Transferring Multitrack Reels Into Computer?

bmg said:
Used Maxell tape in those days and it has held up (except for some sticky splices I can hear as they approach.)
The 80-8 was used with Ampex, which I hear horror stories about; hopefully this won't be my experience.
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As you say, Maxell tapes hold up well (as do BASF and some, but not all, Agfa and 3M tapes). Unless the Ampex tapes date from before about 1975 they're going to need baking. Don't even think about trying them on your machine without baking as you'll then be spending the rest of the day cleaning up the mess! It used to be that baking at 120 degrees F for 4 hours would be enough but these days tapes seem to require longer baking times - one archivist I know reckons that some tapes can take up to a week to restore to a properly playable state although I tend to go for about 8 hours followed by a slow cooling off time.
 
miroslav said:
I'm just curious how you are setting that up....I mean...so that the software knows how long it's going to take for a recorded track to be sent out to an external FX box and then back in, in-sync with the existing tracks.
For things like external reverb and delay, latency is not such a big issue...but how long some external comp is acting on a signal, is not something your DAW software is going to know and automatically align for you.
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Right, but that's not a function of round trip latency of the DAW. I was originally responding to GTOboy's suggestion that spending more money (presumably on the I/O hardware and DAW, perhaps faster computer) would reduce round trip latency when using hardware effects. But any DAW that's properly set up will correctly compensate for that. Usually they do it automatically.

Analog processors are basically speed of light. If you've got outboard gear with A/D/A conversion then it adds delay, but that's not the DAW's fault. You can use the DAW to manually correct for it. With analog tape you'd just live with it.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
But any DAW that's properly set up will correctly compensate for that. Usually they do it automatically.
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With basic tracking to a DAW and playback of tracks already recorded...it's pretty much automatic for most DAWs.

bouldersoundguy said:
With analog tape you'd just live with it.
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Actually...tracking to analog tape before dumping to the DAW or even using tape with a DAW in some pseudo "CLASP" setup...you can have ZERO latency, so I'm not sure how you mean that you have to live with latency when using analog tape...?

One of the side benefits of tracking to tape...you can monitor and record and it's all in real time, thanks to the playback capability of the record head (assuming you're using a deck with both record and playback heads)...and then you just do a straight dump to the DAW, but of course, you need as many converter channels as tape tracks, otherwise you're doing multiple dumps, and then you need some sort of sync between the DAW and tape decl.
 
miroslav said:
With basic tracking to a DAW and playback of tracks already recorded...it's pretty much automatic for most DAWs.
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And that applies to outboard processing. The DAW system itself would not cause latency on a round trip to hardware any more than it would cause latency on a live input being recorded along with playback.

miroslav said:
Actually...tracking to analog tape before dumping to the DAW or even using tape with a DAW in some pseudo "CLASP" setup...you can have ZERO latency, so I'm not sure how you mean that you have to live with latency when using analog tape...?
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You edited out relevant parts of the quote:

bouldersoundguy said:
If you've got outboard gear with A/D/A conversion then it adds delay, but that's not the DAW's fault. You can use the DAW to manually correct for it. With analog tape you'd just live with it.
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bouldersoundguy said:
Digital processors introduce some latency.
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Are you being cryptic intentionally? :D

OK...but what do digital processors and latency have to do with analog tape?
You said that with analog tape "you just have to live with it"...live with what exactly?
There is no latency tracking to tape, so do you mind explaining with more detail what you mean...for those of us in the cheap seats. :)
 
I'm not being cryptic. It started when I disagreed with GTOboy that the DAW will cause latency on the round trip to outboard processing, because if it's compensated for tracking to playback it's compensated for using hardware during mixing too.

Then you rightly pointed out that the DAW won't know if there's added delay from the external hardware, which is true but not the DAW's fault, and it can be corrected for it in the DAW. But an inserted processor that adds delay to a DAW system will add it to a tape system where correcting for it is impractical (unless you've got a whole bunch of super high quality digital delays).

Most analog processing is going to be virtually zero delay. Digital gear with analog I/O would add a little delay. If, for example, you insert a digital compressor on a channel of a tape system, you're pretty much just going to have to live with whatever small amount of delay that adds.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
If, for example, you insert a digital compressor on a channel of a tape system, you're pretty much just going to have to live with whatever small amount of delay that adds.
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OK...now you're being clear. :)
I thought you were trying to say that using analog tape alone is going to add latency...but you meant with DAW processing.

That said...and going back to the "CLASP" system for marrying a tape deck and DAW...I believe they were able to get it to ZERO latency for specific tape machines and DAWs, because the CLASP system was computing whatever differences and adjusting for them...but that's all kinda moot now, because CLASP is no longer in production, and not something that saw wide-range use even in the pro studios.
It just came along a little too late when many studios had already abandoned tape, but it was a pretty clever system and a new way to utilize tape as an external "effect" box rather than like what I'm doing, by actually tracking to tape completely and then dumping to the DAW.
 
Too small to ever matter isn't exactly 0. It's not the speed of light, but it's close. Of course, there's a physical space between the heads on a tape machine. If you try to do the kind of loop that people often do with a DAW - out to something and back to another track - you could have a delay to deal with, and then you'll also have noise and distortion and one less track available on your tape.

I never heard of latency over years of using outboard digital effects, recording to DAT and ADAT. Never noticed it. Never really occurred to me except maybe just like other tape. It's there, though. Some even publish the specs.
 
Wow - 3 years later - where does the time go?
I finally have the time to devote to this project.

I was thinking of going with a Focusrite unit, and was able to find a working 3440 - imagine that!
As for cables, 4 RCA to 1/4" (mono) cables would connect the tape recorder to the interface - am I correct?

Will this get me into the mac, where I can have 4 discrete channels to play with?

(I'm using a macbook from 2012, so I guess that will have to be updated, but at least this is a starting point for me.)
 
One think I discovered with my Scarlett 6i6 was that the two line level inputs are pretty low sensitivity, probably meant to accommodate +4 pro line level. Gear with 1/4" or RCA output often puts out relatively low signal level, and there's no gain control on the way in, so the record levels were pretty low on those two tracks compared to the two that went in on channels 1 and 2 with the preamps. I'm going to put a small mixer in the two line inputs to give them similar capability as the two mic/line inputs when I need to capture 4-track.
 
BMG, yeah, all you will need are the 4 RCA to 1/4" cables. Which Focusrite are you looking at? If you go with the 4i4, you'll have to adjust the input source to line on the front inputs using Focusrite contol, the rear inputs don't have a volume control, so you need to use the control software to set those levels. The 8i6 gives you 4 line inputs on the back. .

Fire up your DAW, assign the channels and hit the play button. Piece of cake! I've done the same thing with my Tascam 16x08, running line out from an RCA to 1/4" line inputs.

I don't know that I would worry too much about trying to match the channel levels exactly. You're going to be tweaking them anyway when you mixdown. Just make sure you get a reasonable level without hitting the peak light. Record it at 24bits and you'll have double the S/N of your source material anyway.
 
This thread was started in 2019. It’s now 2022.

In two years we haven’t figured out yet how to dump some 4 and 8 tracks of tape into a DAW?
😂

Figure the OP would have accomplished the mission or given up by now.
 
Ouch! Sorry.

I got a friend who’s been fighting it for some years. Seen the up and down struggle first hand.

I can sympathize
 
So, I just took a look at Scarlett MixControl and found the Hi Gain/Lo Gain controls for the line inputs. I just haven't used the interface all that much yet.
 
Don't want to drag the tone down but for 4 tracks of tape transfer a very cost effective option would be the Behringer UMC404HD.
It has 4 mic/line inputs and if the source is RCA you can get RCA to 1/4" jack adapters very cheaply. That gives you gain control of each input.
I had the UMC204HD for a few weeks and could not tell it from my NI KA6 in fact the mic pres have a bit more gain but no more noise, i.e. both interfaces are very quiet.

At the risk of some flack? "Tape" is hardly a technically demanding medium to digitize!

Dave.
 
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