Bob-Dubery
I've just read an interview with Joe Boyd in which Boyd climbs onto one of his favourite horses - what sounds best. And the answer, always, is 16 track 2 inch tape.
The theory goes that the first retrograde step in studio sound quality was forcing 24 tracks onto the same format tape previously used for 16, and it's been all downhill since then.
An example Boyd has offered in the past is the famous Buena Vista Social Club recordings that Ry Cooder produced in Cuba. The sessions took place in an old studio in Havana (at the time there were only old studios there) onto, you've guessed it, 16 track tape. Boyd says he's seen people walk into restaurants or bars where that CD is playing and be surprised at how full and present the music sounds. Much better than modern digital recordings, he says. There's your proof.
He's also been gushing about the new Richard Thompson album and how good it sounds. Producer Buddy Miller (a retronaut of note with his weird, old guitars and his preference for tape delay for his live sound) uses 16 track tape in his home studio.
But things unravel - for me at any rate. I get why 16 tracks onto 2 inch tape might sound better than 24 tracks onto the same tape. There's a physical constraint there, but we don't have that constraint in the digital world.
Also
1) The BVSC album was recorded onto tape but released on CD - so it got digitized at some point.
2) Yes, Miller used 16 track tape for the Thompson sessions, but after the basic tracks were recorded those were digitised and the whole thing was loaded into some DAW (pro tunes?) for further work. So, again it was digitized and in this case before the mastering stage, and effects were added, EQing done and even some overdubs after the conversion.
Now, Boyd has been involved in some very good sounding records, so I don't want to just toss everything he says out the window because of this digitizing process that he seems to be overlooking. Is there something going on other than just changes in fashion about how things should sound? Is it possible that the basic tracks on an old technology can have some magic that even subsequent layers of digital processing cannot undo?
Is it maybe that the whole process is old-fashioned, which means the actual room in which the recording takes place has a sound? I recall reading that in the 70s and late 60s when the Stones were getting ready to record their main priority was to find a studio with a good sound in the room, where they could play in that studio and it sounded good to them. So, back then, studios did not all sound the same (Boyd was a fan of Sound Techniques in London, saying it was the best sounding studio he ever worked in). Maybe the retro guys embrace that ethos as well and so you get the natural sound of the room colouring the basic recordings.
I know that there's a lot of bad sounding recordings these days, but I'm not sure that digital technology is the actual villain of the piece. I qualify that by saying that DACs must have improved since the early days of digital recording and so, for a while, things might have sounded not so good because of distortion introduced as the audio signal was converted into bits.
Fire away ?
Big-G
This is a very interesting debate that I think will never really have a true conclusion other than people agreeing to disagree?
Its a similar concept to the Vinyl versus CD debate, where the scratchy distorted sound of an LP is somehow much warmer sounding and dynamic than the super clean clinical CD.
I personally think that both techniques have their merit... Recording onto analogue gives you more headroom, and handles transients in the music far better, which I believe are what creates that warmth. Kind of in the same way as overdriving a valve, when pushing the limits, and exceeding them, analogue creates a wonderful warmth to its distortion, rather than just crapping out all together as digital does. Then once recorded onto said analogue, the transients or peaks in the music have already been naturally compressed on tape, so transffering them into the digital realm becomes easier, and the 'honest clinical truth' of digital still retains that analogue warmth, as its now just accurately portraying the ones and zero's its been fed - that being that nice warm analogue recording. The important thing here though is to be certain that the limit of digitals zero tolerance peak limit is not reached, otherwise all that hard work goes to waste.
I guess thats why lots of people prefer to have some nice analogue and/or valve based preamps in front of their DAW's to try to introduce that analogue warmth of old to their otherwise sterile recordings. If I had the choice, I too would record to tape first, and then import it to the DAW for cleaning up and editing. I'd also have an analogue mixing console running to and from the DAW to do all the hands on mixing and EQ'ing, and for the pleasure of being able to use external equipment that modern digital modelling just hasn't quite managed to perfect yet, and then running it all back into the DAW for further treatment.
I tend to view myself as very much a 'best of both worlds' kind of guy.... I see the strengths of both analogue AND digital, and think both have a very valuable place in the production process. Due to financial and physical space constraints, I work mostly in the digital realm at present, which I do find a compromise, and a headache at times, but needs must I guess.....
As for the 'room sound', this is definitely a real factor. There are actually only a few studios that have a 'dead' or 'acoustically numb' sound room. Most studios actually spend most of their sound proofing and acoustic treatment budget on the mixing or control rooms, whilst leaving the sound room relatively untreated, with the exception of perhaps drum rooms and vocal booths. Most of the studios back in the UK that I worked in or visited, all had very different sounding 'sound rooms', which offered natural room reverb if you allowed the gain of the mic to wander up. Having said this though, obviously this was more of a subtle reverb, and not an echoing chamber, as the room obviously is acoustically treated to some extent. Infact, there was one song I recorded for a band, where we placed a mic at the opposite end of the sound room to pick up the drums, and were so pleased with the results that we ended up just using that mic alone for the drums. Not something I'd do for most recordings, but it did suit this song somewhat, and gave it a kind of oldskool vibe.
Some studios have had a sound room that was almost completely free of any echo or reverb though, and everything and anything had to be added afterwards to regain 'life' into the recordings.
Hope that wasn't all too jumbled and confused? Not had a lot of sleep, and the first coffee of the day has not kicked in yet!
Regards
G!
babbalute
X-rated Bob wrote:
I've just read an interview with Joe Boyd in which Boyd climbs onto one of his favourite horses - what sounds best. And the answer, always, is 16 track 2 inch tape.
The theory goes that the first retrograde step in studio sound quality was forcing 24 tracks onto the same format tape previously used for 16, and it's been all downhill since then.
An example Boyd has offered in the past is the famous Buena Vista Social Club recordings that Ry Cooder produced in Cuba. The sessions took place in an old studio in Havana (at the time there were only old studios there) onto, you've guessed it, 16 track tape. Boyd says he's seen people walk into restaurants or bars where that CD is playing and be surprised at how full and present the music sounds. Much better than modern digital recordings, he says. There's your proof.
He's also been gushing about the new Richard Thompson album and how good it sounds. Producer Buddy Miller (a retronaut of note with his weird, old guitars and his preference for tape delay for his live sound) uses 16 track tape in his home studio.
But things unravel - for me at any rate. I get why 16 tracks onto 2 inch tape might sound better than 24 tracks onto the same tape. There's a physical constraint there, but we don't have that constraint in the digital world.
Also
1) The BVSC album was recorded onto tape but released on CD - so it got digitized at some point.
2) Yes, Miller used 16 track tape for the Thompson sessions, but after the basic tracks were recorded those were digitised and the whole thing was loaded into some DAW (pro tunes?) for further work. So, again it was digitized and in this case before the mastering stage, and effects were added, EQing done and even some overdubs after the conversion.
Now, Boyd has been involved in some very good sounding records, so I don't want to just toss everything he says out the window because of this digitizing process that he seems to be overlooking. Is there something going on other than just changes in fashion about how things should sound? Is it possible that the basic tracks on an old technology can have some magic that even subsequent layers of digital processing cannot undo?
Is it maybe that the whole process is old-fashioned, which means the actual room in which the recording takes place has a sound? I recall reading that in the 70s and late 60s when the Stones were getting ready to record their main priority was to find a studio with a good sound in the room, where they could play in that studio and it sounded good to them. So, back then, studios did not all sound the same (Boyd was a fan of Sound Techniques in London, saying it was the best sounding studio he ever worked in). Maybe the retro guys embrace that ethos as well and so you get the natural sound of the room colouring the basic recordings.
I know that there's a lot of bad sounding recordings these days, but I'm not sure that digital technology is the actual villain of the piece. I qualify that by saying that DACs must have improved since the early days of digital recording and so, for a while, things might have sounded not so good because of distortion introduced as the audio signal was converted into bits.
Fire away ?
Another recording technique now longer used (as far as I know) is the direct cut onto vinyl. In other words, instead of recording the material onto a master tape it was cut directly onto a master vinyl PL. From this master a limited number of copies were made and sold. (normally not more than a few thousand and certainly less than 10,000) Multiple master LC's where cut so that more t copies would become available for sales. Needles to say that these copies did not come cheap. I have a few of these (but no longer a decent record player justifying the quality of these LP's)
The dynamic range of these recordings is enormous and they almost all sound like live recordings(they are obviously) but where done in the music studio. Master tape ( 16 or more tracks where done as well to make normal type vinyl LC's. A great number of classical recordings became available using this method for collectors but jazzy type of music was popular as well.
I think that our ears have become used to listening to Digital sound. Prior to digital sound we heard the analogue type sound which in sinewave language is the most complete sound we can hear. As digital sound is made into square blocks it almost never reaches the same perfect sine wave. It sounds much clearer as digital processing can eliminate interferences the dynamic range can be extended by using bigger A/D converters. Always been and will be in future a debatable subject of what is good better or best. When going to a "Live" event we hear analogue sound and most people still seem to prefer this above digital recording. With analogue recordings more equipment is required to ensure a good clean noiseless dynamic etc recording Electronics used in the digital equipment world have become much less complicated and more affordable, e.g. no-one would dream of having a digital mixer for a small band or group of musicians during a life performance 20 years ago. Today you're outdated if you do not have it.
Bob-Dubery
Big G wrote:
This is a very interesting debate that I think will never really have a true conclusion other than people agreeing to disagree?
Its a similar concept to the Vinyl versus CD debate, where the scratchy distorted sound of an LP is somehow much warmer sounding and dynamic than the super clean clinical CD.
I actually get that - though I think that two things get confused in the mind of the listener. I don't think that vinyl is intrinsically better sounding than CD, but it's a physical medium that has physical constraints. One consequence of this is that you can't apply the egregious compression that you can when you master CDs.
Also there are games that you can play with vinyl that you can't with CD. I remember years (decades) a go, a mate of mine got a job in the SABC as a trainee sound engineer. One of the first things he discovered was that different cartridges and styluses (or stylii or whatever the plural is) have different sounds. The SABC at that time specified a specific cartridge which, they believed, coloured the sound less than any other. Point is, you could find a cartridge that suited your ears. It's less easy to do that with digital stuff - at least for the consumer.
babbalute
X-rated Bob wrote:
Big G wrote:
This is a very interesting debate that I think will never really have a true conclusion other than people agreeing to disagree?
Its a similar concept to the Vinyl versus CD debate, where the scratchy distorted sound of an LP is somehow much warmer sounding and dynamic than the super clean clinical CD.
I actually get that - though I think that two things get confused in the mind of the listener. I don't think that vinyl is intrinsically better sounding than CD, but it's a physical medium that has physical constraints. One consequence of this is that you can't apply the egregious compression that you can when you master CDs.
Also there are games that you can play with vinyl that you can't with CD. I remember years (decades) a go, a mate of mine got a job in the SABC as a trainee sound engineer. One of the first things he discovered was that different cartridges and styluses (or stylii or whatever the plural is) have different sounds. The SABC at that time specified a specific cartridge which, they believed, coloured the sound less than any other. Point is, you could find a cartridge that suited your ears. It's less easy to do that with digital stuff - at least for the consumer.
Getting a different sound with different type record players (stylii mainly) made me switch to digital long time ago. There is much less of the colouring you describe but one needs to get a good digital process as well as good D/A convertor, good amp and speakers. Of course within ones budget as in general the more you fork out the better is sounds is regrettably true.
Bob-Dubery
babbalute wrote:
Getting a different sound with different type record players (stylii mainly) made me switch to digital long time ago. There is much less of the colouring you describe but one needs to get a good digital process as well as good D/A convertor, good amp and speakers. Of course within ones budget as in general the more you fork out the better is sounds is regrettably true.
Yes, "within one's budget". I bought a hi-fi that carries a reputable brand name and sounds not bad actually. Until you listen on headphones and find that the DAC doesn't work well on the fade outs as the volume drops. Ouch! My ears!
And I recently got a new car sound system installed. Lots of convenience features like being able to play off of USB (the next model up the range includes bluetooth), BUT also lots of built in processing and compression. You can turn most of the nastiness off, but you have to root around a bit to find it. The stereo separation is more noticeable than with my previous system - which might be down to some gizmo exaggerating it, or might just be a difference in aesthetics. So you still get colouring/peutering in the digital realm. At least at my end of the price scale.
AlanRatcliffe
Different strokes. Horses for courses, etc.. Either can sound good (but different) when used properly, but they are used differently:
With tape, higher levels to tape are essential and when the inevitable saturation happens, it sounds pretty good. Try working like that with digital and you'll see your ass very quickly. Still, certain old-timers rely on tape saturation to get certain sounds, using the tape as part of the sound creation process - especially in rock. Hard to fake that properly with digital.
On the other hand, digital has a very low noise floor and high dynamic range - work within that and you will be rewarded with a perfect copy of what you put in (at least, as far as your ears are concerned), plus manipulation and editing is easy. Digital systems are also relatively inexpensive and even entry level stuff is pretty great quality
Personally, I trained on tape and am extremely glad I never have to return to it. The benefits of digital far outweigh the disadvantages.
Acoustics are another topic of discussion and there is no real replacement for a good acoustic space in a pro-level recording.
Bob-Dubery
OK, maybe I'm paying too much attention to one voice. Another hobby horse of Boyd's is how these days studios are just designed to be dead, with minimal ambience, and any reverb etc is added electronically after recording. He also has a preference for old fashioned echo chambers rather than digital effects.
Maybe he just has an axe to grind. Maybe the engineers he likes to work with struggled to make the transition that Alan hints at.
AlanRatcliffe
X-rated Bob wrote:
Another hobby horse of Boyd's is how these days studios are just designed to be dead, with minimal ambience, and any reverb etc is added electronically after recording.
A lot of studios designed in the 70s were made that way, but it was a passing fad. Studio engineers and designers soon figured that you couldn't simulate acoustic spaces properly and that working in an acoustically dead environment is both disorienting and fatiguing to the ears. The last 30 years they have been working on methods to control room sound, rather than kill it completely.
He also has a preference for old fashioned echo chambers rather than digital effects.
Digital reverbs have also come on in leaps and bounds - especially since convolution/imaging. Just listen to any film soundtrack, where nothing but the vocals is recorded in a "real" space and all the ambient noise and room ambience is added in after the fact. I'm the kind who will notice the smallest mismatch between the acoustics I'm hearing and the room I'm seeing (annoyingly so at times) and I find most modern films to be completely immersive.
Maybe he just has an axe to grind. Maybe the engineers he likes to work with struggled to make the transition that Alan hints at.
It sounds like a few early bad experiences turned him off digital completely and he hasn't really given the subsequent improved systems a chance. Understandable.
Mo-Facta
There is more ferrite coating per track on 2" 16-track tape than on 24. This has obvious fidelity benefits such as more amplitude resolution.
But I agree with Alan, horses for courses. We're getting into audiophile territory here.
A gajillion amazing sounding records were made on 24-track 2".
Cheers ?
Bob-Dubery
Mo Facta wrote:
There is more ferrite coating per track on 2" 16-track tape than on 24. This has obvious fidelity benefits such as more amplitude resolution.
Oh? DId they have to run 24 track faster and thus need to get more "turns" on the reel?
AlanRatcliffe
X-rated Bob wrote:
Oh? DId they have to run 24 track faster and thus need to get more "turns" on the reel?
Simple physics - a 2" tape divided into 16 tracks offers a wider piece of tape per track than the same 2" divided into 24 tracks. ?
Bob-Dubery
Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote:
Oh? DId they have to run 24 track faster and thus need to get more "turns" on the reel?
Simple physics - a 2" tape divided into 16 tracks offers a wider piece of tape per track than the same 2" divided into 24 tracks. ?
I had that much figured out ? What I'm wondering is if they ran the tape faster to get more horizontal space per track.
Bob-Dubery
X-rated Bob wrote:
Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote:
Oh? DId they have to run 24 track faster and thus need to get more "turns" on the reel?
Simple physics - a 2" tape divided into 16 tracks offers a wider piece of tape per track than the same 2" divided into 24 tracks. ?
I had that much figured out ? What I'm wondering is if they ran the tape faster to get more horizontal space per track.
No! Wait! Let me slap myself upside the face first.
Doh!
Mo-Facta
Most professional level 2-inch tape machines run at either 15 or 30 ips (inches per second). Neither is vastly superior to the other. Many guys preferred 15 ips for rock as they claimed it had a better low end response. 30 ips was said to be "higher fidelity" due to the fact that there is twice the tape and therefore twice the ferrite coating for the same time period.
What's interesting to note with 2 inch tape recording was that a lot of guys would record bass to channel 1 instead of kick.
Anyone know why?
Cheers ?
Cheers ?
Bob-Dubery
OK, so kick would normally go onto 1?
Look, I'm no engineer - which is why I'm asking doff questions.
I assume 1 is on the edge of the tape. Something to do with cross-bleed from one channel to another?
AlanRatcliffe
Mo Facta wrote:
What's interesting to note with 2 inch tape recording was that a lot of guys would record bass to channel 1 instead of kick.
Anyone know why?
I've heard of it, but never the reason. I'll guess...
Same reason you would stripe your SMPTE to the last track? Only one track adjoining to bleed onto/from?
Or because your first track is prone to physical damage, high frequency loss and picking up wow and flutter, which could be a desirable thing to some?
Mo-Facta
X-rated Bob has part of it and Alan, you pretty much hit it on the head with your second guess.
Because track one is at the edge of the tape, the top end usually suffered due to the reasons you stated so engineers were very judicious of what they put there. Bass often benefited from the rolled of top end so that is why a lot of guys used to put bass on 1.
Ian Osrin told me that from his days working at Downtown studios in JHB.
Cheers ?
petercornell
Some random thoughts:
In my experience, 15ips needed noise reduction, while often this was not the case running at 30ips. However, the bass was deemed to be fatter at 15 ips. Tape cost was also an issue here.
As Alan has said, dry rooms went out of fashion quite a few years ago. The same way that stone drum rooms that were popular for 80s gated drum sounds have been re-designed, as in the case of Abbey Road's stone room.
2" 16 track was always considered the nicest sounding analogue format, but with engineers always scrabbling for tracks, it was rarely considered for high end studios. 24 became the norm.
There is even a specialist 2" 8track format used by some producers
http://www.jrfmagnetics.com/index.html?JRF_mainframe=/JRF_ultimateanalog.html
Todays A/D and D/A converters are really good in comparison to those of 10 years, or even 5 years ago. It is much less of an issue these days. Tape is generally used for its musical sounding compression, and then transferred to a DAW for overdubs and editing.
And it is possible to go over digital zero.... It is a constant topic of discussion over at the Gearslutz and other mastering fora. Some converters are better at it than others.
Edge tracks often lacked that "n-th degree" of frequency response, hence the bass on track 1. Especially on good old 1/2" 16 track Fostexes.
Hammeron
Have you lads seen Dave Grohls 'Sound City'? Great movie.
They used the Neve consol and tape dont know whether that was 16 track.
Grohl eventually buys the Consol and puts it in his home studio.
Some classic stuff recorded at Sound City, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Nirvana. Ozzy, Dio to name a few.
