Printing digital mixes to 1/4" tape

[cale w]

I'm considering printing some Protools mixes to 1/4" tape on an old 2 track machine, to sorta soften them up and get a little analog funk on them. I'm hesitant because:

My tape machine is an old Sony TC-580, with a max speed of 7 1/2 ips. To my ear it really eats the high end of whatever is going into it. Is this sub-par in terms of fidelity? Would really boosting the high-end going into the tape machine compensate for the HF roll off? Does anyone else print mixes to tape anymore?

If you have experience printing mixes to a 1/4" machine, do you think it's a valid way to rub a little funk on a mix, or is 7 1/5 ips a little too "consumer audio" to be practical?

Thanks guys!

-C

[Jitters]

And if anyone doing this could offer up some before/after clips that would be great!

[drumsound]

7 1/2 is not the most hifi way to go. I'd make sure the heads and tape path are nice and clean and see if a local tech can actually calibrate the machine for you. If it's been sitting it probably could use tension adjustments too.

You could also send things to me or Chris Mara and we can run your mixes through pro machines that run ar 15 and 30 isp.

[JohnDavisNYC]

7.5ips can be fun for some stuff... but it is really more of an effect than a 'capture format'... yesterday i did a live to 2tk song at 7.5 ips for a band i'm producing, but it was supposed to be a lofi live little ditty at the end of the ep... i just tracked it live to the mixdown reel, and noted on the box that that song is at 7.5...

but, if you're talking about 'real' tape, tony is totally right, a pro machine at 15 or 30 is really the shit... 7.5 is fun for crunchy top end and grainy mids as an effect... i love it for that, but would hate it if i wanted my mix to sound anything like what went into the machine.

john

[@?,*???&?]

I've got one of those Sony's in the TC-5XX series and the transport is crap. At 7 1/2", frequency response is limited too. Don't bother.

I've also got a Studer that I run at 15 IPS.

Do this, shoot me a mix over to monkbrewed@yahoo.com and I'll run your mix off tape- with and without Dolby A.

If you like the sound of it, we can talk about what it would cost to do it for your whole album.

Make sure your mastering engineer has the capability of mastering from tape.

I've also got some dbx noise reduction you could hear for grins.

[@?,*???&?]

btw, I could also run your mix off my Otari MX-70 at 30 IPS as well to compare from.

[@?,*???&?]

And I just picked up a dbx 222 unit as an additional comparison. This supposedly- at least according the manual around 115 db- will yield greater dynamic range than 16-bit digital...we shall see if that's actually the case.

I haven't heard a really good dbx circuit other than the crap that usually came on a Tascam 4-track. Those units were so noisy, the noise reduction didn't do much to quiet them down.

Dolby SR was quite good though. I'm hoping this dbx unit might yield something like that- although this is a different kind of companding/expanding.

[cjmnash]

You could also send things to me or Chris Mara and we can run your mixes through pro machines that run ar 15 and 30 isp.

And if anyone doing this could offer up some before/after clips that would be great!

thanks for the plug tony- i have a service called "analog anywhere" - people from all over the world FTP me digital mixes, i run them through my vintage console then to various tape machines (depending on what the mixes do or don't need in terms of analog lovin')

more info and links to before/after samples here:

http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopi ... ht=#567819

www.analoganywhere.com

rock.

chris mara
www.welcometo1979.com

[jgimbel]

Running it with these folks who have posted would be great. What I'd do in your situation would be put it on your 1/4" as is, then transfer that back. The mix your 1/4" version and your original digital version. Kind of like parallel compression, but with tape sound instead. I do this with my Tascam 4-track (dbx crap and all) and mix it in when I want a bit of that tape sound but still want to preserve highs.

[@?,*???&?]

Running it with these folks who have posted would be great. What I'd do in your situation would be put it on your 1/4" as is, then transfer that back. The mix your 1/4" version and your original digital version. Kind of like parallel compression, but with tape sound instead. I do this with my Tascam 4-track (dbx crap and all) and mix it in when I want a bit of that tape sound but still want to preserve highs.

At 7 1/2 IPS off your Sony, there will be nothing above 12 kHz frequency response-wise. Not worth it.

[jgimbel]

Running it with these folks who have posted would be great. What I'd do in your situation would be put it on your 1/4" as is, then transfer that back. The mix your 1/4" version and your original digital version. Kind of like parallel compression, but with tape sound instead. I do this with my Tascam 4-track (dbx crap and all) and mix it in when I want a bit of that tape sound but still want to preserve highs.

At 7 1/2 IPS off your Sony, there will be nothing above 12 kHz frequency response-wise. Not worth it.

That's the reason to do it, I'm lost. The Sony will have its sound while the original has its, so they could be dialed in as needed, or even use different mix for different sections. Could be great for the right song/album like many things can be. Not worth it sounds like a pretty big blanket statement, maybe it'd be perfect. Especially if there's concern with losing too much of the spectrum to the tape, the original dialed in a bit could help to bring some of the rest of the spectrum back.

[JohnDavisNYC]

well, there is also the fact that trying to mix in a tape-processed signal with the original digital signal will be an awesome mess of psychedelic phasing awesome-ness!!!

even coming off the repro head in real time you are going to get ever-so-slight phase shift that will become very evident when mixed with the original signal, try as you might to line up the waveforms...

john

[antilog]

ditto on the effect usage. your deck might be fun to use for submixes, or bounce a full mix to it, then blend it back into the DAW project for the tape compression sound, parallel style. I've got (2) otari 5050's that I just started testing out, right now being used for frippertronics... I will get to the mix processing testing soon. enjoy!

[@?,*???&?]

Running it with these folks who have posted would be great. What I'd do in your situation would be put it on your 1/4" as is, then transfer that back. The mix your 1/4" version and your original digital version. Kind of like parallel compression, but with tape sound instead. I do this with my Tascam 4-track (dbx crap and all) and mix it in when I want a bit of that tape sound but still want to preserve highs.

At 7 1/2 IPS off your Sony, there will be nothing above 12 kHz frequency response-wise. Not worth it.

That's the reason to do it, I'm lost. The Sony will have its sound while the original has its, so they could be dialed in as needed, or even use different mix for different sections. Could be great for the right song/album like many things can be. Not worth it sounds like a pretty big blanket statement, maybe it'd be perfect. Especially if there's concern with losing too much of the spectrum to the tape, the original dialed in a bit could help to bring some of the rest of the spectrum back.

Hmmm. Aesthetic choice I guess. I'd be searching for saturation, not loss of frequency response.

If you want really crappy, grainy analog, go with an echoplex!

[cjmnash]

+1 for the phasing issue...i would be concerned with comb filtering/phasing when blending the two different mix sources.

-chris