Reel-to-reel tape is the new vinyl

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Brian Gupton, Oct 8, 2015.

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  1. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Good times.
     
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  2. empirelvr

    empirelvr "That's *just* the way it IS!" - Paul Anka

    Location:
    Virginia, USA
    ...and a bottle of aspirin.
     
  3. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    I have a suspicion that this happens with some hi-rez downloads. How else can the labels steadfastly claim that what was once a well-known 1984 16-bit digital recording is now somehow an "original analog recording"?
     
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  4. Digital recording started before 1984 and I remember seeing this being noted on the back of some album covers.
     
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  5. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    To elaborate a bit: when a digital recording was made in the mid-80s, at some point, the digital mixdown master was copied to analog for safety or vinyl/tape duplication. Down the line in 2016, a reissue producer or tape vault librarian finds the safety. Maybe the digital tape is gone or won't play. Maybe the analog safety wasn't marked as such. Perhaps all the label has is the analog tape, so, that reissue person, and the label, thinks that the recording was originally analog. (I'm looking at you, Warner, for Madonna's "Like A Virgin" album). I also had a discussion about another digitally recorded top 10 album with a reissue producer. He stated that the tape he used was analog, so, knowing this artist, and the age of the digital recording, perhaps all he had was analog.

    I was going to add more, but just realized that this line of discussion id better-suited to another ongoing thread, and is way off-topic on this one.
     
  6. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    Digital recording for commercial releases started around 1978. Among the first were Herb Alpert's "Rise". In a Mix Magazine Classic Tracks article, Randy Badazz (Alpert) discusses how recording and editing digitally was full of problems. They had to have a team of engineers in the studio on standby. That scenario was true of most digital recordings back in those days.
     
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  7. Many that I heard sounded pretty good to me. I remember back when they used to use the 3-letter indicators on early CD's and seeing DAD and DDD on many of them.
     
  8. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    That is known as the SPARS code, and it's use ended in the early 90s because there were so many ways recordings were being recorded, mixed, and mastered that the three letters could in no way accurately describe how a recording was created. Not only that, there was a misunderstanding among many consumers. Some would not buy anything that didn't have "DDD" on it. It's also about the time WEA stopped using that little disclaimer on the back of CDs referring to analog recordings and tape hiss. Before CD, most people didn't notice tape hiss, but digital brought it out, and that was also why people went crazy with new digital NR schemes, and started calling for remixing everything. It was the hatred of hisssss and mono.
     
  9. Starting in the late-60's, I began noticing some background noise that older recordings didn't seem to have. Years afterwards I realized that what I was hearing was tape hiss. I heard it on early CD's which were sourced from the same album masters that the records had been. What I found out was that record companies, especially the CBS group, to save money, were re-using the session tapes. They even used tape that had been spliced. This is obvious on Sly & The Family Stone's "Hot Fun In The Summertime".
    Working in radio, I found out that recycled magnetic tape had much more hiss on it than virgin tape. We could get away with re-using tape in radio because most of the hiss wasn't audible over broadcast. I also learned that using a bulk tape eraser actually pulled off the magnetic particles. Looking at the magnetic side of recording tape, it resembled a mountain range from using a bulk eraser and the particles being pulled off. At a point, the tape had to be discarded.
     
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  10. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    Well, a session tape is the multitrack, so they wouldn't be releasing that.

    What I think you mean is that they were reissuing tapes created for vinyl duplication, but I have read that even that was a myth in most cases. The problem was more because of the converters they had back then. They were primitive by today's standards. And, they didn't always use the best tapes.


    Sounds like your station was using cheap tape.


    Where's the evidence? I never heard that one before. You might want to put that question to Steve Hoffman. He recently worked with the tapes for an SACD reissue.
     
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  12. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    I didn't say I didn't believe you, just that I had never heard this. It makes sense. But, to the issue of tape noise: anyone who has heard the remix knows how nice it sounds. So, if it is reused tape, they did a nice job of erasing it.
     
  13. David756

    David756 Active Member

    Location:
    Australia
    Vinyl takes effort to keep the playback system sounding its best. Reel to reel is a nightmare, not to mention prohibitively expensive.
     
  14. The FRiNgE

    The FRiNgE Forum Resident

    Although on many titles, I have noticed many splices, punch ins, notably "Day Tripper" and all copies I have heard of "She Loves You" the latter having several splices/ EQ shifts apparently a good copy spliced to an original to repair a damaged original... or the best takes spliced together, however one slightly brighter than the other. So many examples of this, it would be an interesting topic. I have made a corrected version of "She Loves You", half track 15 ips. (sounds wonderful) That tape now has sticky shed, must be baked to transfer to file.
     
  15. The FRiNgE

    The FRiNgE Forum Resident

    Hey Automated,
    Well, I find it interesting the magnetic oxide could be physically (magnetically) pulled upward, or off the substrate. I've never heard of it, but I am curious. Has this been verified by examination under a microscope? IME bulk erasing always brought the tape back to its lowest noise level, as new out of the box. The problem at my radio station were the impatient DJ's and production techs who waved the tapes too fast on the eraser, which caused thumps and all kinds of weird noises, the fault of the operators.
     
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  16. I didn't have to see it under a microscope, it was easily seen with the naked eye. The particles can be pulled off magnetically just like they come off on the tape transports.
    When bulk erasing tapes, I was taught to turn the machine on, place the tape on it, move the tape in an orbital motion, flip the tape over and move it around again. Was I taught wrong?
    About 20 years ago, I purchased a box full of a couple dozen or so Maxell UD and UD-XL1 1800' 7" reels. Most had classical music recorded on them. I took them over to a radio station where a friend worked and used a bulk eraser to erase them. Also in that batch of tapes I bought were 6-8 brand new sealed Maxell reels. I experimented with one UD and one UD-XL1 new tapes running them on one of my tape decks and comparing them to the erased tapes. The bulk erased tapes had quite a bit more hiss than the new tapes.
    I had always been told that you can never bring tape back to it's original condition. Maybe they've come up with a machine which will remove all magnetism and patterns from a tape? The bulk erasers I had used were powerful electro-magnets which were really noisy.
     
  17. jcmusic

    jcmusic Forum Resident

    Location:
    Terrytown, La.
    It's all about tape formula!!!
     
  18. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    We were talking about reusing tape. Those are not examples of used tape.
     
  19. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    It's also a lot of work to "get there" with vinyl as well, so that's a good thing to point out to anyone wanting to dive into either format and get the best they can from the format. The real problem with tape, like everyone is saying, is getting a good collection of, where at least with vinyl it's more of a minor inconvenience if your record isn't up to snuff. You can typically find a replacement copy on the easy, and most titles are not that expensive used. The one's that are, if even available on tape, would likely be far more expensive. I love the sound of tape always have. But vinyl is more practical imo if you want to achieve incredible sound. I think it will ultimately be more rewarding because you can build up a very nice library titles on vinyl.
     
  20. The FRiNgE

    The FRiNgE Forum Resident

    Yes, please disregard. This was in response to automated's comment about a Sly Stone SACD reissue, and a suspected splice or dropout, somehow (maybe) related to reusing tape.

    Speaking of reusing tape, I did have a problem with a drop out when recording over a previous take, and my new take ran beyond the previous "REC" disengage point. A dropout would occur at that point. Bulk erasure did not help. The tape was Ampex 456, new reel, fresh stock back in 1990. My deck was a simple Teac A-3440, no apparent problem with the bias current, lined up to the tape, the tape not hanging up on the rec head nor the erase head. My only thought is somehow the bias current when hitting "STOP" (not "PAUSE") caused a permanent drop out point on the tape. I had to throw away a few tapes due to multiple drop outs. (could no longer re-record on them) Other tapes such as Maxell UD, Scotch 207 did not develop any drop outs.
     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2016
  21. Bill Lettang

    Bill Lettang Forum Resident

    It's always cool to pull shrink wrap off a new vinyl lp, and get into its ritual...but when doing a lot of sessions on drums in the 70's, I also loved it when the engineer pulled out a 15ips tape box that had a label with all kinds of info on it.. and then seeing the tape itself....Seemed like 1 generation before the commercial end product...wow, closer to the source!!!! Anyway, when I went R2R at home, I could re-create (in MY mind any way) that experience with my song compilations and tape copies of mixes that I worked on. Got a reel with several tunes I worked on with Gene Simmons, and the label is all handwritten with dollar signs through the S's in his last name...Very special to me. All this has nothing to do with superiority of a medium, but the Romantic side of it all. Too bad its so expensive with limited availability today.
     
  22. MrRom92

    MrRom92 Forum Supermodel

    Location:
    Long Island, NY
    You must have some incredible stuff, it must be a joy to listen to and guaranteed it still sounds great after all these years.
     
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  23. Bill Lettang

    Bill Lettang Forum Resident

    Hello Mr. Rom....I do have some cool stuff..not a lot, but enough to tell a few tales and have some enjoyable listening experiences. I hope yours and the other folks who liked my little tale have rewarding listening experiences too!!:)
     
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  24. tman53

    tman53 Vinyl is an Addiction

    Location:
    FLA
    I started down the tape path a few years ago and realized that it would not be an easy road. I quickly abandoned it.
     
  25. TommyTunes

    TommyTunes Senior Member

    But it's well worth traveling the road. I just got in three more of the Tape Project tapes yesterday and they sound spectacular. Best sounding version of Nat Adderly's Work Song I've ever heard.
     
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