analog or not?

[lukeslim]

Hi folks I was in a studio the other day laying some tracks on a friends album.
The engineer was recording onto pro tools via a big analog tape machine I didn't get a chance to discuss his method or thinking due I was there to do my part and go.
But It has got me wondering what was going on basically he could drop me in any where like normal DAW but said he was using the tape machine the tape was running but the recording was on computer.

So how would this work is my question , is it using the tape machine as an effect? What is the difference in sound as against recording direct to the tape. And is it easy to set up ?
Thanks for any input.
Slim

 

[sweetbeats]

The tape is being used as an effect in that case.

The DAW was monitoring and recording playback off the play head in real-time (it would have had to have been a 3-head machine).

Consider yourself a worm-can-opener.

I see it as a silly admission that tape sounds better while still using the fast-food wonders of digital production.

I use both happily, but I personally think the process you experienced is sad. Production is production. Money is time is money.

More than likely the studio was using something like THIS.

So analog or not? Basically its no more "analog" than any other analog front-end, which includes anything and everything through which you record to digital, because there is always some sort of analog amplification/processing prior to digital conversion. Its just another analog processor. So in that sense it is "analog", but so is everything. If the question was "tape or digital" I'd call it "digital". Its going straight to disk through an analog front end that includes a tape loop, and those tracks will be wiped when the reel gets to the end. I consider a recording to be "tape" when you are recording tracks that will be reproduced for mastering, not "last-wax" tracks that are not intended to be reproduced later after real-time monitoring. IOW words the recorded tape tracks are the medium that will be used more overdubbing and mastering.

 

[jpmorris]

From what I've heard, in a proper setup, the signal on tape will change overnight as the reel is left. I believe the magnetic field is still settling somehow after the initial recording.
I'm not sure what the change in sound is, since I've never done an A/B comparison (digitizing it immediately and then the following day might work) and my multitracks are DBX-encoded which probably reduces the effect.

Either way, a proper analogue setup will have this effect, for good or ill. Digitizing the sound 1/15th of a second after it's been recorded will not.

Then you have the people who prefer the limitations and experience of working in the analogue domain...

 

[miroslav]

Yeah...as has been mentioned, it was probably the CLASP system, though it is possible to do something like that even without the CLASP system, you just record "through" the tape deck...it goes down with the REC head and is immediately output via the PB head and out to the DAW.

I've used that approach a couple of times to "analogize" some tracks that were already in the DAW and had too much digital "edge" for my taste. Otherwise, most of my tracking is done to tape, then when I'm finished tracking...I may dump to DAW for editing/comping before mixing back out through an analog console and outboard gear...or I may just mix right off the multi-track and never go to that DAW. I've gotten back to doing that after spending the last few years tracking to tape and then dumping to DAW to edit....etc...as I mentioned above.

It's a different mindset NOT going to the DAW for anything, and pre-production is even more important...but I have to say, I'm not negative about the DAW editing/comping step. I think DAWs were meant primarily for that...that is their strength.
I've not mixed a single one of my songs all ITB...to date...but I have done some basic DAW pre-mixing and some mixes for other. I just love mixing in analog just as much as I still love tracking to tape.

 

[Chilljam]

From what I've heard, in a proper setup, the signal on tape will change overnight as the reel is left. I believe the magnetic field is still settling somehow after the initial recording.

Without any proof, I don't believe this. It's more likely that the tape losing magnetic flux over a 24 hour period will be more significant than the magnetic particles not having enough time to conduct and 'settle' before they are reproduced and converted to digital. It would be easy to test though as you have mentioned.

Look, I've recorded a 15 track album using exactly this method about a year ago... record everything onto tape and monitoring off the playback head (with 1/15th sec delay) and convert to digital into Cubase.

Sonically speaking, the set-up was great... every track was essentially tracked to tape (and I could use different tape formulations and different bias for each instrument if I wanted to).

However, the whole work flow/process was an absolute PITA. You have twice as many systems that can go wrong (DAW and tape machine) and you have to work on both systems at the same time WHILE you were tracking which is extremely distracting when you are trying to play as well. It was a big hassle to get everything setup and working that I couldn't be bothered going through the outboard gear before hitting the tape which meant I ended up using software plugins - which to me just did not sound musical enough on acoustic instruments that were tracked to tape. As well as the use of software plugins, the digital summing also didn't make things blend together as good as analog IMO.

Personally, I need my recordings to be tracked to tape (running the digital master through tape then back doesn't give the same desirable effect IMO)... if I track to digital, I always am kicking myself for not doing it analog because it always turns out better. So that's why I did that particular album using that process (I thought I would need/use the limitless plugins and edits in the DAW).

I can't emphasize enough how frustrating and clunky that process was compared to say, recording all analog (tracking, mixing, summing, mastering) if you already have all the analog gear.

If you are considering this process, let me suggest that instead you track to analog tape then use a SYNCHRONIZER to dump all the tracks on the DAW once you have finished. This gives exactly the same sound and outcome as the CLASP method (and the method I used last year) except you only have one simple system - the tape machine and you don't have to worry about the digital system while you are tracking.

If you don't need your tracks to be aligned to grid on the DAW, you don't even need the synchronizer - just an AD converter (interface) with as many inputs as you have analog tracks.

 

[jpmorris]

Without any proof, I don't believe this. It's more likely that the tape losing magnetic flux over a 24 hour period will be more significant than the magnetic particles not having enough time to conduct and 'settle' before they are reproduced and converted to digital. It would be easy to test though as you have mentioned.

Like I say, I haven't tried it yet, but given that most things settle in the physical realm and that there is such a thing as print-through over time, I'd be a little surprised if it didn't. FWIW it's something I read from Scott Dorsey a few years back, and while it's possible I got the wrong end of the stick he usually knows what's he's talking about. But yes, I will have to experiment with it and see if it's actually true and/or detectable.

 

[jpmorris]

Ooh, found a few references to it. I'll see if I can find more later, have to head off now.


The Desert of the Real comes to Nashville — Crooked Timber
Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - Analog tape re use.

Note that as they say, it's not necessarily a good thing. But it is something that should be taken into account if you're trying to accurately reproduce the sound of a recording made in the 1970s, for example.

EDIT also: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb10/articles/analoguewarmth.htm
...the key phrase seems to be 'self-erasure'.

From the SoS article: "The other aspect of tape recordings referred to as self-erasure is the natural tendency of the tape to lose some recorded high-frequency energy over time as the tightly wrapped layers of magnetised tape interact with each other: high-frequency signals tend to have much less energy than low-frequency signals in most forms of music, and hence are the most easily lost through these effects."

 

[lonewhitefly]

Without any proof, I don't believe this. It's more likely that the tape losing magnetic flux over a 24 hour period will be more significant than the magnetic particles not having enough time to conduct and 'settle' before they are reproduced and converted to digital. It would be easy to test though as you have mentioned.

I don't know (technically) why, but tape does change after sitting for awhile. It's a very subtle thing though. If you think about how something like print-through happens (and it's real and audible), then you can see how this is feasible. My tech was over here yesterday and made it a point to instruct me to erase all test tones that we put on the tape before taking it off the machine.

 

[lonewhitefly]

Like I say, I haven't tried it yet, but given that most things settle in the physical realm and that there is such a thing as print-through over time, I'd be a little surprised if it didn't. FWIW it's something I read from Scott Dorsey a few years back, and while it's possible I got the wrong end of the stick he usually knows what's he's talking about. But yes, I will have to experiment with it and see if it's actually true and/or detectable.

oops I didn't see these before I posted! looks like you already addressed the issue in detail !