Spinning MRL 30ips

It’s a 1/2″ 2-track Studer A80 MKII, built in 1981 that apparently beat around various studios in NYC, wound up in New Jersey for most of the early 2000s and landed here in Brooklyn a couple days ago, in January 2010.

So why did I buy an analog tape machine when I have an exceptional digital system (using Pro Tools HD, an Antelope clock and Cranesong HEDD conversion)?  The short answer is that I like it better.  I could go on and on about frequency response, jitter, distortion, color, harmonics and all of that, but the truth is that there is just something very satisfying about the physicality of working to tape, both sonically and tactilely.

Sonically – When I mix to tape, two things happen that make it totally worth while: the vocal sits down and the bass tightens up.  There’s something in the way that vocals get married to the mix when I go to tape that, no matter how hard I try in digital, doesn’t quite happen the same way.  Call it compression, call it unifying the color pallet, call it “tape magic” – call it what you want – but for me it’s just so much easier to get vocals that are both present and married to the mix when I go to tape. Then there’s the low-end. Low-end is, for me, often the most challenging aspect of making a record.  It’s an unruly area of the mix where enormous waveforms battle for dominance.  They fight fiercely with each other and, just when you’ve got them getting along ok, they’ll gang up and try to take over the entire playback system.  Digital low-end often sounds unfocused to me, while analog low-end sounds tight.  Every time I mix to digital and to tape and compare, the low-end on the tape mix is so much closer to what I was trying to accomplish in the first place.  Of course, nothing is a hard and fast rule, and there are times when the digital mix wins out for whatever reason.  But, the percentages are with tape.

Tactilely – It’s a part of my personality to want to touch tape, watch it spinning along, cut it, tape it together, lift it, set it down.  And I enjoy doing machine alignments.  I used to work as a bicycle mechanic, and I miss working with my hands, holding tools and making things spin accurately and freely.  I’ll be the first to tell you that working on tape is a pain in the ass, but everything that makes it a pain in the ass makes me enormously happy.  I can’t claim that my tactile work itself has any impact on my mixes, but working this way has a big impact on my enjoying my work, which can easily impact my mixes.  In short, I like it, and that’s good for the music.

Hybrid System - My mixing studio is based around Pro Tools HD feeding an analog summing mixer (Dangerous Audio D-Box) and incorporates analog compressors (API2500, DBX162) eqs (Vintech X73i) the wonderful Cranesong HEDD 192 A/D/A converter as well as a slew of vintage and new transformers (Triad, UTC, Carnhill), and now the Studer.  Combining these analog and digital tools allows me to take full advantage of the lightening-fast recall of digital while getting as much of that analog vibe and feel into my work as I possibly can.  And I can still fit it all in a room small enough to keep my rates reasonable within today’s recording budgets.  For me, this hybrid system is working exactly as I want it to.

Don’t Romanticize Tape – Remember, tape is a pain in the ass compared to digital.  It’s expensive; it’s physically enormous; it can’t be sent over the Internet; the machines break and need constant care; fewer and fewer people are using tape, making it increasingly incompatible across studios; it’s increasingly harder to find good formula; and it can be hissy.  For these reasons, it’s important not to romanticize tape.

Romanticize Tape – And yet…tape is pretty damn cool.  It’s the same medium all those amazing classic records were made on.  The machines are esoteric feats of electronic and mechanical design (mine is like an enormous Rolex watch).  The sound has the texture and vibe of the previous century – a nostalgic aural halo.  And working on tape allows you to turn off the computer and just listen, while rewinding, fast-forwarding and changing reels builds natural breaks into the work flow.  I would argue these breaks are necessary to better listening, giving us a little aural rests that allow our neural pathways to remain fresh to the incoming sounds.  Yes, it’s pretty easy to romanticize tape, and I do it a lot, though I try to temper that tendency with reality checks like the recording budget.

Converters and Clocks Come First – Nothing makes less sense to me than running out of a blah digital system to tape and back in through the same blah system.  At that point, was it really worth what tape gives you sonically to have passed your music through a blah system twice?  For me, I spent my money on great converters and clocks before I bought my tape machine because I just don’t see the point of going to tape if the sound is going to be marred by the digital system it’s hooked up to.  That’s like using hand-blended oil paints on a paper towel.  Might be cool for one or two projects, but overall a waste of expensive materials that take a great deal of effort make and to use.

It’s Up and Running – So, whether you’re a mixer who wants to hit tape and use the best conversion out there, or you’re an artist or producer who wants to hear your recordings got to analog before mastering, or you don’t give a damn at all about technology and just want the music to sound great, The Farm is now fully equipped to do any of these things.

It was a while ago that Focal Professional ran an ad in Tape-Op with a quote from my reivew of their Solo6Be speakers.  I have to say, since writing that review, I have listened to those speakers more days than not and am still impressed every time.  No monitor is for everyone, but some really do offer a level of clairty that I believe to be “more accurate” than others.  Their slogan “Listen to your music, not your speakers” makes sense to me.  And no I do not have and endorsement deal with Focal – I just really dig these things, and am a big nerd about gear.

Dear Digidesign,

I first want to go on record as someone who does not complain about Pro Tools.  I know you get a lot of grief, but I have been making my living with Pro Tools for so long that I can only say thank you for making it all possible.  I love that you are the studio standard because I can count on Pro Tools being there, wherever there is.  I also think Pro Tools is the most elegant DAW; there is a “tape machine” and a mixer, just like analog.  Easy, simply, effective and quick.

In an effort to help the evolution of Pro Tools, I am writing this to put forth my own personal wishlist, and to invite others to jump in.  I know there are a lot of forums out there where people post their wishes, but here in my own little corner I hope to keep a kind of running wishlist that my cohorts and I can ammend as we wish.  With no further ado, these are things that I would love to have appear in new versions of Pro Tools:

• Inserts on sends: Just one or two inserts on sends would be wonderfully helpful.  From something as simple as eq’ing a snare going to a reverb to something more complex, like distorting a send that’s feeding one of two parallel compression subgroups, this would be a cool feature.  I’m sure I’d use it when creating multiple cue mixes in Pro Tools, too.

• Track patch saves: The idea is to be able to name and save a set of inserts and all of the plugin settings and then be able to easily call those up from a menu and apply them to any track. For example, “Big Al’s Phat Bass” might apply an eq, a compressor, an instance of Phoenix, each with its saved presets for that track patch.  We could eventually build libraries of our favorite patches.  Maybe we could apply a track patch from our library while creating a track.  We all know the work-arounds, and they’re time consuming, demand a good memory and require that a session in which we saved a cool patch on a track is on a connected drive. Track patches would save enormous time during tracking and mixing.

• Name a track and choose color when creating it: pretty simple request, but it makes sense.  When creating more than one track, I can see the trickiness, but perhaps there’s a way.  (And don’t forget that we can chose track patches at this point, too, right?)

• Free and easy cross platform compatibility: maybe it’s just my nature, but being able to open sessions in other DAWs without paying extra just seems like a nice thing to do.

• Album mastering mode: This one is big! OK, so what if Pro Tools could enter Mastering Mode, where all the familiar Pro Tools editing functions were applicable, with the addition of adding CD track markers, PQ and ISRC data, a playlist editing window, full CD burning and DDP export functionality, master dither for whole album, a mastering shuffle mode that moved all regions and markers to the right, but left everything to the left alone.  I could go on, but I’m sure you get the idea.  I want a fully functional mastering and CD authoring program within the familiar editing territory of Pro Tools, making use of that lovely 64 bit mix engine, external clock, etc…

• Session comments: I picture this being a simple form that one fills out.  Automatic data about the dates of recording could be generated as a list, and the bit depth and sample rate and Pro Tools versions used could be logged, too.  There would be fields for the studios used, engineers, musicians, and all the necessary data.  The consistent data could easily be imported from one session to the next for an album project.  Exportable as text documents or .pdf for emailing around the world and for printing, but equally as importantly, right there to view when opening a session.

• Recording has stopped visual alarm: This would simply be an enormous flashing black and white screen when recording had, for some reason, stopped unexpectedly.  Sometimes when a disc is full, for example, PT stops, but one doesn’t know it until way too late.

• Hardware insert bypass: why doesn’t this ever work for me?  When ever I try to bypass a hardware insert, I can’t do it.  Would really like to be able to A/B my inserts.

•  “Audio.01“: make it so that no audio file can be recorded with the word “audio” in its track title.  In fact, I’d go so far as to ask for an industry standard file naming protocol.  My suggestion is: SongTitle_Instrument_Take#.  I’d also like to see a dialogue box that says “Audio is an illegal file name, would you like to see a list of industry standard track names?”  Further, the song name could be automatically inserted onto each audio file, a choice in the preferences, perhaps.

• Legible track names: somehow I’d like to be able to read my track names, and unless it’s short, like “K” or Gtr,” I often have a hard time making out the truncated words, especially in narrow view mode.  There has to be a way.  Diagonal – like parking spots maybe?

• Longer delay compensation: If only to allow my 6200 sample dealyed linear phase eq to work during mixes.

• Import session data attribute saves: When importing tracks from different sessions, it would be a great time saver to be able to pick from a bunch of preconfigured import settings that we could name and save.  For example, “Empty tracks with plugins only,” or “All audio regions and plugins without automation.”  I picture this looking a lot like the group attributes saves.

• Name group attribute saves: While we’re on the topic, I’d like to be able to name my group attribute settings, rather than just using the numbers.  I can’t remember what they were, usually.  I’d use names like “All functions grouped” or “Faders free edit group,” or just “Allen’s typical group settings.”

• Import track colors: when importing session data, tracks colors don’t travel into the new session.  I wish they would.

• Markers follow bulk edits: Alex Oana explains in his comment below that one can shift-click in the marker bar when selecting audio regions, and they’ll follow the edit.  Thank you, Alex!

I hope to add to this as my hours/day using Pro Tools don’t seem to be coming to an end just yet, and I certainly welcome comments from everyone.  Thanks, AF

I have never accepted digital mixing fully, and have always sent my Pro Tools mixes out to analog line amps and bus compressors to get that undeniable depth, width, punch and realism. Bob Katz, a known authority on such matters, has said that this technique is all that’s needed, and that the need for analog summing is a “red herring.” In other words, all you need to get “that analog sound” is two channels of analog flavor by routing out to some analog gear in stereo. He and many others have insisted that what we mixers like about analog summing is really just the harmonic distortion we pick up by routing out to analog gear. Indeed, I do like that.

However, there are those on the other side of the fence who insist that analog summing is giving them more than just the harmonic distorition. They tend to claim that the stereo field opens up, that the reverb and delays they use are more evident and elegant, that there is a greater depth to the soundstage, and so on. I knew I liked the sound of a console, but I hadn’t really done much to compare digital and analog summing, other than to work in different scenarios and think: “that was different” and “I like the sound of a console.”

Last year I bought a Dangerous Music D-Box, which has an 8 channel summing mixer. I hadn’t used that summing mixer until this week, when I thought it was time to give it a shot. I really wanted to make an apples-to-apples comparison, so here’s how I configured my trial mix: Pro Tools HD -> Lynx Aurora 8-channel D/A converter -> D-Box summing mixer, then the stereo outputs of the D-Box -> Vintech x73i line amp -> API 2500 bus compressor -> Cranesong HEDD 192 A/D converter -> Pro Tools for the print. (Everything is clocked to an Antelope OCX-V).

For the analog summed mix, I stemmed the drums to channels 1-2, the guitars to 3-4, the effects and bells to 5-6, the bass to 7 and the vocals to 8. For the digitally summed mix, I simply bussed everything out to 1-2 and printed a mix. In this way the only difference between the two scenarios is that I summed in analog in one and in digital in the other. I’m still getting the coloration of the D-Box summing amp’s circuitry in both cases.

The digital mix:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The analog version:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Is there a difference? Yes, and my vocabulary is about to sound the same as everyone elses: the analog summed mix is wider, deeper, more musical, more spacious, etc… Especially noticable to my ears is the detail in the effects, the delays and reverbs. They seemed more audible in general, but also more spacious.

In general, the best way I can describe the difference between these two mixes is that the ITB mix sounded like I feel before I do yoga, and the analog summed mix sounded like I feel after yoga – as if some tightness had relaxed and opened up the various elements of my body so that each molecule had that much more space. I know, it’s a pretty lame, new-age analogy, but there it is. Which did I prefer: the analog summed mix, for sure.

I also looked at the waveforms, and they were different, as you can see by comparing Fig 1 and Fig 2. I have no idea how to make any sense of what’s going on in these waveforms, but my sense is that the analog summed waveform is more complex, which fits my understanding of analog gear: it’s vastly more complex and nuanced than digital – just ask any plug-in designer.

If nothing else, this experiment helped me understand that the D-Box’s summing section is worth using, and given the price of that unit its value just shot up considerably as an indespensible centerpiece to my mixing studio. I’m happy to have confirmed my suspicion that analog summing is superior to digital summing. But is it vastly different? – well, not vastly different (it is only 8 channels), but for me it’s all about making small differences at every stage of the mix, such that the cumulative effect is a better, more musical, mix. I don’t ever expect one piece of an elaborate chain to hold the key to the sound. I do yoga every morning becuase it makes my day better, not becuase it makes my day.

I just installed an Antelope Isochorm Digital Clock in my mix room, and it’s an amazing contribution to my system. Anyone could hear the difference. Everything sounds so much more open, punchy, and easy on the ears. In fact, it sounds more analog. I hadn’t thought of this angle when I was writing the review of these clocks for Tape Op (with Jessica Thompson), but it’s true. Someone told me Joel Hamilton said it was like working on tape again, and it just made sense, but I’d say it also is like working on a console becuase it’s so wide and open sounding. But it is like tape in that the harshness is gone – just gone. The top end is smooth and airy, and the bottom is fat and punchy. It’s a vast improvement, and I am thrilled to have this thing ticking away in my rack.

What a clock does is regulate the 0s and 1s streaming at ultra fast rates through the system (a CD streams 44,100 of them per second). When the spacing between these numbers isn’t right, you get distortion – called “jitter” in clock lingo. With a more stable clock, the reduction in jitter allows the sound to open up and carry far fewer of the anomalies we have heard in digital over the years. In my case, the Antelope Clock is feeding both my Lynx Aurora converter, my Cranesong HEDD converter, and my Dangerous Audio D-Box D-A converter that I use for monitoring. When I consider what an impact the Antelope is having on so many aspects of my gear – including how Pro Tools and all the plugins are operating – it’s a no brainer that this is a killer piece of kit for any digital system.