blah blah. I hate posting a boring thread. so go ahead and put negative rep points with some cursing for good measure. this thread is going to be about how I can get the most of my 1/2" setup, for my next project.
I recorded a demo for my band on my fostex E-16, and it came out pretty damn good. It got played on the radio and next to what all the other local studios are putting out, it didn't stand up. I mean, its all about the music and I sincerely believe that the band is the best music on my local show, and our performance on the recording was great. but it sonically did not stand up.
I have never been in a real recording studio.
I have been home recording for 10 years, since I was about 14.
and I always had this notion that I could out-do the local studios. Even when my only mic was a 57.
well, I tried that, and it didn't work. So I have been building my studio. I now have a fully analog system, including a tascam 32 mixdown reel. A nice low-priced mixer, low-priced monitors, and a 20VU rack full of mid-range pres and compressors. I have a collection of mics that rival any local studio. My instruments and amps are better than any local studios. I have built a ton of acoustic treatment to treat my control room and made enough gobos to isolate and treat everything in the live room (except the ceiling-i'm renting).
And I've probably made over 100 "CD's" of my own stuff over the last 10 years. live shows, improvisations, tracked albums, beats, etc. etc.
I am determined. My next project is going to be an LP. so, about 30 minutes of music. I am going to have it pressed to vinyl (hence the fully analog system) and CDs. My last recording I was going to have pressed to CD in order to get gigs but I'm just not happy enough with the sound. I am playing loud ass rock music. Not in the commercial vein, either. I am trying to do something "different", yet the same, always the same, but old and new at the same time. anti-commercial, however. therein lies the conundrum. while the music is anti-commercial, and I am definitely against commercialized production techniques, I want my recordings to be as Hi-Fi as possible. I want to out-Fi them. I think digital recordings for the most part suck. And I have been recording digitally for the last 6 years. And it just doens't sit right. Obviously there are exceptions to this and yada yada I've even made some decent digital recordings myself.
Thats just sort of the problem. My band thinks the digital ones sound better. Obviously I disagree but on some level they are right. It all depends on how much you weigh the different characteristics of each. I tend to find the fatigue of digital unacceptable, which means I must accept the loss of clarity I am getting now.
Only It shouldn't be that way. Analog recordings should be MORE clear. So what am I doing wrong??
My current hypothesis is that its the NR. So I believe I am going to use GP9 on the next one, and boot the NR. I think this will give me a higher fidelity. I'm not going to really set my machine up for it. I don't use it enough to consider the additional wear an issue. The bias for GP9 isn't really that far off. And if I try to rebias the machine, I'll probably do more damage than good. No doubt I'll screw it up somehow. 16 channels and only 2 heads.
I've tried GP9 before, and there is some hiss... but the saturation is 100% better and the clarity is restored. it sounds better. There is a strange quality to the sound but after some experimentation I think it will be better than before. but there is still the issue of hiss.
maybe a ME could clean that up.
any thoughts on any of this are welcome. I know its the same old shit, but at least I've tried to add a little more than that. I am going to invest in a top-quality dual preamp and a top-quality compressor. After that, I could still blame my cables, my cheap monitors, my cheap mixer, my 1/2" machine, or my skills. Those are the only things left. It gets expensive from there on out. Plus I don't have the engineering skills to upgrade my machine or mixer. But I can't afford this time to make a recording I am not going to use. I have to make a good one this time. My band's future will depend on it. I posted this here because I found this site looking for info on reel-2-reel's, and it has been a better resource than I have ever imagined.