New company maufacturing reel to reel machines

[Mikado463]

That looks like a lovely model steam engine!

Thanks TLS, as does your Mogul as well !

 

[highfigh]

Man! I been telling these cats the very same thing. Way before the recording engineer in the Studio and producer pushes that fingerprint on it. It's for that reason your favorite band artist instrumental band doesn't sound the same when in a live show. All the Reverb added to just about everthing ever recorded in a recording studio just about all sounds the same.

There's a lot more to the difference between live vs recorded than what you seem to be writing- emulators don't get it 100%, but for live, it's close enough because (almost) nobody is listening as closely as they would in a studio. The live acoustic environment is so different that most of what's heard in a decent studio would never be audible. Then, there's the issue of ALL of the equipment being used- none of the PA is likely to be adequate for a studio unless the venue or band has deep pockets and most live sound is mixed by people who don't know how to get great sound, don't know much about acoustics/equalization or think about the fact that most of the crowd thinks it's too loud or they may not even be there for the music, so they'll be talking the whole time.

Listen to the samples on a website for a reverb unit- they'll often have 20 or more different sounds because they AREN'T all the same. Spring reverb sounds nothing like live room or plate reverb and then, there's small, medium & large room reverb as well as varying levels of reverberation in each. There's also the amount of diffusion in the room, attack & decay rates and the effect of the different mic placements WRT the source of the sound and the mic's location(s) in the room.

 

[highfigh]

Well that is a genuine curse of digital. In the old analog days, all there was, was the spring reverb.

Now the recording editing software accepts an unlimited number of plugins. These are very nasty pieces of software than can be added to the program to create a myriad of horrid effects. This creates even nastier and more horrible music than heretofore. What I call the "age of ugliness" goes further into the artistic abyss.

The engineers are so smitten with this rubbish software they use it at every opportunity. You should just listen to some of the tripe I get sent. Of course I return it with my more than usual cryptic remarks until they send me something worth mastering, or they stop pestering me.

Yamaha who own Steinberg are always trying to push this junk on me with free offers. My DAW remains proudly plugin free and always will.

If you stay in the analog domain you have to remain plugin free and may be that is part of the issue.

And before anyone figured out how to use a spring for reverb, they used unoccupied recording rooms, stairwells, bathrooms, hallways....later, came plate reverb, but I doubt it would have been used for anything other than pop music.

If you really want to be offended by a reverb/delay unit, find a Yamaha SPX-90 and try it. Just connecting it and hearing what it does to the sound without adding any kind of effect is offensive. This came out in the early-'80s, around the same time as their DX-7 keyboard, which was used on EVERYTHING in the pop world. Once many musicians came to the conclusion that the older analog synths and other keyboards sounded much better, they either stopped using it or just relegated it to being used as a MIDI triggering device.

The plug-ins are nice when someone wants to approximate the sound for a rough recording on a tight budget and they do have their place, but the responsibility for the sound quality mostly lands on the shoulders of the people behind the board- some know how to make it less obvious, some don't understand what that means.

 

[TLS Guy]

The high speed comment was only to illustrate the point- a master can't be called a 'master' if it's a copy of the original, anyway. Generational losses in recordings are very obvious, but stored sounds were used before digital files when an instrument or sound were needed and not easily reproduced and as long as it was in synch, it was just another part of the recording, similar to when they would 'punch in' after someone made a mistake.

Cost for analog tape is definitely higher and there's the maintenance for the recording equipment to consider, too. Even so, some people are willing to go through it, but they don't always record music that requires pristine sound. While you and others see no value in this kind of music and it is a bit of a niche audience, it brings in enough money that they see s decent return. One guy who has been buying/remastering and releasing old music on vinyl and has started his own record company is very annoying to me (his voice, music, playing style, the way he dresses- too much to list), but I respect what he's doing as an archivist.

One of the main problems with recording Classical or other music that has extremely quiet passages is the noise floor being so close to the actual music and with the immediate loss of 20dB or more of noise with digital, the need for dbx or something similar is gone, although dither used to help- is that still true?

Yes, you still need to dither, which is mainly determined by the bit rate. In my view there is absolutely no value in choosing a bit rate and sampling frequency higher than the dynamic range of the program and getting a frequency response beyond 20 KHz. After that you are wasting storage space. So even for classical works the 44.1/16 CD standard is adequate. There are a few very large scale works that require more to capture the full dynamic range. It is on this issue that the high res download argument gets silly.

 

[Irvrobinson]

In digital recording, 0VU is all we get, while analog machines can still record with decent fidelity at +10VU if the high frequency content isn't too strong. AFAIK, there's no digital 'words' for anything higher than 0VU.

Uh, yeah, but 24bit, properly used, has about 40db more headroom than +10VU represents on analog tape.

 

[TechHDS]

There's a lot more to the difference between live vs recorded than what you seem to be writing- emulators don't get it 100%, but for live, it's close enough because (almost) nobody is listening as closely as they would in a studio. The live acoustic environment is so different that most of what's heard in a decent studio would never be audible. Then, there's the issue of ALL of the equipment being used- none of the PA is likely to be adequate for a studio unless the venue or band has deep pockets and most live sound is mixed by people who don't know how to get great sound, don't know much about acoustics/equalization or think about the fact that most of the crowd thinks it's too loud or they may not even be there for the music, so they'll be talking the whole time.

Listen to the samples on a website for a reverb unit- they'll often have 20 or more different sounds because they AREN'T all the same. Spring reverb sounds nothing like live room or plate reverb and then, there's small, medium & large room reverb as well as varying levels of reverberation in each. There's also the amount of diffusion in the room, attack & decay rates and the effect of the different mic placements WRT the source of the sound and the mic's location(s) in the room.

Sure there is a Lot more to actually, recording a " unique signature sound" that's my point. As opposed to a live performance. You have all the arrangements, placement of recording mics If so used. 5 member band goes into a recording Studio your producer and engineer gets the final decisions on what the sounds going to be like for that particular five-member band. So software is used to manipulate, fabricate in order to produce the product as cheaply as possible. Nothing new about a recording studio and or record label. Let's take the Carpenters who actually had a hand in producing and engineering one of their albums. It was produced that way for the unique sound that they wanted. The record label and Studio went all in on that album was one of the best sellers ever for the Carpenters. Deep pockets? that my friend is the bottom line .With the music industry.

 

[sterling shoote]

I sold my Sony 766-2 reel to reel recorder back in 2004; and, no regret. My Sony PCM-7010F DAT Recorders are superior in all manner that superior can be discerned. It's why I have not parted with them. I'm not at all nostalgic about reel to reel, having spent many all nigh

ters just to produce a 60 second radio commercial, which could be produced with a digital buffered device in a quarter of the editing time. I understand the audiophile appeal, reel to reel is like LP but no snaps, crackles, or pops. There are other issues though, like playing time, tape noise, and mechanical noise. For an ignorant audiophile having spent no time with reel to reel however it's all nirvana and the thing to enjoy perfect sound, so they believe.

 

[TLS Guy]

I sold my Sony 766-2 reel to reel recorder back in 2004; and, no regret. My Sony PCM-7010F DAT Recorders are superior in all manner that superior can be discerned. It's why I have not parted with them. I'm not at all nostalgic about reel to reel, having spent many all nigh View attachment 24213 ters just to produce a 60 second radio commercial, which could be produced with a digital buffered device in a quarter of the editing time. I understand the audiophile appeal, reel to reel is like LP but no snaps, crackles, or pops. There are other issues though, like playing time, tape noise, and mechanical noise. For an ignorant audiophile having spent no time with reel to reel however it's all nirvana and the thing to enjoy perfect sound, so they believe.

Basically I'm in agreement but not with you praise for DAT. Just too prone to drop outs and head fouling from that narrow fragile tape. VHS based systems were much better in my view.

I agree reel to reel is awkward, but you had a Sony reel to reel. I never owned a Sony reel to reel, but had plenty brought to me, as the Sony name back then was a big draw. I eventually refused to work on them. They were awful machines. Of the fast Eastern machines the Otari machines were the only reasonable efforts. Even then the gear from the Studer/Revox stable was just superior to everything else in every parameter.

 

[Bucknekked]

what a marvelously entertaining and educational thread. Where else can you find a discussion, a civil one at that, at this depth over what is a contentious issue among a lot of budding audio folks?

Trendy and fashionable has always been part of the music business. I think the current fascination with things analog is highly affected by trend setters. I have a grand daughter that just received a "record player" as a birthday gift and some vinyl. It doesn't sound anything, anything at all, like my system in my music room. I'm helping her understand why. Her friends told her records were "better than CD's". She is learning that not all audio advice from friends or the internet is worth a dang. There's hope for her yet.

Keep these kinds of discussions going. Great stuff.

 

[highfigh]

Uh, yeah, but 24bit, properly used, has about 40db more headroom than +10VU represents on analog tape.

But all signal needs to stop at 0VU- analog can be/needs to be pushed to some level above 0VU because of the noise floor, but even then, the noise is buried by the signal, so the whole thing is moot. If the natural noise floor of the analog tape system is -65dB, adding 10dB at the top and maintaining 0VU during the mastering stage yields 75dB S/N without additional processing. It's the quiet parts that make all of this noticeable.

Far more has been recorded in 16bit, though.

 

[highfigh]

Sure there is a Lot more to actually, recording a " unique signature sound" that's my point. As opposed to a live performance. You have all the arrangements, placement of recording mics If so used. 5 member band goes into a recording Studio your producer and engineer gets the final decisions on what the sounds going to be like for that particular five-member band. So software is used to manipulate, fabricate in order to produce the product as cheaply as possible. Nothing new about a recording studio and or record label. Let's take the Carpenters who actually had a hand in producing and engineering one of their albums. It was produced that way for the unique sound that they wanted. The record label and Studio went all in on that album was one of the best sellers ever for the Carpenters. Deep pockets? that my friend is the bottom line .With the music industry.

Engineer & producer get the final say when the act isn't a huge moneymaker with enough clout to tell the record company to pound sand when they start telling the band what to do. Lyndsay Buckingham is a prime example of what can go wrong when someone in the band gets a bug up their butt to "record something that has never been done before". The rest of the band had no idea what he thought he was doing and that album turned out to be far less than what he thought it would.

Another reason a producer is chosen by a successful band is that they want to go in a different direction and they like what someone has produced. Or, it may be due to the fact that the band members can't hear well enough to know when it sounds good and don't want to spend a lot of time in the control room.

Many popular musicians/singers/bands have fought hard to have total control over their records, some with bad results. They have ideas that need to be explained and describing sound & music isn't an easy task. When the musicians know how to operate the equipment, they just need to go in, get the sound they want and start playing. The music may be totally improvised, then edited and assembled as the final product. Bands that tour extensively and don't put on a huge production tend to write more when they're on tour, hash it out during rehearsals and try the songs out on an unsuspecting audience, depending on how well the gig is going. If the audience isn't particularly friendly, they wait until the next one. Some bands never do that. I know someone who goes out as a solo act and he wrote a song on the way to a gig, after hearing about an event on the news. He opened the set with that song later that day.

Mic placement is more about getting the sound of one instrument than getting the sound of the band since most bands don't record live in the studio. The tracks are recorded and assembled as a final product, in stereo, which most instruments are not. Keyboards and some effects create a stereo sound, but most are one input jack/one output jack setups.

 

[sterling shoote]

Basically I'm in agreement but not with you praise for DAT. Just too prone to drop outs and head fouling from that narrow fragile tape. VHS based systems were much better in my view.

I agree reel to reel is awkward, but you had a Sony reel to reel. I never owned a Sony reel to reel, but had plenty brought to me, as the Sony name back then was a big draw. I eventually refused to work on them. They were awful machines. Of the fast Eastern machines the Otari machines were the only reasonable efforts. Even then the gear from the Studer/Revox stable was just superior to everything else in every parameter.

I've never experienced a single drop out with any of my DAT Recorders; and, all together, I've had six, 3 pro and 3 consumer units with SCMS. Interestingly enough, I did have one persistent problem: after finishing up projects at one studio where commercials were mastered to DATs produced on a particular Fostex DAT Recorder, the DATs were always hot when played back on my PCM-7010s. I thought it might have something to do with balanced and unbalanced levels; but, I never did quite figure it out and neither did the recording engineer. It may have had something to do with me running balanced out of the Sony to unbalanced consumer amp without making the proper setting for such output on the Sony. Also, for the arrangement, I was using either an XLR to RCA connection, or a 1/4 inch monitor out to RCA. Thing is, I produced commercials at other studios which were mastered to DAT and those all played and copied well on the Sony units. My solution was just to output IEC 958 from Sony to a consumer digital preamp.