dumping tape to tools

[teamdresch]

Sorry if this has been mentioned already..

I have an A80 1", I just leave the tape rolling, go from the repro head to PT, and then move everything back the 0.188 of a second delay I get. Just measure what the delay is on your machine, and your're good to go.

[east3rdst]

"I don't know shit...a little." That was to say I do know shit a little. Actually both really don't make sense. oops

[bannerj]

just to add this for anyone's thoughts: some of you have mentioned just adjusting the bounce from tape in the DAW by the milisecs that it is off. This assumes that the tape machine is running at the same speed each time you push play...doesn't it? My issue is that the machine runs faster or slower depending on where on the tape I am playing from. I think it starts to run faster the later on the roll it is that I am playing. Does that make sense?

Thus the need to either do it all in the machine in the first place...or to mess around with some sort of SMPTE midi time code thing-a-ma-bober-dealy-o. I think I am going to try and get real comfortable with the former before I sink any more money into something that I don't understand.

[joel hamilton]

just to add this for anyone's thoughts: some of you have mentioned just adjusting the bounce from tape in the DAW by the milisecs that it is off. This assumes that the tape machine is running at the same speed each time you push play...doesn't it? My issue is that the machine runs faster or slower depending on where on the tape I am playing from. I think it starts to run faster the later on the roll it is that I am playing. Does that make sense?

Thus the need to either do it all in the machine in the first place...or to mess around with some sort of SMPTE midi time code thing-a-ma-bober-dealy-o. I think I am going to try and get real comfortable with the former before I sink any more money into something that I don't understand.

That is like saying the record is "playing faster" at the outside... The tape goes the same speed (theoretically) always. Any variation in playback speed has nothing to do with tape position. I dont want to hear bout tape tension or bad locators, I mean under ideal conditions.

[bannerj]

ok...so then I don't understand this: I recorded some drum parts on the earlier section of my reel. Bounced those to digital. Then I recorded a rough mix of the drum parts to a latter section of the same reel. I recorded some overdubs. I went back to bounce the overdub to digital, but then the overdubs were actually shorter in length than the original drums that I had dumped from the earlier section. It wasn't a matter of it being off in time. It was like the whole section shrunk in time.

So what is happening here?

[jpmorris]

> The tape goes the same speed (theoretically) always. Any variation in playback speed has nothing to do with tape position.

I've heard that the Otari 5050-8 doesn't actually do this, and you get funny results if you start splicing tape from one end to the other etc.

I wish I could remember where I read that.

[T-rex]

Joel, You have mentioned before that you believe a lot of the sound of "tape" comes from the machines themselves. I thought I read an older post where you mentioned that you track some times through the machine but not necessarily even on to tape. Is that correct?

Because of the whole tape production issue (which I am sure will all be sorted out soon) and the actual expense of tape, especially just to use to dump into Nuendo, I have been pretty on the fence as to the advantage of getting one.

[MT]

ok...so then I don't understand this: I recorded some drum parts on the earlier section of my reel. Bounced those to digital. Then I recorded a rough mix of the drum parts to a latter section of the same reel. I recorded some overdubs. I went back to bounce the overdub to digital, but then the overdubs were actually shorter in length than the original drums that I had dumped from the earlier section. It wasn't a matter of it being off in time. It was like the whole section shrunk in time.

So what is happening here?

The waveforms were shorter? Did you record the exact length of time between the two dumps? Rolling a little extra tape at the beginning or the end of the first dump would explain it?

MT

[bannerj]

The total length of the overdubs that I bounced back on top of the original drums was shorter. It was not a matter of it being off a few milisecs. It was like a tug of war. If I made the overdubs sync at the beginning of the mix they were screwed at the end. If I made the overdubs sync at the end then they were screwed at the beginning...and I am not talking about a cumulative effect of getting it set up in the wrong spot to begin with...it was way way off. It led me to believe that the motor was running faster, but maybe I am jumping to conclusions. I've only been using this thing for four months. What the hell do I know?

[Huntlabs]

Can you get the sound you are after if you track it all digitally and then sub mix and dump to tape and then back to digital?

Or track some, drums and bass, to tape and then dump to digital. Track the rest digital and then sub mix and dump to tape?

Just curious.

[jv]

I have done what you described (except using a 1/4" 8 track and SAW instead of protools, but the same concept). Analog tape machines will always drift a little unless they are synced somehow. A .05% variation in speed will result in about a 100 millisecond change in a 3 minute song, and that is very noticable. Here's what I did- after I put the 8 tracks on the computer, I put a click at the beginning and end of the song. Then I transferred the mix back to 8 track and recorded more tracks, and copied the clicks onto each of the new tracks. Then I transferred the new tracks back to the computer and used pitch correction on the new tracks to line up the clicks. The other thing you can do, especially with vocals or something else that isn't there all the time is to chop it up and line up the individual pieces. This worked fine for what I was doing.

[T-rex]

While definitely not the best solution, you could use time stretch to adjust the overdubbed tracks. Theoretically it should work out if you have tracks you have already recorded and want to keep. But moving forward I would record bass and drums, dump em and overdub everythingn in PT.

[trianglelines]

The whole sync to tape thing is a NIGHTMARE! Avoid it, unless you have some good business-y reason to try it, it is not worth it.

I agree with earlier posters here, decide what you can put in 8 tracks of analog to really help your song, then bite the bullet and do the rest in PT. Recording to digital is different than analog (duh) but the can be two great tastes that taste great together if you identify which parts TRULY benefit from the EFFECT of recording to tape.

Or, be prepared to chalk up the hours on SMPTE, MIDI timecode, chase mode, striping and other stuff. Could be a valuable learning experience (although it wasn't for me )

-TimT