Solved Running digital to tape

[danny.guitar]

Does anyone here sometimes take their tracks (or maybe even a whole mix), run it to tape, then back into the DAW? What kind of tape machine do you need for this? (I don't know anything about analog).

Also how would it hook up? Analog outs to analog ins on the tape machine? Then the analog outs back into the analog ins of the interface?

This is just an idea I was thinking about, not even sure if I'll go through with it, it really depends on how much I'd need to spend.

 

[fishkarma]

just out of interest why do you wanna do this? to get an analog sound? if so it might be easier just to get a plugin to do so you can get them free if you look hard enough

dunno if they sound good though....

 

[kessel]

that seems like a lot of work. i would probably just track to tape in the first place and then run it into the daw for editing. the way you described would be how i would hook it up. you'd need a big tape machine though if you were going to do all your tracks...like a 24 track 2 inch machine. If you are just doing single tracks or a stereo mix you'd only need a 2 track 1/4" machine. check on ebay. the smaller tape machines especially seem to be flying out of studios.

 

[Robert D]

Does anyone here sometimes take their tracks (or maybe even a whole mix), run it to tape, then back into the DAW? What kind of tape machine do you need for this? (I don't know anything about analog).

Also how would it hook up? Analog outs to analog ins on the tape machine? Then the analog outs back into the analog ins of the interface?

This is just an idea I was thinking about, not even sure if I'll go through with it, it really depends on how much I'd need to spend.

Yes, outs to ins both ways. The kind of machine you need for this depends. If you want to do it at the seperate track level, you either need a reel to reel with as many tracks as you have digital tracks, and as many A/D and D/A converters, or..... you'll need a two, four, or 8 track that supports synchronization. I'd suggest the later, as the care and feeding of bigger machines is considerable. With sync, either SMPTE or MTC/MMC, you can keep the tape machine synced to better than 1/30th of a second (30fps), which is good enough for most things as long as you keep stereo tracks together in the same pass.

The other option is to just pass the stereo mix through tape, which you need no sync for. In either case, the highest track width and tape speed you can get are important, as is aligning the heads and adjusting the bias for the specific tape formulation you are using.

I'd recommend taking a stereo mix file to a studio that's still running tape as well as digital, and pay them to run your file through some quality converters, onto tape, and back out again. Then give a good hard A/B listen to the before and after files to see if you want to go down that road.