I would like to put my tracks onto a 16/24 track tape deck - (Can pay a little)

S

Svision

New member
Hi,

I have just finished a track, I compose Orchestral/ambient style music and I am looking to bounce my stems over to a 24 track. Does anyone here offer such a service? I have aligned everything in the DAW from the beginning so there would be no editing, just drag and drop.

My budget is $60 (I can pay via Paypal before if you have good feedback) and I would just require that you have good convertors and a nice sounding/well maintained machine.

I hope to hear from you,
Cheers
 
Svision said:
Hi,

I have just finished a track, I compose Orchestral/ambient style music and I am looking to bounce my stems over to a 24 track. Does anyone here offer such a service? I have aligned everything in the DAW from the beginning so there would be no editing, just drag and drop.

My budget is $60 (I can pay via Paypal before if you have good feedback) and I would just require that you have good convertors and a nice sounding/well maintained machine.

I hope to hear from you,
Cheers
Click to expand...

Are you talking about transferring to tape for use in the analog domain...or just transfering to tape and then back again to digital?

There's all different kinds of tape "mojo", depending on the tape format (width of tracks), the machine, the type and formulation of tape used, how the machine is set up to react to said tape, and also how hard to hit the tape during the transfer/bounce.

So what is your goal/intent with this "bounce"...?...and what is your total track/stem count?
Also...why do it with stems rather than individual tracks, which gives more control/flexibility for mixing...? The tape process will change those stems somewhat, so you will have to adjust anyway, and then with stems, it's harder to tweak the individual elements in the stems.
 
Thanks for your replies.
Yes it will go back to digital domain then to be mastered by a mastering engineer (hence stems and not individual tracks) everything is mixed in stems and aligned from the beginning so no headaches. I really love the glue the tape gives in this way.

Thanks Chip, would prefer 24 track (12 stereo stems) but will let you know.
 
If you are working with stereo stems does it matter how many tracks the machine has? You could simply use a 2 track machine and render the stems in sequence.
 
Have you ever watched any of the spitfire audio videos? I'm rapidly gaining huge respect for these guys with their mix of in the computer, external nice analgue and mega budget recording projects in well respected studios and I wonder if they would do what you are doing? I suspect not. They have travelled through a age lovely kit to get to digital, but once digits are in the box, despite having analogue well maintained kit, they don't seem to do a out and back journey, which can only degrade quality when done this way. I get the analogue 'thing' but you've recorded in digital, so the direct to tape warmth often claimed has gone. You will end up digitising twice which must be bad.
 
rob aylestone said:
Have you ever watched any of the spitfire audio videos? I'm rapidly gaining huge respect for these guys with their mix of in the computer, external nice analgue and mega budget recording projects in well respected studios and I wonder if they would do what you are doing? I suspect not. They have travelled through a age lovely kit to get to digital, but once digits are in the box, despite having analogue well maintained kit, they don't seem to do a out and back journey, which can only degrade quality when done this way. I get the analogue 'thing' but you've recorded in digital, so the direct to tape warmth often claimed has gone. You will end up digitising twice which must be bad.
Click to expand...

Not sure what the "spitfire audio videos" are about...but it's not uncommon to take your digital tracks and bring them out to an analog console, add some more analog processing, etc...and then mixdown, and back to digital with the stereo master.'
It doesn't degrade anything....it's just another way of getting the mix done. I've been working that way for a long time now and have no plans to stop and stay all ITB.

Of course, I agree that it's best to start your tracking with analog tape, if you want that flavor...rather than just trying to add some tape spice to digital tracks...which IMO, can be accomplished with one of the many tape sims.
 
jamesperrett said:
If you are working with stereo stems does it matter how many tracks the machine has? You could simply use a 2 track machine and render the stems in sequence.
Click to expand...

I think there would be some need for synchronization doing them one stereo pair at a time...so the person doing the transfer would need a sync box along with the 2-track. With a 24-track deck, it's one pass, all tracks stay synchronized.
That said...you could probably get away with a 2-track deck if you used it in a pseudo-CLASP setup...where you send from the DAW to the deck and record immediately back into the DAW from the playback head...and then just align for the time difference between the REC and PB heads...though there may still be some tape drift from one track pass to the next without any sync box locking the DAW and deck.
 
miroslav - Google Spitfire Audio - British company who like recording at Air Studios - with some of our best musicians and then creating some brilliant sample libraries - but they have lots of videos showing them building their own studios and some great examples of them using their systems. One of the features being that some are recorded to analogue - so I trust them to get the best from hybrid systems. Just worries me, from the sonic perspective to be in digital, then the bounce back and forth. I get the benefit of the analogue start, but just not convinced an in/out to multitrack is good? I can just about get it going to a stereo machine with wide tracks and top-notch s/n, but 24 on 2" is a bit worse?
 
rob aylestone said:
I can just about get it going to a stereo machine with wide tracks and top-notch s/n, but 24 on 2" is a bit worse?
Click to expand...

16 track would be the best format to use on 2" as that uses the same track width as a stereo quarter inch machine. 24 track will have a slightly worse signal to noise ratio which is probably one of the reasons why Dolby A became so popular. I've only been able to do 24 track transfers for the last few months but around 70% of the 24 track tapes have had Dolby A on at least some, if not all the tracks.
 
rob aylestone said:
I get the benefit of the analogue start, but just not convinced an in/out to multitrack is good? I can just about get it going to a stereo machine with wide tracks and top-notch s/n, but 24 on 2" is a bit worse?
Click to expand...

The point is that it's not just a back-n-forth conversion...which would be kinda dumb.
What happens is that you bring 24 tracks out from the DAW...and then you are mixing and processing them in the analog domain, and then mixing down to stereo before going back to digital, so the multi "conversion" thing is irrelevant...the tracks/mix are being changed by the analog mixing and the analog processing.
If you were going to just convert back-n-forth without doing anything...then there might be some loss, though TBH, at the higher rates and bit depth, I doubt anyone would really hear it.

jamesperrett said:
I've only been able to do 24 track transfers for the last few months but around 70% of the 24 track tapes have had Dolby A on at least some, if not all the tracks.
Click to expand...

Not sure which decks 2" multi-track decks used Dolby A...?...but the best NR option which is common for many pro decks is Dolby SR. That stuff is as good as NR gets. It's a pretty expensive setup, and not something that's built into any decks AFIK...rather it's an external system, fairly large.
I considered a couple of times when I saw some available system (not very common on the used market)...but TBH, I've been running my deck at 15 ips without any NR, and it's extremely quiet. I've had people surprised at how quite the tape was when they listened to the tracks where there was no audio signal.
None of the usual hiss you get with many decks without NR. I know my old Fostex G16 1/2" was pretty hissy without the Dolby C...and with it, there was a noticeable "dulling" to my ears. My 2" retains all the clarity without the use of any NR.
I've only tried it a couple of times at 30 ips...but I never compared the S/N differences. I just like the punch of the 15 ips more...plus it saves on the tape. :)

I know the heads on my deck were re-lapped and optically aligned by JRF Magnetics...and I've done the full calibration to it, and pretty much I stick with 499 tape, though I also have some 456 and 911 reels. I forget where I set the bias for the 499...not for super hot use, but I do track with pretty robust signals always, since the 499 can handle them easily, but I don't do that for the sake of the S/N...this deck just seems to be unusually quiet.
I'll have to see how it sounds with the 456...but I'm expecting it will still show good S/N.

My deck has built in Dolby HX Pro noise reduction...but I never saw a need for it, and I prefer the sound without it. It's not anything special.
 
miroslav said:
Not sure which decks 2" multi-track decks used Dolby A...?...but the best NR option which is common for many pro decks is Dolby SR. That stuff is as good as NR gets. It's a pretty expensive setup, and not something that's built into any decks AFIK...rather it's an external system, fairly large.
Click to expand...

I think most people used the external boxes - certainly my MTR90 has a connector on the back to send control signals to the external noise reduction. Yes, SR is better (and much easier to set up if you have a spectrum analyser) but it came fairly late in the day around the same time as digital multitracks were becoming established.
 
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