question about track bouncing on tape

[groucho]

Hi all - Say I have 4 tracks on a tape based recorder (in my case a cassette portastudio) and I then output the stereo mix of those 4 tracks to an eternal source - say, a DAW. Then I send a mono version of that mix back to a single track on the portastudio as a reference. Now I have 3 tracks freed up, which I then fill up. Now I send those 3 new tracks back to the DAW.

Here's where my question is: as I understand it, those 3 new tracks should not line up exactly with the stereo mix on the DAW given the inconsistencies of tape. And yet when I've done this it seems to line up exactly - though I've only done brief tests, nothing over 20 seconds or so.

Are these "inconsistencies" so small as to not be noticeable, or am I wrong to think there is going to be variance? What am I missing here? Thanks in advance for any input, y'all!

(As an aside, I find it kinda funny that after decades of hassling with "sync" issues in digital multitrack land, everything seems to be so easy in that department so far with cassette tape..)

 

[TalismanRich]

Try running a simple 5 minute test. Do exactly what you are planning, most of it can be silence, but at the end, hit a few drum beats. You'll probably hear a significant variation, not in the millisecond range. I've heard the same thing with both tapes and turntables.

You might be able to stretch a track in the DAW to match up if you have a good transient at each end.

I'm not sure what you mean about "sync" issues. People go apesh*t over 10ms of delay (which can be corrected), and with a tape things vary 100 times that much.

 

[Papanate]

Hi all - Say I have 4 tracks on a tape based recorder (in my case a cassette portastudio) and I then output the stereo mix of those 4 tracks to an eternal source - say, a DAW. Then I send a mono version of that mix back to a single track on the portastudio as a reference. Now I have 3 tracks freed up, which I then fill up. Now I send those 3 new tracks back to the DAW.

Here's where my question is: as I understand it, those 3 new tracks should not line up exactly with the stereo mix on the DAW given the inconsistencies of tape. And yet when I've done this it seems to line up exactly - though I've only done brief tests, nothing over 20 seconds or so.

Are these "inconsistencies" so small as to not be noticeable, or am I wrong to think there is going to be variance? What am I missing here? Thanks in advance for any input, y'all!

(As an aside, I find it kinda funny that after decades of hassling with "sync" issues in digital multitrack land, everything seems to be so easy in that department so far with cassette tape..)

I don’t know if you are missing anything - but I am - why are you recording on Cassette and Dumping to the Daw? Why aren’t you recording everything to the DAW?

 

[TalismanRich]

I don’t know if you are missing anything - but I am - why are you recording on Cassette and Dumping to the Daw? Why aren’t you recording everything to the DAW?

C'mon, Papa... it's for the magic!

I always wonder if it wouldn't be better to just do everything in the DAW, then dump it to cassette for the "effect". Multiple passes through a cassette just doubles up all the transient and hi frequency loss, distortion, and adds more wow and flutter.

 

[Scott Baxendale]

Hi all - Say I have 4 tracks on a tape based recorder (in my case a cassette portastudio) and I then output the stereo mix of those 4 tracks to an eternal source - say, a DAW. Then I send a mono version of that mix back to a single track on the portastudio as a reference. Now I have 3 tracks freed up, which I then fill up. Now I send those 3 new tracks back to the DAW.

Here's where my question is: as I understand it, those 3 new tracks should not line up exactly with the stereo mix on the DAW given the inconsistencies of tape. And yet when I've done this it seems to line up exactly - though I've only done brief tests, nothing over 20 seconds or so.

Are these "inconsistencies" so small as to not be noticeable, or am I wrong to think there is going to be variance? What am I missing here? Thanks in advance for any input, y'all!

(As an aside, I find it kinda funny that after decades of hassling with "sync" issues in digital multitrack land, everything seems to be so easy in that department so far with cassette tape..)

All you need is a sharp hit at the beginning of the tracks that you use to line up the sounds. It’s like a slate used in movies. A snare or high hat hit works.

 

[groucho]

Hi all - Thanks very much for the input!

All you need is a sharp hit at the beginning of the tracks that you use to line up the sounds. It’s like a slate used in movies. A snare or high hat hit works.

So am I correct in assuming that means the "variance" issues in terms of tape playback are all around where it *starts*? As in: if there is a clearly defined sound (like a snare hit) that everything starts from, the tape will unroll or whatever at the same rate or speed each time?

I know this is probably like analog 101 for y'all, but I never really learned this stuff the first time around. Although I started on cassette 4 tracks in the 80s, I never really made full use of them and never learned the first thing about syncing with other sources, demagnatizing, head cleaning, so much I'm now getting up to speed on.

I don’t know if you are missing anything - but I am - why are you recording on Cassette and Dumping to the Daw? Why aren’t you recording everything to the DAW?

Because this is where my recording journey has led after decades of recording everything to the DAW. Crazy, ain't it? But I'll tell ya, it definitely ain't about chasing "that lofi sound" or whatever. It's more generally about *fun*, and particularly about what stimulates my creativity.

I will say that an interesting plus has been observing how good cassette tape can actually sound - I was expecting to have to take more of a hit in that department when I went back to cassette. But really what I've learned is how much "getting good" sound is really more about recording ability and less about gear.

I've learned that for me, digital technology - and the limitless options for *control* it affords - is ultimately a negative for my creativity. It took me awhile to get this, and I get that other people have different relationships to technology and that's cool. We all have to work this one out for ourselves. But the issue is settled for me now.

 

[TalismanRich]

Hi all - Thanks very much for the input!

I've learned that for me, digital technology - and the limitless options for *control* it affords - is ultimately a negative for my creativity. It took me awhile to get this, and I get that other people have different relationships to technology and that's cool. We all have to work this one out for ourselves. But the issue is settled for me now.

I'm glad it's working for you, but for the life of me, I do NOT understand the "limitless options for *control* it affords - is ultimately a negative for my creativity" deal. I hear it all the time. It seems a matter of self control and self imposed limits. It's like telling the cop "I've got this 'vette that does 180, so I HAVE to go that fast." You're still gonna get that ticket, buddy!

I probably have 200 plugins, they mostly are the ones that come with Reaper. For the vast majority of my work, I use the same 6 or 7. ReaCOMP, ReaEQ, ReaVerb, ReaFIR, BlueCat Spectrum analyser, ReaTune, MT PDK.

I just looked at a project I mixed for someone here on HR. He had 19 tracks with multiple vocals, piano, string bass, etc. I use ReaComp, EQ, Tune and Verb. I didn't slice up anything, did a bit of volume automation and panning, and that was it. Nothing that someone wouldn't do if they had a 24 track console and tape deck with a couple of compressors, EQ on the mixing board and a Reverb send, except for the ReaTuning of voice tracks to remove some off notes.

On the other hand, had I done it with cassette, my first and biggest issue would have been the tape hiss especially if there was significant track bouncing. I HATE HATE HATE tape hiss. Even with 70+ yr old ears I hear it and it drives me bonkers. I can record 24 tracks on my R-24 and there's no tape hiss. It's got the "limitations" that you have on most cassette portastudios. I don't have to fool with tape rewinding. It's got a few built in effects. No video monitor, plug in the mic, enable record, set level and press record. Move on to the next track and do the same. Flub it up, and you just hit the rewind button and record it again.

The negatives of cassette are just so many for me. I've listened to posts where people say they are surprised by how good it sounds. I listen to the tracks and it always comes thru as mediocre to me.

There's some lines from Mr Tanner by Harry Chapin that sometimes seems to fit.

The concert was a blur to him, spatters of applause
He did not know how well he sang; he only heard the flaws
But the critics were concise; it only took four lines
And no one could accuse them of being overkind

In the past, it seems like a lot of work to get what I felt were poor results. I only heard the flaws, and instead of enhancing my creativity, it just stifled it.


But that's just my $0.02 cents worth.


As for the timing issue, all I can say is JUST TRY IT. Put in a cassette, let it record for 5 minutes. (20 seconds isn't enough time). Put a clap at the beginning and end. Then transfer it to your computer and back to tape. Then dump the same track a second time to your computer and see if the wave forms line up. If not, then you will need to address the speed inconsistency of your tape deck if you try to line up your first 4 tracks with the second group of 3 tracks once transfered to your DAW.

 

[groucho]

I'm glad it's working for you, but for the life of me, I do NOT understand the "limitless options for *control* it affords - is ultimately a negative for my creativity" deal. I hear it all the time. It seems a matter of self control and self imposed limits. It's like telling the cop "I've got this 'vette that does 180, so I HAVE to go that fast." You're still gonna get that ticket, buddy!

That's cool man - if it doesn't resonate for you, that means you're on a different path, one that's right for you. Awesome! It may not necessarily be the same path you're on 20 years from now... or maybe it will be. It's all good either way.

 

[Scott Baxendale]

I'm glad it's working for you, but for the life of me, I do NOT understand the "limitless options for *control* it affords - is ultimately a negative for my creativity" deal. I hear it all the time. It seems a matter of self control and self imposed limits. It's like telling the cop "I've got this 'vette that does 180, so I HAVE to go that fast." You're still gonna get that ticket, buddy!

I probably have 200 plugins, they mostly are the ones that come with Reaper. For the vast majority of my work, I use the same 6 or 7. ReaCOMP, ReaEQ, ReaVerb, ReaFIR, BlueCat Spectrum analyser, ReaTune, MT PDK.

I just looked at a project I mixed for someone here on HR. He had 19 tracks with multiple vocals, piano, string bass, etc. I use ReaComp, EQ, Tune and Verb. I didn't slice up anything, did a bit of volume automation and panning, and that was it. Nothing that someone wouldn't do if they had a 24 track console and tape deck with a couple of compressors, EQ on the mixing board and a Reverb send, except for the ReaTuning of voice tracks to remove some off notes.

On the other hand, had I done it with cassette, my first and biggest issue would have been the tape hiss especially if there was significant track bouncing. I HATE HATE HATE tape hiss. Even with 70+ yr old ears I hear it and it drives me bonkers. I can record 24 tracks on my R-24 and there's no tape hiss. It's got the "limitations" that you have on most cassette portastudios. I don't have to fool with tape rewinding. It's got a few built in effects. No video monitor, plug in the mic, enable record, set level and press record. Move on to the next track and do the same. Flub it up, and you just hit the rewind button and record it again.

The negatives of cassette are just so many for me. I've listened to posts where people say they are surprised by how good it sounds. I listen to the tracks and it always comes thru as mediocre to me.

There's some lines from Mr Tanner by Harry Chapin that sometimes seems to fit.

The concert was a blur to him, spatters of applause
He did not know how well he sang; he only heard the flaws
But the critics were concise; it only took four lines
And no one could accuse them of being overkind

In the past, it seems like a lot of work to get what I felt were poor results. I only heard the flaws, and instead of enhancing my creativity, it just stifled it.


But that's just my $0.02 cents worth.


As for the timing issue, all I can say is JUST TRY IT. Put in a cassette, let it record for 5 minutes. (20 seconds isn't enough time). Put a clap at the beginning and end. Then transfer it to your computer and back to tape. Then dump the same track a second time to your computer and see if the wave forms line up. If not, then you will need to address the speed inconsistency of your tape deck if you try to line up your first 4 tracks with the second group of 3 tracks once transfered to your DAW.

 

[TalismanRich]

Yeah, everyone brings up Nebraska as being the quintessential work on cassette. He did it as a demo on his cassette portastudio because it was done in Jan 1982! He didn't intend it to be release that way.

I think it's a case of "message over medium". Personally, I didn't care for the album, and it sounds like crap to me, distorted, boomy guitar and hissy. That's after they had to do some significant work to even transfer it to vinyl and later to CD.

There are lots of instances where songs were hits in spite of the fact that they sound like crap.

That's cool man - if it doesn't resonate for you, that means you're on a different path, one that's right for you. Awesome! It may not necessarily be the same path you're on 20 years from now... or maybe it will be. It's all good either way.

I can pretty much guarantee that I don't be on the same path 20 years from now. I won't have room for a DAW rig in the little nursing home room.. assuming I'm still on the green side of the grass!

 

[noah330]

I can't believe we're at a point where people want wow and flutter, but to each their own. I sometimes mix to a R2R for fun, but I've found that the hysteresis that occurs when sum my mixes gives me that cohesive sound more than tape does.

As far as bouncing multiple tracks in/out of a DAW, I would probably either track through a tape machine or get a decent multitrack (not a Tascam or Fostex) and sum to tape the same way you would sum to an 8—or 16-track mixer.

 

[Farview]

To test the drift of the cassette:
1. record a 5 minute click track to the tape deck
2. Record from cassette to the daw.
3. Record back to the cassette.
4. Record that back to the daw.
5. Try to line both tracks up in the daw and play them together.

Chances are if you line up the first beat, the last one won't be lined up.

 

[groucho]

Thanks much for the further info Scott and Farview! So, trying to get my head around these 2 bits of info:

All you need is a sharp hit at the beginning of the tracks that you use to line up the sounds. It’s like a slate used in movies. A snare or high hat hit works.

and

Chances are if you line up the first beat, the last one won't be lined up.

So, wouldn't that mean that even lining up everything to the sharp hit (a la the movie slate) there would still be drift/variance over time? In which case it would seem that my idea of freeing up tracks by bouncing over to a DAW (or anywhere, really) would be inherently flawed.

I appreciate y'all's patience with my denseness here... like I said, this is stuff I never learned in the old days.

 

[Farview]

Bouncing to the daw to mix tracks together will work fine as long as you never have to go backwards.

1. Fill up 4 tracks and bounce them to the daw.
2. Mix those tracks to bounce back to the cassette.
3. Add more tracks.
4. Repeat.
5 Do final mix on cassette

That will work fine. However, if you are trying to record 16 tracks on the cassette, then line up the individual tracks in the DAW for the final mix, you will most likely have problems.

 

[Scott Baxendale]

Bouncing to the daw to mix tracks together will work fine as long as you never have to go backwards.

1. Fill up 4 tracks and bounce them to the daw.
2. Mix those tracks to bounce back to the cassette.
3. Add more tracks.
4. Repeat.
5 Do final mix on cassette

That will work fine. However, if you are trying to record 16 tracks on the cassette, then line up the individual tracks in the DAW for the final mix, you will most likely have problems.

Wouldn’t it sound better if you just kept adding 4 tracks into the DAW and keep adding them there rather than bouncing back to the cassette deck before mixing? I’d record 4 tracks then bounce those to the DAW, then record 4 more to add to the DAW, etc. then once all your tracks are in the DAW you can mix those back to a stereo cassette tape mix. Then you eliminate the bouncing a premix back to the cassette just to add two more tracks. Now, all your cassette tracks are first generation in the DAW, so when mixing you are not dealing with second or third generation tape hiss build up and you still have full control over each track in the mix.

 

[Papanate]

I'm glad it's working for you, but for the life of me, I do NOT understand the "limitless options for *control* it affords - is ultimately a negative for my creativity" deal.

Exactly if you can’t finish a song because there are too many options - then a 4 track won’t help anyway - but if you self discipline yourself and say I only have 24 tracks
and this many plugins you will be golden - I don’t have to do this - it’s rare that I need more than 24 tracks - but when I do I don’t worry.

 

[groucho]

Thanks for the further responses, Scott and Farview! It's much appreciated.

Ok, if my tiny brain is grokking this correctly, what it seems like is that there are two ways to go as far as this "bouncing to the DAW" thing:

1) You record tracks on the 4 track, bounce them all to the DAW, mix them there and bounce the whole mix back to the 4 track to add more tracks to it, then bounce the whole thing back, mix, bounce back, repeat, etc.

The obvious advantage of this is that there will be no trouble getting things to line up. The obvious disadvantage is that each bounce is going to entail a pretty discernable quality hit - I've verified that in the tests I've done. One bounce is perhaps doable but more than one starts getting iffy.

Then there's the process I detail in the first post, which is basically:
2) Record stuff on 4 track, bounce tracks to DAW, *leave* tracks on DAW (but bounce mono mix as reference back to 4 track), record more tracks, bounce to DAW and leave the new tracks with the other ones, repeat, etc... and then eventually mix all tracks together on the DAW.

This seems a great way to get limitless tracks without sound quality loss but is imperfect in several ways, notably that there will be some degree of variation between the various tracks (not to mention none of this fulfills my ultimate goal of getting off the DAW entirely but that's a separate issue I'm still working on).

So, does that sound right re: the bouncing? Or am I getting something wrong there?

Exactly if you can’t finish a song because there are too many options - then a 4 track won’t help anyway -

One of the ways I know I'm on the right path is that I'm having fun and feel creatively inspired. One of the ways I know I'm NOT on the right path is I feel the need to publicly sneer at people who are doing things differently from me. And believe me, I've done plenty of online sneering over the years, so I get the insecurity that's at the heart of that behavior. I'm not sure I ever waded into an analog tape forum thread to post that I "don't get why people would use cassette" but I easily could have.

 

[TalismanRich]

Just to give you a bit of "real world" reference, lets assume that you have a 6 minute song.

I recorded two hand claps on my cassette deck, one at the beginning, one at the end. I dumped that to DAW, then I copied that from the DAW to the cassette and then I dumped it back into my DAW, lined up the first clap and then looked at the differential between tracks at the end.

Here are snaps of the initial alignment, and the final alignment.

The differential is approximately 0.7 seconds over a 6 minute recording. This is what it sounded like at the end.

When you're playing a song, .7 seconds over 6 minutes is approximately 0.2% error. That's not going to affect someone's perception of the song. However, 0.7 seconds between your kick drum and the guitarist hitting a chord is going to be VERY noticeable.

How much variation you will get from your deck can only be determined by doing the test. If you plan on not submixing to the DAW and back, then just do a recording like this, and play it back to your DAW twice. A simple hand clap is sufficient. Just make sure you use enough time to really determine the amount of error.

 

[groucho]

Interesting! Thanks for that, Rich! I appreciate the time you took, man. It looks to me like you got more variation than I did when I did a similar test, but I'd bet that you're correct: if I were to do a test that was the length of an actual song (rather than a few seconds) I would have results similar to yours.

 

[Scott Baxendale]

Thanks for the further responses, Scott and Farview! It's much appreciated.

Ok, if my tiny brain is grokking this correctly, what it seems like is that there are two ways to go as far as this "bouncing to the DAW" thing:

1) You record tracks on the 4 track, bounce them all to the DAW, mix them there and bounce the whole mix back to the 4 track to add more tracks to it, then bounce the whole thing back, mix, bounce back, repeat, etc.

The obvious advantage of this is that there will be no trouble getting things to line up. The obvious disadvantage is that each bounce is going to entail a pretty discernable quality hit - I've verified that in the tests I've done. One bounce is perhaps doable but more than one starts getting iffy.

Then there's the process I detail in the first post, which is basically:
2) Record stuff on 4 track, bounce tracks to DAW, *leave* tracks on DAW (but bounce mono mix as reference back to 4 track), record more tracks, bounce to DAW and leave the new tracks with the other ones, repeat, etc... and then eventually mix all tracks together on the DAW.

This seems a great way to get limitless tracks without sound quality loss but is imperfect in several ways, notably that there will be some degree of variation between the various tracks (not to mention none of this fulfills my ultimate goal of getting off the DAW entirely but that's a separate issue I'm still working on).

So, does that sound right re: the bouncing? Or am I getting something wrong there?



One of the ways I know I'm on the right path is that I'm having fun and feel creatively inspired. One of the ways I know I'm NOT on the right path is I feel the need to publicly sneer at people who are doing things differently from me. And believe me, I've done plenty of online sneering over the years, so I get the insecurity that's at the heart of that behavior. I'm not sure I ever waded into an analog tape forum thread to post that I "don't get why people would use cassette" but I easily could have.

Bouncing pre mixed tracks back to the 4trk is unnecessary and just makes the fidelity get worse. Once you have your “slate” captured then everything synchs of that. You just need to monitor the bounced to DAW tracks while tracking on the 4trk thus eliminating having to bounce things back to the 4trk. You just need to capture the Slate hit on each track.