What do you do with an analog master??

Milkfaj

New member
I just got a TSR-8 machine and im getting an allan and heath 16 channel mixer. I was going to just mix down to a 24-bit sound card with stereo inputs.
what is the advantage of mixing down to a two track reel to reel when you are going to have to master it to a CD anyways? is mixing down to analog only really beneficial when you are going to put the final product on cassette or vinyl? or is the main issue archiving the music?
 
Milkfaj said:
I just got a TSR-8 machine and im getting an allan and heath 16 channel mixer. I was going to just mix down to a 24-bit sound card with stereo inputs.
what is the advantage of mixing down to a two track reel to reel when you are going to have to master it to a CD anyways? is mixing down to analog only really beneficial when you are going to put the final product on cassette or vinyl? or is the main issue archiving the music?

Mixing to analog is helpful if you're looking for tape compression on the overall mix. You can drive your half-track mastering deck to the edge and get a sound that you can't get by mastering straight to digital. You then transfer the analog master to digital.

-Tim
 
is mixing down to analog only really beneficial when you are going to put the final product on cassette or vinyl? or is the main issue archiving the music?
Archiving is key and the number one reason why people enjoy music of the Beatles and countless thousands of other artists; because the masters and format survived to run more copies.

Analog serves as your best chance of saving your works for future usage. Keep in mind too, digital is still an evolving technology and formats come and go every few years. Even people with DAT masters from a few years ago are realizing problems in the longevity of the format and the complex machinery to run it now and 30 or 40 years into the future.

Also, because of the complete fullness of a true half track stereo recording, you are in effect taking a giant sized, highly detailed picture that can always be cropped and reduced down, to borrow a photographic parallel.

Cheers! :)
 
The Ghost of FM said:
Archiving is key and the number one reason why people enjoy music of the Beatles and countless thousands of other artists; because the masters and format survived to run more copies.

Analog serves as your best chance of saving your works for future usage. Keep in mind too, digital is still an evolving technology and formats come and go every few years. Even people with DAT masters from a few years ago are realizing problems in the longevity of the format and the complex machinery to run it now and 30 or 40 years into the future.

Also, because of the complete fullness of a true half track stereo recording, you are in effect taking a giant sized, highly detailed picture that can always be cropped and reduced down, to borrow a photographic parallel.

Cheers! :)

Don't confuse the difference between "format masters" and "1/2 track mix masters".

Beside that (unless you want clarification) the times I do mix down from my 2" 24 track to 1/2" two-track (aka half track) is when the band requests it and the Mastering Engineer they hire is able to work from that format to spec. I'm lucky enough to know a great Mastering Engineer in my city that uses analog Mastering gear from top to bottom (as well as digital if so presented). Some bands want an "AAA" and even some bands that choose to press to CD choose "AAD".... remember the CD codes? (AAD, ADD, DDD, and so on and so on..........?)

Okay, I'll explain it anyways:
the first letter designated the format, i.e. if it were Analog tape it would be "A" and if it were a digital format it would be "D"

The second letter would be the mix/mastering.

The last letter (obviously ALWAYS on a CD would be a "D") is the final press glass master.

They pretty much stopped doing the "codes" nearing the late 90's once CD's muscled out cassettes and LP's for the casual consumer.

Analog tape is still proven to last longer than any other format (under the right conditions) due to the fact that digital format hasn't lived as long of a shelf-life so far. In theory digital information can be copied without signal loss and at the same time early original digital archives have yet to show signal loss.

I record on analog then dump to computer (these days) then to CD-R (44.1kHz 24bit) for mastering. If a band is going to make a 7" vinyl, full-length vinyl, and also CD then I'll do full analog/console mixes to a 1/2 track analog master, otherwise I don't bother to mix down to 1/2 track.
 
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