KVR Audio

Gnomebe · Post by **Gnomebe** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 11:50 pm

Has this been studied?

SJ_Digriz · Post by **SJ_Digriz** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 11:53 pm

Of course not, it's much more fun to just debate it using only opinions and gratuitous use of misinformation and bad unrelated scientific inference.

All of those tape emulation programs were written with random number generators and wishful programmer guessing games.

noiseboyuk · Post by **noiseboyuk** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 12:28 am

Hiss.

Doug1978 · Post by **Doug1978** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 12:35 am

Not a complete answer to your question, but quite useful info from SoS anyway:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb10/a ... warmth.htm

ps, some good things are gained in computer recording compared to original tape too.

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 12:36 am

it's not what is lost like tape, it's what is gained. Lower noise floor and more headroom to begin with. With tape every time you play it you are wearing it out a little, when you record you add more noise with tape (that's why we needed banks of DBX or Dolby noise reduction). When you bounced tracks one of the problems was the added noise piling up on more noise but also every bounce degraded the tone...this does not happen with digital.

One huge thing lost in computer recording compared to tape is maintenance though

werp · Post by **werp** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 12:42 am

sanity

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 12:54 am

werp wrote:sanity

what's that?

werp · Post by **werp** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 1:04 am

Hink wrote:
werp wrote:sanity
what's that?

I read about it somewhere. I'm not brave enough to try it. I heard that it's somewhat addictive.

Skorpius · Post by **Skorpius** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 1:24 am

Warmth. Feeling. Liveliness. And "healthy dirt"...which is what I would call the slight distortion or saturation effects of magnetic tape.

dayjob · Post by **dayjob** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 1:40 am

Tape machine calibration
Worn out tape heads
The voice of the guy on the MRL tapes, listening to 1k tones, 10k tones, nanowebbers, limited track counts, time code bleed, Dolby, hiss, tape compression, editing with razors, $200+ tape cost, having to bake old tapes so they can be played once, rewind time etc etc

Is tape awesome for some reasons? Hell yes. Enough reasons to invest in a studer? No.

Brother Charles · Post by **Brother Charles** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 1:49 am

dayjob wrote:Tape machine calibration
Worn out tape heads
The voice of the guy on the MRL tapes, listening to 1k tones, 10k tones, nanowebbers, limited track counts, time code bleed, Dolby, hiss, tape compression, editing with razors, $200+ tape cost, having to bake old tapes so they can be played once, rewind time etc etc

Is tape awesome for some reasons? Hell yes. Enough reasons to invest in a studer? No.

+1000
Call me old n' grumpy, but I agree with your analysis. TB_ReelBus & Slate VTM are my two GOTO tape emulations and I don't have to even rewind.

herodotus · Post by **herodotus** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 1:50 am

Modern computer based recording media are superior, as recording media, to the finest 2 inch multitrack tape machines ever made.

Its sort of like mechanical clocks and quartz digital clocks. They still make mechanical clocks, but people who need super accurate astronomical clocks and other precision time keepers have long since gone to quartz or atomic regulators with digital controls.

But of course, people still buy mechanical clocks, which are in fact cool as all hell.

The last top of the line magnetic tape recorders were actually quite amazing, with a very good S/N ratio and very low THD. But modern digital components by Texas Instruments, Cirrus Logic, and others blow them out of the water as far as specs are concerned.

No, what people desire about tape these days is not the superior fidelity or anything of the sort. For the most part people seem to be after the subtle compression and saturation artifacts that can occur when tape is driven just a bit too hard. The effect is most often applied to acoustic drums, and it can in fact be quite pleasant and effective when done right.

But in terms of musical details that tape can catch but digital will miss, I am afraid those will only be found on the same plane of existence as unicorns and chupacabras.

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 1:57 am

werp wrote:
Hink wrote:
werp wrote:sanity
what's that?
I read about it somewhere. I'm not brave enough to try it. I heard that it's somewhat addictive.

well I'm not gonna try it if you're not gonna try it

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 2:02 am

I took this picture a couple of years ago kinda summing up my life of recording so far

trimph1 · Post by **trimph1** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 2:22 am

Brother Charles wrote:
dayjob wrote:Tape machine calibration
Worn out tape heads
The voice of the guy on the MRL tapes, listening to 1k tones, 10k tones, nanowebbers, limited track counts, time code bleed, Dolby, hiss, tape compression, editing with razors, $200+ tape cost, having to bake old tapes so they can be played once, rewind time etc etc

Is tape awesome for some reasons? Hell yes. Enough reasons to invest in a studer? No.
+1000
Call me old n' grumpy, but I agree with your analysis. TB_ReelBus & Slate VTM are my two GOTO tape emulations and I don't have to even rewind.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

Oh, then maintenance issues. Cost of electrical bills. Ruined tape. One maintenance issue I ran into...alignment of reels, believe it or not.

What is lost in computer recording compared to original tape?