"Reel" Recording

kensington... about recording analog and dumping it to digital... A lot of people do it. I wrote a whole big argument in the computers and soundcards forum about sample rates and why digital is kinda bad for ultra high frequencies, but we all know that first of all, our finished product is digital anyway, and we still think it sounds good. So it really don't matter that much, though i'm still for 24/96 audio. The fact is, most people who use analog use it for the COLOR. Its kinda like a good mic pre, it has its own sound. I was listening to radiohead's KID A through my new yamaha msp5's and I heard this distortion on all the cymbals and high hats... and i thought, "ya, that's analog tape, pegging the meters." It just sounds like phil the drumme was really whacking the drums. (actually, to my ears it almost sounds like bad mp3 compression, too, only way cooler.) And rock is a pretty analog sound, really. It was born on analog. If you are using a good sound card, the conversion isn't really a big deal. And by "good" here i mean not a consumer card, like a soundblaster. I've read and heard that a lot of the pros will track in analog for the sound and the color, then dump to pro tools for editting and plugins and mixing automation (oh what would i do without it!) and them mix to digital.

Here's another explanation. Tubes distort, and people like it. What it does when it distorts is it adds either even or odd harmonics (i forget which) to the signal. Tape adds the other one when it distorts. Just a little bit of this colors the source and makes it a bit richer and stuff... And once its in there, you dont' lose it when you dump to digital.

I also know from experience that punching in on analog is a heck of a lot harder and riskier.... you need a bigger gap to pull it off than you do with digital. And there is no magic Control-Z undo button on tape. Ouch.

About the soundcraft... I think I may be able to answer some questions. I have used a soundcraft K2 extensively, and soundcrafts in general are quality, quiet, good sounding boards, which the noteable exception of the soundcraft series 100, which absolutely reeks. Don't touch them with a ten foot pole. It was the first unit they ever made, and oh goodness were they bad. Anyway, the K2 that I use is a 48 chanell 8-bus baby with a matrix. the matrix really comes in handy, check to see if you get that with the ghost. At any rate, the K2 is also "automateable" as far as mutes are concerned. There's kinda two ways to do this... You can assign a mute group to any one of the 8 quick-access mute group buttons or 127 not-as-easy-to-recall memory spaces. Then when you want to mute say the brass section (or anything on mulitple channels, assuming you already programmed it into the board) you just hit the "mute 1" or whatever its called button. Very handy for live use, for sure. The REALLY REALLY cool thing about the board is that it has MIDI ports in the back, and every time you hit a mute or unmute it sends out a midi message. THis is great for live productions because you can import a song into a sequencer like sonar or something and record all the mutes in time during practice, and then al you gotta do during the performance is hit play on your sequencer, and the mutes will just happen. its a great feature. I'm expecting something similar on the ghost board. Check a manual off of their website for sure, though. This makes life tricky for anaolg guys... because you run into the same stinking problem i had... you gotta sync your tape to your pc. which requires buying a $130 box to do it... and the software that will support it. Anyway, check it out from soundcraft for sure, but that's probobly what it is. they are still really good boards.
 
Hey Dark Fader, I'm reading up on recording dynamic mutes and fader movements on the ghost with a midi sequencer. Now instead of a hardware type device, I figure I can use the ableton live audio software on the computer to do the same thing. This allows all my fader movements and mutes to be recorded as midi notes with specific pitches an velocities and then that translate back into an automated mix.

Now I figure you could do the same thing to syncronize your computer with w/e you end up using. Because I'm thinking, if sonar can record midi just like ableton live, and can record audio as well, why cant that just as easily play back synchronized audio? See where I'm going?

So if you can synchronize a midi sequencer to a tape machine, it seems that you can know synchronize just as easily audio playback from a computer. I'm looking at motu's digital timepiece, it can sync to anything that can generate smpte.

So finally if this is plug into your computer, usb, and then somehow into a tape machine, whether it be directly or through a time code generator, im not really sure, you computer should be synchronized.

Looking back I might have said a lot of extra stuff, but that is one box that might be able to do it.
 
Interesting stuff about the soundcraft ghost.... I didn't know that the fader data would be sent to the computer, too. In fact, that's friggin awesome. Its like a control surface then, sorta. Now, does the board have motorized faders to play back your mix with?? This thing has gotta cost a pretty penny if it has allllllllll that!!!!!!!!
And i did a little reading in sonar's manual. In order to get it right, I'd hafta sync to SMPTE on the tape... FSK won't do it very well for digital audio. And its kinda strange... Apparently there is a period of a about 30 seconds of wildly fluctuating pitch variations until sonar will actually lock up with the tape... and I get the feeling that it will take a LOT of processing power to get this right. AH! maybe some other time... I'll keep researching though, and i'm going to learn how to use my college's 24 track 2.5 inch ampex machine... hopefully get that synched up to their protools rig, so........... more analog goodness later.
 
I dont think the ghost has motorized faders, but the manual was explaining how you can record fader movements with midi. Now I'm thinking its to save different mixdown options so you can compare before it goes to tape. I'm reading it now, it says the faders output midi data into a program like that ableton live, or a sequencer so you can create volume envelopes in the sequencer without going to the computer. You can also take internal snapshots of fader placement and mutes. Now I'm not sure what happens when you record them, being that the faders arent automated, but it says you can program a sequencer to access different snapshots, like one for the verse, chorus and bridge, so the sequencer changes levels and mutes for you, so you can build automation. The dynamic automation is really the cool part though.

A post in the mixing/mastering forumn has me thinking about radar 24, it looks really cool, plus I could still use the soundcraft and all its features, because radar can be treated like analog. Then maybe I can get away with a 2-track to mixdown to from radar simply for the tape sound, that'll save a lot on tape, and the end product should sound awesome! The benefits of analog without the degredation, being it'll only hit tape once and then go right back into digital for mastering. Radar24 is about as much as a 24 -track in good condition. I lvoe when everythign starts working out in your head, and then you realize how much its gonna cost!

Eric

And the ghost isnt that bad, it list a $6500 in full compass, well maybe that is bad... but it'll be cool
 
reel to reel rocks

i only record in analog then mix and master in digi, bands sound much better. what i use is
teac 3440 4 track
panasonic 2 track
i record the bass,drums and guitar first then mix them to 2 track bass and drums (left)guitar(right) then bump them back to the teac on track 3 and 4 and then overdub vocals and lead guitar when i have finished i then record them onto the computer via 2 sound cards and mix and edit with cool edit pro, it works for me as i dont have a shit lot of cash to splash on going full digi and every band i have recorded have been amazed by the results so analog rocks.
 
analog connectivity

Hello future analog users, I hope you don't mind if I poke my 2 cents in here. From what I've read, you want the effective editing power of digital in an analog format, and a way to synch, and use midi from the computer to do things with a mixer, is this a fair analysis of what I'm reading here. Let me offer something. As to tascam 1/2" TSR and MSR machines, there is really only one interface that does everything and I do mean everything possible that analog can do similar to digital. It is called a MTS-1000 midiizer, and if you do a search on the tascams analog bbs, you will discover what this amazing unit is capable of. Synching 2 machines to each other, the computer, and every other midi machine too, precise punch ins on the fly, tap tempo, and multiple tempo punch ins, 20 locate points etc.etc etc. amongst other things. But this is still analog, not digital. If you want the editing power of digital, stick with it, but if you want the sound and ergonomics of analog, then go with analog, but there is no way analog is going to be as editing friendly or powerful as digital. But then again, as Mr. Analog puts it, go to a mastering house webpage, and see what it is they would PREFER as a mixdown media. It IS Analog tape. Period. They will accept anything you give them, but if you give them something that is already converted to digital, such as a CD, Dat or what ever, thier services will not be able to impliment full mastering cababilities as they would like as you have already converted it to 16 bit. Once its there, you can't put back what the conversion process takes away. Thats why home digital recording, at least to me, is a misnomer. The manufactures found a way to sell you something that seems to be really amazing. What they don't tell you is the truth. Ask a mastering engineer why. Now I'm no expert at this, but I know what I've found out in the last two weeks, and digital oriented people have not followed the whole path yet. Ok, now, let the digital flame throwers begin. I have a shield now. Its called mastering. Thats why I just bought a 1/4" mixdown tape deck instead of a CD write machine. Why would anyone want to give a mastering house something that has already been compromized. Duh! Of course, this is only my opinion, but ask what most of the pro studios give to the mastering engineers. Bet its tape!
fitz
 
One other thing

Something that I don't think I've seen Sennheiser mention yet. (Senn, if you did, I missed it.) He's talked about the replacement head stacks for the bigger machines being very costly, which is true. But, one thing you can do is have them "relapped." This can be done at a fraction of the price of new heads (maybe as low as 1/8 of the price of new heads). This will put the heads back in good as new condition, and they will last for approximately half of their original life. This could buy you some time to save for a new head stack when the time comes.

Senn was definitely right about it being a buyer's market for analog. I just saw a Tascam MS-16 go for $1025 on ebay. That's the 1" 16 track, not the MSR-16 1/2" 16 track.

Just my two cents, I would recommend going with a 1/2" eight track before going with a 1/2" 16 track. While the extra tracks may seem luring at first, the quality isn't going to be as good as the 1/2" eight track because each track is getting half as much tape. It's the same thing with the 8 track cassette format. A good 8 track cassette isn't going to have the sound quality that a good 4 track cassette will for the same reason.

If you look hard enough, you can find good deals on the higher quality stuff. IMHO, I just think it's better to sacrifice the extra tracks to maintain the higher sound quality. Besides the deal on the MS-16 I mentioned above, I also saw a 1" studer 8 track go for $1000 on ebay! It was in great condition too; I talked with the guy quite a bit and saw the machine. I just didn't have the money for it then. So ... the good deals are out there---especially nowadays like Senn said.

Just my two cents!
 
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