Anyone here who is an Ableton (or I guess any other DAW) electronic music maker ever output their master to a tape machine and then re-record the tape back into the DAW as the final master? A part of me is curious how well it could take the (imo unattractive) digital sheen off the final product, but wondering if it’s worth the trouble of buying more equipment. I know obviously it matters greatly what kind of tape /machine you’re recording to. Just curious about other peoples’ experience if they have done something like this.
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I had the same thought a couple years ago and watched this. The guy is a little eccentric, but the video is interesting.
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I got a four track just to experiment with this (and maybe for drum groups) and then promptly failed to finish anything for months.
So that’s no help to you at all.
sorry.
edit - although, obviously a four track is a pretty extreme attempt to totally f**k your mix all over the shop rather than just add a bit of tape mojo.
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I dunno what this says about the experiment or about me, but I actually guessed the blind test 100% right.
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If you have the means and good quality tape you can get some great sound out of it. I used to have access to a Studer 24 track 2" machine, and would VERY often record all of a bands raw tracks into protools, run each track out into the Studer and just saturate the shit out of everything… like run it all red or near red, and record the output of each track back into protools.
Now, this is more useful for tracking full bands if you’ve got the tape. What I think you’re asking about though is just running a stereo tape machine for the master, which CAN give you some of that texture and quality, but dependent on the tape might have too much of that. Worth a shot if youve got access. The thing is, its not going to magically get rid of sample rate or bit depth but it can absolutely add a bit of vibe.
The most useful way of using a master tape in modern day, IMO, is to slow down your track by a tiny bit to give it a really dreamy vibe. Works extremely well with hip hop
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I bought a tascam 424 mkII from reverb on which I promptly got screwed over and then couldn’t return, so my couple hundred dollar attempt to find out an answer for myself has been in a state of repair for… a while. While I pretend it never happened.
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Interesting responses! I suppose at the end of the day, I’d like for my house tracks to have a similar quality to something like this: https://youtu.be/A1Nvjb6bsNs?si=-ungPhPct7CXI24x
And realize that the sound probably comes down to more than just what you master it on. But instead of sounding like Theo Parrish my music sounds like it’s made for the Mario Kart soundtrack on the Wii lol
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that grungy is-it-still-hi-hats-or-what loop is exactly the sort of thing I intended to use the four track for I guess.
like… maybe send out a loop and record it on low quality and then bounce it back and layer. I need to get this thing set up in fact, I’m going to make this the impetus!
Something like D16 Decimort might be as much use though tbh, and cheaper!
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Yeah is way more about the samples themselves, they sound like old records, and maaaaybe saturated a bit in a mixer or even made on a MPC 60 (12-bit). I don’t think a tape machine is necessary for this vibe at all.
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In a cost vs benefit situation probably the answer is a tape saturation plug in will sound the same to most people, but most people aren’t going to hear the music we produce. Sad reality. We will hear it with our own ears and know the difference because we have nothing better to do that hyper-evaluate and criticize the shit out of anything we do.
So, take out a loan, buy the tape machine. Spend money on maintenance, then upload to distribution sites and see if real tape gets any extra plays.
But beyond the financial loss and the delusions that it will change our own perception of how our music sounds, yes, I think real tape saturation can’t be beat. Not in a million years.
But it can probably be matched at a reasonable cost.
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You might check baby audio Taip too, ai based vst trained to replicate what tape saturation adds to a mix. So far I like it a lot.
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You should watch the loopop video of this savant SH-101 owner discerning the difference at a 100% hit ratio against a behringer ms-1 going at a very fast, nearly unregistrable pace of back and forth with the same singular note. Something like 20 in a row all correct.
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now we’re talking.
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we just were discussing this kinda thing in the cassette thread, i’ve been recording my tunes over old pre-recorded tapes and it 100% does impact the sound, specifically bringing down the harsh digital nature. i posted a comparison
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Try before you buy. There is a service online where you can bounce your files thru analog equipment. They have a Studer and Telefunken tape recorder too. https://mixanalog.com/products
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There’s so much stuff out there that emulates tape saturation I wouldn’t really consider a tape machine like s Studer unless you hit a certain threshold of treated room, $$$ coming in to justify it…and of course the time laying everything you want to tape in realtime (where the real cost is).
Working in the analog realm is very attractive until you end up on your 5th or 6th pass of an 8 minute track. It can be a time sink or a black hole in your productivity. I’m an analog maniac, I have saturation all over the place and I still want a pair of RND 5042 500-series modules to add even more lol, but working with real tape just seems like another layer of working on stuff that doesn’t end up in music at the end of the day.
Just some things to consider.
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Try this ToTape7 | Airwindows
I think this is the best tape emulation effect.
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I bought an old quality cassette deck with write option (Panasonic or Pioneer, dont remember the exact model) and tried to bounce one track to tape and back. The result was so subtle it did not worth it.
When I tried to crank the volume up, it resulted in nasty clipping, not far from digital truncation.
Because you know what, the late generation of cassette technology were actually a quality medium. All the mud, dirt etc were rather a result of bad copy machines and cheaper tapes… Imho, unless you know exactly which tapes and equipment to use, some analog mixer, saturation or summing box would give more advantage than a consumer-level tape and recorder
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You can fake it with ableton stock plugins
Obviously dial it in and make it as wonky or subtle as you like. Any kind of analogue saturation will add the ‘magic sparkle’
Personally I wouldnt bother with magnetic tape, for reasons give above. Not many people listen to my music, and tape is bloody expensive now. Not worth the minute difference it might make.
The Analogue processing stuff I do own does make a difference I can hear and I find pleasing. Thats all that matters to me.
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I’ve got a Tascam 424 iii I just use to route a Hydrasynth through. I have tried using it to ‘master’, it can be cool but can also create more problems than it solves.
I’ve satisfied my hardware replication mastering issue with the (setting save disabled but otherwise full fat) TDR SimuLathe Ref demo. You can actually watch your groove being cut as it would be on yr actual vinyl. My sound is being mapped onto an actual physical field! And there’s a lathe overhead cut-off that cuts the sound off when your sound transgresses the physics and you have screwed up your deep cut. Both analog-y and educational.
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