How do you get recordings on 1/4 tape onto vinyl?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Heimcomputer
  • Start date Start date
Tim Gillett said:
Chilljam your first comment puts the issue of an "all analog" to vinyl production in a much clearer perspective but still it doesnt nail the issue. The fact is, inserting a good digital delay into the signal line (to replace the "read ahead tape head") will do nothing to alter the sound, or nothing which is audible.
Some decades ago, did the vast majority of ME's all over the world switch to digital delay, believing it compromised the audio quality of their cuts? And why do so when the traditional "read ahead" tape head system had worked fine for decades previously?

Most likely all those ME's worldwide made the change because they knew adding the digital delay didnt compromise audio quality.

The only reason to produce an "all analog" release today is to be able to say to people who dont know any better that it is an "all analog" release. And that is deceptive advertising, because it makes them think the product sounds better because it didnt go through a digital delay line.
It's not true. Going through a digital delay line will not make it sound any better or any worse. But dont just take my word for it. Ask a few good ME's.

Should I speak the truth or should I say what I think certain people want to hear?

As to your second paragraph, I remember the discussion we had some months ago. The OP was from Europe. He only revealed later on in the discussion that he had already been to a ME who had advised him that the digital delay in the cutting process wouldnt alter the sound and using a digital delay rather than the tape head was the way it had been done for decades anyway.

We only learned later that the guy had rejected that expert's advice and had then come to us. Ironically we here didnt even know that a digital delay had been used on most vinyl releases for decades! The OP had to tell us that! And he was the one who was trying to go against not only the ME's advice but also the combined experience of most of the world's vinyl ME's on this for decades.

As a result some people on this forum now had a real problem. They had been under the illusion that their own collections of vinyls to which they listened with pleasure had been "all analog" or "pure analog" when they had had a digital stage in them all along! What a joke.

The "all analog" signal chain thing is fantasy. Why cant we just say that, in agreement the world's best vinyl mastering engineers?

Tim
Click to expand...

All-analog pressing is an ideal, a classic time-tested method that produced millions of great-sounding records. There is a difference in sound between all-analog and analog-digital hybrid pressings (if nothing more than going through the extra analog stage -- surely you agree there is a difference in sound there, right? ... in fact, you can measure it!).

Some people find merit in this pursuit (I am one of them). The validity of such an endeavor is a matter of opinion, not fact.

Advertising 'all analog' is not deceptive advertising, it is 100% factual and accurate if that is how you pressed the record. Kind of like '180 gram', etc.

I prefer recording and mixing on 1960s and '70s equipment as opposed to 'better' sounding analog equipment that was produced later on. This is a preference for me because there is a difference in sound. 'Better' or 'Worse' is subjective.

You are not 'speaking the truth', you are stating your opinion -- an opinion I happen to disagree with.

And I am the one that brought up the digital delay, and I was fully aware that it has been in use since the late '70s.

Personally, I don't have a problem with vinyl pressed from CDs, digital files, or having gone through a digital delay. But to say there is no difference between this and an all-analog pressing is false.
 
Gosh this seems like a lot of wasted breath over a question that this person was just curious about with no intentions of really doing it!?!?:facepalm:
 
TASCAM MAN said:
Gosh this seems like a lot of wasted breath over a question that this person was just curious about with no intentions of really doing it!?!?:facepalm:
Click to expand...

Many feel it's an important topic worth discussing. Keep in mind, many people read this forum who do not post, and the posts here often come up on internet searches for info on analog recording. Certainly not the first time it's come up either.
 
lonewhitefly said:
Many feel it's an important topic worth discussing. Keep in mind, many people read this forum who do not post, and the posts here often come up on internet searches for info on analog recording. Certainly not the first time it's come up either.
Click to expand...


You are right and I think i will go back and read all of the info on thw thread cause I do find it interesting how they done/do that :) thanks again lonewhitefly :thumbs up:
 
14-bit shouldn't be too bad, you'd still get 16384 possible levels (CD and DAT having 65536).
12-bit would be only 4096, though. I heard they deliberately injected noise into the 12-bit ones to mask the aliasing and I'd kind of hope those were decommissioned or replaced with a higher-quality delay.
 
lonewhitefly said:
Because you wrote this:



... and digital delays were 12-bit, 14-bit, 16-bit ... i believe 20/24-bit delays are now available. who knows exactly what is used in each case?
Click to expand...

Yes and before that, in my opening statement, I said this: "The fact is, inserting a good digital delay (my emphasis) into the signal line (to replace the "read ahead tape head") will do nothing to alter the sound, or nothing which is audible."

Obviously back then, if it compromised the sound quality, there was no good reason to use a digital delay because they still had the tried and proven "read ahead" system to fall back on.

Today, digital delays are far better and cheap as chips. Even home recordists today use converters far better than what were available in the early 80's. To suggest that a digital delay would compromise the sound of an LP cut today is nonsense.

Tim
 
I dont know what bit rate is in my Korg DW-8000(and dont care) but it is the cleanest and best sounding delay Ive ever experienced !!:D
 
jpmorris said:
14-bit shouldn't be too bad, you'd still get 16384 possible levels (CD and DAT having 65536).
12-bit would be only 4096, though. I heard they deliberately injected noise into the 12-bit ones to mask the aliasing and I'd kind of hope those were decommissioned or replaced with a higher-quality delay.
Click to expand...

On a 12 bit converter they would have injected noise to mask quantisation, normal procedure if the source material doesnt perform that task itself with its own noise. Broadband noise is much more tolerable to human hearing than quantisation noise.

But again, even the lowly 12 bits is still roughly 70 db signal to noise which an LP record assuming a 60db S/N cant match. Remember, 70db s/n for an analog tape machine was pretty respectable.

14 bits at theoretically 84db s/n , minus a few more db for dithering, if it was needed at all, would have given you an extra 12db margin. Anything more than on an LP record would be superfluous in my opinion. The weak link would have been the LP record itself with around 60db s/n only.

LP mastering was a highly skilled craft which was necessary precisely because of the limitations of the analog LP record format. A good ME squeezed as much as he could out of the format, veering very close to the format's dynamic limits without overshooting them, making the product sound a lot better than it otherwise would.

By contrast, any fool can master a CD and make it sound passable because the CD is far more robust in terms of dynamic range and distortion, right across the audible spectrum.

We should appreciate the skilled work those ME's did, using every trick in the book to make each LP they mastered sound a whole lot better to the home listener than it probably had a right to sound.

I think if you asked those old guys now whether they thought this era was a kind of "golden age of analog purity" they would laugh. They were only in the job at all because of the great limitations of the LP format which was all they had as a release format back then. If the LP was such a brilliant format acoustically the ME's would have been mostly out of a job and vinyl mastering could have been done by far less skilled people.

Tim
 
Tm G.
Your last post encapsulated many of the points and numbers that I would have brought up.

It should also be remembered that the cutting engineers task was very limited by the PLAYBACK systems of the day! Very few records ever got played with V15ivs and SME arms! Then the bass level had to be limited and channell separation was only just good enough for good stereo...Geez! Even as vinyl was dying they STILL could not agree on the exact form of the RIAA playback curve!

Dave
 
Appreciate your comments Dave. Yes good cartridges, styli and arms, not only for better fidelity but potentially much reduced record wear. As well, turntables with minimal rumble and motor noise. Not an easy design task especially with stereo where unwanted vertical modulations were hard to control.

LP stereo records could sound pretty good, at least when played on good gear, considering all the obstacles in the way of that.

Tim
 
Tim Gillett said:
To suggest that a digital delay would compromise the sound of an LP cut today is nonsense.
Click to expand...

I am not suggesting that. I am asserting that there is a difference between all-analog pressings and analog-digital hybrids:

lonewhitefly said:
Personally, I don't have a problem with vinyl pressed from CDs, digital files, or having gone through a digital delay. But to say there is no difference between this and an all-analog pressing is false.
Click to expand...
 
Silliness aside.
A tape delay has got to sound worse. It is a "copy" anyway you look at it and noise, distortion, flutter sidebands and all the ills of tape must apply.

Then, using a digital system with a very carefully controlled peak level (and a barely adequate, by modern standards, noise floor) is just what the digital doctor ordered since levels can be held just under 0dBFS and 12 bits would do.

Our very own BBC has been distributing FM stereo on effectively 13bits for donkies and nobody has ever noticed (they don't notice the 15kHz limit much either!) and live FM has a wider dynamic range and lower distortion than you can get off tape.

And yes Tim. I well remember listening to (had "ears" then!) a jazz direct cut on some big Castle Acoustics (after BBC monitors), fabuloso ducky! But us plebian hordes never got that sort of pressing quality on a daily basis!

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
Silliness aside.
A tape delay has got to sound worse. It is a "copy" anyway you look at it and noise, distortion, flutter sidebands and all the ills of tape must apply.
Click to expand...

Dave, thanks for your comments but I'm not sure you understand the particular issue as it relates to the disc cutter. The digital delay didnt replace a tape generation. It replaced a "read ahead" system which effectively performed the same delay function but required a specialised tape head with other mechanical and electronic arrangements on the tape machine as it fed into the cutter lathe.

If the digital delay had replaced a generation of tape it would of course have made an improvement to the fidelity. But since it didnt, there would have been no audible improvement, and neither was there meant to be an improvement, I suspect.

Tim
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top