I bought a tape machine. It slays.

[Signals]

Hey, I found this at a local vinyl shop for $800. Bought it on a whim.

Picture: http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/412184_435936529772956_1494838191_o.jpg

Studer A810. It was donated to them by a public radio station and they (imo) totally mispriced it.

Only 224 hours on the tape heads - perfectly functional!

These things were like $20,000 when they were new. You can hear why:

Here's a work in progress mix/master (mp3) by Cory Brunneman run through the tape machine. The tape part is actually 1 db RMS (10 second average) lower in volume than the digital version as well. The difference blows my mind every time I hear it.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6627888/Cory_Mp3_to_Tape.wav

Here's a band Ryan Harvey (of Catharsis Studios) recorded. He sent me the mix and I ran it through the tape machine then mastered it ITB.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6627888/restless/Holiday.mp3

Toooooo sick.

 

[raisedfist]

Thats sexy.....

 

[MIAnn]

 

[plague_rider]

Sooooooooooooooooo... are you offering the service of running masters through this beauty??

 

[Trep]

Thats awesome. Very Cool.

In your mastering chain, where the best place to run tape? Always wondered.

 

[metalhead3ecr]

:Smokin:how are you routing that beast??

 

[smy1]

Haha, motherfucker!!!

 

[amarshism]

Everytime I try to listen to this it crashes my phone

 

[Jan [MTW]]

Everytime I try to listen to this it crashes my phone

Same with chrome, works on Internet Explorer though. It's probably the fact that it is a .wav.
Sorry for the noob question, but what exactly is the function of a tape machine? It sounds a lot better, but why is that so?

 

[Trevoire520]

For serious?

 

[Jan [MTW]]

For serious?

Jep. Totally serious.

 

[Signals]

Sooooooooooooooooo... are you offering the service of running masters through this beauty??

Sure, $40 a song. Gotta cover costs of tape (New RMGI tape is around $70 for like 20 minutes), time, cleaning, maintenance and other wear and tear on an ancient machine.

In your mastering chain, where the best place to run tape? Always wondered.

I've heard of people just running their digital masters thru AFTER everything is done, just like in that mp3 example (but preferably with a .wav haha).

Personally I got much better results running the mix for that Holiday song through the tape first, then mastering ITB after. It just gives the tape machine more dynamics and information to work with.

how are you routing that beast??

Right now it's running Firepod line out (My R-16 is broken, had to rent a Firepod... LOL?) to the Studer and then back into a mico preamp going to the Firepod through SPDIF (Mico being used as the clock the whole time). I tweak the send level till it hits a sort of butter zone on the tape machine. Tape machine is using Ampex 456 GrandMaster tape right now.

With my R-16 I would probably route it DAW --> R-16 Channel Insert Send --> Tape Machine --> R-16 Channel Insert Return --> DAW. Would be a cleaner signal path because it would skip re-preamping and go thru the AD/DAs only. Plus the R-16's A/D converter is like a 118 db dynamic range on a far newer chip, so the conversion should also be superior to the FirePod's.

 

[Charles J]

Too fucking cool, bro! MANY congrats and what a score on the price! Fucking KILLER.

I know I'd be over the moon finding a 1/4" mastering deck with such few hours on it.

I'm sure you already know it, but make sure to find a GREAT tech with, more importantly, GREAT ears or just learn to align and calibrate the machine yourself.

Every tech does it different and such forth, every time a different tech does his 'thing' to the machine it's going to have slightly different sonic characteristics. Just like mixing. FUnny how everything effects everything, EVERY PART OF THE WAY in audio, haha.

<3. CongratS!!

 

[Trevoire520]

Jep. Totally serious.

Wow... Kids these days, don't know they're even born... (grumble grumble...)

What do you think people recorded onto before digital audio workstations were available? Before digital multitrack recorders were available? Even before ADAT machines were available? (tbh if you don't know what tape is for then I doubt you are even aware of the existence of ADAT machines)

Magnetic analogue tape. Like what you might have seen on a audio cassette, but WAY better.

Far from the transparent digital recording medium that we have these days. Tape has it's own sound. It has a pretty bad noise floor. If you need to do an edit you actually have to slice the tape with a razor blade and then stick it back together. And sounds different depending on how hard you hit it. Recording hot signals to tape results in compression of the signal and saturation/distortion. While not digitally "perfect" this compression and saturation adds harmonic's and general "nice-ness" to the signal.

 

[metalhead3ecr]

hahaha slate just put up a virtual tape machine...wow what are the odds....

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Subcat has one of these. They are badass.

Nice score.

 

[Ericlingus]

lol I would have no idea how to really use one of those tape machines. I just have a firepod going into my daw. Would be neat getting one someday though. Especially for black metal.

 

[Colin Davis]

Best results would be to mix to the tape and send the tape to the mastering guy who has a playback deck and masters analog.

Colin

 

[MisSigsFan]

That snare annoys the hell out of me.