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.
