syncing analog and digital -- please advise

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saag paneer
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syncing analog and digital -- please advise

Post by saag paneer » Fri Jul 18, 2003 12:19 pm

my band is about to do our first serious recordings.

here is what we would do in my ideal world:

(1) go into a studio and record basic tracks to 24-track two-inch analog.

(2) do some rough mixes to DAT or CD.

(3) take the rough mixes home, load them into the computer, and record some overdubs on a digi001 Pro Tools LE system.

-- here's the tricky part --

(4) return to the studio, somehow sync those overdubs up with the original tracks on tape, and do a final mix, combining the original analog tracks and the digital overdubs.

i don't know if step (4) is possible. i can't think of a way to do it, but there's lots of stuff i don't know. if it's not possible, we'll have to either do the original tracks in Pro Tools or give up on the idea of doing overdubs at home. let me know what you think.

thank you.

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Re: syncing analog and digital -- please advise

Post by Jay » Fri Jul 18, 2003 12:24 pm

Why not just dump the 24 analog tracks onto 24 pro tools tracks at the studio and take that home?

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Re: syncing analog and digital -- please advise

Post by cassembler » Fri Jul 18, 2003 12:30 pm

That's your best bet. If the studio doesn't have PT, then you may be stuck mixing at home, which really isn't a big deal. If they know their shit then you can get some excellent rhythm tracks and that will make your job at home so much easier.

You will want to find a seperate mastering engineer's ears, which many people on this board offer (myself included).

But syncing PT up to an analog machine in the way that you describe is kind of a black unpredictable art.
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Re: syncing analog and digital -- please advise

Post by saag paneer » Fri Jul 18, 2003 1:37 pm

i considered that, but my home setup is not quite ideal for mixing, in terms of control-room acoustics and my own engineering competence or lack thereof.

also, i had hoped to have the mix come straight from (mostly) analog rather than turning all the tracks digital before mixing. i don't know if this will actually make a difference or if it's just tape fetishism.

but from what you guys are saying, it sounds like the best option is to use a studio that has both analog and Pro Tools and do the final mixes out of Pro Tools.

thanks a lot for your help. anyone else?

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Re: syncing analog and digital -- please advise

Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Fri Jul 18, 2003 1:45 pm

hey,

i'm totally guessing here, so please take with lots of salt....

the way you suggested won't work because the dat or cdr rough mix won't have any relation (absolute time-wise) to the 2". if you take the rough mix, dump it into yr computer at home, and overdub away, how are you gonna get those overdubs to line up with the 2"? you're not. :) a couple milliseconds off in either direction and you're hosed. the only way i can think of to do this would be if they have PT at the studio and have that sync'd up to the 2", make a rough mix into PT and take a copy of that home to overdub to? maybe? i don't know enough about smpte, etc to know if this would work. so how about this: track directly into PT, make a rough of that to overdub to, bring those overdubs back in, dump everything to 2" and mix from that? yeah you have an extra D>A conversion but it seems like that'd be a lot easier. jay's suggestion of tracking to 2"/dump to PT/ take that home works too, but i think that if the studio has a nice board and some good outboard to mix with (and you can afford it) you'd be better off mixing there....

good luck,
scott

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Re: syncing analog and digital -- please advise

Post by saag paneer » Fri Jul 18, 2003 1:53 pm

the way you suggested won't work because the dat or cdr rough mix won't have any relation (absolute time-wise) to the 2".
right, that's what i suspected.
the only way i can think of to do this would be if they have PT at the studio and have that sync'd up to the 2", make a rough mix into PT and take a copy of that home to overdub to? maybe?
yeah, that's exactly what i was wondering, was if there's some fancy professional way to do this that i don't know about. if anyone does, please holla!
so how about this: track directly into PT, make a rough of that to overdub to, bring those overdubs back in, dump everything to 2" and mix from that?
since everything's been recorded straight to digital that way, i'm not sure how much we'd gain by dumping to 2" -- we'd effectively be using the tape as an effect rather than a direct recording medium. it might be cool, or it might be an unnecessary and expensive extra step....

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Re: syncing analog and digital -- please advise

Post by penrithmatt » Fri Jul 18, 2003 5:02 pm

well,if you have the digi001 why don't you take that to the studio?instead of printing cdr's print the mix buss output of the board to pro tools.at the same time as you do this print the S.M.P.T.E track from the 2" to an audio track in protools.
you can now take yer stuff home and overdub to your stereo mix.when you go back to the studio you can route the smpte track out of an analogue output to a syncroniser,such as a timeline lynx,which will then run the tape machine.easy.
pro tools sounds better as a master too.
hope this works for you.
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Re: syncing analog and digital -- please advise

Post by saag paneer » Fri Jul 18, 2003 5:21 pm

yes! that sounds like it's exactly what i'm looking for.

of course, if the studio had a Pro Tools system alongside the analog deck i wouldn't have to bring my own in....

but the main thing i need to worry about is that the studio has a synchronizer that can receive SMPTE from Pro Tools and then run the tape machine, right?

thanks much for your help.

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Re: syncing analog and digital -- please advise

Post by Professor » Fri Jul 18, 2003 5:33 pm

This might seem like a trite response, but why aren't you doing the overdubs in the studio? And don't tell me it's to save money - how much extra do you think it will cost doing all of these wacked out sync experiments when you could just ask to do some inexpensive overdubs maybe with just the assistant engineer overnight?

You mentioned the analog fetishism (a great term) which causes me to think you would like the sound of analog tape on your tracks. Are you overdubbing solos, vocals, or similar material? Isn't that the stuff that should have the most fetish treatment???? (um I mean tape sound)

If you are going to achieve this strange request, the only way to do it is for the studio to have some sort of recording device that will slave itself to timecode. That device could be a computer system, ADAT, DA-88 (family), or least likely a timecode DAT. If their multi-track will chase SMPTE then you stand a chance. If the Digi-001 will sync to SMPTE you stand a chance, but I don't think it does (I've not used it). If any one of those options exist, you could take a rough mix to mono on one track of the DAT or CD and record time code to a track on the 2" machine and the other channel on the DAT or CD. Follow? So you get home with a CD that has mono-mix on the left and SMPTE on the right and you dump the two tracks into your DIGI-001. You play back the mix with the SMPTE muted and record your overdub tracks. Now for the big 'IF' part...
If Digi-001 can chase time code, you take your whole computer into the studio, set it up to chase the 2" timecode and record the rough mix. Go home do the overdubs, then bring in the whole computer system and set it up to chase again and it will play back your overdubs.
If the 2" will chase, then you bring the computer in and you send the time code track out to the 2" machine, hit play in PT and the tape should chase.
If they have a DA-88, 78, 98 or similar machine you have that machine chase the 2" in the studio and record the mix to one or two tracks and your overdubs to the remaining tracks at home. Back in the studio you play the 2" and send the timecode into the MDM machine and it will chase as it did before and you playback the overdubs but not the mix tracks.

That should be enough scenarios for now - let us know what the situation is for other machines. I think you'd do best overdubbing in the studio unless you are talking about overdubbing low level string pads and little stuff like that.

-Jeremy

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Re: syncing analog and digital -- please advise

Post by saag paneer » Fri Jul 18, 2003 6:49 pm

thanks for such a thoughtful response. (doesn't sound trite at all.)

to answer your first question ('why aren't you doing the overdubs in the studio?') -- the overdubs that i'm thinking of here aren't prominent vocals or solos or anything front-and-center. (as you point out, if we're going for a tape sound, that's where we want it the most.)

rather, what we'd like to do is spend some time fucking with weird noises, sound effects, etc. of course, it would be possible to record these in the studio, but we want to take a month or so between basic recording and mixing to give ourselves time to experiment, try shit out, refine it, throw it away, try something else, etc. etc. and believe me, we can't afford to do any of that in the studio.

our other option, and one that we're considering, is to record demos of all the tracks on the computer, do all the experimenting and nonsense then, figure it out before we go into the studio, and record the overdubs there. i posted this question because i wanted to see if there was another way to do it.

as for your suggestions: yes, i follow you about the mono mix paired with SMPTE. if we've hauled the computer into the studio, we might as well just bounce each of the tracks straight into Pro Tools (maybe a submix for the drums) along with a SMPTE track, right?

digidesign claims that the 001 can follow SMPTE via MIDI Time Code. i don't really know about this stuff, but this seems to be an amateur way of doing things. will it be good enough?

also (and i'm betraying my ignorance again here): i'm inferring from your post that some analog tape machines can 'chase' SMPTE and others can't. is that correct?

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Re: syncing analog and digital -- please advise

Post by Professor » Fri Jul 18, 2003 7:07 pm

I'll leave it to the tape fetishists to tell you which machines will and won't chase timecode, but yes there are some that will - that's why time code is there. Converting SMPTE time code (which is easy to record on one track of a tape machine) to MIDI time code for Pro Tools to follow should be easy enough with the right piece of gear but you probably don't own something that can do it and the studio probably won't if they never sync machines anyway.
I personally own a couple of DA-78s which is why I suggested that possibility if one is available to you. Those are so easy to sync. They generate the timecode to stripe onto the analog tape - one output wire. And then they can receive that signal coming back from tape and sync up again with just one input wire. I love them.
The ProTools rig I have at the school has the Sync I/O box installed so it can do all of those tricks as well, but I am not familiar with the Digi-001's capabilities in this regard.

All of that aside, I think the best idea you've mentioned so far is trying out all kinds of ideas at home as scratch tracks, deciding what you like and recreating in the studio where the engineer can then play the producer role a bit and help shape those ideas into the best sounds for the mix. Going that route ensures that you are also much more well rehearsed and prepared to make the most of your studio time. If you record a click track or basic rhythm track to your computer and then layer in all of the backing parts, you could also patch that through the headphone system in the studio and have the whole band play along with the computer while recording the instruments to tape and transferring the computer tracks to tape. That would be slick. Regardless you should definitely work on the tunes outside and go to the studio better prepared for the session as that will give you the best return for your studio dollar.

-Jeremy

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Re: syncing analog and digital -- please advise

Post by saag paneer » Sat Jul 19, 2003 1:30 am

that's very helpful.

we'll think hard about what to do. if we do decide to try this digital/analog sync thing, i'll contact the studio and see if they have or we can rent the necessary syncing equipment. either way, we've committed to not going into the studio until we're painfully well-rehearsed, so i'm not worried about that aspect.

thanks again for sharing your expertise. i don't know how amateurs managed to do anything before they had boards like this one!

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Re: syncing analog and digital -- please advise

Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Sat Jul 19, 2003 10:21 am

Professor wrote:
If you record a click track or basic rhythm track to your computer and then layer in all of the backing parts, you could also patch that through the headphone system in the studio and have the whole band play along with the computer while recording the instruments to tape and transferring the computer tracks to tape. That would be slick.

-Jeremy
that would be really really slick! my only concern would be this: it seems like the stuff you want to do at home is all the backing track craziness and effects, right? i assume yr gonna record 'demos' of yr regular instruments (whatever your lineup is) and then start experimenting with all the backing stuff. work on all that stuff till you're happy with it, then bring the backing tracks to the studio and rerecord the drums/bass/guitars/whatever. seems to me like you'd be setting yourself up for a tough case of 'beat the demo'. if you spend, say, a month working all that stuff out, you're going to get really used to the 'feel' of the demo tracks, and even if they're kinda fucked up in whatever way (sound, timing,etc...) they're gonna grow on you. then you go to a real studio and replace the tracks you've been living with for a month with their new 'hifi' versions...it might be really weird. not trying to discourage you in any way, i think this is a cool idea and you should go for it, just had to chime in with this.

wait.

it's saturday.

i'm not sitting at my desk at the day job.

what the hell am i doing here?

must go press record!

cheers!
scott

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Re: syncing analog and digital -- please advise

Post by saag paneer » Sat Jul 19, 2003 10:42 am

seems to me like you'd be setting yourself up for a tough case of 'beat the demo'.
yeah, i think that is a danger. the only way i can see around it is to keep practicing the instrumental parts really hard, so we can be confident we'll go in and nail them pretty consistently.

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Re: syncing analog and digital -- please advise

Post by xpulsar » Sun Jul 20, 2003 10:00 am

I have a Digi 001 and have slaved it to Midi time code from a Motu DTP or Time piece AV.the 2" has SMPTE on one track,I send the smtpe to the DTP it transfers it tp Midi time code. In midi sync mode the PT LE chases the 2".Now there is some audible straying that goes on but for vocals and wierd sounds i've had pretty good "luck keeping things synced up.Its not the best for percussion and other "rythm" parts as things will seem to be off in groove.
I hear that if you have a master clock that is running the PT and the 2",I.E. Black burst, or color sync, and a Controller that will run the 24 tracks transport off of the master house clock.Then all you need is a DTP or a aardvark "time sync" to synce the PT up to that same master clock.Then the 2" is the master and the PT is the slave.Or if you have a 2" machine that can chase SMPTE or a controller that can sync to SMPTE and run the transport of the 2" then you can have PT as the master.I hope that I didn't make things more confusing.I just got a ADAM SMITH 2600 compact controller that will do just that,but now I need to learn how to use it,which seems to be a big thing based on the manual. good luck to you. :?

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