fatter tape saturation / help me warm a mix

[stevebozz]

my band has just finished recording 5 songs, and I think they're sounding great. I've tried to pay a lot more attention to eq separation on this one.

problem is, it sounds too hi fi, too much quality.. too much digital! I try to deal with this with mic selection and placement, and I do like the tones I'm getting, but alas I'm on a digital rig and not a reel to reel multitrack, so I'm wondering how to achieve a bit more of an analog sound to this digitally recorded project.

so I guess what I'm hoping for is some help in the mastering process, and surprise-surprise we tight budgeted musicians are doing it ourselves. I tried mixing down to 1/2 inch tape, but wasn't too excited about the results. I'm wondering if I push the levels going into the tape machine, will it help saturate the signal and really apply a nice silky analog tone.

besides this, any other ways I can help make these tracks sound a bit more warm? plugins? outboard eq? re-amping? I have added very little reverb, but I find all the plugins make it sound too poppy.

Here's a link to the 5 songs in 192k MP3 format:

http://tinyurl.com/yp9rvv

I mean what did the Beatles do? I remember reading in a past tape op, McCartney was a huge fan of mixing down from his PowerBook to an old Wurlitzer...

thanks for the help!

[palinilap]

If you use Pro Tools, McDSP's Analog Channel does a really good job of modeling tape saturation. I'm way happier with my mixes since using it on drums. Sounds fantastic on snare. The full, non-LE version includes analog console modeling as well.

[drumsound]

This is a really open ended question. There are a million variables. You say you went to tape. At what level, on what machine, at what calibration, what tape formula? Pushing the level might add some pleasing distortion (that what saturation is), though depending on many factors it might not.

[red cross]

Cassette tape. No, I'm not kidding.

[T-rex]

I'm at work so I can't listen to the tracks right now, but in the digital realm, PSP's Vintage Warmer is fabulous and cheap. It is great on drums and electric guitar's, and if you slap it on the mix bus it can really glue a mix together. Plus it's a brickwall limiter, although for mastering to get the volume up I would use something else a little more transparent.

The other thing I would suggest is getting your hands on a nice stereo compressor, maybe tube, and run your mix out to that and record back into the DAW or to tape. I do this all the time with my VLA. I hit it just hard enough to knock a couple db's off the peaks, not crushing or anything with a small ratio, but it definitley rounds out the overall tone a bit, when that's what you are looking for.

I think if your overall mix sounds sterile, just putting something on the mix bus alone probably isn't going to help unless you have something really nice, plug in or hardware, or you are really open to experiment. Since's it's digital, you might want to consider revisiting the mixes or running a few group channels and putting a vintage warmer (or some plug in) set to light tape saturation across the drum buss, one across the guitar buss, one on the vocal buss. Or set up a send with the Vintage Warmer on it and try sending small amounts of different instruments to it etc. and just see what works and what doesn't.

[joel hamilton]

Try stuff. Try anything.

Taking a great picture, with a film camera, of a pixellated picture taken with a digital camera will yield disappointing restults if you are looking for "that certain magic" or some other mythological creature...

You can always tape an ice cream cone to a pony, and call it a unicorn, I guess.

What the hell am I talking about?

[lotusstudio]

Warming up a digital mix. Read this thread...

http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopi ... highlight=

[darjama]

go ahead, take it out of the box. run the parts of your mix that feel most "lifeless" through some speakers (PA, guitar amp, monitors), use a "mechanical" filter like a roll of paper towels or a digeridoo around a mic. compress the snot out of it, run it back into the box, and mix back in with the original signal.

**The above advice is adapted from tchad blake's gearsl*tz q&a, going on now. I haven't tried this myself, but I plan to with my next mix. My guess is
treating the signal like this helps attenuate some of the highs like tape would.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/q-produc ... had-blake/

[MoreSpaceEcho]

I mean what did the Beatles do? I remember reading in a past tape op, McCartney was a huge fan of mixing down from his PowerBook to an old Wurlitzer...

huh what?

if you didn't like the results of bouncing to tape before, i think you will probably not like it any more if you smash the crap out of it, but i mean, don't believe a stranger on the internet, try it for yourself and see.

vintage warmer is ok, sorta, to me it is too grainy to use for mastering, but hey.

also worth noting that certain tapeop posters are very good at mastering, have some nice analog boxes that work wonders on warming up a mix, and don't charge very much money at all. i'm just sayin'...

[stevebozz]

This is a really open ended question. There are a million variables. You say you went to tape. At what level, on what machine, at what calibration, what tape formula? Pushing the level might add some pleasing distortion (that what saturation is), though depending on many factors it might not.

Totally, I guess it was a minimally-guided crapshoot. My ignorance shines when it comes to tape machines, the more I find out tonight (when we give it another go) the more I can share.

The levels were peaking only slightly above 0db when I used the stereo outs after playing a normalized and compressed WAV of the song through SoundForge.

Tonight, I want to crank the sucker. Also, I think if I play with the EQ of the wav file, I'll get better results .. I noticed the tape sucked a lot of the low and high end out.. but if I hype it on the computer before it goes into tape, I think it might get more of what I'm looking for.

[stevebozz]

I mean what did the Beatles do? I remember reading in a past tape op, McCartney was a huge fan of mixing down from his PowerBook to an old Wurlitzer...

huh what?

heh.. hard to emit and detect sarcasm on the internet!

who are these tape opers who do good mastering with nice analog boxes? and how much is not much money? I figured the going rate was $100-150 a song?

thanks

[stevebozz]

thanks for all the suggestions so far!

I guess what I'm seeking is a gel. An overall ambiance that some of my favorite CDs sound like. It needs a bit more character, if you will.

I know there's no quick fix, just wondering what folks do when they approach this, from wherever they are on the gear/experience spectrum. I'm appreciate learning with ya'll!

[greatmagnet]

heh.. hard to emit and detect sarcasm on the internet!

who are these tape opers who do good mastering with nice analog boxes? and how much is not much money? I figured the going rate was $100-150 a song?

thanks

try Carl Saff at www.saffmastering.com. He's in Chicago and can run your mixes out of the digital domain, through all kinds of nice analog/tube gear and then back into the box for the final files. And he's just insanely waaay cheaper than the $150-per-song you had expected. You can explain to him what you're looking for and he'll give you some ideas.

Cheers,
Adam

[KennyLusk]

PSP Vintage Warmer

or line through something like a Pro VLA with no compression.

[farview]

John at Massive Mastering also has nice analog equipment. www.massivemastering.com