jedblue
beep beep beep beep beep
Today before our scheduled mixing session we ran a tape v. ProTools comparison session just to see if we could answer some questions in our own minds.
We had already recorded a couple of live to two track 1/4" tape sessions of a friends boogie band. It sounded fantastic. Everything good you have heard about tape was there. We hit the tape quite hard when we tracked it - compression, saturation, big fat bottoms and nice rounded tops - all that stuff was there.
We also recorded all the input tracks seperately direct to digital to ProTools so we were alble to make direct comparisions of two versions of the same session, one all analog and one all digital (or combo's of both).
So given that we already had the original 1/4" session tape and we knew what that sounded like (great), today we pulled a mix out of the individual ProTools tracks we'd recorded at the same time. For the analog session the mix and eq was set before the recording and what you got was what you got. For the ProTools mix, each instrument and voice in the mix could be adjusted as you please.
The result? A great sounding digital mix. As good as the live to 1/4" tape mix? No? Both of us thought that in that recording situation, tape just did the job better.
So now we took the ProTools stereo mix we made today and slammed that to tape, red lighting it and seeing if we could duplicate the tape sound we got going directly to tape in the original session.
Listening to the playback head during recording of the ProTools stereo pair, you could hear the tape doing something. It was different. Was it adding to the ProTools mix? No. Was it better or worse? Worse in both our opinions.
So now the fourth thing to do was to take the resulting ProTools to tape recording and record it back into ProTools and listen up. Better than the digital only mixdown? No? Better than the ProTools to tape playback? No. It was the worse result of them all. Did it compress? Looking at the resulting wave pattern in 'Tools showed heavy tape compression.
So here's our conclusions for this rock type boogie band recording where an all analog and an all digital session was run at the same time...
1). The live to two track 1/4" tape produced the best and most musical result. All that you'd want to have happening from tape was there. But you've got to go direct to tape to get it.
2). The mixed down ProTools digital session (24bit/48khz) was next in preference. It was a great digital recording of a good band and any band would be proud of it.
3). Recording in digital to ProTools, mixing it, then taking the result out to tape and back produced the worst result. To us there is no real reson to do it. If you start in digital, then stay in digital.
Interestingly enough, when the original 1/4" tape recording was recorded back into ProTools, most of the good tape stuff was preserved.
So our final grading for this tape v. ProTool recording experiment would be...
1). All analog with the results being kept on 1/4" tape is the most musical (but totally impractical to do anything with except master for vinyl). Best result.
2). Recording that 1/4" back into ProTools at 24bit / 48kHz preserved most of the analog goodness, gave the second best result and allows digital duplication - Next best result and the most practical.
3). The all ProTools digital session was our third preference and produced a perfectly acceptable recording with all that is convenient with digital. It just didn't have that 'something' that tape does when it all comes together. Great and useable result.
4) Taking a digital recording out and back to ProTools via tape, even whacking that tape hard, was a complete waste of time and produced the worst result. Truly a 'why bother' result...
Once the band has mastered off and released the resulting ep CD, I hope to get them to agree to allow me to put a couple of minutes of the digitized original recording, the same section for the ProTools mix and also the 'out to tape and back' mix so you can hear just what we mean.
An interesting day indeed.
We had already recorded a couple of live to two track 1/4" tape sessions of a friends boogie band. It sounded fantastic. Everything good you have heard about tape was there. We hit the tape quite hard when we tracked it - compression, saturation, big fat bottoms and nice rounded tops - all that stuff was there.
We also recorded all the input tracks seperately direct to digital to ProTools so we were alble to make direct comparisions of two versions of the same session, one all analog and one all digital (or combo's of both).
So given that we already had the original 1/4" session tape and we knew what that sounded like (great), today we pulled a mix out of the individual ProTools tracks we'd recorded at the same time. For the analog session the mix and eq was set before the recording and what you got was what you got. For the ProTools mix, each instrument and voice in the mix could be adjusted as you please.
The result? A great sounding digital mix. As good as the live to 1/4" tape mix? No? Both of us thought that in that recording situation, tape just did the job better.
So now we took the ProTools stereo mix we made today and slammed that to tape, red lighting it and seeing if we could duplicate the tape sound we got going directly to tape in the original session.
Listening to the playback head during recording of the ProTools stereo pair, you could hear the tape doing something. It was different. Was it adding to the ProTools mix? No. Was it better or worse? Worse in both our opinions.
So now the fourth thing to do was to take the resulting ProTools to tape recording and record it back into ProTools and listen up. Better than the digital only mixdown? No? Better than the ProTools to tape playback? No. It was the worse result of them all. Did it compress? Looking at the resulting wave pattern in 'Tools showed heavy tape compression.
So here's our conclusions for this rock type boogie band recording where an all analog and an all digital session was run at the same time...
1). The live to two track 1/4" tape produced the best and most musical result. All that you'd want to have happening from tape was there. But you've got to go direct to tape to get it.
2). The mixed down ProTools digital session (24bit/48khz) was next in preference. It was a great digital recording of a good band and any band would be proud of it.
3). Recording in digital to ProTools, mixing it, then taking the result out to tape and back produced the worst result. To us there is no real reson to do it. If you start in digital, then stay in digital.
Interestingly enough, when the original 1/4" tape recording was recorded back into ProTools, most of the good tape stuff was preserved.
So our final grading for this tape v. ProTool recording experiment would be...
1). All analog with the results being kept on 1/4" tape is the most musical (but totally impractical to do anything with except master for vinyl). Best result.
2). Recording that 1/4" back into ProTools at 24bit / 48kHz preserved most of the analog goodness, gave the second best result and allows digital duplication - Next best result and the most practical.
3). The all ProTools digital session was our third preference and produced a perfectly acceptable recording with all that is convenient with digital. It just didn't have that 'something' that tape does when it all comes together. Great and useable result.
4) Taking a digital recording out and back to ProTools via tape, even whacking that tape hard, was a complete waste of time and produced the worst result. Truly a 'why bother' result...
Once the band has mastered off and released the resulting ep CD, I hope to get them to agree to allow me to put a couple of minutes of the digitized original recording, the same section for the ProTools mix and also the 'out to tape and back' mix so you can hear just what we mean.
An interesting day indeed.
