Your favorite tips & resources on working with tape

[HSLand]

Now that I've got some decent, aligned tape machines to record on, I really want to start consuming more information on recording to tape. Since tape limits us in various ways, we've got to get creative to make it work. So, submixing/stems and bouncing, playing with varispeed, hitting tape hot, setting bias for a different kind of sound, etc. I'd like to read all I can get my hands on. A good place to start would probably be TapeOp itself, but it'll take me forever to sift through each and every issue and article for the info just on working with tape.

Are there any books, papers, articles, blogs etc that you could point me to?

[digitaldrummer]

I don't know that you are going to find any deep technical tips on using tape in recent Tape Op issues. Maybe back in the earlier stuff? Most of the articles are more about the producers, engineers, musicians and their experiences and less into technical details of how they used tape (there may be some, but also a lot of digital...). But if you are looking for stories of the experiences, then it's there. What about books? There was some interesting stuff in the Geoff Emerick book (Here, There, and Everywhere) and the Glyn Johns book (Sound Man), or Phill Brown Are We Still Rolling... but some of those guys tended to keep their technique almost secret (and if you did know the secrets that still won't make you or anyone else The Beatles). So again really depends on what kind of info you are looking for? Maybe saying what kind of tape machines you have (or have access to ) will help? The only tape machine I have is a stereo cassette deck...

[drumsound]

There is a tape calibration article in one of the early years of the magazine. It's a basic 'how to' of setting levels and bias. I don't remember if it gets into azimuth and such.

Understanding the actual real estate of a multitrack machine is important. You have to plan certain things in advance so that you have the space for the things you want to add. If you're going to do any bouncing you need to make sure it's not on the track right next to one of the tracks you're combining. Depending on your console, you'll also want to consider what things might share a track. If you don't have the channels or patchbay to facilitate a mult, you'd want to put things with a similar tone on different parts of the shared track, so that they can have similar EQ and dynamics. If they are widely different it might be a pain in the ass to do manual changes in real time during the mix.

If your console has good bussing sound, you can combine a lot of things before it hits the tale machine. Things like all the toms going to 2 tracks, and combined mics on the same source hitting only one track. If you want a lot of backing vocals you might plan for 2 tracks on the machine, with a space between them (say tracks 19 and 21), and each time you get a good take of on harmony, you bounce it with the new harmony being sung to the other track, and if you're adding a third bound the 2 from the previous back to the original track.

Always audition your bounces a few times to make sure you're happy with them because a big part of the reason for bouncing/comping things is to then reuse the tracks with other things.

You might consider a test session just to get used to punching in and learn how your machine reacts. Some machines punch slowly and you need to make sure you've got the space, so if you learn how yours reacts, you'll be better suited when you're actually in the heat of battle. Also know that there are machines that switch from input back to sync kind of slowly, and it might sound like you blew the punch out, but you go back and listen and hear that you didn't.

If you can, especially with drums, listen to the machine in repro while getting sounds. This way you're making adjustments to how it sounds AFTER recording. What I used to do a lot was get sounds on input, without the tape rolling. Check phase, get levels, get basic EQ if needed, and then switch to repro and roll tape. It'd refine things then based on how 'playback' will sound.

Here's the magazine article on calibration. https://tapeop.com/interviews/20/intro- ... ation-fun/

And here's a piece I wrote called Think Like Tape. https://tapeop.com/columns/end-rant/131/

[Nick Sevilla]

So, submixing/stems and bouncing, playing with varispeed, hitting tape hot, setting bias for a different kind of sound, etc.

Some of this will be subtle, like changing the bias to get a "different" sound. And "hitting the tape hot" is more a function of the electronics in the machine than the distortion caused by the tape getting messed up by overbiasing.

I think in the end, you'll find that each tape machine has it's own overall sound and distortions, and you'll learn which ones to sue for what results, more that using them ass guitar effect pedals - style of sound mangling.