tape emulation

[bradb]

Something we were discussing at the studio one night was copying Rupret Neve's tape emulation box using a 2-track tape machine. I've been waiting for the TOMB to get back up, figured I'd get some good ideas here.

Apparently Neve's box has a write and read head pressed together with signal running thru. Some evals at gearslutz says it works and its cool. It would be cool to do this with an existing tape machine because you eliminate all of the maintence and consumables. BUT, by eliminating the tape itself, how much of that coveted tape sound do you lose?

Other concerns, maybe the write head hits the tape with a super high level of magnetism, then the tape gives off a lot less when it slides over the read head. This could be a problem with just putting the heads together. Maybe spacing...

But obviously tape is now entering the phase of "effect" and moving away from the storage phase...

(see how "non-tape" i am...? "write" and "read" are my terms for record and playback..)

[joel hamilton]

Awesome: "write and read" heads. That is a sentence from the future...

I think you would be surprised how much the sound is affected by the tape machine's electronics even without the tape part of the equation.
That is why I mix through my studer on input, and use line amps all over the place from various pieces of gear.
is this off topic?

Is this a gear question?

[bradb]

I wanna get a discussion started on taking the write and read heads on a tape machine and putting them together and copying Neve's emulator box..

think its worth a try? will it work?

[SeventhCircle]

If I were going to try this, I think I'd look for a 1/4" consumer machine to cannibalize. You can get them cheap (or free) and the service manuals are not too hard to find. The heads are large enough to work with easily, and you'll already have the record and playback electronics, not to mention the power supply. I see no reason why it wouldn't work.

[bradb]

Good to see you here Tim...

I've got a MCI JH110 that needs some attention and thought I could skip the tape and get the sound.

I'll see what I come across in a consumer machine.

[I'm Painting Again]

As Joel said..and I've heard it before..the electronics in the machine affecting the sound in a significant way..I tried for the hell of it comparing a teac a3440 and an ampex440b machine electronics only then electronics and tape..I was pretty shocked just how much is affected by the electronics..the short, little, and limited testing I did I found pretty much most of the things I like about tape came from the electronics..with the tape in the path 'specially on the cheaper machine..it was the same sound but much more smeared and muddy..which I didn't like too much..the ampex prints tape very nicely but the teac's beauty is in the elecrtonics mostly..(not that there isnt a sound coming from the ampex's)..its just that the ampex prints tape with a much higher fidelity more like today's AD converters

as far as making a tape device thats not a tape machine..you really might as well just get a tape machine..I would be 99% the same thing anyway..

[wayout]

sorry folks im intrigued, but dont understand...
to get the benefits of a tape machines innards without running tape at all we are just gonna pass signal through the machine...?

That sounds good?
Id try it if you say so.... sounds interesting.


-Jake

[djimbe]

sorry folks im intrigued, but dont understand...
to get the benefits of a tape machines innards without running tape at all we are just gonna pass signal through the machine...?

Some machines (like my JH-16, and I bet Joel's Studer, since my Studer 2 track is also this way) have transformer input circuits. My board does not. If I was to patch the computer outputs to the tape machine inputs, then the machine outs to the board, I could take advantage of whatever "sound" those trannnies impart.

This is also how I use my Scully 280-4. The bias circuitry and the heads are pretty shot on that machine, and I don't have much call for a 1/2" 4 tracker. That deck has built in mic and line amps with monsterous UTC transformers though; you can use them as regular pres for tracking or as line amps for mixing or passing a 2 buss through. When you do this, you are basically monitoring the input side of the machine with no tape transport happening.

[gyraf]

Just running through the line amplifiers will gain you little.

You will want to transfer your material into magnetic domain and back - and preferably through a magnetic material with lousy characteristics compared to standard audio transformers (as tape magnetic material is not perfect to say the least)

A somewhat simple way to use a tape recorder for this could be to wind your own transformer from some crappy metal, and mount between rec-amp-out and pb-amp-in. Because of the large loss of flux in tape media, it would have to be a step-down (and/or followed by a voltage divider) to bring the resulting signal within a range workable for the pb-electronics.

Last, you'll probably have to do something to get rid of the bias signal on the pb-side, as this is not transfered bu tape media, but will be by your transformer. A tuned notch filter at your bias frequency comes to mind.

Doing it this way would ensure that

- the work-through-magnetic-domain function and it's side effects is retained.
- the EQ'ing emphasis/deemphasis and related overload-vs-frequency characteristics is retained.
- the bias and it's influence on magnetic transfer is (somewhat) retained.

Still, this is no all-easy project..!

Jakob E.

[joel hamilton]

"just running through the line amplifiers will gain you little. "

I would have to respectfully disagree on that one, man. PT sounds totally different coming through the support circuitry of a tape machine.

When NOT printing very hot to GP9 @ 30 IPS, nothing very "tapey" happens to a given sound, especially something without a ton of transient information.

Anyway....

I disagree with the "line amps will gain you little" comment. That is like saying, "mixing on a neve will gain you little, as compared to a mackie."

Even if I dont TOUCH the EQ on either console, the line amps in the neve will probably do what I want them to moreso than the mackie.

[bradb]

ok, I'll take a listen to just the electronics.... added to "to do" list.

[wayout]

I have a Tascam TSR8 and an old Teac 3340s.
Im wondering if either one of these would do something nice for the signal?
I would just go ahead and try it right now but they are 800Miles away!

Anyone know whether either has "transformer input circuits" as described above?

cool idea.

[soundguy]

I have heard that the circuit in the neve thing is using basicallly a circuit adapdted around those cassette adapters for car stereos for hooking up external devices like cd players or satellite radios. Inside that cassette you stick in there is a tape head, that tape head sits against the tape head in your car stereo and thats how whatever is plugged into it gets into the audio path. Thinking out my ass, I wouldnt be suprised if you couldnt achieve the same type of effect with using a circuit to drive an inductor. There's a billion ways to skin a cat with this stuff. Its still easier to just use a damn tape machine considering that digital recording is abotu 25 years or so away from being ready for any kind of serious use.

Claiming that you actually need tape is all fine on paper to threorize about but this statement completely overestimates what the average engineer is actually hearing when they use a tape machine. If you are using a tape machine full of chips, like most machines are out there, the internal electronics of the machine will crap out long before you get to distort a tape. All the imagined warmth that people want to hear coming off of their tape machines is in reality nothing more than the slew distortion and other artifacts coming from the crappy electronics in their machines. This is especially so now that the majority of tape machines out there are filled with compromised circuits jam packed with rotting out of spec caps which in some cases may be functioning more like resistors than capacitors in the first place. If you have a studer properly calibrated that sound that so many people want to think is tape is nothing more than fet ic's and you dont need the big stupid tape machine to get you that sound. With most studers Ive heard, the sound of tape is the hiss that sits on top of the sound of thier opamps. I dont want to confuse the issue and suggest that tape has no sound or anything like that, but the electronics of a tape machine make just as much of difference from one another as this mic pre does from that one, after all, and amplifier is an amplifier is an amplifier, this one has a circuit on the front of it that works for a mic, this one has a circuti that works for a tape head, this one has a circuit that works for a +4dBu line level. They are all just amplifiers and they all color your shit their own way. When you stick a crappy chip in a tape deck it sucks the same way it does in a shitty mic pre and there is a horde of "recording engineers" walking the earth ignorantly heralding the sound of tape as IC slew distortion. Welcome to being a "professional" in 2005, its a fucking laugh riot that term.

dave

[inverseroom]

digital recording is abotu 25 years or so away from being ready for any kind of serious use.

uh oh.

[soundguy]

it took "them" at least that long, if not significantly longer to figure out RIAA equilization for tape machines. why should digital recording platforms be exempt from any kind of technological learning curve.

In 1978 there wasnt too much of a debate about wether or not tape machines were good enough.

If digital recording platforms were so awesome today, there wouldnt be much room for debate on the subject. Seems to me like there is more than enough angles for debate. The simple fact that every single digital converter on planet earth that I know about has a needless active buffer stage. The simple fact that there are no alternatives to running your precious digital audio through an .08 cent chip should be proof enough that the shit aint ready to be taken seriously.

you can chose to use it and make great recordings with it, but have no bones about it, doing so is part of a development program.

dave