Transferring Multitrack Reels Into Computer?

  • Thread starter Thread starter bmg
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bmg said:
The original Decca blues CD's had horrible hiss when first issued; I guess because digital brought everything to the surface.
The song would end, then you would hear the hiss fade down.
(My 80-8 material was made with a DBX unit, so that would be OK.)
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Your reference is a transfer from 40 years ago of material that was 40 years old at the time? I can imagine it wasn't the best sounding thing in the world...

Everything has gotten exponentially better in the last 20 years, much less the 40 years since the first poorly transferred CDs came out.

You will be fine. Even the cheapest converters available are an order of magnitude better than the best converters available in the early 1980's.
 
At the moment, I'm digitizing a 4-track cassette through my 6i6 (first generation). I find that having the gain knobs on the front inputs set to 12:00 seems to match the level of the rear inputs on the Lo Gain setting.

Tascam cassette decks.webp
 
bouldersoundguy said:
As I understand it, some of the early CDs were produced straight from the LP masters, complete with RIAA equalization. Of course they weren't getting played back with the appropriate inverse eq.

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This is one of the myths that seems to have been trundling around for years. LP production master tapes aren't RIAA equalised. The RIAA equalisation would have caused high levels of high frequencies on tape which would probably be unacceptably distorted. However, these tapes are mastered for vinyl using the eq settings that the original cutting engineer would have used in much the same way as some modern mastering engineers will master for vinyl. This means that they sound different to the original master tape and, of course, are one more generation away from the original master tape. I've transferred EMI production master tapes which have included paper logs of when they were used and what they were used for and I can confirm that the logs say that the same production master was used for both vinyl and early CD's for the albums that I was working on.
 
jamesperrett said:
This is one of the myths that seems to have been trundling around for years. LP production master tapes aren't RIAA equalised. The RIAA equalisation would have caused high levels of high frequencies on tape which would probably be unacceptably distorted. However, these tapes are mastered for vinyl using the eq settings that the original cutting engineer would have used in much the same way as some modern mastering engineers will master for vinyl. This means that they sound different to the original master tape and, of course, are one more generation away from the original master tape. I've transferred EMI production master tapes which have included paper logs of when they were used and what they were used for and I can confirm that the logs say that the same production master was used for both vinyl and early CD's for the albums that I was working on.
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That's why I prefaced it with "As I understand it," to acknowledge a degree of uncertainty.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
That's why I prefaced it with "As I understand it," to acknowledge a degree of uncertainty.
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I'd have to confess to possibly perpetuating it in the past too. In the early days of CD I heard a demo at a hifi show using a Heaven 17 CD which had excessive high frequencies, almost like undecoded RIAA, but it may well have been a CD with pre-emphasis that was being played back on a player with no de-emphasis. There is also often a massive difference in clarity between a 30ips original master and a second or third generation 15ips production master. If a CD has been properly remastered from the original master it should sound much clearer.
 
I've had all manner of CDs of questionable provenance. I have 2 identical copies of a Steppenwolf album, and you can hear a slow (like a warped 33 1/3 album) wow on one of the copies. I have a copy of Iron Butterfly's Metamorphosis where there is a 60 cycle hum, like someone touch a ground for about 10 seconds during Butterfly Bleu. Had a Jefferson Airplane CD that actually had a scratch from a record transfer! There was another CD where the left/right channels were swapped.

One of my Electric Ladyland CDs is cut on two discs, just like the original album. Unfortunately that makes it play as Side 1, Side 3, Side 2, Side 4. The album was set up so you could use a record stacker and play Side 1/Side2, then flip the two albums and get Side 3/Side 4.

I'm sure there are dozens of other instances like this, where things were rushed through to get a CD released without critical checking. 30-40 years ago, they just wanted to get product on the shelves.
 
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I remember The Airplane's '...Baxers' had tape drag before each song before it was pulled off the shelves.
 
bmg said:
I remember The Airplane's '...Baxers' had tape drag before each song before it was pulled off the shelves.
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Interesting. We are talking CD here right? My copy (version) of After Bathing at Baxter's has one track that seems to start a bit down in pitch -but only the one. I presumed it was intentional :>)
 
Started getting the 4-track tapes ready, and noticed the deck slowing down on ff/rew.
It's then I noticed all the residue on the tape path.
About half the tapes are Maxell XLI, and seem to play fine, but the other half are 456.

So these tapes would have to be baked before playing, I would guess.
Is this something I can do myself?
 
bmg said:
but the other half are 456.
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Don't even think about trying to play Ampex tapes without baking. The best way to do this at home is to use a food dehydrator set to around 50 degrees C for 10-12 hours (though some prefer to bake for much longer). Leave the tapes in the dehydrator after you switch it off for 12 hours or more so that they can cool slowly.
 
Thanks, though that one seems to be UK based, not so easy to find in the States.
(Though I'm sure others will suffice.)
 
bmg said:
Thanks, though that one seems to be UK based, not so easy to find in the States.
(Though I'm sure others will suffice.)
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I've seen people talk about the Snackmaster range in the US for baking tapes.
 
There is definitely a way to input your multitrack reel-to-reel tapes into a computer so that each track will be on its own track! In order to do this, you will need an audio interface that has multiple inputs. This will allow you to connect your reel-to-reel tapes to the computer. Once they are connected, you can use software such as Pro Tools, Ableton Live, or Logic Pro to edit and mix the tracks.
--
Jason Hook. Audio Enthusiast and Software Developer
Remove or Isolate Vocals from any Song ? https://www.UnMixIt.com/
 
OK - just received an interface, and have a choice between these programs:
1.webp

Any preference of one over the other, or none?
 
Reaper...... ? You don't HAVE to register it, and if you're just transferring tapes, you can probably do it within the 60 day trial period. After that, you just get a nag screen when you fire it up.

Ableton would work. Its free, so no problem with that. I don't know anything about Ampify Studio, it's relatively new (a year old, I think) and I don't see much in the way of support online.

You could also get Cakewalk by Bandlab for free.

SO, what type of interface did you get?
 
I'd echo the Reaper recommendation. It works very well for multitrack tape transfers in my experience.
 
I think my Tascam US-2x2 came bundled with the free Ableton Live Lite (Live 9 Lite). I never even looked at it, went straight to Reaper and never looked back.
 
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