Vintage: A Worthwhile Investment?
Once upon a time the 1/4″ two-track tape machine was THE STANDARD mixdown media. And among the top machines in the business was the Otari 5050 BII. This machine had a three head design and its internal processor which controlled tape handling, braking and motion sensing was a novel idea in 1987.
I recently had the opportunity to test drive one of these babies. Now I am considering purchasing one for my studio.
But I am unsure about this purchase. I am doing mostly music pre-production, orchestration and mixing in my studio and I am wondering if there is a real need for this vintage device. Yesterday I met Joe Pedulla at Stadium Red Studios and he demoed a Otari MKIII-2 for me. And I was surprised at how unfamiliar I’ve become with tape machines. Its been at least 7 years or so since I’ve recorded to an actual analog tape machine.
We listened to a mix through the line inputs after some fiddling. I checked the pots, the pinch rollers and the chassis to make sure there were no dents or dings. Then we took a look at the mic pres, there was no phantom power but there was a -20dB pad (attenuator). And then we listened to the heads which was what I was interested in. We taped maybe 20 seconds of a mix and played it back. The sound of the drums was completely different. All the pristine but brittle shimmer of the highs was gone. But the kick and snare were fat and spread out over the mix. It was easily noticeable even in that short period of time. I was impressed with the drums and I thought, ‘this could be what I am looking for.’ But I was not thrilled with the maintenance that I anticipated experiencing as I began to recall my experience with tape machines. This soon turned to dread after I began mentally making A/B comparisons.
In the digital age, most things are DAW oriented so there hasn’t really been an overwhelming need for the tape machine, at least for me. However, in a discussion with mastering engineer Bob Katz I became aware of some elements of recording that can add layers of depth and presence to a mix, elements that I had no need of until now.
Lately, I’ve been looking for ways to add depth and presence to specific musical elements in a mix. Whether its add harmonics to droning pads or layering room acoustics on drums I am hearing things that I cannot seem to find in the digital domain nor am I able to recreate them in my recording studio. And this would be some what of an experiment so I cannot justify playing around with this on the clock of a professional recording studio.
One of the reasons I am looking to purchase a 1/4″ tape machine is because of something mentioned in Bob Katz’s book, Mastering Audio. In chapter 5 “Decibels: Not For Dummies”, Bob writes,
“If we make an analog tape recording and digital recording of the same music, and then dub the analog recording to digital, peaking at the same peak level as the digital recording, the analog dub will have about 6dB more intrinsic loudness than the all-digital recording.” (B. Katz)
The reason for this is because the peak-to-average ratio of an analog tape recording is much lower than an uncompressed digital recording. Analog tape machines have built-in compressors which make this possible. And this fact in addition to the different tonal qualities makes me want to try it out.
However, if anyone read Larry Crane’s rant in the TapeOp #69, you already know what I am going to say next. Is it a worthwhile investment? Buying vintage gear is very tricky. Not to mention novelty vintage gear. It is one thing to buy Neve Melbourne with the expectancy to shell out cash for maintenance. Its something else entirely to talk about buying a vintage two-track tape machine for mixdowns.
Therefore, I remain undecided, for now.
Except for the obvious, eg. you have to or want to deliver a vintage sounding project, I wouldn’t want to bother with the maintenance anymore. We actually jumped onto DAT in 1990 and for multitracking onto the first ADAT generation a year later. The main reason was that the heads and a few other moving parts of our Tascam reel-to-reel machines were basically knackered. Proper repair would have cost almost as much as starting over from scratch with digital.
In the beginning we often missed this delicious analogue ’smear’ in the higher end of the spectrum but we somehow got over it… I know that these machines can add a signature but in retrospect, now in 2009, there’s not much left that couldn’t be done one way or another without those dreaded mechanical parts. When we need analogue warmth we insert our SSL alpha channel or borrow some vintage compressor or eq. It’s probably no real comparison to the Otari but I reckon the benefits are marginal.
It certainly looks good to have a 1/4″ sitting in a corner in the studio waiting for some musicians/producers to drool over but realistically…
I don’t know man. I reckon if you can afford it and you like those museum pieces, go for it. who knows, one day its value might even go up.
Hi R2B, how are you? Thanks for the comment. It is a big gamble isn’t it. This is what Bob Katz had to say of my little situation,
Needless to say. I won’t be buying an MX5050.
Take care,
-Hakim
Its less about built-in compressors on the tape machines themselves, but what happens to the audio signal with tape saturation.
I came across this post via the Bob Katz quote. I think that book is genius and just did a review of it on my blog:
http://chordhound.com/2009/02/10/essential-reading-bob-katz-mastering-audio/
Hi chordhound,
Actually, when mixing you may notice that the source media combined with the electronics of the device itself is what achieves the audio effect of, “tape saturation”, which is why you find Otari more transparent than perhaps a Studer for example.
Otherwise “tape saturation” would be a static fixture to analog tape recording. But this just isn’t true various tape machines cause different levels of saturation. And the internal compressors of the machines have a hand-in that result. (see page 73 for Bob Katz’s explanation on this)
-Hakim
How about URS saturation plugin? It’s suppose to add harmonics. If you use protools HD, I know cranesong has a plugin that models tape saturation. I use the cranesong HEDD when I need to add harmonics/tape sat. Surprisingly , the HEDD actually clips off the peaks of the audio just like tape. COOL I think. As I’m a logic studio user, I find it’s very slow and time consuming to run things out and back into the DAW. Much prefer a plugin for speed, unfortunately I’m still undecided about purchasing the URS sat, as I don’t think it would match the quality of my HEDD. Nevertheless, added tape saturation and harmonics aren’t prerequisite for a great recordings anyway. It’s more about following long established traditions.
Josef Horhay
Acoostic Zoo – recording studios Brisbane
http://www.acoostizoo.com