The Real Reason Why Analog Recording Is Better

[bxbrkrz]

[selig]

It should say “Why TAPE Recording is Better” since the same basic rules apply for both digital as analog tape, there is no UNDO with either - nothing special about analog tape in that regard.

Remember the three Cs of recording: Commit, Commit, Commit.

[motuscott]

I’m enjoying the new digital freedom and pretty much lovin’ it.
BUT, something is always breaking. Cheap ass Focusrite interface, ancient MBP, and now something is up with my Avantone. It’s always something…
Crazy old world, ain’t it? I’m not complaining, just…complaining

[esme]

tape need cleaning aligment and edit is hard and slow

[bxbrkrz]

https://www.mrltapes.com/
Amazing web design.

Somebody should create a plugin, every time you press the transport buttons on your DAW you'll have to wait, with the sound and video 3D animation your favorite reel-to-reel doing their stuff.

[moalla]

I would say after ITB what comes alongside real transformer or tube based preamps input and hardware vintage sound for vocal compression, the only thing i need are a bit of tube compression and saturation by 12au7 tubes in the master chain, which gives the original vibe of a blackbox analog design HG2 where the ITB software counterpart lacks in everything.

ITB Tape, yeah I´m using often the Famous Tape MK2 15ips emulation for tracking,to adjust the volume/loudness, but can we use instead of real tape machines not things like this?
https://www.diyrecordingequipment.com/p ... olour-mkii

[bxbrkrz]

Still a great emulator

[integerpoet]

(Scream is) still a great emulator.

Its CompressMaster preset is what finally explained for me all the anti-digital purist arguments about "analog warmth".

"Oh! This is what they think has been lost! It's just a particular flavor of distortion!"

Of course, this is just one example, but if you can fake this in software then it was never truly an analog thing in the first place.

[selig]

Still a great emulator

If you look at the actual response, you'll see a huge low end boost from the BODY section is the primary effect.
That's not necessarily what tape does...not like that and to nearly that extreme, neither does it cut the high end so much.

What I'm hearing more than anything is that +18dB Boost on the bottom half of the spectrum - try that with ANY EQ and you'll get pretty much the same thing.
I also see a bit of soft knee compression above -12dBFS and a tiny bit of 3rd order harmonic distortion, which is probably all but dwarfed by that EQ curve!!!

Below is the actual response curve with the settings as shown below:

Screenshot 2025-01-06 at 8.11.03 PM.png

[bxbrkrz]

(Scream is) still a great emulator.

Its CompressMaster preset is what finally explained for me all the anti-digital purist arguments about "analog warmth".

"Oh! This is what they think has been lost! It's just a particular flavor of distortion!"

Of course, this is just one example, but if you can fake this in software then it was never truly an analog thing in the first place.

Very few people born after 2000 have access to a studer 800 plugged to an analog board, blasting from in-wall mains everyday. With the passing of time, and humans, so goes the memory of this incredible synergy.
If it makes you feel good though then it's fine.

[selig]

Its CompressMaster preset is what finally explained for me all the anti-digital purist arguments about "analog warmth".

"Oh! This is what they think has been lost! It's just a particular flavor of distortion!"

Of course, this is just one example, but if you can fake this in software then it was never truly an analog thing in the first place.

Very few people born after 2000 have access to a studer 800 plugged to an analog board, blasting from in-wall mains everyday. With the passing of time, and humans, so goes the memory of this incredible synergy.
If it makes you feel good though then it's fine.

I guess we are agreeing to disagree it is a “great emulator”.
An 18 dB boost of everything below 1kHz MAY “feel good”, no argument there. BUT no tape machine ever f-ed with things THAT much that it sounds like you swapped out the original sample with a new one.
Tape machines were trying their best to be accurate and give as flat a response as possible. Tape saturation is subtle - you crunch the audio path long before you really hit the tape all that hard. But I digress…

I’m not saying not to love that effect, just saying it is not a “great emulator” on any level, as there is no tape machine that gives that smooth of a boost (there is also a cut frequency on analog tape that is totally missing here, and like the Pultec trick provides some low end clarity over a simple big boost as with that setting in Scream.

Note, it’s the BODY section with it’s maxed out settings causing this effect to move so far from anything to do with tape emulation.

Given my history I feel compelled to point these things out.

[bxbrkrz]

Very few people born after 2000 have access to a studer 800 plugged to an analog board, blasting from in-wall mains everyday. With the passing of time, and humans, so goes the memory of this incredible synergy.
If it makes you feel good though then it's fine.

I guess we are agreeing to disagree it is a “great emulator”.
An 18 dB boost of everything below 1kHz MAY “feel good”, no argument there. BUT no tape machine ever f-ed with things THAT much that it sounds like you swapped out the original sample with a new one.
Tape machines were trying their best to be accurate and give as flat a response as possible. Tape saturation is subtle - you crunch the audio path long before you really hit the tape all that hard. But I digress…

I’m not saying not to love that effect, just saying it is not a “great emulator” on any level, as there is no tape machine that gives that smooth of a boost (there is also a cut frequency on analog tape that is totally missing here, and like the Pultec trick provides some low end clarity over a simple big boost as with that setting in Scream.

Note, it’s the BODY section with it’s maxed out settings causing this effect to move so far from anything to do with tape emulation.

Given my history I feel compelled to point these things out.

First of all we agree 100%, but my statement was from a feel good perspective, not from the precision of reality no music producers care about anymore, and even back then.

Example.
Does the Roland TR-909 sounds good? It does...after tracking it on tape (cassette type I, type II is already too hifi clean), then eq it to death, then compress it to death, eq again to death, then sampling it at 30 kHz 12-bit (my beloved now dead Roland S-50), then share the work as a sample pack @ MP3 96 kbps. Everyone is happy.

The Pultec trick.
Every time it was used I remember thinking the same thing over and over again: "that thing is a very expensive LOUDNESS hifi switch!"
The Pultec makes your 909, SP-1200, MPC-60, Publison Infernal Machine 90 even...happy.

B.O.C. and Retrowave
I have never heard a single track from them, but God do I know by heart what they sound like, supposedly. Record everything you love on a dictaphone from Radio Shack. Let the tape sit on a hot beach for a week. Then copy that tape to another dictaphone via their builtin microphone while you overdub more stuff. Now the result is for a lot of people what tape should sounds like. It's funny, like synthwave music redefines the whole 80's as always driving fast on Ocean Drive, looking at colorful 8 bit 2D palm trees vanishing in the rearview mirror of your Ferrari. I love the result from the B.O.C. and Retrowave universe because it is so retro futuristic.

For the majority of young(er) producers the purity of the sound of the analog tape is a lost art. Even I remember back then going MIDI sequencing directly to my DAT machine, a Sony PCM-2300. Using anything tape based sounded insane. It was an old antediluvian tech. Until I tracked my first beat on that Otari 24 track. Then I understood. I was happy.

The scream 4 is able to skip all of those steps. From the Pultec trick to the dictaphone tricK. It gives me what I really want: the final process I still remember loving. Scream 4 is my LOUDNESS NOSTALGIA switch. It Makes me smile, and happy. Fast.

Again it's a question of perspective you are fortunately able to contrast, being an artist and an engineer.

[bxbrkrz]

What can I say. The proof is in the pudding.

[selig]

What can I say. The proof is in the pudding.

The tape version is certainly a few dB louder, I'll give it that proof!
But seriously, listen again with the Tape version a dB or two lower and see if the proof is STILL in the pudding...

I found it remarkable how similar they sound when you lower the tape version 2dB, and maybe the tape even sounds a little thinner since it's brighter sounding.
In fact, even if you just lower the tape version by 1dB they are still pretty similar sounding to my ears.

In my experience, if I find myself choosing the louder choice of two options, I lower it a dB or two and listen again. If I STILL prefer the one that was louder (but is now not louder), then it passes the volume test.
This example did not pass the volume test for me.

[avasopht]

Remember the three Cs of recording: Commit, Commit, Commit.

100%.

I've been using this trick for years now. Bounce in place and delete my device.

[bxbrkrz]

What can I say. The proof is in the pudding.

The tape version is certainly a few dB louder, I'll give it that proof!
But seriously, listen again with the Tape version a dB or two lower and see if the proof is STILL in the pudding...

I found it remarkable how similar they sound when you lower the tape version 2dB, and maybe the tape even sounds a little thinner since it's brighter sounding.
In fact, even if you just lower the tape version by 1dB they are still pretty similar sounding to my ears.

In my experience, if I find myself choosing the louder choice of two options, I lower it a dB or two and listen again. If I STILL prefer the one that was louder (but is now not louder), then it passes the volume test.
This example did not pass the volume test for me.

You can get the err...'reel' deal for $150 or less on eBay.

If your vocalist is a Droid like in the video, I don't believe an extremely accurate tape emulator is necessary. But Scream 4 would've been perfect instead
You have to agree, even a little bit.



Does that even look like a pudding with a tall proof inside it?

[integerpoet]

Given my history I feel compelled to point these things out.

Oh, I'm not claiming to know anything about whether Scream has a great tape emulator. If I did claim that then I take it back. (I'm too lazy to check. ) I'm just saying when I first heard it, I went: "Oh. All those people who are claiming digital audio is 'soulless' or 'sterile' or the other stuff the analog purists used to say back when they thought they might win are wrong" in an important sense. They might be right that by default digital lacks some saturation, compression, etc. that sounds good to them based on some experience with some tape machine. Fine. But even if Scream isn't a great tape emulator it did teach me such a thing could exist. In other words, they never actually liked analog in the abstract. They liked their tape machine (or EQ unit or whatever). There's nothing wrong with that! I happen to like the sound of Infuser and ColoringEQ . I'm just a big fan of knowing what it is I like.

[bxbrkrz]

It's OK to love Scream 4, and have good taste in life
YOLO!

[Mattvank]

Wow! After years of using Reason and allways driving mad because of the ,,bass-thing´´ something very new to me. Can we expect the RE in Reason 14 or earlier

Still a great emulator

If you look at the actual response, you'll see a huge low end boost from the BODY section is the primary effect.
That's not necessarily what tape does...not like that and to nearly that extreme, neither does it cut the high end so much.

What I'm hearing more than anything is that +18dB Boost on the bottom half of the spectrum - try that with ANY EQ and you'll get pretty much the same thing.
I also see a bit of soft knee compression above -12dBFS and a tiny bit of 3rd order harmonic distortion, which is probably all but dwarfed by that EQ curve!!!

Below is the actual response curve with the settings as shown below:

Screenshot 2025-01-06 at 8.11.03 PM.png