I've been making RR live chamber and choral tapes from 1980s using Tandberg 900 at 7.5ips. Unbelievably real acoustics and sound. Played back on Technics 1500, sound even better. What are you smoking? I have about 50 RR 7.5ips tapes from late 50s/early 60s-better than digital recreations. Now I use a simple Tascam digital recorder for chamber music which does capture the ambiance as well and sounds good enough to sell professionally. Mike placement and room acoustics make for a great recording, not just the equipment.
If tape is so good why does it record so poorly?
- Thread starter Kingrex
- Start date
Orchestra 7.5 ips .
I bought about 15 tapes of a recording engineer who used to record back ups at 7.5 ips .for 25 euro a piece
Some were really good sounding if the recording was good ? to my ears? plus double the listening time , also nice.
Bass can sound great at 7.5 although you tube cant really capture it.
I think they should also release more commercial tapes at half speed 7.5 ips.
Double playtime ...and still tapesound
I bought about 15 tapes of a recording engineer who used to record back ups at 7.5 ips .for 25 euro a piece
Some were really good sounding if the recording was good ? to my ears? plus double the listening time , also nice.
Bass can sound great at 7.5 although you tube cant really capture it.
I think they should also release more commercial tapes at half speed 7.5 ips.
Double playtime ...and still tapesound
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The problem I have with digital recordings (e.g. orchestral) is the wrong placement of mikes and avoidance of sound studios. Even solo instruments are often recorded in large halls so as to capture the sound of a live performance from the middle seats. That's NOT what engineers were recording during the analog era. They wanted to make recordings to be heard in the home. Up front and direct, not hazy/phasey sounding. My friends and I have higher/high end audio systems and enjoy all eras of recordings. While we also enjoy many digital recordings, we reject so many because they are so distant sounding as I described hazy/phasey.
Judging by my lowly AudioEngine computer speakers, your YouTube selection sounds very nice indeed.
Have you read TAS May/June 2022, Issue 327 piece by Jonathan Horwich
International Phonograph.
Such a great contribution piece
His writing on recording really helped me to understand what I hear in a playback piece and how digital compares to analog capture.
I was also reciently taught about seating near field and further back. Jonathan piece helps cement for me how the way a performance is recorded would impact how I might sit for it.
For example, a 2 mic recording of a symphony would make me want to sit further back and here the piece as if I were in a theater for the live show. And tape would be the prefered recording method.
A chicks with guitar piece recorded in a booth would make me sit near field where I am enveloped and in the booth with the artist. Digital would be just fine.
Rex
International Phonograph.
Such a great contribution piece
His writing on recording really helped me to understand what I hear in a playback piece and how digital compares to analog capture.
I was also reciently taught about seating near field and further back. Jonathan piece helps cement for me how the way a performance is recorded would impact how I might sit for it.
For example, a 2 mic recording of a symphony would make me want to sit further back and here the piece as if I were in a theater for the live show. And tape would be the prefered recording method.
A chicks with guitar piece recorded in a booth would make me sit near field where I am enveloped and in the booth with the artist. Digital would be just fine.
Rex
Mr. Record, Robert Pincus prefers seating up front regardless of the type of music and his remasterings with Kevin Gray of classical music are preferred by many. My recordings are made between 10 and 25 feet from choirs, chamber and full orchestras. They sound clean and clear with natural ambient information of the recording venue. I don't do any compression or reverb to make them more palatable; although, they don't need to be altered for digital playback (wide dynamic range available, better than analog). I don't do studio recordings so I have no experience except my 42,000 LPs/78s/CDs which are mostly studio recordings.
A system should be capable of both close-up and intimate experience of small scale like girl with guitar, and painting a much larger canvas of an orchestra at some distance and with good spatial depth and information of the hall, all at the same seating position.
And yes, the digital playback should be capable of delivering the orchestral experience too. If it isn't, there's a problem.
Okay, I will give you one modern label, Yarlung, who records everything mid or rear hall to capture the "ambiance." I have half a dozen of their inferior recordings of great performances. Their violin and clarient CDs have a weird, distant sound. Just listen to the old EMI violin recordings of Milstein, Kogan, Rabin and you can feel the violin in the room with you. Yarlung's Zeisl/UCLA orch. recording, despite use of tube electronics, sounds like a mediocre dub because they recorded it back in the hall. There's a cello concerted work which places the cello with a big reverberant field. Why? Audiophiles (not all) are in love with this amorphous sound.
If you are referring to reproduction systems, of course they should reproduce both intimate and large scale works with their appropriate ambient information. I'm complaining concerning the digital era recording engineers techniques which are so wrong (mostly, not always). I have 7,000 CDs and have heard so many botched remasterings. Despite the more primitive transfers of the 1980s from analog sources, they are generally truer to the sound of the original.
Kevin Gray states in this month's Stereophile that he often receives major studios dubs, often 2nd generation or worse, with 4, 5 or even 10db of added compression. He does all he can to reduce the compression and add natural dynamics and highs (but it is limited). That's why I dislike so many modern digital recordings, either because they were wrongly/poorly recorded or they were sacrificed to engineers mutilating the sound/performance.
Digital at least the digital ive heard so far is cleaner then analogue tape.
But reality isnt smooth and clean either .
The "dirty " organic tape ( tube ) sound resembles the real thing more imo.
@ SEAGOAT i fully agree on mike placement if analogue tape doesnt sound good its the recording engineers fault not the medium.
One exeption i like digital more and thats on electronic house music
But reality isnt smooth and clean either .
The "dirty " organic tape ( tube ) sound resembles the real thing more imo.
@ SEAGOAT i fully agree on mike placement if analogue tape doesnt sound good its the recording engineers fault not the medium.
One exeption i like digital more and thats on electronic house music
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We used to record the Hong Kong Philharmonic during the era of Edo de Waart, using the Decca Tree technique with the 5 front microphones and 2 to 3 spot mics for the different sections depending on the pieces. This gives a good approximation of the Decca sound (even though we don't have the M50 mics) , and our halls are nowhere near the quality of Kingsway or Walthamstow halls. We ran two Nagra IV-S and a Tascam stereo DSD recorder off the Studer mixer, and multi-track PCM. The DSD and tape always sound better to my ears (my friend in charge of the PCM recording might not agree). Both RCA and Mercury used three microphones during the early period, with spectacular success. The secret is in positioning the orchestra within the hall to balance the sound. Most of the time, the seats for the audience are removed and the orchestra is placed in the middle of the hall, not on the stage.
A few years ago, we tried to get the contract for a recording project with the orchestra, but was beaten by a well known label. We went to one of the sessions anyway just to see what was going on. They had a mic in front of every player, without any partition. We didn't witness any attempt to optimise mic placement. They figured they would just capture the sound, and then correct any problem in post-production. But phase cancellations cannot be corrected. It is just not possible. The end result was, as expected, pretty disastrous. Somehow, the critics gave the CD rave reviews.
A few years ago, we tried to get the contract for a recording project with the orchestra, but was beaten by a well known label. We went to one of the sessions anyway just to see what was going on. They had a mic in front of every player, without any partition. We didn't witness any attempt to optimise mic placement. They figured they would just capture the sound, and then correct any problem in post-production. But phase cancellations cannot be corrected. It is just not possible. The end result was, as expected, pretty disastrous. Somehow, the critics gave the CD rave reviews.
Thanks Adrian, too bad you didn't get the contract. My experience with HK is that name brands are very important, irrespective of the actual quality. Great that you were able to simulate as best as you could the Decca tree. In my interviews with Decca engineers for my book, they said that all the positioning and balancing was done before the recording and they mixed down to two tracks in real time. So no post production work after the fact. Wilkie would particularly get upset if the musicians moved their chairs even a few inches after he had placed everything just right for the recording. There was a lot of work done to get the "Decca" sound. Also the Decca engineers shared the best seats in the control room with the producer, unlike EMI where the producer got the best seat and would direct the engineers to adjust the sound to the producer's taste. Not sure how much post production mixing was done by EMI. These comments are only for the classical recordings.
Worst travesty in Hong Kong was a live concert with Lang Lang we attended when visiting a few years ago. It was done in a basketball area to maximize the number of seats. Lang Lang explained at the beginning of the concert that his concerts were normally sold out almost immediately in Hong Kong (not sure what was the regular venue - maybe City Hall concert hall on the HK side) so he insisted that they go to a much larger venue to accommodate all the demand. The result was an atrocious sounding concert. The orchestra had microphones beneath the seats of each member and they may have even had small speakers below each seat also. They used the PA speakers in the hall to amplify everything. At the middle of the concert, Lang Lang brought on a very young little girl to play a duet with him on the piano. We all thought this was going to be some young prodigy. Instead it was the granddaughter of the owner of the company that was the main sponsor. I am guessing she had played the piano for no more than one or two years and certainly was not a prodigy. On the other hand, when I was a consultant in Hong Kong in the late '70's, I worked in City Hall and was given free concerts at the City Hall concert hall. We heard quite a few fine artists as well as the HK Philharmonic which at the time had some great players from other countries along with locals, both professionals and good amateurs. We got to know one of the great players who was a former member of the Philadelphia Orchestra and played the oboe IIRC. He had married a woman from Hong Kong who was a fine pianist who accompanied many of the solo artists who came through Hong Kong.
Larry
We had a "professional" recording team for one of our larger 2005 concerts with the 50+ member LA Jewish Symphony, combined choirs, a quad of operatic soloists and Leonard Nimoy as one of the narrators. The engineer used over 45 mikes. He miked almost the entire orchestra, the soloists and four on the 50+ choir. The result was a real mess. My simple recording done with two mikes on a digital recorder from mid-hall was vastly superior (picked up the miked sound of the soloists and choir as well). I would have preferred your mike setup as the hall acoustics were excellent.
According to several recording engineers I have talked to, including some old timers, the profession has changed. Many record labels no longer maintain a technical team and outsource the work to the lowest bidder. Many young classical artists often have to pay for the recordings to be made and then ask a record label to issue the recording. Projects such as the Decca Ring Cycle will never happen today. It was financially risky then, and it is totally infeasible now. Very few people (except us hobbyists) will spend the time to set up the venue properly. Orchestras nowadays only get two or three (if lucky) rehearsals before a concert or a recording session. They are certainly not going to waste time during the recording session for us to improve the sound, which matters very little in terms of sales. On some occasions, we were only given access to the hall at 6pm to get ready to record an 8pm concert. Weekend concerts were better as we could normally have access from the morning. City Hall is a fine sounding hall (except for the noisy AC system). We try to record there in the winter so that we can turn off the AC. The Cultural Centre is a sonic disaster for the audience, but surprisingly not too bad for recordings. The government has been planning a new concert hall at the West Kowloon Cultural district since 1999, but even the design still has not been done. Where is the famous Hong Kong efficiency ?
I live in belgium these days and i have visited many of the old cathedrals of the middle ages.
Choirs sound awesome in those.
I d love to buy a couple of good mikes for stereo recording and start recording .
I ve got the hardware , 2 portable studers and the telefunken aint that heavy either.
Or record a piano that would be great to .
I assume one could spent at least half a day trying to get the optimal mike position.
And may be a digital recorder running as a back up .
With the same mike position
See what the audio differences end up being
Choirs sound awesome in those.
I d love to buy a couple of good mikes for stereo recording and start recording .
I ve got the hardware , 2 portable studers and the telefunken aint that heavy either.
Or record a piano that would be great to .
I assume one could spent at least half a day trying to get the optimal mike position.
And may be a digital recorder running as a back up .
With the same mike position
See what the audio differences end up being
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This is a good book to get started with: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0367312808/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
A properly set up reel to reel tape recorder should be indistinguishable from its source at 15 ips. My old mentor Tim de Paravacini made it clear that tape does NOT add colouration, only bad record and replay amplifiers and poor heads do. He was very proud of the fact that his tape recorders that he prepared do not have 'that tape sound'. I am lucky enough to own a Revox B77 that he rebuilt with his own record and playback electronics, and not only did the Revox specification of 20 hz to 25 kHz get hugely improved on to 12 hz to 35 kHz on the same heads, he changed the EQ to IEC from NAB which gave another couple of db less noise. His replay electronics will pass a video signal in black and white, so there is at least a megahertz worth of bandwidth in the electronics! I use this machine to make my analogue recordings that I sell because this B77 is now is now transparent, there is no difference to the sound quality from source to replay. So it can be done. This would be true of a top flight LP record replay too - most of the 'warmth' you hear on vinyl or tape is coloration. Get rid of that and you have a clean transparent sound.
Everything adds coloration, it is just the matter of degree. Try making a 10th copy on your machine.
Making a copy of a copy of a copy, etc. is like the child's game of telephone - where one child whispers a story to a second child, who whispers the story to a third, etc. By the time it gets to the tenth child, the story is very different. So I never do that in tape dubbing. What most people do is more like telling the same story to a bunch of people, so they are getting the first hand story directly and there is less chance for error. What I do is take my safety masters or other close to original tape and always make copies from it. However, I very strictly limit the number of copies I make from those since I don't do this for commercial purposes and definitely don't want to wear out the original tape. Opus 3 uses their original masters to make the copies that they sell, but limit the number of copies to 50 so they don't wear out the masters. When I interviewed Decca employees for my Decca book, they told me about some of their master tapes that had literally been worn out by having been taken out and used to make production masters so many times. I saw the pictures of the tapes which show each time the tape had been borrowed (like an old fashioned library card pasted on the inside cover of a book). Some had been taken out a huge number of times.
Other companies like Acoustic Sounds and Tape Project create a running master from the original master (which they normally are borrowing) and use that to make copies. After a certain number of copies, they make a second running master to make further copies. They can preserve the master. The running masters are made with wider tape and or speed (1/2" at 30ips) or (1" at 15ips) IIRC Acoustic Sound does the former and Tape Project does the latter - to make a copy that is as close to the original as possible. People can correct me on this.
Jonathan Horwich does both. He runs a limited number of copies from his original masters and those are sold as an initial offering to his regular customers for a limited time. Later on, customers get a still very fine copy from a running master he makes from the original. Jonathan can elaborate and correct me on this.
Larry
I agree. Making 10 copies of copies of anything but computer data is non-sense. Digital copies were well known to harbor imperfections upon multiple copying in the early digital days. A 10th generational copy of a CD sounds worse than the original. Decca was/is rather foolish in their preservation technique (none).
I talked to one of the Decca engineers about the fiasco of the Solti Ring, where they wore out the master tapes after so many reissues. They did make a decent reasonably hirez digital copy - IIRC 96/24 or maybe 96/16 in the late '90's and have used that for their more recent reissues. I told him that I was able to obtain a Russian tape set that was used to master vinyl of the Solti Ring released in Russia. It is on 26 tapes on Russian Svema tape from the late '70's. The sonics are great and the Decca engineer said I may have one of the best tape copies of the Solti Ring still around. There may be safety masters floating around also. I did make a tape copy of all the reels to preserve potential wear on the originals. Copy sounds very fine also.
Larry
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