a tech a lot of money. Just pay a dude a couple of hundred to show you how. yep, analog is way less forgiving because it is much more difficult to edit. Now imagine what we old geezers had to go through. razors blades and editing blocks! Actually I still edit analog tape a lot because I prefer the sound of analog edits to digital. jakey congratulations and welcome to the wonderful and vastly superior world of analog.

[jake-owa]

Well nubby, my board luckily has an oscillator onboard with frequencies at 40 100 1k and 10k. But I doubt the mastering house will be a big concern anytime soon.

Couple hundred huh...maybe I'll find an out of work tech on the street who will do it for beer.