how to get a warm, analog sound from a digital recorder?

ceegee

New member
I recently upgraded from a Tascam MF-P01 to a Tascam Dp-008 digital recorder. The DP008 sounds great but flat... and dull.
I cant go back to my mfp01 because it no longer works.
THe only other cassette recorder I have is a Sony TC-WE475 dual tape deck.
Is there any way I can recreate the analog sound on the dp008 by bouncing the mastered mixes to the tape deck? or will it make no difference?
what are some other ways i can get that sound?
This is the only gear i have.
 
What you're asking for is incredibly subjective. I've read that reducing the bit depth to 16 and the sampling rate to 44.1 helps and of course there's the option of a 'colored' pre such as the Golden Age Pre73.

Luck
 
I just recently learned from my new friends over in Analog Only that the warmth you crave is available in some kind of plug-in that takes the superior digital format and, i don't know. . .makes it sound better by making it sound worse or something. . . I'm still not quite sure, really. . . I just know they talked me out of having that superior sterile accuracy. . .

But if you're really wanting that sound I think there's only one thing you can do, and well, you know yourself, deep down inside what that is. . . .
 
'Warmth' typically means highs have been cut way down and the mids are little distorted. You can't use software plug-ins with a stand-alone recorder, so could use a tube preamp, or export tracks to your computer and use a DAW.
 
Is there any way I can recreate the analog sound on the dp008 by bouncing the mastered mixes to the tape deck? or will it make no difference?

It'll make a difference but it might not be a desirable difference. Try it! What have you got to lose?

I imagine tracking to tape and bouncing to digital is going to be closer to what you want than tracking to digital and bouncing to tape, but it all depends on the gear.
 
You can always take care of that with some really decent mics and preamps/DI boxes...but I'm talking about where one mic or preamp probably costs 3-4 times what you paid for the Tascam Dp-008...so then multiply that by the number of mics/preamps needed.

Or...if you are going to futz with tape...you don't really want to dump to tape AFTER you record to digital...that's the bassakwards way of doing it. Ideally you want to go from tape to digital, and for that, if you are only doing one track at a time, you can get a nice 2-track deck and use that as your front end. If you need to do multiple tracks, then get a tape deck with multiple tracks.

If all that sounds like a lot of work and cost...then just slap on a plug-in that pretty much rolls off the highs and introduces on some digitally simulated harmonic distortion...aka "tape warmth". :rolleyes:
 
This is basically it !
Your other alternative is to change the way you listen........
Here we go. Already with the analog vs digital.
You know this is all good fun and all.
But.. rather than pointing out that maybe, just maybe there's 9 other things with hugely more impact, and importance.. to making really good music and recordings?

Hey, I don't know. Maybe the '008 is a dud. If so then fine.

Otherwise though... just

Wow


(..heads up there Ceegee. Just sayin'. :rolleyes:
 
Here we go. Already with the analog vs digital.

I don't think that's what grim meant.

What he is saying is that digital has it's "sound" and so you might need to adjust how you are listening...but if that's not an option, that yeah, if you really want true analog sound, you need to use analog gear.
It's got nothing to do with analog VS digital (I use both).
Sure, there's all kinds of digital simulations...but if they don't get you there, then maybe you need the real McCoy.
 
Here we go. Already with the analog vs digital.

I don't think that's what grim meant.

What he is saying is that digital has it's "sound" and so you might need to adjust how you are listening...but if that's not an option, that yeah, if you really want true analog sound, you need to use analog gear.
It's got nothing to do with analog VS digital (I use both).
Sure, there's all kinds of digital simulations of analog gear...but if they don't get you there, then maybe you need the real McCoy.
 
Your other alternative is to change the way you listen........

In my younger years, I used to mess around with speakers and things. I made myself a pair of speakers with 8" Plessey Rola drivers. I thought they were fantastic. I played stuff through them for a mate who ran a studio. He grimaced. I said "what's wrong?" He said "they sound awful!" And I thought I had done such a good job. They sounded fine to me. He convinced me that at least I should add a pair of tweeters. "What's a tweeter?" I asked.

So I put in crossovers (I had to learn what they were too) and a pair of Phillips tweeters. And fired them up again. I wasn't convinced they sounded better . . . all that high frequency stuff was a bit disconcerting. He came around to have a listen . . . and expressed a suitable degree of being impressed. I was a bit bemused. That is better? So I did more listening.

This is what I discovered.

If you are in a dark room and go out into the sunshine, it takes a while for your eyes to adjust, and first up there is nothing but brightness assaulting your retinas. After a while, your eyes adjust, and you start seeing the detail . . . detail that you miss in the gloom.

It took me a while to get used to hearing all that detail.

For me, the leap from 4-track cassette to digital, and the resulting harvest of clarity and detail, was as big as the jump from no-tweeter to tweeter. Maybe that lack of HF detail on tape is called 'warmth'. If so, I'll opt for the iceberg.
 
thanks for all the great feedback guys. i could get use to the digital sound. i was just stuck on tape. oh well
 
using digital recording doesn't mean you can't use analog gear. A lot of us use analog compressors and nice pres to get some of that feel. I run a lot of my tracks through an 1176 compressor with very little compression to get the transformer sound.

I know miro really likes the overstayer compressors, for $500 they'd add a lot of analog sound to your recordings.

Also some nice pres, like the GAP pre73 could help you out too. For $300 that'd make a huge difference.

Then there's always EQ. cutting or shaping the HF is really important no matter what medium you record to.

I don't find digital harsh, I find some mics harsh, so I don't think your problem is the digital recordings, maybe the pres, I don't know, but it's not the digital.
 
thanks for all the great feedback guys. i could get use to the digital sound. i was just stuck on tape. oh well

Many people prefer the sound of tape, and they are entitled to that preference.

However, I wonder how many of the flaws commonly assigned to digital may actually be attributable to factors other than the fact of something being digital.

For example, I have suffered what others might call 'digital fatigue', but I think it is more likely to be a consequence of over-compressing and the consequent loss of dynamic range (and change). Or, a dislike of music recorded digitally may actually be a dislike of the music, rather than the media. 'Thin and sterile' recordings may be a consequence of poor mixing, not an inherent quality of digital. And so on.
 
I certainly have a problem with the area in the 4k Hz - 8k Hz sometimes getting to edgy/spiky/fizzy when I'm listening to digital, and I've often used generous amounts of narrow bandwidth cut at times to remove some of the more annoying stuff with some tracks.
I don't hear it coming off the tape, but once it's transfered to digital...there it is.

It was bothersome at first and was making me freak a bit...but now I just take it in stride and roll it off if it's "too much detail" in that area. It's not so much that I'm after "analog warmth" it's just that some mics/pres I have are pretty detailed and it's weird, even though I don't hear it as much when tracking to tape, after I dump to digital, it kinda sticks out much more so.
But I have to say, it's a give-n-take thing...because that's also where your clarity and articulation sits, so I do like having a bit of that where tape can sometimes be too dull, and you end up boosting for clarity/articulation...but I'm usually just cutting things back with EQ, and I rather prefer that than trying to put stuff there that ain't.

Oh yeah...I can't say enough good things about the Overstayer comps....they are quite good and boy I love the Stereo VCA on the mix bus, it's like some serious "glue"...plus the big rack unit also has a pair of Bass and Treble EQ knobs, so you can add some final EQ to the output AFTER the compression. It can be very addictive and allows you to get a really fast commercial grade mix, though of course, using a more robust EQ is the better way, but the two bands on the Overstayer are real useful...and they provide no cut, just boost...very cool.
 
I said it on the analog board thread . . . slam an output transformer hard and it will do pretty much the same thing as tape to the lows/low-mids (this is the thought behind wheelie's GAP recommendation, although the potential long-term reliability of that box scares me a little).

As for the highs, that varies quite widely according to the deck (as do the lows); I am hoping that we'll see some test results from various decks to get a handle on that. Clearly the HF rolloff is quite variable and the best decks (good 1/2", 2") have slim to no rolloff, but it's whatever you were accustomed to. I don't think there is a single tape HF sound. HF distortion I don't know yet.

Anyway, you can use digital emulators for wherever you want to go, but you can probably also use real analog but non-tape circuits to accomplish pretty much the same thing. Whatever floats your boat . . .
 
So, does it sound great, or is it flat and dull?

When people way "warm", I take that to mean "having attenuated HF". Take an eq to it and see where it goes.

Purely anecdotal to throw in here, I've had some unexpected nice experiences where flat-as a board Earthworks QTC-1 tones can be quite rich.
..A first go with a fiddle that came back The Sound of Wood out the speakers!' was an eye opener. :D
Maybe... sometimes all that's needed is to not hype it in the wrong place.
 
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Sometimes all that's needed is to not hype it in the wrong place.

I think there is a fair bit of truth to that statement.

I'm also thinking that there are likely other factors at play here, like the room and the monitoring. And perhaps the source material.
 
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