In the simplest terms, you could say, input ≠ output. One of the learning curves with analogue magnetic tape has always been trying to stay one step ahead of how it will change the sounds you are printing to it.
Bump refers to the low-end boost, roll refers to the high-end roll-off, squeeze refers to the compression that tape adds to the signal, and saturate is the high-frequency distortion (saturation) that tape adds to the recorded signal. Bump, roll, squeeze and saturate are the things that tape does to your sound. You weren’t in a rush, were you? Bump, Roll, Squeeze And Saturate If I know it’s a longer session, like an album project, I may need to repeat steps 5-13 for each additional reel of tape I need to prepare for the session. Total time: I could get this done in about 10 minutes,as long as I don’t have to fiddle with the calibration too much. Splice in some leader just after the test tones Print test tones, 30 seconds (give or take) each of: Thread the tape through the tape guide, roller, over the heads, through the capstan and onto the takeup reelĪrm all tracks, and enable the oscillator on the deck Splice on a leader to the “tail” of the tape Jog the tape (this reduces the likelihood of the tape bunching up or catching during the session, and only needs to be done on new tape)įast Forward the tape onto the takeup reel Thread the tape onto the takeup reel, but not over the heads yet Splice on some leader to the “head” of the tape Every time you use it, that’s the rule!Ĭheck deck calibration, and adjust if necessary (yes, before every session!) In contrast, a tape session starts likes this:Ĭlean the tape machine. I’m primarily DAW-based because it affords me the speed, flexibility and recallability that I need to stay on top of client requests, which always seem to fall somewhere in the “I need it from you yesterday, but I won’t have it to you until tomorrow” range. I will admit that they don’t get a lot of use now. I still have 2 Otari tape decks in my studio. I realistically spent the first 12 years of my recording career recording to magnetic tape. I started recording in the latter days of analogue tape. I also want to help educate those that may be thinking about tape and wondering if they want to invest in it. What I want to do is take a look at tape from the perspective of a modern studio workflow. This article is not about arguing as to which sounds better, because that’s subjective. I don’t just mean the hard costs of tape, but also the less obvious costs of time and convenience. So, let’s see if we can bypass all the rhetoric, and talk about tape from the realistic point of view of studio economics. These days tape is a buzzword, and the virtues and myths of tape are extolled by far more people than I believe could actually be using it. In this article, Steve DeMott asks why is it that people who are nostalgic for tape never actually used tape? Surely we’ve never had it so good? Early digital formats like ADAT and DTRS were still based on magnetic tape. Even in the early days of digital recording we still hadn’t unencumbered ourselves from tape. It might have been 2 inch or 1 inch, or even ½ inch, but it was always tape. Thus any device capable of recording and playing back sound can be used for data storage - including the Sony TC-630D, built three years before the Apple II to which Rubin has connected the device.Once upon a time, audio recordings were done to magnetic tape. Regardless of whether the magnetic tape comes on reels or a cassette, the general principle is the same: Program data is encoded as audio to be saved to the tape, providing an unpleasant screeching sound for anyone who mistakes a tape for a music album, and is decoded back into binary data for loading.
#Apple tapedeck portable#
More convenient than punch cards, more portable than a paper tape reader, yet cheaper than floppy disks, cassette tapes were a staple of microcomputing in the 1980s - yet it's the reel-to-reel tapes, more usually found on mainframes and minicomputers, that would find use as set-dressing in science-fiction computer facilities for decades after their retirement. Those aforementioned microcassette recorders were for many the storage device of if not choice then at least necessity. This Apple II has a somewhat anachronistic storage device, even for its age: A reel-to-reel tape deck.
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