Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[electrical]

Fletcher wrote on Sun, 15 August 2004 11:48

I have also observed that the "Tape" knob on the HEDD-192 and Crane Song LTD. "Spider" add a similar vibe as 456 at 30ips on an MM-1200...

So, there's a knob, and it says "tape" on it. You put a sound through the device, and if you turn the knob, it sounds like it was recorded on tape. That's a stretch, but okay.

Since it is impossible to record a sound fractionally to tape, at what point on the knob does it sound like you recorded it on tape? And after that, does it sound like another generational copy, or "more" of the tape sound? If the latter, what is it doing more of? In what increments?

This is not a rhetorical question; I would really like to know what the devices do that is supposed to make it sound "like tape," and why don't they just have two positions, "not recorded to tape" and "recorded to tape."

I have heard some "tape simulation" devices and software (only briefly), and they just sound like compressors to me, occasionally with added distortion. Not necessarily useless, but certainly not what I would expect if I recorded something to tape. If I had a tape machine that sounded like a "Fatso," for example, I'd have it repaired.

[David Schober]

electrical wrote on Mon, 16 August 2004 22:41

If I had a tape machine that sounded like a "Fatso," for example, I'd have it repaired.

Thanks Steve for your comments.  I couldn't agree more. In the previous version of the forum I stated almost exactly what you said when the Crane Song discussion came up.  I tried the plugin.  I have the DUY emulators and you're right.  It's basic compression with a bit of flavored distorion added.  Can it help?  Sure.  It's worked for me at times.  But as I posted back when, "If I had a machine that sounded like these plugins, I'd have called the tech repair the damn thing."

Fact is, I can't help but be suspicious that some of these posters who talk all day long about the sound of analog in actuality, have NEVER WORKED ON EITHER.  Maybe they have a cheap tube mic or mic pre, but reality is the generation that grew up on analog is getting older, and smaller. Most musicians, engineers, and producers under 30 and maybe even 35 have never worked in the format.

In this forum I've read many references to older albums and their analog sound.  But when I carefully read the post I can't help but wonder if for many of them their only view of what "analog" sound, sounds like, came from listening a CD.  Somehow they think by listening to an older CD, they know what analog sounds like.  

One may mistake a rope for a snake, and run away from it.  But that doesn't make it a snake.  But, if you mistake a snake for a rope, you may get bit!  So it is with these plugins.  They can be helpful, thinking you are making a project that sounds like analog so one gets put on every channel will probably make a pretty crappy sounding album.   It won't sound like analog.  It will just sound small, overcompressed and distorted.  Come to think of it, there are plenty of analog albums that sounded that way too.

[ted nightshade]

Answer to your question Steve- what exactly about tape and tubes that the HEDD emulates well, is harmonic generation. That's far from reproducing the dent in the race car, as you put it. And I notice, harmonic generation is not on your otherwise apparently comprehensive list of "things tape does" other than simply reproduce what went in.

Harmonic generation is not at all the usual form of compression, although it does result in the peaks being not so far from the RMS. It's a very useful and very musical parameter to have some control over.

Also, it's impossible to say at exactly which HEDD setting any particular thing happens, as tiny adjustments much smaller than the 1-10 marked on each knob make a big differences. I've never used it to try to simulate any particular real life tape & machine combo- it certainly can't do 456 on my old Sony 854-4. But it gets pretty nostalgic in a general sense.

At one point Bob suggested the Triode, Pentode, and Tape knobs should be labelled Sugar, Pepper, and Salt instead. I do know I relabelled my Pentode knob as "shimmer".

In my own use, probably because most often I was using the HEDD process on a mixdown to digital from 456 on the 854-4, I used a goodly amount of Pentode, a little bit of Triode, and only occasionally a very small amount of Tape. When I really wanted to get a certain ragtimey track sounding really old-time vibey, I'd crank the Tape knob, despite having tracked to tape, which was a completely different sound.

FWIW, I found that 2 generations of analog tape was entirely too much for some of the stuff I was working on- for example, the tracking machine had no noticeable wow&flutter, and a triangle struck sustained beautifully and naturally. Percussion had a transient nature. On mixdown to analog tape, the mixdown machine had a more typical amount of wow&flutter and the triangle sounded a bit seasick, and things were just more compressed than I cared for in some cases. In others, the 2 generations of tape was a very choice compression indeed. All in all we preferred mixdown to digital most times, but really what we really liked was a mix right off the multitrack that hadn't been to digital or to tape...

[maarvold]

Quote:

I learned how to avoid fallacies... ...Digital sounds like shit...

Stee-rike One

(much too broad, didn't avoid fallacy, shit scale needs calibration)

Quote:

...because it's too linear...

Stee-rike Two

I know what you mean to say, but the way you say it is like saying "Blue only works for me when it comes out green".  

Quote:

A literal reproduction of a microphone stuck 2 inches from the source is a very unnatural sound.

When I saw Ella Fitzgerald perform live, I was so disappointed that I couldn't put my ear 2" from her mouth.  Maybe the question should be: "What is it about analog that allows me to put the microphone in an inherently unnatural place (from my ear's POV) and still like what comes out of the speakers?"  

Quote:

Analog tape has certain non-linearities which are musically useful...

Now here's a statement I can get behind.

Quote:

It's not an "effect" any more than a microphone is an "effect"...

But here's a statement I can't.  And if there were functionally perfect microphones (which, I'm guessing, would be highly linear), choosing one other than the functionally perfect one would be effecting the sound.  (And I am NOT implying that digital is functionally perfect).  

Quote:

...it's a physical system with certain properties. A digital recording inside a computer, on the other hand, has no physical reality...

So I could run over my computer with a steam roller and the recording will still be intact?  BTW, I think both systems are more electronic/electromagnetic, although they both have physical ramifications (like media, rotational speed, etc).  

Quote:

...and no properties other than what the plug-in designers give it.

So we can leave off the artists, composers, producers, engineers, etc.?  

Frankly, it always bothers me when people who like analog adopt a philosophical position that feels, to me, similar to Christians who say "God said it.  I believe it.  That settles it."  Why not believe in the power of your own perception and say, "I prefer analog" and leave it at that.  

[Bob Olhsson]

Pricey wrote on Tue, 17 August 2004 01:02

Digital sounds like shit because it's too linear.

My opinion is that digital only sounds bad when it isn't linear ENOUGH! Advertisements that lie is a lot of why people find digital products disappointing. They really want to believe that really cheap recording gear is just as good as the expensive gear that used to be called "professional."

[electrical]

ted nightshade wrote on Tue, 17 August 2004 11:25

Answer to your question Steve- what exactly about tape and tubes that the HEDD emulates well, is harmonic generation. That's far from reproducing the dent in the race car, as you put it. And I notice, harmonic generation is not on your otherwise apparently comprehensive list of "things tape does" other than simply reproduce what went in.

So, you mean harmonic distortion, right? That's how harmonics are "generated."

If you don't mean harmonic distortion, then by what magic means are these harmonics "generated?"

I did mention distortion, and I said small amounts of it were insignificant and large amounts were operator error. I used the word baboon.

[ted nightshade]

electrical wrote on Tue, 17 August 2004 11:29

ted nightshade wrote on Tue, 17 August 2004 11:25 Answer to your question Steve- what exactly about tape and tubes that the HEDD emulates well, is harmonic generation. That's far from reproducing the dent in the race car, as you put it. And I notice, harmonic generation is not on your otherwise apparently comprehensive list of "things tape does" other than simply reproduce what went in. So, you mean harmonic distortion, right? That's how harmonics are "generated." If you don't mean harmonic distortion, then by what magic means are these harmonics "generated?" I did mention distortion, and I said small amounts of it were insignificant and large amounts were operator error. I used the word baboon.

I remember the baboon part! I'll call it distortion if I can call EQ and compression distortion too. When it sounds more like the source than it does without the "distortion", I have a bit of trouble calling it "distortion". Technically I suppose it is.

I find the harmonic generation to be quite significant and one of the most desirable qualities of tape recording, even on the very cleanest tape recordings (the ones I like the most). When playback levels are well below performance levels, we need exaggerated harmonics to get the a taste of the color and presence and intimacy of the real thing, at a (distortedly) small scale. I will repeat, I find the harmonic generation to be extremely significant and very desireable in small quanitities.

As for the HEDD, a quote from a fellow recordist when the tape knob was being cranked to comic extremes, which was very entertaining on a certain oldtimey track: "That's the least distorted distortion I ever heard!"

I will note that your impatient and slightly hostile tone has remained quite consistent through all these posts- I'd love to correspond with you without it!

[bobkatz]

[quote title=Pricey wrote on Tue, 17 August 2004 16:24]

Bob Olhsson wrote on Tue, 17 August 2004 11:04

My opinion is that digital only sounds bad when it isn't linear ENOUGH!

Quote:

I disagree. I should have used clearer language. Digital is too linear, and too invariant, which makes it inadequate as an all-in-one solution. However, a DAW can be a useful complement to an analog system.

Pricey is very observant and very correct. Our very recording techniques have made analog tape a desirable medium. But first a word from our sponsor  

What goes around, comes around. Does anyone remember an essay I wrote on this topic MANY years ago? Something about "good digital and bad digital" and "good analog and bad analog".

In summary:
The point is that if you go with a system that is supposed to be linear, like digital audio, you had better use the very best example of digital audio that you can, superior converters and the like, or its residual distortion will get to you. It will bother you DESPITE the fact that the distortion of digital recording is orders of magnitude lower than that of analog tape. Why? Well, because whatever residual distortion the digital system has left can sound very bad.

What I think Bob Olhsson means by saying "digital sounding bad when it isn't linear enough" is referrring to that "bad digital", e.g., systems with poor converters with poor monotonicity, idle tones, improper dithering, crosstalk from clocks to the audio, perhaps with some jitter thrown in, untransparent sound, low sample rate or poor filtering at any rate, etc.   Anyone met up with a few converters or digital recorders of that ilk?

The point I made in that old article was that SUPERFICIALLY, digital audio is very linear, has flat frequency response, and all that. But how linear is it? In fact, it takes a lot of work to make digital audio VERY linear, with extremely low percentages of any of the above anomalies, or it will reveal itself to sound edgy, harsh, cold, OR just fuzzy and undefined and untransparent.

That's problem #1: Use good-digital; cheap converters don't cut the mustard.

Problem #2: Our mikes and our recording techniques are really not that great. Put a bright microphone in front of a trumpet and record to analog tape... the result is far more tolerable than with "accurate digital".

In an analog tape system, there are few such "edgy-making" mechanisms, and except for wow and flutter, our ears can tolerate and even LOVE the particular non-linear mechanisms that are there in the analog tape. Microphones which happen to be bright just sound prettier with the analog tape, whereas digital reveals their defects like a closeup on Mariah Carey's freckles.

Bottom line: The better the digital recorder you use, the less you will notice its defects, the more you will find its sound "analog like", even without the extra 3rd harmonic. Analog-like in the sense of "pure sound", as I am not referring here to the use of analog tape to soften and cover up other problems.

But alone, the "good" digital recorder may just sound too naked to you. For analog tape also helps to "gel" a mix... we often notice the analog tape playback sounding better than the recording! This is due to the tape's subtle compression and perhaps even printthrough, covering up the warts in the recording.

All of this, theoretically, CAN be simulated, and frankly, I find the major sonic purpose of the good simulators (like the HEDD), is to provide that subtle high frequency compression and 3rd harmonic that we like so well---not because that's accurate, but because it covers up a lot of evils.

Analog tape can make sound "wooly" or "muffled", by the way. But I'll take "wooly" or "muffled" over edgy any day of the week.

At this in my experience, I get great mixes on both formats, and I do not always "love the analog" version. Many mix engineers have lost the art of using the analog tape and when they do use it, they push it so hard that it sounds wooly and overcompressed. It's becoming harder and harder to find a mix engineer who can make a transparent, good-sounding analog tape.

[chrisj]

Heh- look away for a moment and there's 100000 posts...
Here's what I find (as a person who has spent some time trying to code these very things, with different degrees of success in different ways)
Harmonic generation- you'd better believe this is distortion. I like sticking to very much low-order harmonics and am NOT a fan of the even harmonic generation, more appreciative of say 3rd harmonic or so. What I've actually settled on is not 'harmonic generation' at all, so much as it is simply a transfer function with the softest knee possible. It is indeed the softest distortion you can get. It doesn't sound anything like 'tape' or 'analog' though- it sounds like the softest distortion you can get. I do things like split the input, slam one copy with this and parallel compress the other copy after hitting it with the inverse function. At 1/1 mix you get the original waveform back. As compression comes up, the detail takes on a wiry, energy-intensive quality without the thickening effect of usual parallel compression.
Other forms of distortion such as real tape, transformers etc- I have been finding that a main problem with digital is that it's too damn linear. By that I mean, it's easy to get a really unyielding sound, that feels fragmented, brittle, and inhuman. Rather than a sound you can bathe in it's a sound you could put an eye out with- and I think a lot of this is down to the handling of high frequency transients. Analog gear, analog desks, transformers will pass sines all day, but if you ask them to do -FS to +FS in one 44.1K sample- never mind for now that this is illegal data!- they can't possibly.
This is not at all the same thing as transfer function distortion. That is insensitive to frequency, but this HF transient stuff (I understand there's special limiters just to restrict it for LP mastering) is all about frequency.
DAW output is easily capable of producing information way beyond what's legal for CD output. Hell, there are some cases where you could bump the sampling rate of your master to 44.101K and SRC it down using really good SRC and wind up with major changes in the extreme highs (namely, you could stop it clipping the DAC by that alone)
Doing this, which is in its way a form of distortion unrelated to the transfer function stuff, and which relates a lot better to what 'analog does', is NOT THAT AUDIBLE. You have to absolutely butcher the input data by obliterating HF transients practically down into the midrange in order to make it obvious, in order to make it sound like distortion. It's hard to hear it when applied at levels more characteristic of any non-broken tape machine. And yet I like it better than the distortion generators and transfer function hacks- because it feels more like the vinyl records I loved when I was younger (still do!) and what I liked about them wasn't that they sounded distorted. They flowed, in a way that digital tends not to.
I try to get digital to flow now using these tricks that came naturally to analog- not because it is more high accuracy, but because it errs in ways that sound really flattering, or really natural, or really human. I always liked the sound better when there was some depth, some distance, some space. When it feels like everything's half an inch from my eardrum I get claustrophobic. Digital stuff can sound like the space between the instruments is half an inch from my eardrum. Anything I can do to avoid that is okay by me- I'm getting better at doing it in a way that DOESN'T sound distorted, because distorted was never what analog brought to the table. At least- not exactly.

[Bob Olhsson]

Pricey wrote on Tue, 17 August 2004 15:24

Just for fun, I stuck a mono mic in the middle of the room and let them play, and it sounded BETTER than the multi-track stuff I was doing... Maybe I'm just playing devil's advocate  , but I think Steve has an interesting perspective.

Many of us have had the same experience. I used to be depressed about the piano sound I got at Motown. Then one day Valerie Simpson showed somebody her idea for a guitar part on the piano. The piano sound of my dreams leaped out of the monitors!

I think so little of juicy, rich, captivating audio is about analog vs. digital that it's utter insanity to emulate tape. Sure something subtle like the HEDD is a nice touch, much like Vaseline on a lens, but so often these days the messenger is being blamed for the musical messages we don't like the sound of.

People are trying to fix bad headphone mixes using compression and auto-tune instead of learning to do great headphone mixes or learning how to set up musicians so they don't need headphones at all. I'm not much for "retro" for retro's sake but more emphasis on "retro" procedures than "retro" gear could improve a lot of today's music recordings.

[chrisj]

Funny, I was just thinking about the lens analogy, Bob, and hadn't got round to mentioning it...
If you shoot digital video (including crappy camcorder stuff) there's a quality that comes through where it can be very clear and sharp, but ugly. There's a contrasty quality that's unflattering.
There are filters you can get that do various types of diffusion- akin to vaseline on a lens- which addresses this. In doing that, the filters are adding distortion. They are taking light from one area of the image, or from the ambient light of the whole area, and applying it to shadow so that the detail comes up a bit, softening the contrast. I made some filters this way by scuffing polaroid filters with sandpaper. They work.
ALSO akin to the 'tape emulation' meme, when I started doing this I immediately went and produced extreme effects. Do that and the camcorder can't even focus and spazzes out uncertainly on you. I did what I thought was a very subtle version, and it turned out to be a notch or so too intense once I understood what to look for. Eventually I'll get around to doing a still more subtle version. The unsubtle version is thankfully still subdued enough to be workable, but it's over-romantic.
I think there's another similarity- once I get the correct 'distortion' to deal with the ugly-DV-camcorder quality, it will become part of the 'system' and not a special effect- and the unadulterated 'system's unflattering contrastiness, that will be the 'special effect'. Sometimes the most undistorted approach is NOT the most affecting, pleasing, or natural approach. Cameras don't see like an eye. Mics don't hear like an ear. Sometimes what we do is about stripping away the 'system' to let people focus on what's being shown. That has nothing, nothing to do with providing the most undistorted DATA transmission. If you can get more soul out of it by tweaking the data of it, I call that the more accurate depiction. Does it document a musical event better if you keep getting distracted by the clear and unmistakable sound of the back wall reflection, ooh how accurate? If you were in the room would you be getting distracted by that?

[Alécio Costa - Brazil]

hey, what about analog channel 1 and 2 -LOL
is this a sin?hehee
BTW.. I am 34, so you ge the idea

[maarvold]

Quote:

I always liked the sound better when there was some depth, some distance, some space

I have always felt that analog makes the music take a step back, away from the listener--a location that seems more comfortable to many.  

Quote:

Sometimes the most undistorted approach is NOT the most affecting, pleasing, or natural approach.

This is a concept I wrestle with almost daily.  Particularly the "natural" part.  It seems, logically, like removing signal path artifacts that occur between the source and the speaker would lead to "natural", yet sometimes lately it seems to lead to 'just lays there'

Quote:

Sometimes what we do is about stripping away the 'system' to let people focus on what's being shown. That has nothing, nothing to do with providing the most undistorted DATA transmission.

Interesting food for thought.

Quote:

If you can get more soul out of it by tweaking the data of it, I call that the more accurate depiction. Does it document a musical event better if you keep getting distracted by the clear and unmistakable sound of the back wall reflection, ooh how accurate? If you were in the room would you be getting distracted by that?

Maybe I'm starting to redefine my role as engineer, moving from engineer-as-documentarian toward engineer-as-conduit-of-artists' emotions.  Interesting and insightful observations, Chris.  

[ted nightshade]

Interesting stuff folks...

I'm finally getting digital recordings I really like, and the SLAM! is a big part of that, but it's been a long time since I've close mic'ed anything, and I'm trying to make the transition from 1 mic to 2. It's just amazing how that air between the mic and the instruments and voice has left me unconcerned about little squeaks from the drums, ticks in the leslie, etc- all that stuff that was up front and naked and unignorable is coming out nearly as insignificant as it seems in the room live. I'm not nearly as neurotic about little things, and that can even include a whole bum note you couldn't possibly ignore if it were all close mic'ed. And dynamics are mellowed out in a nice way- I can get away with far greater dynamic fluctuations with the vox and everything else.

Can't really say if I would be as pleased with this digital SLAM! style if I was close mic'ing everything.

[bobkatz]

wrote....

Quote:

I've always thought that film looks more "real." It has more depth, and it responds to light the way my eye does. It gives me the feeling of looking through a window into another place. It even works with film that is transferred to video or DVD. I have no idea what the technical explanation for this is, although it could be the 24 f/s shutter speed as opposed to video's 60 f/s shutter speed.

35 mm Film looks more real because it has FAR more resolution than typical video. In Hollywood, when they have to do digital processing, they have to use a special version of hi-def that has far more "pixels" per inch than typical video and a very high contrast ratio, equivalent to 35 mm film. That's the reason, much more than the frames per second. I used to have the numbers, of the resolution of film versus NTSC video, it is an enormous difference.

Film is to 96 kHz/24 bit as NTSC video is to 44.1 kHz/maybe 8 bit.

(A very rough analogy)

BK