When an analogue track is mixed down to digital format...

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Will25

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This is a bit of a weird question I guess but anyway, theoretically speaking, say I've recording 8 tracks on my tascam 488 cassette and have transferred them to my DAW. I want to overdub a guitar solo, for example, but isn't the track now going to be slightly out because the tape speed isn't 100% accurate?

So basically what I'm wondering is...would it be necessary to record say a single tone at at the beginning/end of the song on the cassette and then change the pitch (?) of the song on the DAW to match the tone being played. And then overdub the guitar etc.

Or is this not necessary....? Thanks
 
I've found that trying to adjust the speed for the whole duration of the track doesn't work very well, because the tape is not 100% inconsistent. The speed changes ever so slightly, but in different intervals. I've had much better luck with making several cuts in the overdubbed track in the DAW, and nudging each cut ahead or behind by a few miliseconds.
 
Can you overdub things on the 488 without noticeable speed and pitch problems? Why would it be different after transferring to the computer?
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Can you overdub things on the 488 without noticeable speed and pitch problems? Why would it be different after transferring to the computer?
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Depends what you're doing. On the 488 the speed will drift very slightly, and it won't be noticeable unless (A) the machine is faulty or (B) you're trying to overdub a prerecorded track. Things which you're playing live won't matter because you'll be working against a click track on the tape or something, and compensating yourself without even knowing it. All the tracks will be moving together on the same piece of tape, after all.

With MIDI you will run into problem (B), which is why people made MIDI sync boxes. With that setup, a control track is recorded on track 8, and that is used to control the MIDI sequencer, compensating for any tape speed drift.

If you dump your tracks into a DAW and then do further overdubs on the DAW, that will work fine because you'll be playing against the recording.

Where things get nasty is if you record 8 tracks on the 488, import them, record another set of 8 tracks and then try to import those into the DAW as well. That's the point where you'll get speed-related issues.
 
Yeah, I understand the cassette speed issues. My question was posed to the OP to make him think about the situation.
 
I'd do an experiment and see just how bad it is. Yes, there will be drift on any tape machine not synced in some way but only trying it will let you know whether it's bad enough to be an issue. You might be lucky, especially if your tracks are fairly short.

The technique with the tone you mention would only fix an overall problem with the speed which I doubt will be the issue in your case--the basic speed should be fairly consistent from one session to another (barring major problems). The killer for you might be "wow and flutter", i.e. small constant variations. If you have that problem, I can't think of an easy fix. FYI, in the old days, film sound used to be recorded on reel to reel recorders with a "pilot tone" but this was continuous through the whole length of the recording and allowed the speed to be continuously corrected throughout the playback, not just at the beginning. This was replaced in the early 70s with "crystal sync" which just controlled the speed properly--and nowadays it's all done by timecode..
 
Will25 said:
This is a bit of a weird question I guess but anyway, theoretically speaking, say I've recording 8 tracks on my tascam 488 cassette and have transferred them to my DAW. I want to overdub a guitar solo, for example, but isn't the track now going to be slightly out because the tape speed isn't 100% accurate?
Click to expand...

So here's an easy way around that *IF* you don't want/need the overdubs to be in sync with the original tracks on the 488. IOW...you're going to only focus on what is in the DAW once you dump it to the DAW from the 488.

OK...so you have 8 tracks form the 488 (let's assume these are your rhythm/bed tracks...and you've dumped them all into the DAW at the same time, as individual tracks (I'm assuming you have at least an 8-channel A/D converter interface).
Now you want to overdub another track (lead, vocal, whatever)...and you want to hit the 488 with it so as to keep everything sounding "tape-like" before you dump to DAW...but, your 488 and DAW are not rock-solid, synced together...so you can try moving/adjusting after the fact...or, you can do this.

Set up your DAW to playback the original 8 tracks.
Arm one track in the DAW for recording your overdub.
Arm one fresh track in the 488 also for recording your overdub.
Set that track so that the Playback head output of that track is feeding the armed DAW track.
Now...you hit Play/Rec on the DAW and Rec on the 488.

You are listening to the DAW for cues (NOT the 488) and your live overdub signal...but your playing/recording "through" the 488 for the overdub track.
The only thing you then need to do is compute the time difference of the Rec and Play heads of the 488 in ms (or samples)...and in your DAW, slide the overdub track by that amount. Tape drift will not be an issue anymore.
If your 488 has a single Play/Rec head...then you don't even have to slide the overdub track...it will be already lined up.

You can keep doing that as much as you want....overdubing "through" the 488...but actually recording TO the DAW.

In a nutshell...this is a poor man's CLASP system...where the tape deck is treated like a "processor" rather than a recording deck.
 
If it has a single record/play head then you can't monitor off the tape while recording. Unless it has Simul-Sync this is almost certainly the case.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
If it has a single record/play head then you can't monitor off the tape while recording. Unless it has Simul-Sync this is almost certainly the case.
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Well you really wouldn't want/need to monitor anything of the tape in that process...just monitor the live signal.
 
But without a second replay head you'd be recording the E-E signal into the DAW and not get the "tape sound" which I assume to be the point of the exercise. Without the tape, you might as well just record direct into the DAW. Conversely, any system depending on a later tape playback is going to be at the mercy of the wow and flutter in the same way.
 
DUH...yeah, you guys are right....I don't know what I was thinking!!! :D

I had my sights set on the end-game....I shouldn't have ever mentioned the part about "If your 488 has a single Play/Rec head...then you don't even have to slide the overdub track...it will be already lined up."
I was doing good up until then. :)

So does anyone have the answer...does the 448 have a dedicated PB head or not...?
 
miroslav said:
So does anyone have the answer...does the 448 have a dedicated PB head or not...?
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If so it would have to have something like Simul-Sync or any overdubs would be out of sync.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
If so it would have to have something like Simul-Sync or any overdubs would be out of sync.
Click to expand...

No...not really, because the whole point of the process I outlined, sidesteps the need for any sync between the DAW and tape deck, or between the original tape tracks and tape overdub tracks.
The tape deck becomes a "processor"...no different than sending a signal through a comp or EQ.
Sync is not needed.

Of course, as Bobbsy reminded me...you need a deck with separate Rec and PB heads, since you are recording with the Rec and playing back off the PB to the DAW, in real time, and "gaining" the tape effect.
Just going off a single Rec/PB head, yes, you need Simul-Sync when tracking/overdubbing everything on the tape deck...but using the process above, it's not going to work, as then the signal hitting the single head is the same signal coming off that single head...and there's NO tape "effect" applied.



grimtraveller said:
Yeah. The 488 tracks are now in the DAW. Keep them and any subsequent overdubs there.
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:D

Well, yeah that would work of course, but I think he wants the tape effect on the overdubs.

Still wondering if the 488 has separate Rec/PB heads...or one and the same...?
 
What I mean is that they wouldn't have put Simul-Sync on a cassette based machine so the deck has a single record/play head. Therefore there is no way to get tape sound in real time.

But, seriously, why would you want tape sound from a cassette, especially the paper thin tracks on that machine?
 
bouldersoundguy said:
But, seriously, why would you want tape sound from a cassette, especially the paper thin tracks on that machine?
Click to expand...

:)

That's a whole different animal.
I'm just trying to give the OP a way to do what he wants...but I agree, ain't much there AFA "tape sound quality" to work with.
 
Every sort of recording device will drift out of sync with another if they aren’t locked through some kind of synchronization, like SMPTE, etc. Two identical DAW interfaces will drift apart as well if not synced together, so the phenomenon isn’t solely an analog issue. Just wanted to make that clear first off.

I’m not sure exactly what the OP is asking. If you’re going to overdub using the DAW only with the analog tracks you’ve already transferred then you have no problem. If you mean taping more tracks to the analog deck and then trying to transfer in sync with existing tracks on the DAW then no that won’t work. It will drift.

The way I work is to record 7 tracks on the analog deck and while using the 8th track for SMPTE I transfer 7 tracks at a time with the analog deck and the DAW in sync. Get everything in sync first, in your case slaving the DAW to the 488 and you can make that transfer of 7 tracks at a time or less however many times you need, limited only by how many tracks your DAW can record. Like most portas the 488 does not have a separate repro head, so you can’t do the quick record/repro trick to DAW, but no matter because in any case you have to start out from the get-go with your DAW synced to your tape deck… unless you don’t mind recording a track or two straight to the DAW, bypassing the analog step altogether.

If most of your tracks start out analog and depending on the instrument being recorded and its prominence in the mix it may make little difference whether you add a couple tracks going analog first or go straight to DAW. I don’t have a problem in some cases doubling an instrument straight to DAW if the first run started out analog and its digital counterpart is blended at lower volume with the analog track being the more up front of the two. However, most of the time in my studio tracks touch tape before transfer to digital.

There are lots of ways to do this depending on the duration of the part being added. I’ve built background harmonies for chorus parts on a separate analog deck and then fly it in manually by pressing play at the right moment with no synchronization between decks, and although decks will eventually drift apart you’d be surprised how long they can stay in sync.
 
Being an opionated ode English git. Ide agree with Bobbsy my guess is he crossed this bridge many years back!!
 
Dont worry about it dude,you've got me lookin at the overall picture n seeing a much broader view. Thats a positive thing.as if he'd seperate playback heads, what you were saying makes sense to me. To date Ime still an analogue all the way guy. Stuffed as soon as someone wants a copy!!! Mmmm!Have to use hard disc recorders which granted ditches some tape drawbacks! So trying to decide whats to go to fund the CLASP!!Sorry guys I still can'nt get my head round turning a virtual knob with a mouse,seems like 3 steps back to me! Convienient as it may well be and I can see the gains as well as in many cases hear the losses!
 
Beck said:
Like most portas the 488 does not have a separate repro head, so you can’t do the quick record/repro trick to DAW...
Click to expand...

Then that settles it. :)

Yeah, I would either just go direct to DAW for a couple of overdubs...but if hitting tape first was very important, then I would just roll with it and then rough sync the two during transfer and then edit them into perfect sync manually once in the DAW.
 
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