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Post by andersmv on Apr 11, 2024 10:53:02 GMT -6
I've been on the fence and scoping out tape machines for about a year and a half now. I've been lucky to work around the typical "big studio" setups with SSL's, Studers, Ampex, it was fun every once in a while but totally unpractical. I knew it wasn't something I would ever want to go for in a studio buildout for me, but I've still always selfishly wanted one just for fun on the side. I'm accepting there's never going to be a "return on investment" if I do this, and that's fine. I'm allowed to just have fun every once in a while.
I've reached out to a lot of people to ask questions and get opinions. I always had Otari's in the back of my head. At one place I worked, we had at least 5 or 6 different tape machines in the building. Although the Studers were amazingly well build and operated flawlessly, there was barely any difference between digital and the tape at 30 IPS. Really impressive... There was a 24 track Otari in one room and I don't know what it was about that machine, but I loved how it sounded. It had more vibe to my ears, a bit of a nice head bump down low, things tended to sound a little more open to me in the high mids while still sounding smooth up top. Pretty aggressive THD when pushed hard, but I liked it.
I've found a few people with 2 track MCI's, Mara's and Otari MTR series that were willing to run some mixes and files for me. I've done lots of comparisons over the last year and had the same experience, I really liked the Otari MTR's and was picking them as my favorite when I was setting up blind tests. WAY too many variables for this to be anywhere close to scientific (multiple studios, different tape, different alignments and settings more than likely), but enough to tell me I would be more than happy with an MTR if I could find one in good shape.
I finally found an Otari MTR-12 a few hours from me in great shape. Talked back and forth with the guy for a few months and he was fine with my cheeky offer, I'm going to go pick it up this weekend. I'm going to do a bunch of fun tests and stuff with it for a lot of things I've been curious about with tape over the years. This will be the first time I've been able to spend a lot of time with a good tape machine in my own space. I just havn't had time to experiment as much in the larger facilities in the past. I'm planning on doing an either LONG video or series on tape in general and figuring out a bunch of stuff I've been curious about over the years and heard people argue about non stop on forums...
First thing I'm curious about it doing a full song front to back and splitting out each and every thing to tape and digital along the way. Have a clean feed from the preamp going right to the converters, and splitting it off to the tape machine and recording the repro head back in real time. I'll figure out what the round trip latency time is (factoring in the head gap as well) and shift everything back in time down to the sample for everything. I want to end up with a whole song and two sets of files, where the same take went right to digital and tape back in to digital. It will be fun to hear how things sound in context at that stage. Then, I want to actually take the digital files and send them all back to the tape machine and print them back in. I've always been curious how much of a difference you would have going strait to tape and into the DAW as opposed to sending files back to tape after the fact and back in. If I'm recording off the repro head in real time at each stage, I should avoid any major timing issues that might happen if you recorded to the tape and then tried to play it back after the fact and recorded it back in.
After a bunch of those deep dives, I'll also be curious to do a whole mix with the digital files and then just print the mix through the tape machine for some color and see how that compares to a full mix with the tape files. Although this is more "curious play time for me" and trying to answer some questions I've always been curious about, I do have some ideas for some fun, smaller sessions. I think it would be fun to offer a service where we track things out one at a time really minimally (limited to two tracks at a time) right to the tape and record the repro head in real time into the DAW. Once I figure out the total sample latency of that tape machine at a certain IPS and sample rate, I can just cut and nudge stuff at the end of each take and basically "multi track" out to tape, but with the flexibility of the daw. I experienced this with CLASP and really enjoyed the concept, but CLASP is gone the way of the dinosaur. Although I have a romanticized idea of that being cool every once in a while, I am really curious to see if doing things that way will actually sound any different than just sending things back to the tape machine after the fact.
So ya, I'm about to have some fun for a while and figure a bunch of things out. I would be curious to hear if anyone else has some cool ideas to try or a way to expand on a lot of my curiosities. This isn't practical and I doubt I'm going to have people knocking down my door to pay to do this, and that's fine. If this just ends up being a bunch of fun "me" time, there's worse ways to spend some money...
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,952 
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Post by ericn on Apr 11, 2024 11:02:21 GMT -6
Congratulations, now remember the only way to judge the condition of the heads is to send them in for a head report. I like Otari, the machines are better than their rep, the only bad thing is for every Otari that lived in a small town radio station with a persnickety engineer there are 2 that were used and abused.
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Post by svart on Apr 11, 2024 11:06:38 GMT -6
After having a 2" 24 track tape machine for a few years a few things have been true:
A great alignment will not sound drastically different than a decent ADC will. You can push is extremely hard and finally get that "tape" sound, but the "tape" sound is generally from poorly aligned machines or from those pushed extremely hard for the effect. The "tape sound" is extremely overstated by most.
Nobody will be willing to spend the extra money on new tape reels. Used tape is your friend, but beware the sticky-shed. Be prepared to buy boxes of used tapes to find a few usable ones without flaking or sticky-shed.
Bands want the tape sound, but not the tape hassle. Instant punches and cut/paste are not a thing and bands who wanted the tape sound will suddenly be OK without it if it means not spending the extra time and money to do take after take to get it right.
The majority of my tape journey has been playing with it on my own stuff or doing tape transfers to digital.
Every time I think of selling it, I'll get a transfer job that pays a few percent of what I paid for the machine.
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Post by andersmv on Apr 11, 2024 11:13:17 GMT -6
The heads have been redone by JRF, so that was a big selling point. The other thing I forgot to mention in experimenting with the setup and alignment. I know how to do it “properly”, but I’m curious to mess around and see if I can tweak it to sound “cooler” or at least different. I also want to do some experimenting to compare it with the UAD Studer plugin. There enough controls on that plugin under the hood that I “think” I can do an analog style alignment with the plugin and try to match what the Otari is doing, at least as far as level matching and getting closer to the head bump and stuff. Might not work out as well as I’m thinking, but probably the closest I’ll be able to get to a plugin/real thing comparison.
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Post by FM77 on Apr 11, 2024 11:13:22 GMT -6
Congrats! It can be a rabbit hole!
I record to tape regularly. 1/2" 8 track. - I also calibrate my own machine, so that helps although that was the biggest curve.
It sounds glorious to me. Nothing like it. No tape emulation, no plugin, compressor or EQs. Very imprecise.
My only suggestion and only being that you asked so forgive if this sound obvious ... learn the machine first. Tracking, bouncing, playback etc. without the immediate need to split off into digital simultaneously. I feel like a focus on how to get the best from your gear/front ends, etc. onto tape, into, out of tape is critical. It isn't effortless to do well, even for the very experienced. Even though I used alot of tape in my youth, it was a relearning examning process after years with digital. It is easy to take for granted how clean we work today. Every source, every VU meter, every channel, every head is different in terms of getting levels and sonics and specific to the machine. What you can or can't push etc. Tape has alot of forgiveness but it has limits and the machines all have quirks. Bouncing to digital from tape is just fantastic. It give me alot of freedom afterwards.
Best of all, tape helps you perform better (if you are a player?) There are a few of us lurkers still enjoying tape. This next project will be first time using ATR Magnetics tape. Prior to that I have only used RTM SM911 - it is very good. Any older Quantegy you can find will likley be stuck or shedding. It is too big of a risk for me.
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Post by svart on Apr 11, 2024 11:17:04 GMT -6
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Post by FM77 on Apr 11, 2024 11:28:14 GMT -6
Nobody will be willing to spend the extra money on new tape reels. Used tape is your friend, but beware the sticky-shed. Be prepared to buy boxes of used tapes to find a few usable ones without flaking or sticky-shed. You have more faith or bravery than me! I feel like used tape is akin to a used sex doll.  You can get into baking. Its useful for really critical restoratoins if needed, but for new work, I find the cost of modern production fresh tape to be very reasonable. |
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Post by nick8801 on Apr 11, 2024 11:31:17 GMT -6
Congrats man! Looking forward to hearing what you do with it!
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Post by christopher on Apr 11, 2024 11:33:02 GMT -6
Since the cost to own is expensive, and musicians have no patience or practice, the old pro way of doing things has kinda left most folks cursing and selling their machines. So these days i think it’s better to do the “whatever” way of doing things. Which is sort of where Mara started and made a lot of headway. We have to remember this industry was a real money making one, with degrees and big wages, and so the rules of thumb from those days aren’t realistic anymore. But that’s ok.. since we aren’t running these things 10 hours a day. You’ll probably put much less than 100 hours a year of actually tape moving. To me it really doesn’t matter how much head gap is left as long as it’s somewhere in the usable region. Also I’ve seen at least one guy suggest not relapping the heads, as it grinds away material in order to make a new shaped contact area- one which wears away faster anyway, leaving you needing another relap. My wallet agrees with this concept. And I don’t mind a little extra head-bump, to me that’s the point.
There’s a lot of things to learn regarding physical head position, channel alignment, tape tensions. And the manuals and learning materials were written by engineers which clearly wanted to protect salaries and encourage hiring techs.
Recording off the repro head is easy, and DAW lining things up is very simple to do.
One of the funnest ways to use it is for slap delay. Feed channel 1 into channel 2, pan them left /right. Then gently feed those back into the channels for multi-taps.. EQ each channel, play with the speed. Then feed all that into a reverb. Or vice versa. Good time waster and hard not to smile. You need a mixer though to really have fun, pan-able aux sends.. 2-4 channels for returns and mults with different EQ.. another couple returns for a reverb box or two.. pretty quick you are up to 6-8 faders
And yeah if you align it perfectly with a DAW to be 1:1, it’s not the tape sound we think of typically. Alignment tapes I’ve used seemed to have a gentle dark curve. It hides hiss and encourages boosting highs, which gives better S/N. Not sure if that was intentional or some defect, others have noticed the same thing. I’d rather listen to MRL aligned than a DAW mirror, depends on the goal
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Post by svart on Apr 11, 2024 11:36:44 GMT -6
Nobody will be willing to spend the extra money on new tape reels. Used tape is your friend, but beware the sticky-shed. Be prepared to buy boxes of used tapes to find a few usable ones without flaking or sticky-shed. You have more faith or bravery than me! I feel like used tape is akin to a used sex doll. You can get into baking. Its useful for really critical restoratoins if needed, but for new work, I find the cost of modern production fresh tape to be very reasonable.I dunno, used tape is either going to be pretty stable, or completely falling apart already. I bought a box of a dozen 2" tapes and maybe half of them were turned to powder already but the other half have been used a few times here and there and continue to be stable. The only problem is that you don't really know how many times they've been used and some of them can have some ghosting from previous prints that can't be totally erased. Ampex and BASF 911 has been pretty stable for me. Some Ampex 456 has been fine too. If it's sticky or powdered, you can just strip the tape and keep the reel to do transfers anyway, so as long as you don't pay much for it, it's still worth something. But anyway, 350$ for a reel for 2" might not seem crazy, but when the band wants to do an EP and that's 1000$+ JUST for the tape.. They suddenly don't want to do it considering they want to spend 1000$ total for the WHOLE thing.. |
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Post by christopher on Apr 11, 2024 11:42:14 GMT -6
New 1/4” is not that pricey, thankfully. And you can re-record many many hours. It’s not that the tape loses its ability to sound great by being recorded on.. its damage comes from being stretched or losing particles. If the tape isn’t shedding/tape path not very dirty.. and the machine isn’t stretching the tape.. then it has the ability to work fine.
The machine has to be able to pump the correct strength of erase bias though, or it will struggle to fully erase the prior recording.
They’d play the tapes across the heads forever sometimes and still release a hit record in high fidelity. So used or new tape can be used quite a bit
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Post by FM77 on Apr 11, 2024 11:43:51 GMT -6
You have more faith or bravery than me! I feel like used tape is akin to a used sex doll. You can get into baking. Its useful for really critical restoratoins if needed, but for new work, I find the cost of modern production fresh tape to be very reasonable.I dunno, used tape is either going to be pretty stable, or completely falling apart already. I bought a box of a dozen 2" tapes and maybe half of them were turned to powder already but the other half have been used a few times here and there and continue to be stable. The only problem is that you don't really know how many times they've been used and some of them can have some ghosting from previous prints that can't be totally erased. Ampex and BASF 911 has been pretty stable for me. Some Ampex 456 has been fine too. If it's sticky or powdered, you can just strip the tape and keep the reel to do transfers anyway, so as long as you don't pay much for it, it's still worth something. But anyway, 350$ for a reel for 2" might not seem crazy, but when the band wants to do an EP and that's 1000$+ JUST for the tape.. They suddenly don't want to do it considering they want to spend 1000$ total for the WHOLE thing.. Of course man, I 100% understand and relate to the realities of this! I just won't risk it as it is me cleaning the machine! I find the biggest hurdle for used tape is as you said ghosting and dropouts. But I am not selling the service, so I buy for me! My machine is 100% for personal enjoyment.
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Post by FM77 on Apr 11, 2024 11:46:41 GMT -6
New 1/4” is not that pricey, thankfully. And you can re-record many many hours. It’s not that the tape loses its ability to sound great by being recorded on.. its damage comes from being stretched or losing particles. If the tape isn’t shedding/tape path not very dirty.. and the machine isn’t stretching the tape.. then it has the ability to work fine. The machine has to be able to pump the correct strength of erase bias though, or it will struggle to fully erase the prior recording. They’d play the tapes across the heads forever sometimes and still release a hit record in high fidelity. So used or new tape can be used quite a bit New 1/2″ x 2,500′ 10.5″ tape runs me about $150 or $100 for the pancake. |
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Post by christopher on Apr 11, 2024 11:58:41 GMT -6
Yeah..  I was sad my MCI was 1/4” until I realized the cost savings and endless supply of used/nos tape out there, since it was a standard width. |
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Post by Quint on Apr 11, 2024 12:09:59 GMT -6
Nobody will be willing to spend the extra money on new tape reels. Used tape is your friend, but beware the sticky-shed. Be prepared to buy boxes of used tapes to find a few usable ones without flaking or sticky-shed. You have more faith or bravery than me! I feel like used tape is akin to a used sex doll. You can get into baking. Its useful for really critical restoratoins if needed, but for new work, I find the cost of modern production fresh tape to be very reasonable.You should bake used sex dolls prior to reuse as well. |
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Post by gwlee7 on Apr 11, 2024 12:41:19 GMT -6
Probably need to get baked prior to using them as well.
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Post by drumsound on Apr 11, 2024 12:56:44 GMT -6
Nobody will be willing to spend the extra money on new tape reels. Used tape is your friend, but beware the sticky-shed. Be prepared to buy boxes of used tapes to find a few usable ones without flaking or sticky-shed. You have more faith or bravery than me! I feel like used tape is akin to a used sex doll. You can get into baking. Its useful for really critical restoratoins if needed, but for new work, I find the cost of modern production fresh tape to be very reasonable.There was a time when used tape was a pretty safe bet. Seems harder to get good stuff these. For 1/4" and1/2" it's worth buying new. I have a few different 1/4" tapes around that i'll sometime use to mix to, then back into PT. A recent EQ I did that on the first song, and the band preferred the mix off the console back into PT so I didn't keep the Studer running for any of the other mixes (except to use the mono speaker as a test). You have more faith or bravery than me! I feel like used tape is akin to a used sex doll. You can get into baking. Its useful for really critical restoratoins if needed, but for new work, I find the cost of modern production fresh tape to be very reasonable.I dunno, used tape is either going to be pretty stable, or completely falling apart already. I bought a box of a dozen 2" tapes and maybe half of them were turned to powder already but the other half have been used a few times here and there and continue to be stable. The only problem is that you don't really know how many times they've been used and some of them can have some ghosting from previous prints that can't be totally erased. Ampex and BASF 911 has been pretty stable for me. Some Ampex 456 has been fine too. If it's sticky or powdered, you can just strip the tape and keep the reel to do transfers anyway, so as long as you don't pay much for it, it's still worth something. But anyway, 350$ for a reel for 2" might not seem crazy, but when the band wants to do an EP and that's 1000$+ JUST for the tape.. They suddenly don't want to do it considering they want to spend 1000$ total for the WHOLE thing.. That was where I ended up as well. I'd realize or the band would realize as we were planning that having more HOURS to PLAY MUSIC was a better use of their money. I sold both of my 2" machines and I miss certain parts of having them, but I turned them into things that get used every day, instead of things that got used infrequently. You have more faith or bravery than me! I feel like used tape is akin to a used sex doll. You can get into baking. Its useful for really critical restoratoins if needed, but for new work, I find the cost of modern production fresh tape to be very reasonable.You should bake used sex dolls prior to reuse as well.  Well Played |
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Post by drbill on Apr 11, 2024 15:12:26 GMT -6
If you are looking for tone and tape mojo, head towards Ampex and / or MCI. Otari machines had great mechanicals, but not much tone IMO.
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Post by notneeson on Apr 11, 2024 15:27:00 GMT -6
My old studio had an MTR-10 that ended up not being fixable, FWIW. This was over a decade ago.
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Post by andersmv on Apr 11, 2024 15:52:28 GMT -6
If you are looking for tone and tape mojo, head towards Ampex and / or MCI. Otari machines had great mechanicals, but not much tone IMO. What can I say… There’s a Mara MCI near me that I was considering getting, even though it was much more expensive. I’ve heard prints of my same mix and stems through a dozen different machines at this point and I liked the Otaris better. Maybe I’ll loose my engineer card for this one, but I went with the one I liked. The Mara MCI were the only other consideration in the running, and I was able to do the same test with 4-5 different machines from different studios. The Mara’s didn’t sound bad, they sounded amazing and definitely more vibey. The noise floor was consistently better on most of the Otari MTRs, I liked the low end head bump a little better on the MTRs, the high end also sounded slightly more open on the MTRs even though the high end was rolled off a bit. The Mara’s sounded much smoother and a bit darker (in a good way), all of this stuff is definitely subjective though! I’ve also got a hare brained idea to try and integrate the tape signal flow with two of my Coil preamps, so I felt like the Maras would end up being overkill with that combo. Again, all subjective opinions here and I’ve got some specific plans and ideas. We’ll just have to wait and see how it all works out. The only reliability thing I’m concerned about with the MTRs is that the tape tension and everything is constantly being controlled by the built in Otari “computer” processor. If that ever goes out, I’ll have to sort a new one more than likely. That was another reason I wanted to like the Mara more, because it’s much more future proof and easier to fix in the grand scheme of things. There’s risks involved with any tape machine at this point though… |
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Post by dagogo on Apr 11, 2024 17:19:29 GMT -6
Congrats!
Not clear...is yours 1/4"? I have a 1/2" MTR10. It's still running well except for the lifters which need some attention. There was a dark period where it sat in storage for about 5 years. Now at least I can cycle it every so often. I do really enjoy loading up a reel...it still sounds great. Plenty of great records recorded on Otari's, nothing holding you back:)
Some of my old tapes have been shedding pretty badly though...I would buy new tape if an option.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,952
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Post by ericn on Apr 11, 2024 17:30:55 GMT -6
After having a 2" 24 track tape machine for a few years a few things have been true: A great alignment will not sound drastically different than a decent ADC will. You can push is extremely hard and finally get that "tape" sound, but the "tape" sound is generally from poorly aligned machines or from those pushed extremely hard for the effect. The "tape sound" is extremely overstated by most. Nobody will be willing to spend the extra money on new tape reels. Used tape is your friend, but beware the sticky-shed. Be prepared to buy boxes of used tapes to find a few usable ones without flaking or sticky-shed. Bands want the tape sound, but not the tape hassle. Instant punches and cut/paste are not a thing and bands who wanted the tape sound will suddenly be OK without it if it means not spending the extra time and money to do take after take to get it right. The majority of my tape journey has been playing with it on my own stuff or doing tape transfers to digital. Every time I think of selling it, I'll get a transfer job that pays a few percent of what I paid for the machine. Honestly, 2 in was never cheap, in the grand old days of tape major studios were dealers for their favorite tape ( funny how often favorite really meant they gave us terms), and others either bought in quantity or had a deal where they could get quantity discounts on 1 or 2 pieces. I would not trust used tape, I have seen way to many reals of “ realistic tape” in Ampex boxes sold as Ampex. Funny how the goal of the generation of tape machines ( Sony, Tascam Otari) was to make it sound less like tape and now we want the vibe. If you really want vibe find a Ampex 1100 or 440, just get ready to learn how to break without spooling on the floor. I liked my MCI 2in, but honestly I always thought you could tell it was physically built to a price point. My 440-8 has so much less flex in the top plate and seams just as heavy. |
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Post by drbill on Apr 11, 2024 17:51:54 GMT -6
There’s a Mara MCI near me that I was considering getting, even though it was much more expensive. I’ve heard prints of my same mix and stems through a dozen different machines at this point and I liked the Otaris better Cool. But if you are stepping into a tape machine of ANY brand, maintenance and service should be your #1 priority - by a long country mile. Mara still supports the MCI's. I'm out of the loop on Otari's as far as service is concerned, but you should line up a tech and service before even considering a tape machine. This coming from someone who owned and loved many over the years. Service, keeping them up and running is always far more difficult than you might expect. There was a period of time where I had to spend about $500 every time I turned one on. The closest tech in Los Angeles was 30 miles, and 2 hours away at best. That's what killed tape for me. |
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Post by drbill on Apr 11, 2024 19:15:21 GMT -6
If you really want vibe find a Ampex 1100 or 440, just get ready to learn how to break without spooling on the floor.. Haha!! Indeed ericn . For sheer ferocity and punch, the 2" 16 track Ampex MM1000 I once had was a beast. No equals. But running a session on it? . You got really good at punching roughly a half second before the in point, and yeah, tape handling? Haha! A different world LOL |
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Post by christophert on Apr 12, 2024 2:11:14 GMT -6
I run a Studer A80 MKII 1 inch 8 track, and a A80 MKII 1/2 inch 2 track - both in pristine condition. (using a Frostbox controller) Not many clients want to use them but they are in such great condition, they don't need much maintenance at all. I just recorded an album for M Ward who only wants to track on tape - then transfer to digital at 96K. The best machines I have ever had were Ampex MM1200 2 inch 16 tracks - nothing beats them - flat to 100k ! MCI's are not the greatest sounding machines, they battle to deal with 20k (I had a JH24 for a few years, along side of my Ampex machines) I purchase ATR tape new, and hire a reel for $100 per day tape rental. I'm building up more stock gradually so I have hopefully many decades of further use. My guess is in the future they "may" become more desired as they disappear from all of the studios around the world. I could be wrong though... |
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You can get into baking. Its useful for really critical restoratoins if needed, but for new work, I find the cost of modern production fresh tape to be very reasonable.
Well Played
