jedblue
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Greetings friends. You may know that like a lot of you I have some digital kit as well in my home setup - 2 midi sync'd Boss BR1600's;
Sort of obsolete now but they go quite well for what I do and after a lot of experimentation I've got a drum sound that I'm quite happy with using the Glyn John's method, a set of mikes I've finally settled on and the compressors, eq's and reverbs inside those little Boss machines (I don't personally have a need for a computer based rig).
You may recall that I've also got a basic Tascam MF-P01 cassette Portastudio and I do a little bit on that using one old Senni omni mike.
The cunning plan came about when I really liked the sound of bass on that little Tascam recorder and then I spotted one of these on the discount list of an online retailer here;
something like this Cooper PPS-2 being essential if you want to sync tape to digital. I'd been after one for at least a year and there it was in Australia and discounted by 50% so I nabbed it. I was intending to have it hanging around just in case I ever bought that 1" 8 track and needed to sync it up to Protools. Then I thought - I wonder if it'll sync up a Portastudio? So I got it out, read the instructions, striped a tape on the MFP-01 (at 1 7/8" speed) reversed the cables, midi'd it up to one of the BR1600's and set it off. It got a sync and the BR1600 started to run but it was a bit wobbly. I just put it down to the really low speed of the MF-P01. Then I wondered, what if I got a better cassette Portastudio with double speed vari speed, would that do it? So a bit of research on here and a bit of hanging around on eBay until this came up and I nabbed it;
So now I've almost got what I think I need, DBX NR, direct outs, sync option and three tracks of analog and double speed + 12%. The stuff I was really interested in in the analog world was kick, snare and bass. I like the way tape takes up those instruments, they can go on the 424 MKIII and the rest can go on the BR1600's. I've already got a three way midi splitter so if the cunning plan works out I can sync up the 424 MKIII via the midi splitter to both BR1600's and have three channels of analog and sixteen channels of digital for a giant Portastudio trainset. I only needed three channels of analog and I've got a whole lot of cassettes stored away. I didn't really want to go to 1/4" tape reel stock with a four track reel machine at home if I didn't have to. Should be good .
Now there are other problems to overcome. Firstly the drum sound is depended on some pretty heavy compression on the kick and the snare and there's a bit on the bass as well. I didn't want to compress the tape signal after I'd recorded it, I wanted to do it before signal was recorded but the 424 MKIII has no inserts. And the snare mike was a condensor and the 424 MKIII has no phantom power. Now I've already got the compressor being this Berri MDX2600 at the top;
What I needed was a couple of pre amps. So I spy this thing on eBay - new stock discounted by 75%. 8 channels of pre amp with switchable phantom power, inserts and balanced or line outs at $30.oo per channel. Got to be a bargan and I'd been thinking about getting some better pre-amps to feed the BR1600's anyway;
So now I've got everything for the cunning plan. I should be able to stripe up a sync tone on channel 4 of the 424 MKIII, switch to read, sync up the two BR1600's using the midi splitter, put the kick and snare drum mikes into the 424 MKIII via the remote pre-amp compressor combo and keep the two overheads on the digital machines. Then I can go back later and put a nice big fat bass tone down on track 3 of the 424 and Bob's your uncle - kick, snare and bass on tape and all the rest on digital.
So, I crank up the tape speed to maximum and stripe up the tape, rewind to zero, set the PPS-2 to read, plug in all the mikes, set the pre-amps, phantom powers and compressors, set the BR1600's to record, push record on the 424 and watch it pick up the sync tone and kick the BR1600's into record. Sweet.
Then stumble over to the drum kit, pick up the sticks, one, two, ready, play and start putting down some time. Put maybe two minutes of it down, go back to the 424. Press stop, rewind, reset the BR1600's to start, set the 424 channel switches to tape, press play and wait expectantly to hear ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................a nicely phasing drum kit with the wobbles. Not anywhere as bad as the MF-P01 managed but still basically unusable.
Bugger. I found out the same thing that Hermann at Casa Cassette found when he tried to sync up his 688's. It doesn't really work with cassettes. The transport's too slow and the tapes are too thin I suspect. I think it is tape flex that is the real culprit. Very noticable as phasing and wobble when you're trying to sync up four mikes open at the same time across two machines, one tape and one digital.
Never mind, the cunning plan was a failure and the giant analog / digital Portastudio trainset got derailed. But I've now got a nice 424 MKIII and the eight pre-amps are nicer than the standard ones on the BR1600's. I'll not bother to go to reel multi track machines at home. The analog stuff will be all analog and the digital stuff will be all digital and that's the way it'll be for me.
Sort of obsolete now but they go quite well for what I do and after a lot of experimentation I've got a drum sound that I'm quite happy with using the Glyn John's method, a set of mikes I've finally settled on and the compressors, eq's and reverbs inside those little Boss machines (I don't personally have a need for a computer based rig).
You may recall that I've also got a basic Tascam MF-P01 cassette Portastudio and I do a little bit on that using one old Senni omni mike.
The cunning plan came about when I really liked the sound of bass on that little Tascam recorder and then I spotted one of these on the discount list of an online retailer here;
something like this Cooper PPS-2 being essential if you want to sync tape to digital. I'd been after one for at least a year and there it was in Australia and discounted by 50% so I nabbed it. I was intending to have it hanging around just in case I ever bought that 1" 8 track and needed to sync it up to Protools. Then I thought - I wonder if it'll sync up a Portastudio? So I got it out, read the instructions, striped a tape on the MFP-01 (at 1 7/8" speed) reversed the cables, midi'd it up to one of the BR1600's and set it off. It got a sync and the BR1600 started to run but it was a bit wobbly. I just put it down to the really low speed of the MF-P01. Then I wondered, what if I got a better cassette Portastudio with double speed vari speed, would that do it? So a bit of research on here and a bit of hanging around on eBay until this came up and I nabbed it;
So now I've almost got what I think I need, DBX NR, direct outs, sync option and three tracks of analog and double speed + 12%. The stuff I was really interested in in the analog world was kick, snare and bass. I like the way tape takes up those instruments, they can go on the 424 MKIII and the rest can go on the BR1600's. I've already got a three way midi splitter so if the cunning plan works out I can sync up the 424 MKIII via the midi splitter to both BR1600's and have three channels of analog and sixteen channels of digital for a giant Portastudio trainset. I only needed three channels of analog and I've got a whole lot of cassettes stored away. I didn't really want to go to 1/4" tape reel stock with a four track reel machine at home if I didn't have to. Should be good .
Now there are other problems to overcome. Firstly the drum sound is depended on some pretty heavy compression on the kick and the snare and there's a bit on the bass as well. I didn't want to compress the tape signal after I'd recorded it, I wanted to do it before signal was recorded but the 424 MKIII has no inserts. And the snare mike was a condensor and the 424 MKIII has no phantom power. Now I've already got the compressor being this Berri MDX2600 at the top;
What I needed was a couple of pre amps. So I spy this thing on eBay - new stock discounted by 75%. 8 channels of pre amp with switchable phantom power, inserts and balanced or line outs at $30.oo per channel. Got to be a bargan and I'd been thinking about getting some better pre-amps to feed the BR1600's anyway;
So now I've got everything for the cunning plan. I should be able to stripe up a sync tone on channel 4 of the 424 MKIII, switch to read, sync up the two BR1600's using the midi splitter, put the kick and snare drum mikes into the 424 MKIII via the remote pre-amp compressor combo and keep the two overheads on the digital machines. Then I can go back later and put a nice big fat bass tone down on track 3 of the 424 and Bob's your uncle - kick, snare and bass on tape and all the rest on digital.
So, I crank up the tape speed to maximum and stripe up the tape, rewind to zero, set the PPS-2 to read, plug in all the mikes, set the pre-amps, phantom powers and compressors, set the BR1600's to record, push record on the 424 and watch it pick up the sync tone and kick the BR1600's into record. Sweet.
Then stumble over to the drum kit, pick up the sticks, one, two, ready, play and start putting down some time. Put maybe two minutes of it down, go back to the 424. Press stop, rewind, reset the BR1600's to start, set the 424 channel switches to tape, press play and wait expectantly to hear ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................a nicely phasing drum kit with the wobbles. Not anywhere as bad as the MF-P01 managed but still basically unusable.
Bugger. I found out the same thing that Hermann at Casa Cassette found when he tried to sync up his 688's. It doesn't really work with cassettes. The transport's too slow and the tapes are too thin I suspect. I think it is tape flex that is the real culprit. Very noticable as phasing and wobble when you're trying to sync up four mikes open at the same time across two machines, one tape and one digital.
Never mind, the cunning plan was a failure and the giant analog / digital Portastudio trainset got derailed. But I've now got a nice 424 MKIII and the eight pre-amps are nicer than the standard ones on the BR1600's. I'll not bother to go to reel multi track machines at home. The analog stuff will be all analog and the digital stuff will be all digital and that's the way it'll be for me.
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