Question/Early 90's Electronic Music Production

[TechnicolorTR606]

This is something I've been wondering about lately as I am pretty ignorant on the recording techniques of this particular era. In my mind I tend to think of music technology with regards to production in two mutually exclusive eras. One era being when recording was mainly done with tube amps, analog mixing consoles and tape machines like the Studer A-800, and the modern DAW/VST era with digital mixers and little to no hardware. Now I know in current times it is never that black and white. But as I listen to albums like Autechre's 1993 Incunabula Warp Record's Artificial Intelligenceor Aphex Twin's 85-92 Selected Ambient Works etc. I find myself really intrigued by the methods of production during this time.

It's hard to think that computer technology during that era could have had anything more than a minimal to moderate impact on the overall production. At the same time I really don't think it was all reel to reel either. I know DATs were widely used during this time, but beyond that I really don't know much else.

I know my question is pretty vague and I don't need a long drawn out answer (unless your willing, in that case you will have my eternal gratitude) I would just like to know the basics of electronic music production during this time period.

Oh and please forgive my ignorance.

[Z]

I remember a similar topic being discussed here a year or so ago.

"Professional" recording back in the 90s was still multitrack reel to reel. The mid to late 90s brought us ADAT and DA-88. The only common computer recording back then was 2 track ProTools mastering and editing - but that was still very expensive.

Home studios were still cassette based. On most 4 or 8 tracks, you could stripe a sync tone to the last track that would sync to your MIDI system. That way you did not have to record any of your MIDI instruments to multitrack tape and mix the the remaining tape tracks live with your MIDI instruments. I was just explaining all this to my girlfriend yesterday when I dug up a bunch of my 90s recordings.

I'm happy to elaborate more if you want as this is really the only type of recording I am familiar with.

[nathanscribe]

I suppose it depends what kind of level we're talking about. I remember back at college, maybe '91 or '92, there was a little studio with a 16-channel mixer and a couple of Akai S950s, Atari for sequencing, and a reel and a DAT for recording. From what I remember the DAT was mostly taking a master from tape, whereas multi-channel tracking was done on the tape.

There were a lot of small project studios around then, and most towns had them tucked away in people's lofts/basements/garages. And I'm talking about somewhere you could take your mates and record an album, not just a bloke with a computer in his bedroom - proper mixer, multitrack tape, repro (cassette, and later CD) and a few instruments and a bit of outboard, maybe a couple of rooms and soundproofed - you'd hire a place for a day and get a couple of tracks done. Typically we had cassettes produced in those days, but I remember around the mid 90s when Soundscape started, and one place near me got first a 4-track unit and then another - 8 tracks of digital recording, with a dedicated PC to run it, was no mean thing back then for a small studio - several grand, that cost. Even back when these things started, I remember the first time I saw mastering to CD offered it was several hundred pounds for one. One! Not pressing, recording. That seems insane now, but it got rapidly cheaper.

So yeah, I'd say recording to multi-track tape (Ampex 456 and the like) was the norm for places like that, but at home you'd have a portastudio that took cassette and recorded 4 or 8 tracks. There were plenty of different models by Fostex, Tascam, Yamaha - and of course you could just use regular cheap cassette too, no expensive recording media to worry about... I took a different route and recorded live takes to stereo through a 12-channel mixer - I could sequence my own stuff and play some parts and mix live as it went. I'd do a few takes and keep the best.

Grab yourself some early 90s recording magazines from eBay, libraries, charity shops, friends - see what they contain. Interviews with bands back can be entertaining to read now, with the hindsight afforded by the advances in technology.

[TechnicolorTR606]

Seriously, thanks, Z and nathanscribe! I guess what you said makes sense. I guess I never thought of the early 90's as a reel to reel era. To be honest the way nathanscribe described it makes me wish I were my age now back then. It seems like there was a lot more collaboration and the sharing of musical ideas back then. The computer age really seems to have isolated the musician. Actually I kind of feel inspired up a Tascam MSR-24 if an when I have the cash. I'd really like to back away from the computer.

Thanks again!

[ninja6485]

I certainly wasn't part of the era as some members here are, but I've been more or less exploring this idea, especially in reference to sample based electronic stuff not too far from autechre, and definitely the first selected ambient works. I'm using one akai s5000, one s2000, and a Yamaha qx3 sequencer. What you do is record a riff or whatever into your sampler, usually under 30 seconds at the lowest bit rate so it fits on a floppy, and then assign it to a key just like you would a keyboard drum kit. Then if you want that to play for say 4 bars, record a sequence of 4 bars of the note you assigned the loop to. If you want to record something on top of that and its on say the s5000, you can play it back on the s5k while recording it on the s2k. Then move riff 2 via floppy or w/e to the s5k, assign it to a different note, and then repeat the way you would record to a computer based daw. When you're song is complete, you can tweak the mix in the sampler and record the stereo outs with a digital device, or use the individual outs with a mixer, if you for instance want to separate the base drum and use your mixer to tweak a few groups. Or you can use several samplers and adjust the fine elements of the mix in the sampler and the gross elements of the mix with the mixer.

If you have a drum machine like a TR, you can take some of the weight off of the samplers and sequencer by using its track function. I like recording mine though. When you want to play live, you just dial in the appropriate loop size for your loops and they're already mapped out across the keyboard so bring them in and out and trigger your one shots from one or two keyboards.

This is not unlike hiphop artists who record whole tracks on an mpc, and you could use an mpc more or less to the same effect, i.e. the famous mpc-60/ s950 combination. In that case, the pads replace our keyboard, and the mpc's sequencer replaces our qx3.

[nathanscribe]

Haha, yes, it's certainly a challenge working like that, without the benefit of endless Undo. Forces you to get things done though.

[meatballfulton]

By the early 90s digital recording was in full swing and big-budget pro recording was to digital open-reel multitracks, rather than analog. Some engineers continued to use analog multitracks locked to digital mutlitracks via SMPTE specifically for recording bass and drums where the compression artifacts of self-erasure was desirable. ADAT was popular mainly in low-budget studios.

A sad side note of the digital tape era is that many of the master tapes are now unplayable, with the machines that recorded them no longer available or the tapes themselves having deteriorated beyond what error correction algorithms can handle

[cornutt]

You actually missed a significant era in recording technology. Most studios got rid of their tube amps in the '60s, and the three-track Studers were mostly gone by 1970. Multitrack 1" and 2" ruled from about 1970 to 1990: the big logic-controlled MCI machines and so forth. Pretty much everything in this era was solid state; tube amps didn't make a comeback until people started using them as coloring devices in the '90s. There was also the Sony F1, a two-track digital tape machine which used VHS video tape; I think it was available around 1985.

[ninja6485]

Haha, yes, it's certainly a challenge working like that, without the benefit of endless Undo. Forces you to get things done though.

huh... I usually just change the value of the parameter in my sampler if I think something is too loud, or panned too far etc. Never really needed undo. if you don't like a sample just ditch it and replace it with a better one. In fact, the new sample will remain sequenced identically in your song where the old one used to be. If you mangle samples usually you back up your original if your smart about it, so in a way that's like an undo feature. Otherwise it's all edit-able until your final recording, just like in a daw until the mixdown. The biggest difference is actually the lack of visual representation with the qx3, especially for me since I got used to the visual layout from using cubase and a few other daws for the past 9 years. Its not all thay bad really: forces you to use your ears and do what sounds good rather than what looks good.

[fh991586]

I remember being puzzled by the first Utah Saints album in 1992, because there was a statement in the inlay card that no tape was used in the making of the album. I didn't understand what it meant for almost a decade!

[nathanscribe]

U-U-U-Utah Saints! I'd forgotten about them. Good grief.

[c-level]

utah saints hahah what about throwing this one in? how chime was recorded on orbital's dad's tape deck. and they were too cheap to shell out for a chrome cassette http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec06/a ... s_1206.htm

[micahjonhughes]

Most people I knew recording electronic stuff during this era went straight to DAT tape. There were good computer based midi sequencers, and what they could not do, you had to do live while recording.

[boreg]

Hope it's OK to link to another forum, because this thread is directly related to the OP's question and full of relevant info:
Questions for those who produced dance/trance in the late 90's....

[micahjonhughes]

There was a big difference between the early 90s and late 90s in terms of available gear. By the late 90s hard disk recording was affordable and by the early 2000s it was cheaper than tape.

Since you are into Autechre, you might want to read this 1997 interview.

http://autechre.net.ua/en/interviews/interview15.htm