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Post by wiz on Jan 14, 2017 23:24:43 GMT -6
I hope that the silly romantic notion about tape dies a quick and final death and that all those people holding on to useless old doorstop tape machines start listing them for free on Craigslist like old pianos. It's a fact...tape is dead. It's all romance and BS...right wiz ? Spread the word!!! Shhhh 8) tape is crap 8) for me...sound always wins. the 440 won. cheers Wiz
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Post by wiz on Jan 14, 2017 23:28:01 GMT -6
Serious question... I wonder how much the electronics of the 440 are doing the job? Ie could I get my satisfaction buying an old one ( ha like there are new ones) and use the beauty as a line amp?
Cheers
Wiz
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Post by illacov on Jan 14, 2017 23:58:14 GMT -6
Gaucho was either 3M digital at Soundworks (what Ive seen mentioned the most) or all analog. However I dont need to jump a decade ahead but rather to the side. Ry Cooder in 1979 was 3M digital, there were other albums that used digital recording technology in the 80s. The Nightfly for certain..... Gaucho sounds quite different from Aja and Royal Scam. It doesn't sound nearly as warm, it has a grainy sound to it, perhaps the CD pressing I have is digitally remastered??? I can cite a Billboard article via wikipedia (har har) where Fagen states they tried the 3M deck on Gaucho and abandoned it. But Nightfly is confirmed as an all digital recording.
Thanks -L.
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 15, 2017 0:13:12 GMT -6
Okay boys. I'm gonna try and hit the 440 and the 1000 today. In the interest of getting you what you want we should establish the control. i can go straight out of the converter to tape machine and back in to the converter (which I'd never do) or I can land on the console and then tape machine. I'm guessing we want to just go straight to tape and back right? For what it's worth, I never just "hit tape" and I would probably never just "hit Zulu". I would use them as part of an integrated system involving lots of gear and all the impedance changes, amp stages and slew rates and transformers and blah blah that happens when you mix in an analog environment. Altering your signal in an extreme way with 1 piece of gear is really different from altering it slightly, in stages, with a bunch of gear. The results will be dramatically different. So this test won't provide a real picture of what would happen if you mixed to tape but it'll still be cool. svart is a sharp dude and he'll get that I'm sure. I also don't get any work because of my tape machines. I get work because of how my records sound and affect people. My tape machines are (sometimes) part of that. I like to think that I have a sound. The machines do too but they're my tools. I don't use them to attract business and work around their shortcomings. I use them to produce an emotional reaction in listeners. You may not think tape machines sound great and they probably spec out lousy across many measurements but nobody seems to measure and compare the things we DO like about them. They do a thing. It suits certain projects. Increases their emotional impact...I think😉 Okay...on to the test. For whatver reason it seems that going from source to tape to digital is much more effective than going source to digital to tape. The conclusion would seem that digitizing before tape loses something that can't really be restored.
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Post by noah shain on Jan 15, 2017 0:23:48 GMT -6
Serious question... I wonder how much the electronics of the 440 are doing the job? Ie could I get my satisfaction buying an old one ( ha like there are new ones) and use the beauty as a line amp? Cheers Wiz I just wrote the most beautiful love letter to post about my 440 and my phone died and I lost it. That's the nature of the 440 I guess. Anyway, no, the line amps alone won't get you the sound of the 440. It's the way the whole system works together...from input transformer to tape and back. There's so many components and voltage changes and impedance changes on the way too and from the tape, the line amps alone are not that special. That said...YOU might get something useful out of it. And then the 440 (or any tape machine) line amps will just be a small part of your system. The 440 was a significant step on a LONG journey for me. That journey cost me a fortune! And a couple decades. I was chasing a specific sound. Anyone who says the 440 doesn't have a sound is not listening. Anyone who says a 440 makes music better is missing the point. It's just a part of the system. The system in total is just a tool in the hands of a person. Just like Chad Blake can make an ITB mix sound SO good...and I can't do what he does. And then someone else will listen to it and say it sucks. And then CLA will dump files on to digital tape and mix through his console and gear and Kato Kwandala will have the #1 rock album that he mixes ITB in Cubase then Andy Wallace will only use the channel compressors on the SSL. Then still other people will fly to the moon to get an input transformer for their compressor so it sounds closer to the original that Jim Williams wanted to replace most of the components in. And it still won't sound like a rev A or F or D or a CLA76 or a Mohog or a WA76 or Sheesh...who knows? What I know for sure is that the first time I heard a tambourine coming back off the 440 I couldn't stop smiling. There it was. THAT sound I had been trying to get. I took that record to Eric Valentine's studio to play him some mixes and get feedback from him. We had a laugh about the tambourine. It sounded so right. It was an IMPORTANT sounding tambourine. Go figure...most of the performances of the most important tambourine in recorded music history had been recorded on a similar machine. It baffles me how people will argue on a nerdy gear forum that the use of tape is just a romantic myth and it doesn't have a sound and then they'll build their own mic pres and compressors in an effort to capture some "sound" that a particular circuit has. Tape and tape machines have a sound. Better than digital? No. Worse than digital? No. Different than digital? Undeniably. I am a gear nerd. Duh. I'm here. I LIKE some old equipment because of the way it sounds. I like some old equipment because of the way it works. I like tape machines because I like the process of using them and I like the result I get from them. Can it be imitated or reproduced? Probably. Almost surely. Is there value in using them? To me there is. So I do. I say get a 440 wiz . Learn it, love it, live it. Make records that sound great to you. Do it with tape. It's fun and sounds nice and is a cool thing to do. The 440 is a lovely piece of stone aged tech. It's cranky and heavy and slow and tricky to align and a bitch to maintain and totally ALIVE. And it sounds SO GOOD...to me. Do it svart ! And wiz if you like what it did to your mix then maaannnn...I would go to the moon (and have) for an extra 1% of awesome on a mix. The tambourine in question is at the top of this track:
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Post by jeremygillespie on Jan 15, 2017 0:34:59 GMT -6
I was in such shock the first time I watched Kato pull up a session in Cubase and start mixing.
...Ahem, don't you want to put your tracks through the SSL? "Nah dude, that thing's a fucking boat anchor"
His mixes rock.
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Post by noah shain on Jan 15, 2017 0:40:45 GMT -6
I was in such shock the first time I watched Kato pull up a session in Cubase and start mixing. ...Ahem, don't you want to put your tracks through the SSL? "Nah dude, that thing's a fucking boat anchor" His mixes rock. Kato is a good buddy of mine. He makes fun of me all the time because of my (literal) ton of tape machines. Oh and wiz and svart wait til the first time you turn in one of your tape mixes to a label and they ask why it's so quiet. And then call Kato to complain about "the label" and let him rip you a new one for being such a dummy for using tape.
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Post by jjinvegas on Jan 15, 2017 2:03:55 GMT -6
No doubt that tambourine is one instrument that just doesn't work as well on digital. Ampex is a lot like Checker, who makes the cabs, durable, heavy, and they do evoke a sensibility, albeit for different reasons. I really loved the sound of my 354, also, but although in amazing condition it had some limitations that you could put in the charming category, or pain in the rear, depending on the vantage. And the 440 I had in a Russ Lang roll-around served me well, also, but if you think it has a sound compared to 1/2 at 30 on 3M-M79 it was suddenly in the corner for the occasional safety. I did have one of those capstan sleeves for 30 ips, which did eat more tape, but didn't really sound much different. And the look on a newbie's face when I would start examining razor blades and degaussing them after their imaginations ran wild with suspicions of drug-fueled studio romps, i would start cutting their song into pieces All good fun. But what does a pancake cost now, 30 bucks? 15 minutes, at 30, yikes. I am guessing people are rediscovering the superior bass response on their two inch masters at 15 ips, at 300 plus a pop you could probably learn to love it.
But this thread was based around a business proposition, will tape pay dividends.
The best format sonically is 16 trk, and I did a bunch of it. And was always trying to figure out what i could sacrifice to a pre-mix. Or do i lose the front kick mic, or room mic, or the cardboard on the bass, maybe do the background vocals very early and bounce them. In other words, compromises galore, that some defend as a workflow that yields better results, I am calling bull droppings on that whole idea. I used to work on other places tapes, where the usual M.O. was to do four tracks of drums, with a stereo mix of toms and OH, invariably wrong. I would go crazy watching other people using the locator to park after short journeys, but I still would slit my wrists now even with my very nimble transport and punch in fingers. Weeks of my life wasted in rewind mode. Listening acutely to singer's breathing to get a natural punch. No comp available, no tracks left for such luxury. TUNING ISSUES, once they went to voltage controlled DC transport motors, if you didn't print a reference tone to set your tuner to, if you happen to have a fairly musical ear you were going to go slowly insane. Beimg at the mercy of the various fairly grumpy dudes who had bought up the parts inventories of the various manufacturers is a singular joy. your worn out widget has become their retirement plan. Some were very cool, Randy Blevins comes to mind with MCI, other not so much. These are just the realities of a cottage industry with a finite supply. But here is the kicker, that roll of tape, which I heard was pretty uneven at first, even compared to the scandalous problems with 256 and 456 batches. I am not sure what formulation they are using, but if it is 499, well, that tape sucks. And in these days where you are not only fighting against Garageband on a freaking cellphone, but a shrinking demographic with a smaller percentage of kids within that group who are fighting the good fight, well, I want that three hundred bucks, or six, most of your typical music clients are not to the manor born, the tape cost is typically their entire budget with the new pricing. I just think that the recovery from Bush America has been slow to come to artists, even in the best of times the people who were the most rewarding to record on an artistic level were completely unrewarding when rent came due. You compare all this to the benefits of oxide compression, well, make up your own mind, but my results are so much better now. And one of the main reasons is I am liberated from the stress of depending on something that is reminiscent of an Austin Healy Sprite, only the parts are even more rare, and there's a whole bunch more of them at risk......
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Post by noah shain on Jan 15, 2017 2:20:18 GMT -6
No doubt that tambourine is one instrument that just doesn't work as well on digital. Ampex is a lot like Checker, who makes the cabs, durable, heavy, and they do evoke a sensibility, albeit for different reasons. I really loved the sound of my 354, also, but although in amazing condition it had some limitations that you could put in the charming category, or pain in the rear, depending on the vantage. And the 440 I had in a Russ Lang roll-around served me well, also, but if you think it has a sound compared to 1/2 at 30 on 3M-M79 it was suddenly in the corner for the occasional safety. I did have one of those capstan sleeves for 30 ips, which did eat more tape, but didn't really sound much different. And the look on a newbie's face when I would start examining razor blades and degaussing them after their imaginations ran wild with suspicions of drug-fueled studio romps, i would start cutting their song into pieces All good fun. But what does a pancake cost now, 30 bucks? 15 minutes, at 30, yikes. I am guessing people are rediscovering the superior bass response on their two inch masters at 15 ips, at 300 plus a pop you could probably learn to love it. But this thread was based around a business proposition, will tape pay dividends. The best format sonically is 16 trk, and I did a bunch of it. And was always trying to figure out what i could sacrifice to a pre-mix. Or do i lose the front kick mic, or room mic, or the cardboard on the bass, maybe do the background vocals very early and bounce them. In other words, compromises galore, that some defend as a workflow that yields better results, I am calling bull droppings on that whole idea. I used to work on other places tapes, where the usual M.O. was to do four tracks of drums, with a stereo mix of toms and OH, invariably wrong. I would go crazy watching other people using the locator to park after short journeys, but I still would slit my wrists now even with my very nimble transport and punch in fingers. Weeks of my life wasted in rewind mode. Listening acutely to singer's breathing to get a natural punch. No comp available, no tracks left for such luxury. TUNING ISSUES, once they went to voltage controlled DC transport motors, if you didn't print a reference tone to set your tuner to, if you happen to have a fairly musical ear you were going to go slowly insane. Beimg at the mercy of the various fairly grumpy dudes who had bought up the parts inventories of the various manufacturers is a singular joy. your worn out widget has become their retirement plan. Some were very cool, Randy Blevins comes to mind with MCI, other not so much. These are just the realities of a cottage industry with a finite supply. But here is the kicker, that roll of tape, which I heard was pretty uneven at first, even compared to the scandalous problems with 256 and 456 batches. I am not sure what formulation they are using, but if it is 499, well, that tape sucks. And in these days where you are not only fighting against Garageband on a freaking cellphone, but a shrinking demographic with a smaller percentage of kids within that group who are fighting the good fight, well, I want that three hundred bucks, or six, most of your typical music clients are not to the manor born, the tape cost is typically their entire budget with the new pricing. I just think that the recovery from Bush America has been slow to come to artists, even in the best of times the people who were the most rewarding to record on an artistic level were completely unrewarding when rent came due. You compare all this to the benefits of oxide compression, well, make up your own mind, but my results are so much better now. And one of the main reasons is I am liberated from the stress of depending on something that is reminiscent of an Austin Healy Sprite, only the parts are even more rare, and there's a whole bunch more of them at risk...... Amazing post! This ☝🏽 Is why I said you better love working on tape svart! Cuz it's gonna COST you money!
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 15, 2017 7:51:47 GMT -6
The other thing about tape that has been rather glossed over in this thread is that it imposes a certain work ethic.
You don't get immediate playback. You don't have infinite easy edits. You don't have digital trickery (see my previous rant in another thread. You know the one.)
You actually have to THINK about the music you're recording and you have the TIME to do it. The time factor is imposed on you by the nature of the beast and that gives a somewhat different perspective.
I love the workflow of tape. I hate the workflow of the computer.
And it's a much more auditory, not visual, medium.
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Post by EmRR on Jan 15, 2017 9:30:41 GMT -6
The workflow of the computer still annoys me greatly, I'm more librarian/accountant than recordist now. All sorts of brain space I used to have free for creative observation is consumed with constant file organization tasks. OTOH, I can't imagine many willing to give up the power of the computer either. Nor reimburse me for the time taken to dump and organize tape to DAW if it went that way. The power of the DAW demands your focus, tape gives you space to step back a bit, since it regulates session flow to a large degree.
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Post by drbill on Jan 15, 2017 10:12:12 GMT -6
For whatver reason it seems that going from source to tape to digital is much more effrective than going source to digital to tape. The conclusion would seem that digitizing before tape loses something that can't really be restored. I always found that to be true as well - back when I was running both simultaneously.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 15,011
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Post by ericn on Jan 15, 2017 11:47:45 GMT -6
Serious question... I wonder how much the electronics of the 440 are doing the job? Ie could I get my satisfaction buying an old one ( ha like there are new ones) and use the beauty as a line amp? Cheers Wiz I just wrote the most beautiful love letter to post about my 440 and my phone died and I lost it. That's the nature of the 440 I guess. Anyway, no, the line amps alone won't get you the sound of the 440. It's the way the whole system works together...from input transformer to tape and back. There's so many components and voltage changes and impedance changes on the way too and from the tape, the line amps alone are not that special. That said...YOU might get something useful out of it. And then the 440 (or any tape machine) line amps will just be a small part of your system. The 440 was a significant step on a LONG journey for me. That journey cost me a fortune! And a couple decades. I was chasing a specific sound. Anyone who says the 440 doesn't have a sound is not listening. Anyone who says a 440 makes music better is missing the point. It's just a part of the system. The system in total is just a tool in the hands of a person. Just like Chad Blake can make an ITB mix sound SO good...and I can't do what he does. And then someone else will listen to it and say it sucks. And then CLA will dump files on to digital tape and mix through his console and gear and Kato Kwandala will have the #1 rock album that he mixes ITB in Cubase then Andy Wallace will only use the channel compressors on the SSL. Then still other people will fly to the moon to get an input transformer for their compressor so it sounds closer to the original that Jim Williams wanted to replace most of the components in. And it still won't sound like a rev A or F or D or a CLA76 or a Mohog or a WA76 or Sheesh...who knows? What I know for sure is that the first time I heard a tambourine coming back off the 440 I couldn't stop smiling. There it was. THAT sound I had been trying to get. I took that record to Eric Valentine's studio to play him some mixes and get feedback from him. We had a laugh about the tambourine. It sounded so right. It was an IMPORTANT sounding tambourine. Go figure...most of the performances of the most important tambourine in recorded music history had been recorded on a similar machine. It baffles me how people will argue on a nerdy gear forum that the use of tape is just a romantic myth and it doesn't have a sound and then they'll build their own mic pres and compressors in an effort to capture some "sound" that a particular circuit has. Tape and tape machines have a sound. Better than digital? No. Worse than digital? No. Different than digital? Undeniably. I am a gear nerd. Duh. I'm here. I LIKE some old equipment because of the way it sounds. I like some old equipment because of the way it works. I like tape machines because I like the process of using them and I like the result I get from them. Can it be imitated or reproduced? Probably. Almost surely. Is there value in using them? To me there is. So I do. I say get a 440 wiz . Learn it, love it, live it. Make records that sound great to you. Do it with tape. It's fun and sounds nice and is a cool thing to do. The 440 is a lovely piece of stone aged tech. It's cranky and heavy and slow and tricky to align and a bitch to maintain and totally ALIVE. And it sounds SO GOOD...to me. Do it svart ! And wiz if you like what it did to your mix then maaannnn...I would go to the moon (and have) for an extra 1% of awesome on a mix. The tambourine in question is at the top of this track: Yes ! yes ! Yes! A major problem today his people are chasing toys, not tools to create their own aesthetic! One of the biggest problems with the decline of the recording studio is it had the essentials to make a great sounding record. the Engineer / Producer would bring in some stuff that they used to create the sonic aesthetic they wanted! Now everybody is chasing those essentials and fewer and fewer are chasing their own sound. They might chase somebody else who has morphed from Producer / Engineer to gear promoter ! If somebody asks me what they need I either give them a how the fuck should I know or a large list of options and a plea to go off the common road map and find the tools and methods that gives them the aesthetic they want ! This is the problem with most modern audio education, it's all method , not enough weight on the basics and teaching the kid how to think. Instead it's about his student loan money and getting him a job at GC or Starbucks ( they are a record label) because industry job placement means they get the next kids soul, I mean student dept. Every time I play Noah's stuff people comment that it has a sound or soul that they don't hear on every where! You no what it makes me proud to know you and put you in the group of guys I know who are about the sound in their heads not everybody else. Of course my wife is laughing at the fact that my 440-8 that is slowly being put back together is the object of his gear lust! Take chances find your sound it could be tape, but that means a lot of work!
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Post by EmRR on Jan 15, 2017 11:59:34 GMT -6
I've said it before: I took my gear list down several years ago, since it only generates emails from other studios wanting to know how I like something and should they buy one. Not a single person has followed up with a request to see a list since then. I could sell myself as being the guy with a bazillion vintage tube preamps and compressors, I used to try. Never made a bit of difference. They hire me and my room.
Actually, taking the list down and slowing the conversation about (and chasing of) gear does good things to turn off the lust, and clear the brain for better creative thinking.
A lot of us have more and better equipment than many large footprint facilities. I did a session in a really nice large well designed room back in the spring, and I had to take a lot of gear to pull it off. The sort of full band live tracking I do apparently isn't done there, so I needed more headphones, more headphone amps, more mic stands, more mics, more XLR's, etc etc. I left thinking "I don't need a single piece of equipment, I need a better room, and one with no more overhead than I already have". Huh. How does that happen? Tough to see. Point being it's easy to keep filling up the toy box with small pieces, and think "but I've got this and this and THIS", and really, does anyone actually care?
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Post by noah shain on Jan 15, 2017 13:46:21 GMT -6
Thanks for the cool compliment ericn ! That rules. For the record I'll say that I think buying a tape machine, or a kurig for the lounge, or any gear for that matter, to attract business is something I wouldn't do. I use a tape machine because I'm inspired by it and how it sounds. A little romance, a little sonics, a lot of work and...I make a recording I like. Buying a tape machine cause you like what it does I WHOLEHEARTEDLY endorse!! Like buying a $7000 compressor cause it sounds good. Or a pair of $30,000 Fairchild comps. I bet I can use fab filter pro L or an L2 and smash and distort the daylights out of a mix and some people will like it better. Or Ozone!!! It's unbeatable! You can't beat it at what it does! At least I can't do it. I've fkn tried! I like dark, distorted, wooly, filtered sounding records. For my money you can't beat the mm1000/440B combo for the sound I like. I tried. I looked high and low. I bothered designers and techs and researched my ass off. I could get close but I discovered that if you want the sound of Ampex you gotta use Ampex to get exactly that Ampex sound. It's worth it to me. My income in the last few years will indicate that not everyone feels the way I do but I'm still at it cause it makes me smile. It satisfies the already insane urge that forced me to walk away from a far more lucrative career to do records instead. My wife thinks I'm crazy. Kato thinks I'm crazy. You guys mostly probably do too! Oh well. Here I sit, sequestered in tape machine land, waiting for someone to like the sound I like and to pay me to get it for them. Who cares? Some people. Most don't. Oh well. The ones that do will find me or someone like me and hire one of us. Or both of us. FWIW I always make a band agree before we start a tape record that if the machine breaks we move on without it. It doesn't make a great record. WE are gonna do that no matter what. With hard work and some good songs/arrangements/performances. Meanwhile I'm gonna keep chasing the sound I want. With plug ins and diy kits and vintage gear and new hardware and converters and diffusers and gold plated switches and litz wire transformers and tape machines and SL red dots (of which I purchased 50!) and esoteric capacitors and echoplex ep1s and coffee. Niko Bolas told me once, "I could put Charley Drayton in a closet with a 58 up his a** and people are still gonna ask me how far the overheads were from his snare". Haha God I hope 1 of my records is a hit! I want a 3m 79!!! ericn tell your wife I'll gladly get that 8 track out of your house for her!!
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Post by drbill on Jan 15, 2017 13:55:08 GMT -6
You guys mostly probably do too! Oh well. I don't think you're crazy Noah, I think you're PASSIONATE. And IMO, that's what matters more than any studio or piece of gear. I'm passionate too - just not about tape machines.... Whatever makes one passionate - HOLD ON TO THAT!!!! A lot of good stuff on this thread that aren't even specifically tape machine related.....
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2017 13:59:26 GMT -6
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Post by noah shain on Jan 15, 2017 14:00:00 GMT -6
You guys mostly probably do too! Oh well. I don't think you're crazy Noah, I think you're PASSIONATE. And IMO, that's what matters more than any studio or piece of gear. I'm passionate too - just not about tape machines.... Whatever makes one passionate - HOLD ON TO THAT!!!! A lot of good stuff on this thread that aren't even specifically tape machine related..... Hell yes Dr Bill! Amen. Stupid tape machines are killing me. Who would want to deal with them anyway? 🤦♂️ svart do it! It'd be so cool if this badass converter designer was a bad ass tape guy too.
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Post by illacov on Jan 15, 2017 14:57:29 GMT -6
Thanks for the cool compliment ericn ! That rules. For the record I'll say that I think buying a tape machine, or a kurig for the lounge, or any gear for that matter, to attract business is something I wouldn't do. I use a tape machine because I'm inspired by it and how it sounds. A little romance, a little sonics, a lot of work and...I make a recording I like. Buying a tape machine cause you like what it does I WHOLEHEARTEDLY endorse!! Like buying a $7000 compressor cause it sounds good. Or a pair of $30,000 Fairchild comps. I bet I can use fab filter pro L or an L2 and smash and distort the daylights out of a mix and some people will like it better. Or Ozone!!! It's unbeatable! You can't beat it at what it does! At least I can't do it. I've fkn tried! I like dark, distorted, wooly, filtered sounding records. For my money you can't beat the mm1000/440B combo for the sound I like. I tried. I looked high and low. I bothered designers and techs and researched my ass off. I could get close but I discovered that if you want the sound of Ampex you gotta use Ampex to get exactly that Ampex sound. It's worth it to me. My income in the last few years will indicate that not everyone feels the way I do but I'm still at it cause it makes me smile. It satisfies the already insane urge that forced me to walk away from a far more lucrative career to do records instead. My wife thinks I'm crazy. Kato thinks I'm crazy. You guys mostly probably do too! Oh well. Here I sit, sequestered in tape machine land, waiting for someone to like the sound I like and to pay me to get it for them. Who cares? Some people. Most don't. Oh well. The ones that do will find me or someone like me and hire one of us. Or both of us. FWIW I always make a band agree before we start a tape record that if the machine breaks we move on without it. It doesn't make a great record. WE are gonna do that no matter what. With hard work and some good songs/arrangements/performances. Meanwhile I'm gonna keep chasing the sound I want. With plug ins and diy kits and vintage gear and new hardware and converters and diffusers and gold plated switches and litz wire transformers and tape machines and SL red dots (of which I purchased 50!) and esoteric capacitors and echoplex ep1s and coffee. Niko Bolas told me once, "I could put Charley Drayton in a closet with a 58 up his a** and people are still gonna ask me how far the overheads were from his snare". Haha God I hope 1 of my records is a hit! I want a 3m 79!!! ericn tell your wife I'll gladly get that 8 track out of your house for her!! Ill get some clips that I feel match the clips you posted soon enough. As far as passion, Im with you on that. As the special brand of crazy behind Zulu not just in gospel but in verse and scripture, my goal was and is still the sound of tape without the issues. Your prints convinced me that my efforts werent in vain. We will get some Ampex targeted prints up soon enough. Thanks -L.
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Post by noah shain on Jan 15, 2017 15:16:51 GMT -6
Thanks for the cool compliment ericn ! That rules. For the record I'll say that I think buying a tape machine, or a kurig for the lounge, or any gear for that matter, to attract business is something I wouldn't do. I use a tape machine because I'm inspired by it and how it sounds. A little romance, a little sonics, a lot of work and...I make a recording I like. Buying a tape machine cause you like what it does I WHOLEHEARTEDLY endorse!! Like buying a $7000 compressor cause it sounds good. Or a pair of $30,000 Fairchild comps. I bet I can use fab filter pro L or an L2 and smash and distort the daylights out of a mix and some people will like it better. Or Ozone!!! It's unbeatable! You can't beat it at what it does! At least I can't do it. I've fkn tried! I like dark, distorted, wooly, filtered sounding records. For my money you can't beat the mm1000/440B combo for the sound I like. I tried. I looked high and low. I bothered designers and techs and researched my ass off. I could get close but I discovered that if you want the sound of Ampex you gotta use Ampex to get exactly that Ampex sound. It's worth it to me. My income in the last few years will indicate that not everyone feels the way I do but I'm still at it cause it makes me smile. It satisfies the already insane urge that forced me to walk away from a far more lucrative career to do records instead. My wife thinks I'm crazy. Kato thinks I'm crazy. You guys mostly probably do too! Oh well. Here I sit, sequestered in tape machine land, waiting for someone to like the sound I like and to pay me to get it for them. Who cares? Some people. Most don't. Oh well. The ones that do will find me or someone like me and hire one of us. Or both of us. FWIW I always make a band agree before we start a tape record that if the machine breaks we move on without it. It doesn't make a great record. WE are gonna do that no matter what. With hard work and some good songs/arrangements/performances. Meanwhile I'm gonna keep chasing the sound I want. With plug ins and diy kits and vintage gear and new hardware and converters and diffusers and gold plated switches and litz wire transformers and tape machines and SL red dots (of which I purchased 50!) and esoteric capacitors and echoplex ep1s and coffee. Niko Bolas told me once, "I could put Charley Drayton in a closet with a 58 up his a** and people are still gonna ask me how far the overheads were from his snare". Haha God I hope 1 of my records is a hit! I want a 3m 79!!! ericn tell your wife I'll gladly get that 8 track out of your house for her!! Ill get some clips that I feel match the clips you posted soon enough. As far as passion, Im with you on that. As the special brand of crazy behind Zulu not just in gospel but in verse and scripture, my goal was and is still the sound of tape without the issues. Your prints convinced me that my efforts werent in vain. We will get some Ampex targeted prints up soon enough. Thanks -L. FWIW illacov nothing I've said in this thread is intended as a challenge to Zulu or your efforts with Zulu. As you'll recall, I was DMing you to get a demo as soon as you announced here. I'm WAY in to what you're doing and I hope it's wildly successful. I almost always end up dumping to tools at some point, which is why Zulu gets me excited. I'll buy a Zulu 💯 AND I'll keep my machines and I'll be killing it on my little island!!!
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Post by illacov on Jan 15, 2017 16:11:42 GMT -6
Ill get some clips that I feel match the clips you posted soon enough. As far as passion, Im with you on that. As the special brand of crazy behind Zulu not just in gospel but in verse and scripture, my goal was and is still the sound of tape without the issues. Your prints convinced me that my efforts werent in vain. We will get some Ampex targeted prints up soon enough. Thanks -L. FWIW illacov nothing I've said in this thread is intended as a challenge to Zulu or your efforts with Zulu. As you'll recall, I was DMing you to get a demo as soon as you announced here. I'm WAY in to what you're doing and I hope it's wildly successful. I almost always end up dumping to tools at some point, which is why Zulu gets me excited. I'll buy a Zulu 💯 AND I'll keep my machines and I'll be killing it on my little island!!! Oh dude, I'm not challenged at all by what you said. I'm honored by it! FYI I really really really really really have wanted to do this thing with you from day one. I greatly appreciate your participation and willingness to do this for us and especially for me. I greatly respect your passion about tape and especially your machines! The 440B I feel we can get extremely close to. I may eat my hat on that but I'd love to see how close. The MM1000 is a totally different sound altogether and I'd love to go over a few more prints of that deck with you, perhaps on a different pair of channels? You really have made an impact on me...I'm not ashamed to say that. When the time permits I'd love to visit you at your studio and we can develop a Zulu preset that we'd name after you or your studio etc...Something that you feel is magical that you can accomplish with my creation. I really dig your production style and motif. I know that you can't isolate that totally from who you work with but I really dig your stuff man. Thanks for your undying support! These types of positive exchanges between creatives are what the world needs MORE of now more than ever. My grandmother marched with Dr. Martin Luther King on Washington. She was the daughter of a Black immigrant (from Panama) and a Black sharecropper. She worked in assembly (soldering parts) in the tube amplifier department at General Electric in Syracuse NY. When news of the march on Washington was shared and the bosses got wind of it, they put up signs at GE in Syracuse letting workers (the Black ones in particular) know that if they called in sick or took time off to go to the march on Washington they would be summarily fired. She went anyway. She saw MLK, she met him, they talked, there's an old withered picture of her shaking hands with him. She came back to Syracuse, somehow kept her job and went on to raise my mother, who went on to have me, but I grew up poor, lived in the ghetto, I used to play with broken TVs on the curb and take apart TV remotes for fun when I was 7 years old. Fast forward: I survived the ghetto, I went to college, studied Computer Science and Philosophy. Worked in music as an engineer, tinkered in the basement, learned what I could of electronics. Fast forward to now: I'm an inventor, selling circuits, developing technology, owning an electronics business. My grandmother is still alive, we both got to see the first Black president in our nation's history. And the week that MLK day hits, I'm flying out to see the factories that produce my product. God is good first off, but secondarily and in relationship to this thread and what it's developed into, we all want to make music the way we want to make it. We all are better musicians, engineers and producers when we are positively connected with each other and can share our experiences, passions and influences. Sorry for the soapbox moment, but even the I Have a Dream Speech was on tape! Thanks -L.
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Post by gar381 on Jan 15, 2017 23:02:32 GMT -6
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Post by scumbum on Jan 16, 2017 11:08:59 GMT -6
No doubt that tambourine is one instrument that just doesn't work as well on digital. Ampex is a lot like Checker, who makes the cabs, durable, heavy, and they do evoke a sensibility, albeit for different reasons. I really loved the sound of my 354, also, but although in amazing condition it had some limitations that you could put in the charming category, or pain in the rear, depending on the vantage. And the 440 I had in a Russ Lang roll-around served me well, also, but if you think it has a sound compared to 1/2 at 30 on 3M-M79 it was suddenly in the corner for the occasional safety. I did have one of those capstan sleeves for 30 ips, which did eat more tape, but didn't really sound much different. And the look on a newbie's face when I would start examining razor blades and degaussing them after their imaginations ran wild with suspicions of drug-fueled studio romps, i would start cutting their song into pieces All good fun. But what does a pancake cost now, 30 bucks? 15 minutes, at 30, yikes. I am guessing people are rediscovering the superior bass response on their two inch masters at 15 ips, at 300 plus a pop you could probably learn to love it. But this thread was based around a business proposition, will tape pay dividends. The best format sonically is 16 trk, and I did a bunch of it. And was always trying to figure out what i could sacrifice to a pre-mix. Or do i lose the front kick mic, or room mic, or the cardboard on the bass, maybe do the background vocals very early and bounce them. In other words, compromises galore, that some defend as a workflow that yields better results, I am calling bull droppings on that whole idea. I used to work on other places tapes, where the usual M.O. was to do four tracks of drums, with a stereo mix of toms and OH, invariably wrong. I would go crazy watching other people using the locator to park after short journeys, but I still would slit my wrists now even with my very nimble transport and punch in fingers. Weeks of my life wasted in rewind mode. Listening acutely to singer's breathing to get a natural punch. No comp available, no tracks left for such luxury. TUNING ISSUES, once they went to voltage controlled DC transport motors, if you didn't print a reference tone to set your tuner to, if you happen to have a fairly musical ear you were going to go slowly insane. Beimg at the mercy of the various fairly grumpy dudes who had bought up the parts inventories of the various manufacturers is a singular joy. your worn out widget has become their retirement plan. Some were very cool, Randy Blevins comes to mind with MCI, other not so much. These are just the realities of a cottage industry with a finite supply. But here is the kicker, that roll of tape, which I heard was pretty uneven at first, even compared to the scandalous problems with 256 and 456 batches. I am not sure what formulation they are using, but if it is 499, well, that tape sucks. And in these days where you are not only fighting against Garageband on a freaking cellphone, but a shrinking demographic with a smaller percentage of kids within that group who are fighting the good fight, well, I want that three hundred bucks, or six, most of your typical music clients are not to the manor born, the tape cost is typically their entire budget with the new pricing. I just think that the recovery from Bush America has been slow to come to artists, even in the best of times the people who were the most rewarding to record on an artistic level were completely unrewarding when rent came due. You compare all this to the benefits of oxide compression, well, make up your own mind, but my results are so much better now. And one of the main reasons is I am liberated from the stress of depending on something that is reminiscent of an Austin Healy Sprite, only the parts are even more rare, and there's a whole bunch more of them at risk...... Personally thats why I think digital from a creative veiwpoint is better because it frees you up to not have to worry about anything . This can be bad and abused of course , over editing and recording way too many takes until the soul has been sucked out of the music . But think about it , you can get a laptop and an interface and go record wherever you want for as long as you want . You could record all day long in some wherehouse , 12 hours and it won't cost you like running tape . Setup is simple , Hit record and you can make music as much as you want 24 hours a day . Theres no fixing machines , buying tape , being stuck at one location ..........no worries . Making music couldn't be easier today !! This frees you to be 100% focused on the music and performance . Talk about freeing up an artist to do his thing to its full potential . I bet the beatles and beach boys would have LOVED and prefered digital to let them experiment back in the day . Imagine the Beatles at their peak with a Pro Tools rig , they would have come up with something crazy and blow everyone away . Lennon would have made some crazy masterpiece . Problem is with digital people are more focused on making perfect music rather than enjoyable music .
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Post by jimwilliams on Jan 16, 2017 13:07:50 GMT -6
I've rebuilt everything from 440's to Sony APR's. I like the MCI JH series the best. Those can record flat to 32k hz at 30 IPS with mods. THD will also lower from .55% at +3 to .15% at +9. 440's can sound pretty good with modern transistors and caps. I never liked dirty analog machines nor any in band roll-offs. Clean analog is a joy to behold. I recently sent out some rebuilt Lyrec cards from Denmark along with a rebuilt Dolby 363 SR/A rack. Those came out great as they were designed with 072 opamps. I used a combo of OPA1612's, OPA1642's, AD 8512's and LME49720's. The front end head amp jfets were changed to low noise Toshiba 2SC3329BL's. Most of these rebuilt two tracks I do here are for archiving houses. They are relying on complete transparency and a recovery of all the electrons. Hi Jim what would we expect sonically, if we played my original mix out to the MCI JH, as has been done with the MM1000 the 440 and the Zulu? What changes to the mix would you expect it would have? cheers Wiz Much depends on the recorder's results. Expect 4~5% THD at 10k hz and at 100 hz on even the best recorders. That's what tape does. I have heard many analog tapes recorded on older machines played back on an archiving grade tape machine. You hear all the missing stuff.
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Post by noah shain on Jan 16, 2017 16:29:56 GMT -6
No doubt that tambourine is one instrument that just doesn't work as well on digital. Ampex is a lot like Checker, who makes the cabs, durable, heavy, and they do evoke a sensibility, albeit for different reasons. I really loved the sound of my 354, also, but although in amazing condition it had some limitations that you could put in the charming category, or pain in the rear, depending on the vantage. And the 440 I had in a Russ Lang roll-around served me well, also, but if you think it has a sound compared to 1/2 at 30 on 3M-M79 it was suddenly in the corner for the occasional safety. I did have one of those capstan sleeves for 30 ips, which did eat more tape, but didn't really sound much different. And the look on a newbie's face when I would start examining razor blades and degaussing them after their imaginations ran wild with suspicions of drug-fueled studio romps, i would start cutting their song into pieces All good fun. But what does a pancake cost now, 30 bucks? 15 minutes, at 30, yikes. I am guessing people are rediscovering the superior bass response on their two inch masters at 15 ips, at 300 plus a pop you could probably learn to love it. But this thread was based around a business proposition, will tape pay dividends. The best format sonically is 16 trk, and I did a bunch of it. And was always trying to figure out what i could sacrifice to a pre-mix. Or do i lose the front kick mic, or room mic, or the cardboard on the bass, maybe do the background vocals very early and bounce them. In other words, compromises galore, that some defend as a workflow that yields better results, I am calling bull droppings on that whole idea. I used to work on other places tapes, where the usual M.O. was to do four tracks of drums, with a stereo mix of toms and OH, invariably wrong. I would go crazy watching other people using the locator to park after short journeys, but I still would slit my wrists now even with my very nimble transport and punch in fingers. Weeks of my life wasted in rewind mode. Listening acutely to singer's breathing to get a natural punch. No comp available, no tracks left for such luxury. TUNING ISSUES, once they went to voltage controlled DC transport motors, if you didn't print a reference tone to set your tuner to, if you happen to have a fairly musical ear you were going to go slowly insane. Beimg at the mercy of the various fairly grumpy dudes who had bought up the parts inventories of the various manufacturers is a singular joy. your worn out widget has become their retirement plan. Some were very cool, Randy Blevins comes to mind with MCI, other not so much. These are just the realities of a cottage industry with a finite supply. But here is the kicker, that roll of tape, which I heard was pretty uneven at first, even compared to the scandalous problems with 256 and 456 batches. I am not sure what formulation they are using, but if it is 499, well, that tape sucks. And in these days where you are not only fighting against Garageband on a freaking cellphone, but a shrinking demographic with a smaller percentage of kids within that group who are fighting the good fight, well, I want that three hundred bucks, or six, most of your typical music clients are not to the manor born, the tape cost is typically their entire budget with the new pricing. I just think that the recovery from Bush America has been slow to come to artists, even in the best of times the people who were the most rewarding to record on an artistic level were completely unrewarding when rent came due. You compare all this to the benefits of oxide compression, well, make up your own mind, but my results are so much better now. And one of the main reasons is I am liberated from the stress of depending on something that is reminiscent of an Austin Healy Sprite, only the parts are even more rare, and there's a whole bunch more of them at risk...... Personally thats why I think digital from a creative veiwpoint is better because it frees you up to not have to worry about anything . This can be bad and abused of course , over editing and recording way too many takes until the soul has been sucked out of the music . But think about it , you can get a laptop and an interface and go record wherever you want for as long as you want . You could record all day long in some wherehouse , 12 hours and it won't cost you like running tape . Setup is simple , Hit record and you can make music as much as you want 24 hours a day . Theres no fixing machines , buying tape , being stuck at one location ..........no worries . Making music couldn't be easier today !! This frees you to be 100% focused on the music and performance . Talk about freeing up an artist to do his thing to its full potential . I bet the beatles and beach boys would have LOVED and prefered digital to let them experiment back in the day . Imagine the Beatles at their peak with a Pro Tools rig , they would have come up with something crazy and blow everyone away . Lennon would have made some crazy masterpiece . Problem is with digital people are more focused on making perfect music rather than enjoyable music . I use tape and digital. Been a pro tools user for over 15 years. Couldn't live without it. It's the SOUND of tape systems that compels me to use them. I kinda like the workflow but it's mostly the sound that makes them valuable to me. I would, however, counter your point by saying that tape forces a more calculated approach. It also provides short breaks to contemplate and discuss. Tape nurtures discussion, creative planning, commitment, patience, thoughtful pre-arrangement and discipline and many other valuable things. Things which I often (even in your post) hear people bemoaning the loss of. For the record I've made MANY all daw records and I've worked with formidable laptop producers. There's still an enormous amount of time spent tweaking. The tweaking just takes place inside a computer but the productions are still taking 100s of hours to complete. I have also worked on predominantly daw productions for which people have requested some stuff be put on tape because of its sound. There's absolutely no reason to make the discussion take the approach of tape OR digital. How about tape AND digital? I almost never compromise my productions for the sake of convenience. That would be counter to my entire philosophy of art making and process. Tape brings SOMETHING to the process and the result. It's up to the user to define what that something ultimately is but none the less it is something. If you're on the hunt to make the most powerful art you can, why wouldn't you investigate all options? Or at least keep your mind open to them? For me, process is a HUGE part of making stuff. I love the sound of tape but I also like all the stuff it brings to the process. Romance is GREAT in music and in music making. Romantic notion based on inexperience and myth can be dangerous...but even danger can contribute to great art. I've spent a lot of time making records and a LOT of time thinking about making records. Now, music making should be unencumbered by tech process (usually, not always) but record making involves recording so...the medium is crucial. I'd say that Beatles records, without Beatles PROCESS, would have been different, yes. No doubt. But we don't KNOW that they'd have been better. It's just speculation or romantic notion. Similar, I'd argue, to the commonly e pressed romantic notion that tape is some how "better" than digital. I don't believe either notion. I do , however believe that John Lennon DID make a crazy masterpiece. Him and the lads and GM and the engineers made a few of them. EVERY component in a system impacts that system. I believe that driven, talented people build a system that they believe is optimized to get them the result they are after. Again, I'm using tape AND digital to make records that sound like I want them to. You can't make records that sound like that without doing that. It's not even a debate for me. This is what I have to do and what I love to do...one aspect of it anyway.
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