editing analog in pro tools

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oldtownrobot

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anyone know a good way to go about getting the sounds onto a computer from an 8-track reel to reel to do mixing and editing?
 
Play the tape back into a 8 channel A/D device and record it in PT.
 
fenix said:
there are many more PT interfaces besides mbox and 002.
Click to expand...

I'm quite aware, thank you. Perhaps I should have worded it: An Mbox, 002,....etc?
 
It wold be pretty tricky with a Mbox or 002 since their isnt 8 inputs.
 
whoops. I just noticed that on the digi site.

It would be pretty hard on a mbox then.
 
My Trick

The trick I use when I need to get audio into Pro Tools and I am limited by either a lack of sync or I/O, is to do this, take a sound source like a signal generator, or even a click/cowbell type sound. The idea is to get something that makes a sharp transient when it sounds. Round this sound to all 8 tracks of your analog recording and record it a second or two befor the music starts on your 8 track analog recording. Now you can record each of those tracks into Pro Tools, one at a time even.

Then you need to edit them to line up correctly. You can use the use tab-to-transient feature to make a selection right where the transient of the new sound is, on each of the tracks. Then seperate the recorded file into two regions by pressing crtl+e or selecting it from the edit menu. Once this is done, you can deleted the information recorded before the new sound.

Since you recorded the new sound to all 8 tracks at the same time, it is a point of reference, and since we use tab-to-transient to select exactly where the transient begins on each tracks waveform, and then removed the audio occuring before that, each track is starting at the same place now.

Now you can go into grid mode and line them up. Or you can just drag each waveform to the left so they all start at 0.

It sounds tedious, but I have found it is much faster than trying to eyeball or manually line up multiple tracks without a sync reference.


Hope that helps. Let me know if you need more info.
 
If you do it the way benTLee described, you better make sure that any stereo-mic'ed tracks (like drum overheads) go down in the same pass. Even if your tape machine is super fine tuned, you're likely to get SOME drift, and the stereo tracks would get weird.

If you don't have 8 inputs I think it would be very worth your while to pay the 1-hour fee at a commercial facility and lay the tracks in all at once. I'm sure you can get it done for around $50 or less somewhere. Then you're done and you don't have to worry about it.
 
oldtownrobot said:
anyone know a good way to go about getting the sounds onto a computer from an 8-track reel to reel to do mixing and editing?
Click to expand...

If there is a track that you can blow away (or copy to PT and manually sync), stripe the analog tape with SMPTE and use it to synchronize the analog deck to Pro Tools.
 
do you lose the analog sound quality?

when you transfer it to digital do you lose the "warmth" of the analog sound? is there a better purer way to do this? i don t have anything set up yet, i m looking into it! thanks!!!
 
oldtownrobot said:
when you transfer it to digital do you lose the "warmth" of the analog sound? is there a better purer way to do this? i don t have anything set up yet, i m looking into it! thanks!!!
Click to expand...

of course....you're going to lose some of it. that's the one of the top reasons people debate analog vs. digital recording so much. best way you can keep some of the sound is increase your sample rate and bit depth as much as you can/want :cool:
 
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