Views on Real To Real recording.........

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pmJ

Guest
Sup, I was wondering if any one has or does use a real to real tape recorder to put their final mixes threw?

Currently I record all our material to my digital 8-track and from there we convert em to wav and mix them down on pc. But with digital, it lacks that warmth I loved getting out of my first 4 track back in the day.

Our thought is, once we have mixed all the vocals and the beat on the pc, we would run em threw a real to real tape recorder in hopes it will put some added warmth to the song over all. But will it really do that, since everything was originally recorded to digital? Anyone tried this, or does do this? Thanx..................PM
 

Formant024

Digital Smokerings
ill o.g.
ehm, I'd record from 8trak to real, then through some nice converters into the pc ( wav ). To get real specific, I'd would rather record to real first through an analogue console. Then set over the real to ... ( sorry, beer's given on the job here, nice! )...set over the real to pc. Example for what I did, let my partner drum and record to a Fostex D16 using 6 chnls, through the topaz that is. The pc has a rme9652 using 24 chnls. of (3x) adat to a a/d - d/a converter. I collegue brought in a nice expensive cable ( worth a sick 4K ), this was used to hook up the D16 out to the converter, from there it's all digital (44kHz or 48kHz, to keep the tape saturation effect I wouldn't go higher than this).

It can work as you described it, but blending down all tracks to a real has much more surprising sound than routing out merely the 2track master to tape like processing a plugin. In that case you might want to check out the vintage warmer, a multiband comp/limiter with tape saturation emu.

If you want full tape advantage then you want record every instrument /audiochannel to tape as loud as possible ( you can exceed a bit, depending on the machine it tends to spice up the sound quite nicely when going into slight harmonic distortion ). Once recorded you balance your mix from tape through a analogue console from which you can record the 2track out to digital ( via A/D converter to pc, burner or masterlink ). On set like I have I can also track out each channel via hdsp9652 to logic and record each track seperatly again, then do a mixdown ( which is ez cus all dynamics etc is done through the console, pc just records and makes digital blend ). This however depends on purpose ( bands/eletronics/mics/acoustics ). It does takes a bit of experience to gain the perspective... from all I can say that I love the drums coming out of that recording, real usefull samplekit by now hehe.
 

SyN

SUICYCO MANIA
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 5
formant... this has to be one of the craziest things of yours i have read yet... some of your techniques are pretty cliche on the bad side of analog recording... and some sound like they might make sense if the post made a bit more sense(i guess you were saying you were kicking back a couple brews though)... anyways.. when i first got into working as an engineer in the industry... i was still doing most work on 2" 24 track analog tape... and mixing down to 1/4" and 1/2" 2 track analog tape as well as dats and digitally from the dat or external converter into the computer for burning a reference cd from the mix... since those days... i have done plenty of mixes mostly internally in protools or even a hybrid mix of in pro tools and on either a Neve or SSL console... even on a mackie 8 bus and a mackie D8B quite a few times... there is allot of tricks to get it to sound warmer as you work with it... the main thing that can be done is to use high quality mic pre's and compressors and DA converters on the way in during the recording process... anyways.. back more towards the point... i have done the mixing to anolog reel to reel (which by the way... it is reel and not real) many times... allot of times what i would do was to run my mix through the recorder and record on the reel and monitor it back on the repro head sending that to the DAT and using that as my converter to go back into pro-tools through the AES/EBU input... that was my main setup for a lot of major mixes that i have done... sometimes a reel or a dat was requested to be recorded so it worked out because i was already running through them and had all the levels set... you have to make sure that the tape and the heads on the machine are in good condition for this to be a help... and also, making sure that the machine is in perfect calibration is very important... the machine should be calibrated before each recording... my choice of calibration is to cal at +3db with a bias of 2 with 499 tape... and contrary to popular belief, you do have allot more headroom for over saturating the tape... but keep in mind, use your ears... and do a bit of math on the meter compared to the headroom on the tape and the headroom with the calibration... there is a point of going too hot to tape where the results can be just as bad, if not worse, than over compression on a mix... i hope this was a help... holla


oh... and one more thing formant... why is it that you are saying to not go above 48K to keep the sound of the analog saturation? at 48K, you are gonna be loosing some even there... if you have capabilities of going to 96K or 192K... why wouldnt you use them... the higher the sampling rate, the closer to that analog sound you can get...
 

Formant024

Digital Smokerings
ill o.g.
Dude, Im dutch, besides the beer you can bet Im smoking on every post I make. My english grammar etc has it's limits, I know I can be confusing, not my pain though. In some ways you are correct, I lack the professional audio education and anything that goes to do with the entertainment industry in general. I never cared about recordings, anyone at my homesetup that want to records can buy and bring his own damn mic. Im techno, autodidact, electronicly biased and interested in anything vintage, with that in mind, most schools couldn't learn me anything nor provide a worthy diplome, let alone get an engineering job around with it. I certainly dont see myself wasting my time being a recording engineer when I rather produce. Second, I rock my own gear and dont work in a studio, cant you just give reference of what you use at home. Lets pimp out later or in the " what's your setup ? " thread or it means we need a thread for Fullsail/SAE to exchange experience. But this is not FP FGS!

'nuff 'bout me.

Cliché... If I consider that your house and those of most other members do not contain acousticly correct control rooms + studio or boot, than I can assume that the general concensus on the board have no practical use when taking 2" 24 track recorders, Neve or SSL, high quality pre amps THE mics, converters or PT HD for example. I know you learned that from school, so you should know how to use it, but really... Its a bit out of place, you'll end up convincing people their efforts are to waste because most cats wont ever buy half mentioned here for what gear concerns. They still want to be succesfull though, in their perspectives they need to gain that whatever is lacking to exploit their potentials. Dont get me wrong though, looking into a vintage 4056 but nothing on that console could serve of info here, unless somebody else here owns one.

I'd like the tips thoug, but I cant see everybody now calibrating their tapemachines, I do see em overclocking their pc's.

'bout the 48K, you know, my ears are already completly screwed but so far it sound real nice through the genelecs. Customers think so too, besides we're not into dvd authoring yet so in most cases we master to 16bit/44kHz. Also downsampling from 96K to 44 isn't always in favor of my ears pleasure, especialy on the high frequencies. It does depends though on wether you're talking software conversion or the hardware converters. Second, as mentioned before, it really depends for what occasion you're dealing with. Electronica comes out good in many different setups, Acoustics demand more intensive approach to the engineering part, this being advanced by modern technology trying to emulate the better vintage algorythms for a few good reasons. Compact controllable interfacing in order to be more efficient ( timewise ) and a reproduction of sound that is up to spec with the industry. I'd rather have a modular vintage studio hehe.
 

eldiablo

KRACK HEAD
ill o.g.
my engineer wants to do this, i will tell you whats up after its done.
 

SyN

SUICYCO MANIA
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 5
yo formant... i just want to say sorry for now... didn't meanany thing against ya... don't take it the wrong way... we are all in this together bro... and just so you know... i do understand that when i talk about that gear it leaves allot of people out... but i figured when people where talking about using reel to reel, that it might have been allowed to be spoke up... and for the refference, i do use the gear i spoke of, and up until less than a year ago, i did have an accousticly treated full blown studio where i lived... and i was even talking about mackies as well.. wasnt trying to talk bout everything... but you did get the full sail part right... i went back in 97... anyways... no hard feelings bro... all love in the game...
 

Formant024

Digital Smokerings
ill o.g.
Don't worry, I wasnt pissed off. Im no angel though, this dawg bites without barking hehe. I like debating, but there are rules to it. One of em is judging upon someone you dont know, that's speculating.

I've been into electronic music since I was 11/12. I wennt to scope out SAE in Amsterdam in somewhere 96/97, didnt see a purpose and became engineer within semiconductor industries. From beginning till now I've been working with hardware and software. I have one mic, an SM58. That's all the acoustics I want or need in my setup, in any other case i have 2 collegues that are the most capable engineers around the province that deal with this with the midas touch. We have plenty of other mics of which I dont care and to make it ease on myself I also dumped the 58 with the pile of other 58's and 57's. Good riddance hehe.

There's a trend on the board though, a lot of cats get into SAE/Full Sail or show the interest because they feel the need to understand how to create music and how to record it. It would do good I guess if there's an experienced part on the board that deals with professional handling of audible and/or technical aspects for those who do understand. The "amateur" cq. bedroomtechie can... learn from it and get involved, those experienced will drive notch up on the board members.


Just a thought.... In the wrong goddamn thread.
 
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pmJ

Guest
Hmmmmmm

"Reel to reel' LOL, my bad, I dont try to spend too much time on the net and tend to over look things.

Reading some of what seems to apply to my situation, I have to be honest with ya'll, Im nothing of an sound guy, I mix with what I have learned and some advice from others! I have a decent booth, this is a home studio though!!, I use a Rode NTK, the problem with it is the damn highs tend to sound really digital at some points. I listened to some old material I recorded with a cheap dynamic mic and some I did with my Shure SM58, the vocals sound way more "Full" than what we are getting now! I wont be in a postiion to finance any good in line compressors/signal processors til next year. Have to work within my budget, but a lot of people seem to suggest that makes a big difference when recording vocals, especially when recording to digital. My guy who mixes dont like the idea of adjusting eq on the mixer prior to recording, he suggested it be a flat sound then we go from there, but my point is if you dont have, lets say, a strong signal with the lower end of the vocal, you really cant just add the lower end to a vocal once it's been recorded if its not there, its not there. I am I wrong on this? I agree with the acoustic sound treatment as well, funny how you change furniture around in your lab and you mixes sound different after the fact. I am working on that as well. Thanx for you advice. I'ts helpful. PM
 

elkito

Beatmaker
ill o.g.
if you dont have, lets say, a strong signal with the lower end of the vocal, you really cant just add the lower end to a vocal once it's been recorded if its not there, its not there.

nah your thinkins right but summin you learn is that theres no right or wrong answer lol...some mans record with eq and compression ie. sounds there and then how you want it to sound (american school of thought) and some wanna play with it more after its recorded clean.
my 2 p
 

Formant024

Digital Smokerings
ill o.g.
There is a right answer, dont work a bad recording but painstakingly re-record and let the artist do it over...again. Dont comprise or try to drasticly enhance a bad recording, if it has potential it deserves a good recording.

After the album is done you fire the engineer for being noob hehe.
 

elkito

Beatmaker
ill o.g.
theres a good answer..just follow the rules of making a good recording init--dont clip rah rah...
personally id use a little bit of squash and maybe some bass roll off (like 45 hz) and thats all--
leaving summin for me to play with after the performance is down without commiting to decsions i wish id never made
safety
 

elkito

Beatmaker
ill o.g.
^^
yea defo but i meant dont clip in either really
unless u lookin for that sound i guess...
sound better on things wit hard transiets anyways i always thought? (analogue saturation)
 

Formant024

Digital Smokerings
ill o.g.
transit or transient ? hehe

Transient is level-independent shape of the dynamic response of a sound. Like a transient designer allows you to emphasise or smooth the attack and extend or shorten the sustain of a signal. Saturation is how a signal harmonicly distorts when it reaches the noisefloor.
 

elkito

Beatmaker
ill o.g.
"transients" heh I use the internet to much when im drunk man...:D
"Saturation is how a signal harmonicly distorts when it reaches the noisefloor."
thebox.gif

?

"transient designer - that is a fucking good box tho
 

Formant024

Digital Smokerings
ill o.g.
For live recording it's good, especialy on drums. but for studio I dunno. Im really a electronica fanatic so never seen any purpose for it.

You british folk get drunk to quick hehehe. Could be worse though, I smoke all day so at times I confuse the shit out of peeps here.
 
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