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4-Track help


Guest Electric Tibet

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Well for starters' date=' what Electric Tibet is suggesting is not very clever. If he wants the "feel" of analogue tape, the sensible way to do it would be to record with his digital 4-track and then dump it to tape, so at least that way the original hi quality recording still exists.

[/quote']

Not if he wants different levels of compression/saturation on the different mics.

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Guest Stripey
Not if he wants different levels of compression/saturation on the different mics.

Well he said hes got a multi-in soundcard so he could still record each mic seperately in the first place :p

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Well he said hes got a multi-in soundcard so he could still record each mic seperately in the first place :p

If he's got 4 MIC ins then he could and this would give him more control of the mics before sending it to the four track (better EQ, normal compresion, gating e.g.). If he doesn't then it's the only way.

Wether he does or he doesn't though, the bottom line is that he's done this before and knows he can get the sound he wants this way.

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Guest Electric Tibet
I'd be interesting in finding out more about recording effects via 4 tracks. Any sites I can look at? Tips to be posted? Quality wise' date=' the lower the better I say.[/quote']

I want to experiment more with tape saturation. In the past I've found a way to get it to distort in a less farty way by boosting the high frequencies and cutting the low frequencies when recording, then compensating (doing the opposite) on playback.

I've also found that different tapes seem to have different properties. Some compress loads before they break up and some just go straight to distortion. I've never done a proper comparison between different types so I can't remember which work best. Back in the day when I used to use cassette, I always just bought the cheapest!

Oh and thanks for the PM ghost, I may be getting in touch soon :music:

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I want to experiment more with tape saturation. In the past I've found a way to get it to distort in a less farty way by boosting the high frequencies and cutting the low frequencies when recording' date=' then compensating (doing the opposite) on playback.

I've also found that different tapes seem to have different properties. Some compress loads before they break up and some just go straight to distortion. I've never done a proper comparison between different types so I can't remember which work best. Back in the day when I used to use cassette, I always just bought the cheapest!

Oh and thanks for the PM ghost, I may be getting in touch soon :music:[/quote']

You've stumbled across a 'poor mans side-chain' there. What you're doing is removing the high-energy bottom end to get a more even compression, then boosting the lows after. A compressor with a sidechain with the EQ upside down to that (boosted bottom, cut top)would do roughly the same thing but without altering the EQ on the original sound (except that caused by compression) . Multi-band compressors should do the trick too.

If you do have 4 mic ins it might be worth your while recording it , tweaking the compressor/sidechain/multiband then running it through the four track, you'll have much more control over it. I don't know if that would work in exactly the way you want it to but if it's possible it's worth a try.

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Guest lime ruined my life

gaaaaas!

i noticed blackwells has a new music technology section. if anyones intrested they had quite a lot of intresting stuff, but then again you can get all that info online anyway.

gas.

...more to come.....

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Guest Stripey
Go on...

Nahhh no point. I'd rather not be at odds with you, it's daft. Just please realise that I do actually know quite a bit about sound engineering, even though I'm not a highly proficient musician.

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Guest lime ruined my life

boards of canada interview

What are your favorite instruments?

Sandison: I have a lovely new Taylor Big Baby steel-string guitar. It didn't cost much' date=' but it has a really great crystal sound with long sustain. And it's unvarnished, so it still smells like the workshop, like sawdust in the woodwork classroom. Our electronic gear is a mixture of old and newer stuff. We like early-'80s analog synths quite a bit, and we have some other things from that era that we're a bit protective of. We don't use any of the recent analog-modeling kit. I'm convinced I can hear the difference between modeled and real analog in music. We drop a lot of our music down onto a Tascam 4-track that has a great saturating effect on the sound. We have five or six samplers, but my favorite by far is still the Akai S1000. It's an old tank now, and the screen has faded so that I almost can't read it, but I know it inside out. It's the most spontaneous thing for making up little tunes. It adds something to the sound - maybe the lower bit depth has something to do with that.

But most of our sound is achieved through a bunch of tricks we've taught ourselves. We've been experimenting for years. One of our techniques is to use a lot of hi-fi gear and outboard stuff. We have a brilliant old Rotel hi-fi that we run sounds through to get the feel we want, and we use various Drawmer compressors and filters to give sounds a specific time and place. Sometimes we get a bit carried away with the science of it, like even specifying what year we're imitating by the type of filtering used on the drums or the synth parts. It's a bit of a joke between us to aim at a specific sound, like the subtle difference between the graininess on a synth in a PBS jingle and a bit of incidental music from a British public information film from the same year."

[/quote']

boards of canada use that same technique with tape saturation. its interesting i was going to buy an old rotel amp and use it for something like that. gaaaaaaaaaaas!

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Guest Stripey

Well it's really fascinating to know that a band use tape saturation as an effect. Better call Reuters and make sure it hits the world press ASAP.

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Guest Stripey
if its that obvious that it doesnt need to be pointed out to you why were you

moaning about it before?

gas!

What I was "moaning" about is that if you have a digital recording system, and want to use the 4-track as an effect, it makes more sense to record digitally first, then feed it back to the tape., incase you change your mind about the effect, or want to change the character of the saturation or whatever. Surely this is a more flexible approach which makes for easier experimentation and less re-recording?

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Guest Electric Tibet

you didn't seem to know anything about tape saturation at the beginning of this thread.

My digital 4-track cant record onto 4 tracks simultaneously and I want to try and mic up more of the kit, leaving me more options on mixdown as well as getting the saturated sound. Also for this demo recording, I would rather take a JFDI approach than sit infront of Wavelab for hours trying to give a clinical sound character.

I want this thread to die.

X-( X-( X-( X-(

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another alternative is to get something like this: http://www.dv247.com/invt/4605 for 179 quid inc vat' date=' or the cut down version which is just the same but lacks S/PDIF [url']http://www.dv247.com/invt/4604 for 139 quid inc vat.

@four balanced or unbalanced, +4dB or -10dB signal level analogue inputs and outputs@

Then you'd just need a copy of something like Logic and a PC to stick the card into, and hey presto, 4-track digital harddisc recorder with full vst fx support.

ummm...you missed out having to find a mixer or pre amps to power the inputs.

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