Mastering to Analog

Bguzaldo

New member
I had an idea last night and I was wondering if it will work or if it won't or if it will but its pointless. Here it is:

I have a firepod which I use to do all of my recording and I wanted to try to start mastering with my hardware compressors, EQ's, etc. After trying to go from my Firepod main out to my rack then back into the firepod ins, i quickly found that clearly didn't work. So i thought i needed another medium to master to. My friends dad worked in radio and has an old reel to reel machine. So i was wondering would it work if i went from my firepods main outs into my rack then into the tape machine and record my masters onto tape. And i was also wondering if i could then go from the tape outs back to my firepod ins to put it onto CD. Would this work? Would it add any analog characteristics to my master? I'm gonna try it this weekend any ways but I was just wondering if anyone has any advice or feedback

Thanks for reading,
-Barrett
 
Sure it'll work, but what didn't work with looping through your hardware rack and back in? That should work just fine too.

an old reel to reel machine
:D:D:D

Just keep in mind you might get more "analog" than you want. Don't know what condition the deck is in or what the make/model it is, but you can't necessarily expect to put an atr in the path and have your dreams come true...not that that is what you are saying...I have my family's old Sony TC-630 from my days of youth sitting on the shelf right now...sounds like something terrible in repro and I don't even know about record, but of course the heads look like somebody's gone after them with a bastard file and all the belts and tires are hard and cracked so what do you expect?

But you're going to give it a shot and to that I say boo-yah. try it. Let us know what you think and what the make/model is.
 
Yeah i don't know when i looped it it just gave out this miserable buzzing noise. But the tape machine, from what I hear from my friend, is in really good shape. It was a high end one his dad took with him when he left the radio station he worked with. I'll let you know the brand name and model when i try it out. Thanks for the feedback! I'll make sure to let you know how it went.

Thanks,
-Barrett
 
Yeah i don't know when i looped it it just gave out this miserable buzzing noise. -Barrett
Take the outboard gear out of the loop and see if you still get that noise. If not, it was a ground loop caused by the outboard gear. Should be an easy fix.
 
Also the way I use my firepod like that is I assign the master mix to go out the monitors outs so I can still monitor but I also asign the mix to go out of the output 3 and 4 then run those as left and right into my hardware and back into the line ins and that works fine.
 
I was just studying up on some reel to reel machines and I was wondering...

If this tape machine has only RCA input and outputs would I be able to still use it with my Firepod, What cables would I need. Because i was planning on going straight from my monitor outs which are TRS into my rack then from my TRS outs into the Reel to Reel machine. So I don't know if RCA pots would spoil my grand scheme of "Mastering to Tape"

Thanks again,
-Barrett

P.s. Sorry for some of my Newbish questions, I'm just an 18 year old kid trying to learn some things :confused:
 
Look in your FirePod manual and see if those main outs are +4, -10 or some other nominal level. Then you'll need to look at the manual for the tape deck and see if its inputs are +4, -10, or some other nominal level.

With the firepod you should be fine putting a TS plug into that TRS jack. If you don't have TS -> RCA cables you can get adapters at somewhere like Radio Shack and just use TS -> TS cables or get the adapters to go from RCA -> TS and use RCA cables.

Hope that helps, and don't sweat the "newbie" questions...hehe...I've got tons of them and they haven't kicked me out yet... :eek::D
 
I found out today that the Reel to Reel is a Teac, no word on the Model yet, but it's from the 70's...any thoughts?
 
Does anyone know anything of the quality of this brand? I know every brand probably makes a hi end and low end machine, so I'll try to get the Model ASAP, just wondering if anyone has thoughts on the brand name.

Thanks,
-Barrett
 
Teac is the parent company of Tascam. Teac is a "consumer" level electronics brand and they use the Tascam brand for their higher end stuff. Teac decks are no slouch though.;)
 
Scratch that, my friend just told me its a "Technics RS-1700" Auto reverse/isolated loop/Direct Drive/ Quartz lock/Tension Control. Hows that sound?
 
Not THAT is a top notch deck! The downside is that parts are harder to find than some others, but the transport is second to none! I wish I could come across one of those. Bastard!:D

Seriously though, nice score!;)
 
Nice! I was afraid it was gonna be some half assed machine that my friend was trying to make look important! But I'm gonna buy some tape and try it out this weekend. Any recomendations for tape. Its only going to be used for stereo mastering so i don't need any 2 inch 16 track tape. Just 2 tracks.

Thanks,
-Barrett
 
Nice! I was afraid it was gonna be some half assed machine that my friend was trying to make look important! But I'm gonna buy some tape and try it out this weekend. Any recomendations for tape. Its only going to be used for stereo mastering so i don't need any 2 inch 16 track tape. Just 2 tracks.

Thanks,
-Barrett
You have to buy the tape width that the machine is set up for. The number of tracks you get is determined by the machine, not the tape.
 
If I'm correct, that is a 1/4" machine. I'm not familiar with that model, but I know some of the other RS series machines have the capability of swapping head blocks for different purposes. I might be wrong but I want to say that those machines are capable of 2 track and/or 4 track rec/playback with the head block arrangement. Somebody jump in here with some facts on this one, I'm a bit fuzzy.;)
 
I'm not familiar with Quantegy tape but RMG SM911 should work like a charm.

Thanks a lot man you've been a "reel" big help! I appreciate it. Hopefully I can get an A/B of the digital master and the Analog master by this weekend.

Thanks for all your help !
-Barrett
 
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