Listening to the example track and it’s much more about how it’s produced than any silver bullet applied at the end. Sounds entirely sample based, sampled off old records. That means a mountain of analog equipment in the signal path; mic, preamps, eq, compression, console, tape machine with its own preamps and eq, back to console, more eq, more compression, mixed to tape, mastering, back to tape, cut to vinyl with its own eq and preamps again, played back through vinyl and sampled onto something with low quality (by today’s standards) converters and assembled on the sampler, which then is mixed and mastered again. The individual sounds have probably passed through 20+ transformers and each iteration of tape or vinyl has its own wow/flutter and saturation.
Tape IME is pretty subtle unless it’s a consumer grade device, and even then the later generations are really pretty good. To take modern clean samples and try to approximate that vibe will take a bunch of things doing very little. Subtle and iterative processing can get you there even with digital tools, just need to think about the signal path you are trying to replicate.
I wouldn’t call it mastering but I’ve commonly mixed down to tape. Still do though not as a rule (rules are dumb).
It’s probably a comfort/ familiarity thing more than anything else for me. I’ve had lots and lots of different recording setups over the years and most of them have had some limitations that either made a separate device for mix down necessary or at least preferable. Tape was the only option when I started out and it’s easy to work with so I gravitate toward it. It’s a nice medium.
What it will/ can do to your sound is dependent on a lot of factors. Your average quality deck isn’t likely to do anything extreme unless you modify it or are using prepared/ mangled tapes. The right compressor and some eq could probably whip up the “tape sound” that most people have in their heads.
I think @knobgoblin makes a great point about just how much treatment (and how many generations) those samples have gone through. We’re hearing the culmination of all of that. The tape is just one little component in a larger system and most tape machines/ decks were designed to be as hifi as their price point would allow.
I don’t think I would spend serious money on a tape machine for this purpose these days since there are good (enough) emulators but they can still be found for next to nothing at thrift shops and yard sales so why not?
In the past I printed to an Akai reel to reel (1/4") but in all honesty it sounded way too good for what I actually wanted as I was aiming for a more lofi mastered output. I sold the reel to reel and went back to my old Fostex 4track and that gives me more what I want.
Legowelt does this with his tracks too (I think he has a Tascam 4track) There is a video of him explaining his working process on youtube. Basically creating a decent mix (master) then record it live to tape and then back from tape to a single stereo mastered track in your daw. Time consuming but worth it. Videos of musicians making or talking through their music
I just recently acquired a Heat+fx so I am experimenting with how to make it sound bad in a good way.
I also use plugins - Reels by Audiothing and Cassette by Wavesfactory. Overall Reels can colour the sound a lot more depending on how you use it whereas Cassette can be a bit more transparent but both can make significant differences depending on what you want. The nice thing about these plugins is that you can automate shittiness and ironically make that boring digital sheen sound very alive again.
After mixing in Ableton, my band gets our songs professionally mastered to tape and then they are re-recorded back into a DAW. But we don’t master to tape ourselves. We use a recording studio out of Oakland, California. It does not cost very much if the tape is reused, and you have access to the finest tape machines, etc. And we love the results.
When I was in my early 20s I snagged a nice 80s Pioneer cassette deck from my dad and did a lot of cassette recordings with loop pedal, mic, guitars, phone app et cetera. I did my best to find the worst bias tapes to record over so they’d get stretched out and ruin the tracking / pitch. Some of those I played back through my laptop’s integrated audio card into Audacity and then uploaded directly to bandcamp where I can only assume they live on to this day. Regrettably.
Is that mastering? I say yes.
That was easy since the tape versions were extremely muffled in sound. So much that I would not want to listen to that. I think there’s something wrong with his machine.
There is tape and there is tape. High end 2 track recorders sound fantastic and most would be hard pressed to differentiate between a well recorded master tape and digital.
1/4” reel to reel and cassette are really what most mean when talking about tape audio quality. I think for me a well recorded cassette has a definite pleasing smoothness and organic nature due to the limited bandwidth, higher noise floor and machine dependent flaws if present/obvious, such as wow and flutter, head condition, pre amp character and so on.
Sometimes I use more than two tracks but for the most part I’m just using two of the eight on my machine. Obviously would sound “better” if I used a similar tape machine that had less tracks but there’s something about the way the Tascam 388 sounds. It handles DBX incredibly well, too
I also use tape plugins, but I always compensate for what they do with my frequency spectrum, so I put an EQ afterwards to bring the high-end up and the low-end down again. Because it already sounded like I wanted it to be, I just want that little extra …
I’ve been toying with the idea of some form of reel-to-reel but didn’t fancy spending loads and also the worry about maintenance which led me to looking into various hardwear saturation etc… I fancy a couple of these 500 series HRK ST522…
This in particular is really helpful, thanks. My set up is Ableton + synth plugins + Syntakt + a Push for playing / arranging in Session mode. Everything sounds crisp / clean / and yes, very digital. I don’t often (or really ever) use samples, don’t own records (used to, but it’s too expensive a habit—gave them all away), and so I probably need to make peace with the fact that the sound is never going to be very organic / raw / ‘analog’ given my ultra in-the-box digital station.
Snag some free airwindows plugins, they have a bunch that are great at emulating the subtle saturation that analog equipment imparts on a sound. Use a bunch that are each doing very little (A/B constantly and back it off if it’s too apparent). Apply across all tracks and apply to the master. Set up a macro in ableton to bypass everything with one button. It won’t seem like each process is doing much but the cumulative effect will probably be very noticeable
I have a Revox B77mk2 half track for mastering. The tapes were expensive, but in total cost me £800 after servicing. I record my masters directly to it and then sample them back at 24/96. The results are wonderful. The frequency response is huge from the Revox, but there’s this characterful compression and easiness about the sound that is hard to define.
I also have a Akai DS4000 which is also in great shape. It’s also got a fabulous sound and it was a quarter of the price.
