Analogue Recording ,......... lets have them old tracks

[funkgod]

I thought after i had opend a post called does anyone still use tape, it was more of a queasion really.
So have opend this post for anything analogue, seems a fair few of us still use Analogue and a trend is emerging to have a hybrid studio of analog and digi,
Just noted on the other thred that the price of multitrack tape recorders are no doubt on the rise,
as said ...
"About a year to two years ago you could still get a tascam msr 24 for about 600 700,
It does seem tape is making a come back.......,
just spotted this on ebay......,
[url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tascam-MSR-24-track-24-channel-reel-to-reel-analogue-recorder-/141611889932?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item20f8b9f50c#ht_274wt_975"]http://www.ebay.co.u...0c#ht_274wt_975[/url] "

That Tascam MSR24 has now finished at a price of £1.480.00 clearly showing the rise of people
wanting that format again, and i dont think it will stop there. As more and more people want that format
it will no doubt drive prices up,

"here is an intresting read on the come back of tape,
[url="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997_articles/may97/reel2reelroundup.html"]http://www.soundonso...eelroundup.html[/url] "

One way Im using my tascam is to take to a practice, i found that if i put a mono jack into the send and return of each chan to the first click ( not all the way in ) this will then send the sig to the recorder and does not mute the chan so the desk still works as normal, ( as the desk does not have enough dedicated Chans out) then all the sends to the inputs of the tascam
and this works a treat, i get good results from this, i then use abit of cheating, i take the tape home and transfer each track into my digi recorder to edit, ( so not 100% analog, but so much easyer to edit )

So, a topic on all things Analog, lets hear them tracks, im sure loads us have old tracks on portastudios, worth a mention, tho probably by now nothing to play them on !!
i have just tried to put one on soundcloud but the page on my old XP pc wont open, so will try another method.

Edited March 29, 2015 by funkgod

[funkgod]

some intresting tricks from.... [url="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997_articles/may97/reel2reelroundup.html"]http://www.soundonso...eelroundup.html[/url] ..

But to add to this, there is also[b] Reverse Delay[/b], a great trick to bring in the begining of things.
same set up as reverse reverb,
if you have a vocal on the begining of a track, turn the tape round, take the op from the vocal chan through a digi delay onto an empty track press record to get the first few words to the begining of the track, turn the tape back round and you get
that great delay coming in louder and louder until the first word is sung, you can then cut it and press record of the new track just as the vocal comes in,

[b] "[font=arial,helvetica][color=#483D8B]ANALOGUE TRICKS[/color][/font][/b]

[font=arial,helvetica]There are some things you can do with an analogue recorder that you can't with a digital multitrack tape recorder. Here are a few:[/font]
[font=arial,helvetica][b]• BACKWARDS RECORDING[/b]
Turn the tape over so that it plays backwards. Record onto a spare track, remembering that the track numbers are now reversed. For example, something you recorded on track 3 of a 16-track recorder will now play back on track 14. Turn the tape over again and you have instant Maharishi-period Beatles.[/font]
[font=arial,helvetica][b]• REVERSE REVERB[/b]
You can't get real reverse reverb from an effects unit. Record the signal you'd like to apply reverse reverb to in the normal way. Turn the tape over so that it plays backwards. Remember that the signal will now appear on a different track. Apply reverb to the signal and record the reverb onto a spare track (remember again that the track numbers have been reversed, or you might erase something!). Turn the tape over and you have real reverse reverb.[/font]
[font=arial,helvetica][b]• WOBBULATION[/b]
I don't think this technique has an official name so I've made one up! Wow and flutter might usually be considered a bad thing, but in the past recorders have been made to produce wow for effect. For example, if you want to build up a choir of backing vocals by recording multiple takes of the same singer, you'll find that it ends up sounding more like multiple takes of the same singer than a choir! There's logic in that somewhere. A little bit of wow on each track will thicken up the sound very effectively. It works better with some recorders than others, but if you can add a weight to one of the rotating parts to unbalance it, a certain amount of wow will be produced. I'm told that in the old days chewing gum was used for this purpose. I think there might be better modern alternatives! Sticking a piece of gaffa tape to the pinch roller works too, but be careful that it doesn't come unstuck and damage your tape, and remember to clean the pinch roller afterwards. Proceed with caution![/font]
[font=arial,helvetica][b]• DOUBLE SPEED/HALF SPEED[/b]
Some multitrack recorders have two speeds. If yours has, you can play back your backing tracks at half speed and record a new track, perhaps a vocal. When the tape is played back at normal speed, the pitch of the vocal will be raised an octave. You can use the varispeed control, which may well have a wider range than a digital recorder would, to achieve a similar effect but with less of a pitch shift.[/font]"

Edited March 29, 2015 by funkgod

[ambient]

I've been using a Revox A77 for a couple of months now.

Pretty much anything on my Soundcloud page from February onwards has some element of analog recording on it. You can tell from the titles when the pieces were recorded.

[size=5][url="https://soundcloud.com/an-ending-ascend"]https://soundcloud.c...n-ending-ascend[/url][/size]

[size=5] [/size]

Edited March 29, 2015 by ambient

[ambient]

[quote name='funkgod' timestamp='1427649211' post='2732685']
some intresting tricks from.... [url="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997_articles/may97/reel2reelroundup.html"]http://www.soundonso...eelroundup.html[/url] ..

[b] [font=arial,helvetica][color=#483d8b]ANALOGUE TRICKS[/color][/font][/b]

[font=arial,helvetica]There are some things you can do with an analogue recorder that you can't with a digital multitrack tape recorder. Here are a few:[/font]
[font=arial,helvetica][b]• BACKWARDS RECORDING[/b]
Turn the tape over so that it plays backwards. Record onto a spare track, remembering that the track numbers are now reversed. For example, something you recorded on track 3 of a 16-track recorder will now play back on track 14. Turn the tape over again and you have instant Maharishi-period Beatles.[/font]
[font=arial,helvetica][b]• REVERSE REVERB[/b]
You can't get real reverse reverb from an effects unit. Record the signal you'd like to apply reverse reverb to in the normal way. Turn the tape over so that it plays backwards. Remember that the signal will now appear on a different track. Apply reverb to the signal and record the reverb onto a spare track (remember again that the track numbers have been reversed, or you might erase something!). Turn the tape over and you have real reverse reverb.[/font]
[font=arial,helvetica][b]• WOBBULATION[/b]
I don't think this technique has an official name so I've made one up! Wow and flutter might usually be considered a bad thing, but in the past recorders have been made to produce wow for effect. For example, if you want to build up a choir of backing vocals by recording multiple takes of the same singer, you'll find that it ends up sounding more like multiple takes of the same singer than a choir! There's logic in that somewhere. A little bit of wow on each track will thicken up the sound very effectively. It works better with some recorders than others, but if you can add a weight to one of the rotating parts to unbalance it, a certain amount of wow will be produced. I'm told that in the old days chewing gum was used for this purpose. I think there might be better modern alternatives! Sticking a piece of gaffa tape to the pinch roller works too, but be careful that it doesn't come unstuck and damage your tape, and remember to clean the pinch roller afterwards. Proceed with caution![/font]
[font=arial,helvetica][b]• DOUBLE SPEED/HALF SPEED[/b]
Some multitrack recorders have two speeds. If yours has, you can play back your backing tracks at half speed and record a new track, perhaps a vocal. When the tape is played back at normal speed, the pitch of the vocal will be raised an octave. You can use the varispeed control, which may well have a wider range than a digital recorder would, to achieve a similar effect but with less of a pitch shift.[/font]
[/quote]

You may not be able to do a lot of these with a digital multitrack, I don't know never having used one.

I use analog purely for the sound. You can however do all these things a lot quicker and easier using Logic Pro.

I like to record stuff, strange everyday sounds for example onto my iPhone, and then re-record them onto my Revox, then mess about with them, slow them down etc, or touch the spools as they're being recorded, to just slow it down slightly in a particular place.

An example is here, the 'noise' at the start is a tube train on the Jubilee line - [size=5][url="https://soundcloud.com/an-ending-ascend/31012015a"]https://soundcloud.c...scend/31012015a[/url][/size]

Edited March 31, 2015 by ambient

[BigRedX]

Having done all the backwards effects and reverse reverb with multitrack tape, let me tell you it's way, way easier to do them on a DAW and it has the advantage of being able to audition the results faster to see if you need adjust any of the settings to get exactly the sound you want.

If you want to hear a modern analogue recording click on the banner in my signature. This was made last year on an Otari 24-track tape machine and apart from some vocal and theremin overdubs recorded completely live. IIRC all the effects used in the mix were also analogue. In fact probably the only digital devices in use in any of the signal chains were my BassPod and my class D power amp...

I'll post up some older things I've done over the next few days.

Edited March 30, 2015 by BigRedX

[ambient]

I think maybe a lot of the reason for the increase in prices is more the supply and demand factor.

There's maybe not so many left that are actually working, and have been looked after, so that is pushing the price upwards ?

Like I said earlier, and was said above too, you can do everything in Logic Pro or Protools that you can do on analog, and it's a lot easier. If I want to reverse something in Logic, it takes maybe 10 seconds, I just double click on that particular track, choose file, then choose reverse from the drop down functions menu. If I don't like the result then I can 'undo'.

I use my Revox purely for the sound, and I've used it for loops sometimes.

Though I've started using Logic Pro's tape delay set up like this for a a fairly realistic analog tape 'warmth' -

[attachment=187987:Screen Shot 2015-03-31 at 14.25.35.png]

[BigRedX]

As promised here is one of my older analogue tape recorded tracks:

[url=https://soundcloud.com/bigredx/love-junkie-by-sugarbox]"Love Junkie" by SugarBox[/url]

This was done on a Tascam 238, 8-track cassette recorder which managed to cram 8 tracks onto a chrome compact cassette running at 3.5ips with DBX Noise Reduction.

The vocals, guitars and bass were recorded onto the tape along with SMPTE timecode which was used to drive a Macintosh Quadra 650 running a MIDI only version of Logic (either 2 or 3) this in turn controlled an Ensoniq EPS16+ sampler for the drums and loops and an Ensoniq ESQ1 for the synths. There was also an Akai S2000 sampler which was used to fly in the extra backing vocals (sampled from the multi-track tape) at the end.

There was a fair bit of track juggling to fit all the instruments and vocals onto 6 tracks (the track next to the time code had to be left free duet bleed issues). The final mix wasn't quite what we had hoped for, but unfortunately it was the last decent one we got before the cassette would no longer play back reliably due to having been over-used in the recording and mixing process!

For anyone who likes this there is a whole album by SugarBox available on [url=https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/skin-tight/id463276864]iTunes[/url], or [url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Skin-Tight-SugarBox/dp/B005M067XW/ref=sr_1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1427813964&sr=1-1&keywords=SugarBox]Amazon[/url].

[51m0n]

[quote name='funkgod' timestamp='1427649211' post='2732685']
some intresting tricks from.... [url="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997_articles/may97/reel2reelroundup.html"]http://www.soundonso...eelroundup.html[/url] ..

But to add to this, there is also[b] Reverse Delay[/b], a great trick to bring in the begining of things.
same set up as reverse reverb,
if you have a vocal on the begining of a track, turn the tape round, take the op from the vocal chan through a digi delay onto an empty track press record to get the first few words to the begining of the track, turn the tape back round and you get
that great delay coming in louder and louder until the first word is sung, you can then cut it and press record of the new track just as the vocal comes in,

[b] "[font=arial,helvetica][color=#483D8B]ANALOGUE TRICKS[/color][/font][/b]

[font=arial,helvetica]There are some things you can do with an analogue recorder that you can't with a digital multitrack tape recorder. Here are a few:[/font]
[font=arial,helvetica][b]• BACKWARDS RECORDING[/b][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica][b]• REVERSE REVERB[/b][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica][b]• WOBBULATION[/b][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica][b]• DOUBLE SPEED/HALF SPEED[/b][/font]

[/quote]

I do all of these in a DAW regularly, its just not true that they cant be done. And much much more easily, especally things like reversing the reverb on a single snare and moving it to the front of the snare properly, - which is slightly different from just running a snare backwards into a reverb, because the sound generating the reverb is the wrong way around when you do that. But that can also be done with a little editing..

And the pitch shifting capabilities of DAWS so massively exceed any such capability on tape its unreal....

The only reason to use analogue tape is you like the sound of the medium, and that only really comes into its own when you push it hard. The rest of the time tape is just not as good as digital in any meaningful way. But I will agree saturated tape compression on some instruments is lovely

[Skol303]

Great idea for a thread! Keep it coming

[funkgod]

Yea sorry the date on the artical was 1997 !!
i quoted the whole page from then mainly to look at some of the things you can do with a reel to reel
not to say you could not do it now,
but yes everything and alot more is achievable now with a click. so much easyer.

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1427650434' post='2732702'] I've been using a Revox A77 for a couple of months now. Pretty much anything on my Soundcloud page from February onwards has some element of analog recording on it. You can tell from the titles when the pieces were recorded. [size=5][url="https://soundcloud.com/an-ending-ascend"]https://soundcloud.c...n-ending-ascend[/url][/size] [size=5] [/size] [/quote]

Some very ambient music nice and clear, the last track "the drop, did you do this as an idea before gabriel did it with the new blood orc live in london ? the begining goes so well with it.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1427814164' post='2734554'] As promised here is one of my older analogue tape recorded tracks: [url=https://soundcloud.com/bigredx/love-junkie-by-sugarbox]"Love Junkie" by SugarBox[/url] For anyone who likes this there is a whole album by SugarBox available on [url=https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/skin-tight/id463276864]iTunes[/url], or [url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Skin-Tight-SugarBox/dp/B005M067XW/ref=sr_1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1427813964&sr=1-1&keywords=SugarBox]Amazon[/url]. [/quote]

the soundcloud link i just get " sorry we cant find that track"
so checked out the amazon link, wow, a blast from the past, it took right back to Soiouxsie and the banshees.
while " burn out" reminds me of Cheryl Crow, it has that same Steve Mcqueen vibe to it and on a Tascam 238, i think it has come out great,

now that i have soundcloud running i will have a go and try to put on a few tracks,

[dan_thebassman]

The first five are all analogue, the last 3 digital, judge for yourselves what sounds better, I know what I prefer!

[url="https://soundcloud.com/paulhegleyband/sets/paul-hegley-band"]https://soundcloud.com/paulhegleyband/sets/paul-hegley-band[/url]

[funkgod]

ye harr managed to do it..... soundcloud does not like win xp
have downloaded some folk funk gospely blues all mainly done on the
tascam msr 16 and rough mixed on my A&H GL3500 40...
[attachment=194274:IMG_4877.jpg]

funky idea, not finished yet hence out of tune guitar at end of verse and no brass yet
and a nice folky one
quite happy with the results i just have to finish them now....

[url="https://soundcloud.com/mr-funky-7/got-me-2-with-claps-rough-format"]https://soundcloud.c...ps-rough-format[/url]

[url="https://soundcloud.com/mr-funky-7/butterfly-sue-rough-idea"]https://soundcloud.c...-sue-rough-idea[/url]


@ dan...
[quote name='dan_thebassman' timestamp='1432721039' post='2784201']
The first five are all analogue, the last 3 digital, judge for yourselves what sounds better, I know what I prefer!

[url="https://soundcloud.com/paulhegleyband/sets/paul-hegley-band"]https://soundcloud.c...aul-hegley-band[/url]
[/quote]

thats cool some of it reminds me of early zep, and... something else.
love when i hit the bottom, and tumbling down, its catchy
and more to the point great results for analogue, perfect stuff for tape

Edited June 23, 2015 by funkgod