Reel to reel with A77 workflow?

The Lounge Other Gear
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Hey guys !

I have an old A77, 7.5 unfortunately but it is in really good condition. It’s from my father and has been sitting in my studio, gathering dust for years now.
As my music has been evolving for quite some time I’m now at a point where trying new techniques and sounds starts to make sense.
I think I could give this baby a try.

I now it’s not the model with the highest reputation but i’ll go with what I have instead on lusting for some new shiny toys.

How would you imagine the workflow with this ?

I thought about different things.

  • Applying straight by recording synth lines and drums.
  • Making loops out of reels ( will need a bit of practice first )
  • Using on master enventually but it could be hard to be subtle here as I don’t thing I’ll be able to make a sort of dry/wet balance because of tape eventual speed variations ?

Is there any things I should be aware of regarding gain staging, record process etc ?

I/O records at my disposal are a ssl2+ and a tascam model12.

Any advice or idea would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot !

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Thanks Scot ! Unfortunately things will take more time than I expected as I have absolutely no sound coming out of the a77. Will need to investigate. And find a tech in the desert where I live…

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My main use cases have been:

  1. Tape Delay (manual reel interference = wow/speed= cool!)
  2. 2x mono track recorder for jams with 303 and 606. (call it re-enactment, if you want)

(3.) I did try saturating various sources but decided it wasn’t quite worth the hassle just to do it “in reel life” (pun intended), if you can do it with a decent emulation plugin. The A77 does sound quite charming and “tapey”, if you make the effort.

Good luck with getting it fixed!