A few tips and a demonstration on editing multitrack analog tape. Full analog tape theory and alignment course available at Udemy. My Patreon Account / biasedaudio www.udemy.com/...
so amazing to see mastering engineers at work on analog tools like studer. heard a lot of how music was recorded before digital, but never had a chance to see. thanks!
There's a great video footage Phil Collins recorded on his (new at the time) VHS camcorder in 1983, during the making of their "self-titled" album that year. You can see an edit being done by producer Hugh Padgham on a Studer A-800 Mk II. He did a fantastic job!
Man this is really cool, I've never seen how analog tape is edited for music. Makes me appreciate all the effort to produce such rich sound on my AAA LPs. One question though: why are the editors not wearing gloves? I have done some basic 16mm film splicing/cleaning and the one thing I always did was to wear gloves to avoid getting fingerprints on the film, and when handling it for threading or inspection where I don't always have gloves, to handle it by the edges to avoid getting dirt/oil on it.
I took film classes the summer of 95 ( I believe) ant NYU in NY. I edited16 mm film and did use gloves. Without doubt a finger print could cause a serious distraction on film. I transfer old negatives in my photo scanner and I use gloves. In decades of working at the finest studios world wide, I never saw any engineer use gloves. Always stocked near the tape machines was 99% alcohol, razor blades, and splicing tape, possibly Q Tips or other lint free wipes. But I never saw a pair of white gloves. It was never an issue.
Magnetic tape simply isn't the same thing as optical media like film. With optical media, any sort of dust, fingerprint or other impurity can severely impact how the image looks like. With tape, the only thing that matters is the magnetic charge of the microscopic magnetic filaments on the tape, which frankly are protected by a layer of coating. Fingerprints don't really degrade the tape quality, not as much as it does for film. Therefore you don't really need to use gloves. If you need to clean the tape or the heads, you can always rub some alcohol gently, which should get rid of the filth.
the 16-track tape Queen used to record Black Queen lost its oxide coating because of how many overdubs they added, it must've been sweating profusely
5 лет назад
Great explanation and demonstration of the angled cut and it's importance. Brings me back and also injects that realization of how important visualization is in creating .. no 'pro tools' to see the waveform, yet it comes naturally to pre-arrange, structure, whatever, the idea when using human senses. Same applies in I would boldly say in most forms of art and creative . Thank you for the education with equipment that is out of reach to me. My next big purchase I have wanted for 30 years will be a tape based Echo the Roland Space echo. You handling the 'decks' like a turntable.. makes me wonder if the roots of scratching comes from someone seeing an engineer splice tape.. going against the 'official story of turntable scratching.
Tape-to-tape dubbing still does occur, but analog tape media is subject to signal degradation over multiple copies, even on high-end studio equipment. Cuts can preserve the audio quality better. Also, when dubbing like that, you either need a well-practiced tape operator to initiate the changeover, or you'd need timecode synchronization/electronic control to really be precise. With physical tape cutting, you can replicate some of that precision in exchange for more labor in finding the cut point.
I started off using tape and protocols at SAE definitely got to use protocols better as it was well in fashion but using analogue tape actually helps give you a fuller understanding of audio in terms of techniques and terminology.
Tape Editing: how a lot of complex mixing got done before the console automation era. You’d perfect and rehearse the mix of a section of the song - if there lots of rides, echo send changes, etc. then you’d “print” (record) on the two-track (stereo master tape recorder.) You might even go to all the times in the song this was done and repeat the process. Then you’d move on to the next section. You’d be done when you had the whole arrangement mixed and edited together on the two-travk
First Studio I worked at 16 track with no Automation. A matter of fact the bigger studio I moved to had MCI automation and people rareley used it. So I've been there, it was fun mixing with a bunch of people on the console. and yes editing was the easiest way to do a complex mix.
I didn't know, that this could be done. Usually I thought they would edit the stereo tape only and editing multi track began with the use of hard disc recording.
Almost all the great musical compositions and recordings were laid down, edited and mastered in analog multi-track tape. Check out the creative methods Pink Floyd used to record the start of Money on Dark Side of the Moon - how they dealt with 7/8 time signature. Early Beetles recordings, like all of the musical acts from that era were lucky to have 4 tracks to record on. Some recordings were mono. The digital and computer based recording systems, DAWs, plugins, software etc available today have not improved the level of creativity and musicianship in recordings.
@@justjacobmartin I cant see how creativity or the quality of the song writing has improved. The sound recording quality has definitely improved - but that is another matter isnt it Mr JacobmarineTimTam
@@PetraKann damn it's no wonder roger waters got such a god complex lol. thank god for people like paul and ringo though who would likely read such a sentiment and laugh. but not as thankful as i am for pink floyd who created creativity and the 7/8 time signature when they materialized out of thin-air in 1967.
Amazing. Does music sound better on analog tape? Seems like the hi fidelity albums from the 70s and 80s hold up longer than the more recent digital productions. Could be a lot of other factors tho.
It's more proper to say that tape can do things to analog audio that can be pleasant, when properly used. Tape saturation is one of those things, where by slightly overdriving the signal onto the tape, you get a combination of soft-clipping distortion, compression, and filtering (low and high pass) that can enhance whatever track you put it through, if done tastefully. When recording direct to digital, both the perfections and the flaws in a recording are laid bare, and you either have to be more scrupulous in getting a great pre-processing sound or do more processing after the fact to smooth things out the way tape would. TL,DR: Tape can help make things sound good, but it's no replacement for the craft of good recording techniques, sound design, and just plain craft in making music. Digital lays all sins bare. P.S.: As far back as the late 70s, studios were attaching PCM adapters to their tape decks to record digital audio to tape. Christopher Cross' debut album was recorded and mixed with multitrack digital audio, for example.
As an owner of an analog studio, I'm just gonna warn you. You got to have some technical skills to operate and maintain a big tape recorder. There are lots of things that can go wrong, both mechanical and electrical, and they often do. It's not like a computer. These things needs constant care.
@@BigTrouble324 for sure. I started on tape in 84 the first time i got into a real studio. I've cut tape too. I love the fact that analog forces a person yo think of what they are making vs shooting into the dark, although that can be cool too. Having to make real decisions before hitting that record button gave me a high 😂.
@@mgd9151 I've been using tape since the 80's too, but now I'm also using some digital. Since I'm not a great drummer, I usually record and edit the drum tracks on digital, before bouncing them onto tape. The drums still benefits from the tape compression, even if they are prerecorded digitally. When drums are done I lay down the rest of the tracks using the recorder.
That wont help if you want to take the best of two or more band takes which you want to overdub more instruments. I assure you, pros did this for years and it was a common practice.
Is this reel to reel deck one that are recording studio would use for recording albums like John cougar Bruce Springsteen to make record albums and CDs from
So, as I can see there is no room for any mistake at all!....You must done it perfectly at first take any time......what happens if you cut it millisec before or after??? Can you fix it somehow or its all fucked???
You get a feel for it and it rarely happens. But yes there are times when I've had to remove or add a small sliver of tape. It is more forgiving then you would expect.
