Hi demonics & p2p. I've been going through the male musician's midlife crisis equivalent of buying the Harley: discovering the nerdy joys of sound engineering. I'm old enough to not take the wonders of digital sound technology for granted. I'm engineering stuff that even twenty years ago would have been impossible without a studio. I remember the 'orrible Tascam, a not-cheap cassette system that enabled you to do 'orrible sound-on-sound recording. Up to eight tracks, if I remember right. Any more and Niagra Falls started to come to the front. Now I can do the same thing FREE with as many tracks as my poor computer will support before balking. Smitten. So that's why I haven't been 'structing...
Another musician here :) funnily enough, I've used modern computers for recording before, but nowadays I feel like I'd want to do it the old way with analog tapes.
I hear you. It's very easy to be glued in front of a monitor for hours and suddenly thinking "where did that four hours go?"
I don't have fond memories of tape, though. Back in the day everything was expensive. I had a just-above average four track Teac reel to reel machine which was very expensive. And the tapes cost a fortune. At the obligatory speed of 16 ips, a tape didn't last very long. You'd record your four tracks and to get any more you had to bounce down -- submixes. Theoretically you could submix 4 down to 2 or 1 if you didn't mind losing stereo, but in the real world you can't do many submixes unless you're a very good engineer.
My Zoom, a nifty little gadget for recording Quad, was quite cheap, and allows for as many tracks as I want with no problems caused by tape hiss. I'm showing my age: signal-to-noise has become a thing of the past. This gadget eats my Teac machine. And so it should, it's had the benefit of thirty years advances in sound recording. I'm just saying, don't get too misty for tape. It was pretty undemocratic.
Hi guys, I did a bit of sound engineering back in the 70's. Mainly touring UK/Europe with visiting US bands.
My main memory of those days is just how d*mn heavy all the gear was! A 15 track Mavis mixing desk that took 4 people to carry; JBL Bass bins; multi-core cables etc.
Still I wouldn't have missed it for the world ... happy daze :)
Some of that legacy lives on. I picked up a bargain Fender bass amp/speaker combo recently ($NZ200). It comes out of the ark and I'm sure weighs more than the ark did. One of the eighties transistor amps: nasty but loud as blazes. And damned heavy. I Am Lord Of All I survey! Finally I Can Play Louder Than The Lead Guitarist! I am governed by noblesse oblige, however -- and I want to have a few frequencies left when I hit my seventies.
Hi all, hobbyist musician here also... Funny to run into this conversation here. Back in high school I saved up all my lawn mowing money to buy a Tascam 4-track portastudio and absolutely loved it - even though it was very limited. After I grew up I got a DAW (Emu Paris) and was amazed at what could be done on computers. So many tracks, so much editing (too much flexibility?), endless tweakability. Main problem is you lose the incentive to play it perfect the first time because you can "fix it" later. On tape if I punched in and out wrong I'd ruin an entire take. On PC no problem.
To your points though - too much tech can get in the way of creativity. I still miss the simplicity of a tape deck - especially when songwriting for laying down a track, hitting rewind, and figuring out another part to play over it as it plays.
BTW - as far as weight goes - the little tube amps they make now are great for home jamming and don't weigh much at all. Get a lightweight cabinet and combine with small head and you're good to go. No more slipped discs in your back.
Ha ha! We're all showing our age. I was astonished how easy it was to fix a fluff I thought was going to be quite difficult. An otherwise good take was marred by some wrong piano chords, and even though it was a live recording with no close mics, I was able to pinch a bit of the band during a previous, correctly played verse and paste over the fluff. It was absolutely seamless, and not that hard. The temptation to meddle is very seductive, but must be resisted if you call yourself a musician. It's very difficult for five amateurs to all be on-song at the same time; but good musicians do it all the time. It increases your admiration for those who make it sound effortless, and spurs you on to become better yourself.
So I try to resist the temptation to "improve" and if there are hesitations, stray noises, etc, I think it's better to leave them in. It's like airbrushing out wrinkles. The product looks attractive but it's based on a falsity.
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By the way, I love the b c h m o etc. Simply beautiful.
I don't have fond memories of tape, though. Back in the day everything was expensive. I had a just-above average four track Teac reel to reel machine which was very expensive. And the tapes cost a fortune. At the obligatory speed of 16 ips, a tape didn't last very long. You'd record your four tracks and to get any more you had to bounce down -- submixes. Theoretically you could submix 4 down to 2 or 1 if you didn't mind losing stereo, but in the real world you can't do many submixes unless you're a very good engineer.
My Zoom, a nifty little gadget for recording Quad, was quite cheap, and allows for as many tracks as I want with no problems caused by tape hiss. I'm showing my age: signal-to-noise has become a thing of the past. This gadget eats my Teac machine. And so it should, it's had the benefit of thirty years advances in sound recording. I'm just saying, don't get too misty for tape. It was pretty undemocratic.
My main memory of those days is just how d*mn heavy all the gear was! A 15 track Mavis mixing desk that took 4 people to carry; JBL Bass bins; multi-core cables etc.
Still I wouldn't have missed it for the world ... happy daze :)
To your points though - too much tech can get in the way of creativity. I still miss the simplicity of a tape deck - especially when songwriting for laying down a track, hitting rewind, and figuring out another part to play over it as it plays.
BTW - as far as weight goes - the little tube amps they make now are great for home jamming and don't weigh much at all. Get a lightweight cabinet and combine with small head and you're good to go. No more slipped discs in your back.
So I try to resist the temptation to "improve" and if there are hesitations, stray noises, etc, I think it's better to leave them in. It's like airbrushing out wrinkles. The product looks attractive but it's based on a falsity.
But I make music too, lame electronic stuff. Funny how easy it is find other music producers, even on Fontstruct!
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