Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

For the AMATEURS among us:
As someone who strictly makes FUN home recordings NOT for public consumption, all I can say is that I USED to be an analog person.

For a number of years I used my Fostex 8-channel deck and suffered through the bleeding, the slow progress due to retakes etc etc. Its not like I was unaware of recording software, but I considered it "cheating" and so decided to stay "real".

Now that I'm all set up with Sonar, I realize how silly I was being. Sonar allows me to do things that I never even dreamed of while being an analog person. And now that the digital recording world has opened up to me I find it to be so much MORE FUN, and so much more PRODUCTIVE.

Now if I could just purchase some TALENT from my local software store I'd be happy as a clam.

I have some talent for sale.

ok,
I'll take 2 pounds of Beatles, a bag of Orbison, and a thick slice of Clapton.

On the other hand I think the real art is to properly eq your digital recordings so they sound somewhat like analog, like tubes even.

I am finding that one of these or something like it is essential to warm up your vocal and some instruments too:

This is a tube pre-amp. This particular one from Presonus is only about $99, but gives excellent analog-style warmth to your initial digital signal.

http://remixmag.com/recording_hardware/ ... s_tubepre/

Professional analog machines are incredible sounding when they are properly maintained. Consider recordings made by people who have had very long careers, spanning, say, the 1970s to today. Their older (analog) records almost always sound bigger and more pleasing than their new ones. I use top-quality analog and digital recorders in my studio and, you know, it's all good, but on a pure sound level, the playback off the tape machine is The Sound. However, very good analog to digital converters can capture the tape machine playback pretty well. So the bogus-sounding practice of tracking to tape first is actually worth doing for most rock music. But I'm talking about big time, expensive, expensive-to-maintain machines. Semi-pro formats like 1/2" 8 track are cool but are definitely lower-fi although possibly the perfect format for punk rock!
Mitch Easter

I totally agree! I was raised on Ampexes, 300, 350, 440A,B,C ATR-100, all great machines. It didn't hurt that we also used Dolby A.

I actually have been looking for some information on this topic. Long nights in our drummer's garage with a Tascam 4-track while in high school is pretty much the extent of my recording experience. I have since put together a pretty decent live PA rig and a decent collection of microphones. I am mixing through a Mackie Onyx 24-4, have 16 channels of noise gate/compression, several EQ's, A Lexicon MX200 F/X processor, and mics including 7 SM-57's, 9 SM-58's, a pair of AKG C 460 B's, AKG C3000B, Sennheiser MD-421, and others. My question is this. I have a pretty decent setup for live music. A lot of this stuff could translate easily into a recording setup. I was thinking about getting an Alesis HD24 and recording with my Mackie since it has direct outs for every channel. My question becomes one of mixing at this point. I am a bit leery of going computer-based. I don't want to have to keep replacing a $4,000-$5,000 computer every few years because it's gone obsolete. The Onyx allows 24 direct outs for recording, but I'd either have to repatch everything to mix down on that desk, or use an ethernet connection to dump it all to a computer to mix there (which I want to avoid). The other think I was thinking about is getting a second-hand board like a Mackie 24-8 Bus and using that to track and mix at home. I can still take the HD24 on the road with me to gigs and bring it home and re-patch into the 24-8 and mix there. I like the feel of knobs and faders under my fingers rather than dealing with interfaces and computer keyboards when recording. Does this make sense, or am I going the long way around the block and screwing things up? I am really not sure who to go to for this info.

BTW, that PreSonus TubePre is great on acoustic guitars live. Just put a good 12AX7 in it.

Hi Mitch Easter,

Good to see you still visit! Knowing a little about what you have available recordingwise, I thought you might be interested in this interview with Pete Townshend:

http://www.eqmag.com/article/tracking-t ... g-07/32549

Pete has been VERY astute about all the equipment changes in the past 50 years...he is savvy to the state of the art to this day. Given all that, he backs up what you just said, but with a twist. He tracks to tape, transfers to digital, then brings it back to tape. Check it out...very interesting read.

Cheers,

Mark

Hi Mark-
That's a good article! You rarely read anything that specific with actual rock stars! I will say that when I can stay all-tape, I do. I did an interesting record a few months ago with a band called The Birds of Avalon using two pro 4tk machines, in true 1960s fashion. This was lots of fun and really did sound pretty cool in the end. It was certainly a more demanding way to work in some ways, but it was also liberating. We used a mid-60s 3M M23 1/2" 4tk (the 8 track version is what Townshend had in his home studio for years- it can be seen inside the Thunderclap Newman record sleeve and in the Who's Next classic albums DVD) and a more recent Studer A80VU, and mixed to analog tape, too. I mix everything to tape no matter what the multitrack is. It can't hurt, and I think it sometimes helps! Seems like mastering engineers like to get tapes, too.
Mitch Easter

I'd really love to get my late 70's MCI JH16 24 track 2 inch overhauled and in operation....I haven't had time to work on it since I got it a couple years back. So in the meantime I use a good computer with live mics and a Mackie mixer and a MOTU 2408 Mk3 soundcard. It works well enough for ideas and demos and sounds quite good etc., but there is nothing like tape.

Greg

Mitch is still "riding faders" like an old cowboy.

Ooo, a hook...Analog Cowboy...naaah.