using R2R with digital setup

famous beagle

famous beagle

Well-known member
I've heard of a technique where you track everything digitally and then run some of the tracks out one- or two-at-a-time through a 2-track reel-to-reel and back into the DAW in order to achieve analog warmth and/or tape compression. Does anyone know about this or know of any links that discuss this technique?

Thanks!
 
It will increase the noise substantially and you'll probably have difficult syncing them up afterwards, unless you're doing the 3-head thing (as the playback speed isn't exactly the same each time).

It might be better to record the final stereo mix on tape and digitise it back in.
 
jpmorris said:
It will increase the noise substantially and you'll probably have difficult syncing them up afterwards, unless you're doing the 3-head thing (as the playback speed isn't exactly the same each time).

It might be better to record the final stereo mix on tape and digitise it back in.
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Yes the signal would just be recording onto the tape deck and passing right through the outputs and back into another track on the digital. I suspect there may be a slight delay, but it shouldn't be too difficult to nudge it if need be.

Regarding the noise, I can't imagine it would be substantial if you get a good clean recording and a super strong signal going in, right?
 
famous beagle said:
Regarding the noise, I can't imagine it would be substantial if you get a good clean recording and a super strong signal going in, right?
Click to expand...
Well if you do it to sixteen tracks you'll have sixteen tracks worth of amplifier noise and tape hiss added to the mix. If you did it to the stereo pair at the end, you'll only have 2.
 
I would do what jpmorris suggests and do a final mixdown of all your digital tracks to a HALF track tape deck and then dump that to digital again. If (and that's a big IF) your tape deck is in good condition with no significant wear, is calibrated / aligned correctly for the type of tape you plan to use and if you pay close attention to levels (and this doesn't mean going past 0db necessarily) then you should only benefit from the transfer.
 
MCI2424 said:
Didn't I read this before somewhere?
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Yeah, sorry, I posted it in recording techniques too because I wasn't exactly sure where it should go. (I responded in that forum by the way.)
 
Porting digital tracks out of a DAW two at a time and then back in just for processing sounds like a nuisance, but that's just my bias. If the machine locks up, then sync would be pretty manageable. I'm sure there are folk who do it. I'd rather do it with a machine with more tracks.

In preference to tracking on the DAW and then processing with a tape deck, I'd generally prefer to record basic tracks directly on an analog machine and then, if need be, port the whole thing over to a DAW to add more fiddly bits and mix. I've been doing more of that lately. Mixing out of a DAW to a 2-track machine is also a fine thing to do.

Cheers,

Otto
 
famous beagle said:
Yes the signal would just be recording onto the tape deck and passing right through the outputs and back into another track on the digital. I suspect there may be a slight delay, but it shouldn't be too difficult to nudge it if need be.

Regarding the noise, I can't imagine it would be substantial if you get a good clean recording and a super strong signal going in, right?
Click to expand...

The delay in syncing the two up would be the least of your problems. Over the course of the track, the sync would definitely drift, unless you had some type of syncronization tool like the Tascam Midiizer.

-MD
 
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