Reel to Reel tape recording as an effect

[redroomrecordings]

bouncing to tape has always intrigued me too... autechre do it apparently, and it's not surprising, given how much digital high end they must produce. seems like a cheap and easy way to smooth out digital recordings.

something no one mentioned but is super cheap-you can record to VHS tapes through a VCR... it won't sound great, but it might work well for individual tracks that you want to muddy up a bit. I guess you could do whole tracks too for a certain lo-fi sound. some people swear by it.

Just as a general comment, that was a very entertaining video... it's interesting to see such high end mastering on techno material. It's nice he bothered giving the full run-down on each piece of equipment too. the only thing that's kind of odd is that he's got an amazing mixing setup, and a relatively weak slew of synths... the juno would certainly not be one synth I would want to "rediscover" on the premise of finding the programmer alone! (where is mine anyways?) anyways, more power to him...

i loved that video.

as for the synths, i think he mentioned in the video that it is just his "mastering" studio. since it is almost all compressors at the desk i assume he has a separate space for actual production and just keeps a few synths in the mastering studio for certain things.

[meatballfulton]

Here's an example of a tape bounce. The recorder was a 1970s Sony TC388-4 open reel machine, Maxell UD tape at 7.5 ips. Sorry for the sucky tune

Original digital mix

Tape bounce (no EQ or processing added)

[synth3tik]

I used to track my drums through and old Teac 1/4 inch 4 track reel to get a nice tape delay effect. I have since given the reel to reel to a friend as payment for a favor, but still do a somewhat reasonable job at emulating this with delay plug ins.

My reel's motors were not the best and there was some small bits of noticeable variation in the speed of the tape. That is what I am having a hard time emulating. It seems it always the hardest to emulate what analog equipment was not supposed to do but did.

[Sir Ruff]

Here's an example of a tape bounce. The recorder was a 1970s Sony TC388-4 open reel machine, Maxell UD tape at 7.5 ips. Sorry for the sucky tune

Original digital mix

Tape bounce (no EQ or processing added)

that's interesting... I've never heard a direct A/B comparison. The tape really done sort of tone down/soften everything. I can't say it necessarily sounded better exactly-you definitely lose some of the higher end fidelity. The bass is really rounded out tho and brought forward. I guess like many things it depends on the equipment and how you use it. thanks for posting!