Recording Analog & mixing to Digital. . . ?

[BRDTS]

......."but how well does it work...."

It works very well. The timing things you bring up are the common things one thinks of ...and then finds are non-issues when actually doing the transfers this way a few times.

Once you've done a few transfers...come back for some other fine-tuning pointers based on what you encounter from your own experiment with this.

 

[pbergo]

He wants to track analog with more tracks than his machine has.

 

[pbergo]

"I'm asking, what is the advantage of leaving those tracks on tape once they've been tracked?"

So you can keep them. Lord knows, I've gone back to old projects and done cool things with them. If I would have just dumped them to an HD they probably would have been long gone.

 

[BRDTS]

..........."I'm asking, what is the advantage of leaving those tracks on tape once they've been tracked?"....." ..."So you can keep them"
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For those folks who want to keep the original analog tracks, tip #4 is real simple...on say an analog 8 track machine with 2 reference tracks (as dubbed over from your daw to use as a point of reference)...overdub 6 analog tracks...dump to the daw..and then.....

simply fast forward your tape 3 or 4 minutes past the song...get to where the tape is blank...transfer your ref tracks to 2 tracks there....overdub 6 new analog tracks...dump back to daw...and so on.

You never erase any tracks in this way. Just have a few reels of tape around as your "archive" begins to grow.

I recorded various types of mono, stereo, and four track reels this way back in the 60's and early 70's. Luckily, I followed a procedure similar to above...never erased anything..and by the time these great days of daws came around in the mid 90's, I was able to transfer all those disjointed tracks from different reels into the computers and move the tracks into alignment for remixes...all basically first generation.

So there IS a good reason to keep those analog tracks....just in case you ever need them for some reason you can't envision right now.

 

[Beck]

Please reread my post. You can hoave as many analog tracks as you have digital tracks in your DAW. I'm asking, what is the advantage of leaving those tracks on tape once they've been tracked?

From an analog purist perspective, you leave tracks on analog to the last possible step to avoid processing in the digital realm. When we speak of processing we are primarily concerned with digital conversion – from a higher to lower bit depth and/or rate, and visa versa. For example, transferring from analog to 24/96 and then converting that digitally to 16/44 for CD is less desirable than going right from analog to 16/44.

A lot of other things commonly happen in the digital realm as well, such as the disparity between input, internal processing, and output rates, which just adds another conversion step or two. The truncation and dithering schemes, depending on your particular device, leave a lot to be desired.

Plug-ins, emulators, digital compression (God forbid) and such add another layer of potential corruption to the original audio that you took so much care to record in analog. These tools are convenient – part of the draw of digital, but can be destructive to the original analog sound.

Supplementing analog with digital, whether with ADAT, Pro Tools, or whatever, is a great use of digital. But here, the two are synced and stay in their respective formats for the duration.

I’ve used synchronization in recording since pre-MIDI (1984), first with Proprietary Roland sync on their synths and drum machines and later with MIDI. This was the original Hybrid studio – analog tracks with virtual sequencer tracks. You can do the same thing with digital recording, either slaving the DAW (or what have you) to the analog machine or visa versa, if the analog machine can slave to sync.

I would rather slave a comparatively inexpensive Alesis XT or something with its relatively inexpensive SVHS tape to my analog machine, than fumble with a second analog machine. If it came to that though I would just upgrade to an analog deck with more tracks. But I don’t have to do either, since I have more virtual tracks on my sequencer than I can use, plus separate drum machines that slave to that. And those virtual tracks go directly to my half-track master, first generation. It doesn’t get any cleaner than that.

~Tim

 

[fraserhutch]

What I do not understand, though, is if you are intendending to mix in the box, as the initial poster indicates, then that implies that you will be moving the tracks into the digital realm before you mix. No? If so, than why would it matter if you did so right after tracking as opposed to just before?

We're not talking about doing analog mixing and converting to digital at the last step. He specifically said

it would be possible to record 8 tracks on a Tascam 38, . .and then physically bring the 38 to a digital studio and have them upload all 8 tracks separately into Pro-Tools, or whatever popular software they are using today, . . .

So, I do not see the difference.

From an analog purist perspective, you leave tracks on analog to the last possible step to avoid processing in the digital realm. When we speak of processing we are primarily concerned with digital conversion – from a higher to lower bit depth and/or rate, and visa versa. For example, transferring from analog to 24/96 and then converting that digitally to 16/44 for CD is less desirable than going right from analog to 16/44.

A lot of other things commonly happen in the digital realm as well, such as the disparity between input, internal processing, and output rates, which just adds another conversion step or two. The truncation and dithering schemes, depending on your particular device, leave a lot to be desired.

Plug-ins, emulators, digital compression (God forbid) and such add another layer of potential corruption to the original audio that you took so much care to record in analog. These tools are convenient – part of the draw of digital, but can be destructive to the original analog sound.

Supplementing analog with digital, whether with ADAT, Pro Tools, or whatever, is a great use of digital. But here, the two are synced and stay in their respective formats for the duration.

I’ve used synchronization in recording since pre-MIDI (1984), first with Proprietary Roland sync on their synths and drum machines and later with MIDI. This was the original Hybrid studio – analog tracks with virtual sequencer tracks. You can do the same thing with digital recording, either slaving the DAW (or what have you) to the analog machine or visa versa, if the analog machine can slave to sync.

I would rather slave a comparatively inexpensive Alesis XT or something with its relatively inexpensive SVHS tape to my analog machine, than fumble with a second analog machine. If it came to that though I would just upgrade to an analog deck with more tracks. But I don’t have to do either, since I have more virtual tracks on my sequencer than I can use, plus separate drum machines that slave to that. And those virtual tracks go directly to my half-track master, first generation. It doesn’t get any cleaner than that.

~Tim

 

[Beck]

Yeah, I see what you’re saying.

My response can be read as recommending one not transfer analog tracks in order to fool around with them in the digital realm. There isn't much advantage to recording with analog, only to drag those tracks through several digital stages, and IMO, digital summing will strip it of most of what it started with. I simply won’t use a digital mixer under any circumstances, now or in the foreseeable future. It’s not that people who do are bad people; it’s just that it won’t produce the results I’m looking for. There are plenty of people who know what they’re doing that mix digitally.

Saturation isn't the primary reason to start in analog for me. However if you are using tape as an effect, say for recording drums with tape compression, you have a better chance of preserving an exaggerated effect even if using digital summing and other digital processing.

If like me, you record in analog for the silky smoothness and pleasing sonic character, you don't want to hack that up with gratuitous digital wizardry... just as Daniel said earlier when speaking of digital noise reduction.

Generally, you want to get the best sound coming out (from your analog recorder) and into your computer. You really don't want to butcher the original sound too much so I'd stay away from any noise reduction plug-in program in pro-tools, if this is what you meant by "cleaning it up".

But then there are other reasons to bring an analog machine into a studio... for example, it's what you happen to record with at home or have some old tapes, even if you aren’t necessarily concerned about preserving "The analog sound."

 

[fraserhutch]

Well, that sermon reeally had nothing to do with the original question, which is what I was addressing

Yeah, I see what you’re saying.

My response can be read as recommending one not transfer analog tracks in order to fool around with them in the digital realm. There isn't much advantage to recording with analog, only to drag those tracks through several digital stages, and IMO, digital summing will strip it of most of what it started with. I simply won’t use a digital mixer under any circumstances, now or in the foreseeable future. It’s not that people who do are bad people; it’s just that it won’t produce the results I’m looking for. There are plenty of people who know what they’re doing that mix digitally.

Saturation isn't the primary reason to start in analog for me. However if you are using tape as an effect, say for recording drums with tape compression, you have a better chance of preserving an exaggerated effect even if using digital summing and other digital processing.

If like me, you record in analog for the silky smoothness and pleasing sonic character, you don't want to hack that up with gratuitous digital wizardry... just as Daniel said earlier when speaking of digital noise reduction.



But then there are other reasons to bring an analog machine into a studio... for example, it's what you happen to record with at home or have some old tapes, even if you aren’t necessarily concerned about preserving "The analog sound."

 

[pbergo]

Well there are all sort of needs and desires, philsosphies, possibilities etc.

For example, dumping those tracks to digital doesn't necessarily mean that you will be doing digital summing.

Some like using digital better than others, but just want to get the 'analog tape sound' for some of their tracks.

Some may just have 8 tracks but wish for more, and they are trying to figure out the best and most realistic way to do this, given their circumstances.

Know what I mean?

 

[Beck]

Well, that sermon reeally had nothing to do with the original question, which is what I was addressing

Fraz,

It’s not unlike me to conclude that contributors to a thread or even the thread starters are barking up the wrong tree. I will often propose a different tree, in which I’m sure you will have your fox.

Indeed, my sermons can sometimes get too long. Growing up in the church as a child, our pastor’s sermons never made much sense to me either. But back then I was on the floor between the pews coloring in my Sunday school coloring books with my little sis.

As I got older and started listening they did start making sense. And now looking back, I’ll be damned if he wasn’t making sense the whole damn time.

 

[clevodrummer]

Tascam 424MKIII Tascam Porta o2

Can I use my little Porta 02 to run into my MKIII, and add 2 tracks that way?

 

[fraserhutch]

Didn't want to come across as harping - I wasn't.

Anyways, I know you're an analog only guy. Does that mean that you are totally against bringing your tracks into a DAW for processing, then out again for analog summing?

Where are the real advantages that you feel analog provides? Would that be tracking and summing? Do you feel that good A/D and D/A would ruin the analog goodness providing during tracking?

Fraz,

It’s not unlike me to conclude that contributors to a thread or even the thread starters are barking up the wrong tree. I will often propose a different tree, in which I’m sure you will have your fox.

Indeed, my sermons can sometimes get too long. Growing up in the church as a child, our pastor’s sermons never made much sense to me either. But back then I was on the floor between the pews coloring in my Sunday school coloring books with my little sis.

As I got older and started listening they did start making sense. And now looking back, I’ll be damned if he wasn’t making sense the whole damn time.

 

[Beck]

I’m a recording guy. I’ll use whatever works. I don’t know about this particular case but the name of this forum, “Analog Only” is often misunderstood to mean that people participating in this forum only use analog. What it really means is that we have a special forum to discuss only analog. Analog can be discussed in other forums as well, but this forum is intended to be a deeper level to address issues unique to analog… just like the “Computer Recording and Soundcards” forum is for that.

First let me say that my observations are based on the way things sound, and not any other measurement. Analog proponents generally choose analog based on their sense of hearing, thus technical discussions of why analog and digital sound different are really academic, but can be interesting. People disagree as to why a given process is altering an audio source and yet still agree that it is altering it. This is all about the senses.

Tape sounds better to me at every stage – tracking and mastering. I prefer tape over the most up-to-date digital technology (even technology several days old ).

Short of a totally analog recording chain, mastering to half-track can give people an edge over the average DAW user. Of course this depends somewhat on music style. Some music is so non-musical the people that prefer it aren’t going to detect subtle tonal nuances. The less sensitive and dynamic the music is, the less the recording medium matters. Dividing this into distinct categories isn’t easy though because the music world is known for exceptions. IMO, the more one would describe one’s music as, “Hauntingly beautiful” the more one will benefit from analog.

CHAPTER TWO:

It’s not A/D/A conversion that does the most damage. My approach is to avoid as much digital-to-digital (D/D) conversion as possible because that’s where digital becomes the most obtrusive. Historically speaking, contemporary music has become more harsh and brittle to my ear as the practice of editing and “sweetening” in the digital realm gained in popularity. Unfortunately this is the state of the art – the way things are done.

If you are going to the trouble of recording something to tape you don’t want to strip the signal of that character through gratuitous D/D conversion stages. Bringing something into a DAW usually involves reconciling disparate bit-depths and sampling rates – the difference between external and internal processing.

In professional circles, avoiding multiple conversion stages was something even the most ardent digital proponent was always mindful of. It is more commonly ignored in home DAW-based studios.

The tools allegedly able to fix everything post-facto do not come without cost. There may indeed be a button that says, “Fix bad singer” on a drop-down menu in a piece of software, but whether the algorithm works as expected is another matter.

There are a lot of buttons for us to click in computer land. A whole generation has grown up with everything available at the click of a mouse. I keep clicking on the one that says, “Meet desperate women in your area” to no avail. Why isn’t this damn thing working?