Tape recorder "vintage vibe" ?

[dnf777]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

Here's the deal with analog tape: it had two things going against it:
1. Right up until the end of analog tape machines, all tape machines exhibited a low-end playback "head bump" in frequency response. It wasn't until the last generation, around 1990, that a manufacturer beat that.
2. From the moment you recorded on analog tape, it was in the process of what is called "High-end relaxation." That meant from the moment a signal was recorded on the tape, the high-end was going away. You could record on the tape today and come back and ask, "Why on earth was I marveling about my high-end yesterday?" Once it was documented, high-budget albums were mixed, and their mixes were rushed across town to the mastering engineer before they relaxed too far. Each copy generation of the album exaggerated both the high-end loss and the low end bump. There was also increase distortion with every generation. You could tell the difference if you got the first pressing and the second by the loss of high-end, increased low-end, and increased distortion, especially if they used a safety copy for the album master rather than the cutting master.

That, rounded off high-end, increased low end, and a bit of gentle distortion, is the effect that is being emulated with tape emulators. There are really good emulators like the Ampex ATR-102. I spent years mixing and mastering to that tape deck. It is good, but it isn't cheap.

Bob

Nothing trumps age, wisdom, and experience...

[DupleMeter]

Originally Posted by KevWind

To clarify I almost always have vocals and acoustic guitar involved in my music. But even so I do not use compression to make level adjustments. For that I first set fader levels as first rough balance of levels move and then I use clip gain to fine tune the balance
I like to think I use compression to enhance presence, separation, and definition and as I said
I am guessing in my non-pro opinion, that judicious use of compression is is transparent and does not noticeable reduce fidelity

Now I certainly do not claim to have the critical listening skills of seasoned pro's. But I think the notion of compression somehow being a degrading factor of sonics , came out of misuse in the unbridled loudness wars and could be more myth than reality.

Agin and perhaps only to my non pro ears ---well configured compression can give a more pleasing result to move a particular element forward in the sound stage than just EQ, Reverb etc. Given EQ which is simply a level boost or cut in a given frequency range.

I may just have play around with demo video of using comp, verb and EQ

When used properly, compression can make things better...in fact, it should make things better. Why else would you use it?

I use a mix of plugin & hardware compressors. I find them both useful, though plugins are far more convenient.

[Rudy4]

Anyone wanting to hear a good viewpoint on using compression when recording acoustic guitars might benefit from listening 47:30 into John Leventhal's recent Fretboard Journal podcast.

https://www.fretboardjournal.com/pod...ohn-leventhal/

John talks about his use of compression as the bit of magic he uses to obtain a "solid" presence for the acoustic guitar. He also relates his use of the Emperical Labs Distressor to apply compression that's particularly pleasing to him.

[H165]

In this case, you get the album home, put it on a good system, and discover that there is, indeed, a certain signature on all the songs.

This is the bottom line for ALL recordings. Having a good system is usually a good thing. But sometimes, it delivers too much information

[dyna]

I have recorded since the early 70's.
First on Sony, Studer/Revox and Otari reel to reels,
later on of course on computer.
The tape plugins I have tried don't really sound like
real tape compression/distortion but I like some of them all the same,
for what they are.
I like using Softube's Tape more often than not,
both on some individual tracks and on the master bus.