tell me about bouncing

[antispatula]

I get the idea and all, but how does one do it exactly? Do you record lets say tracks 1-3 then mix it down to track 4 for example? Can this all be done using one recorder? Oh, and how does it sound after it's been bounced, is the quality noticeably worse?

 

[Muckelroy]

Yes, that is one example of bouncing.

Anytime you take the output of tape tracks, and record them to different tracks, you are bouncing tracks.

For example, say you've used tracks 1-5 to record drums. Say you've got a live scratch track on track 6, a blank track on track 7, and a click track on track 8.

You can playback and mix tracks 1-5 down to two tracks on, say, a mixer, and send that 2-track output to the input of tracks 7-8, while recording on those tracks (7 and 8.) it's really quite simple when you think about it.

That way you can overwrite tracks 1-5 to use them for your remaining instruments, and whatnot.

There is a slight degredation of quality, including an increase in tape hiss, distortion, and tape "coloration" every time you bounce tracks. Depending on the quality of the tape deck, and your heads, this factor can be negligible.

Track bouncing is the next step up from having to do SOS (sound-on-sound.) While it may be inconvenient to have to bounce tracks, at least you don't have to turn off your erase head on a track and add more crap to the same track, risking messing all the takes up. (like the Beatles had to do with their early 2-track recordings.)

You just have to make sure that you are getting a STRONG SIGNAL TO TAPE when recording. Keep pushing the levels until you hear distortion, and then bring them back down a touch. Do this while recording, AND while bouncing to achieve the highest s/n ratio.

 

[The Ghost of FM]

It helps to know what machine we're talking about when it comes to bounce quality.

And yes. you can transfer 3 tracks to a 4th on the same machine. Depending on what machine we're talking about here,( do you in fact possess a machine at this moment?), then we can know better what level of fidelity we're talking about here.

On a higher end, commercial grade recorder, a well mixed bounce can solidify your mix, making final mixdowns to a stereo recorder that much more manageable and hopefully well mixed. A bounce is an opportunity, a last opportunity to make the sub-mix/collapse/bounce as well balanced as possible to allow for eq touch ups latter on in mixdown. This is the fun and soul of mixing; to capture music in great fidelity yes, but to also capture the art of the music being recorded. To play well and compose well is always the dominant factor in juicing your recording skills.

Cheers!

 

[A Reel Person]

You have to be assured that...

the SYNC head is the same quality & spec as the REPRO head. On most of the more modern 3-head Tascams, they use the same head on both. I wouldn't know if you could say the same of Otari. It should be verified.