Analog Tape Sessions
Yes, we can record your music completely analog, and we still do. -by Larry Crane
I’ve spent a lot of time lately messing with tape decks at Jackpot! Recording Studio. Last week’s post discussed the Odelet dub mixing process. A few months back, I told the story of tracking a Gouge Away song to tape (see below). I’ve even had some successful tape transfer sessions, some of artists so famous I cannot even say who it was! The day you read this post I’ll be tracking a young band live off the floor completely to 24-track, 2-inch tape and staying on tape – no Pro Tools except to back up the tapes and 1/4-inch analog mixes when we finish. I’ll have to get used to punching in and out on overdubs, physically editing tape, making manual mix moves, and all the skills I back-burnered in this digital age.
I even purchased a spare headstack assembly for our Otari MTR-10 1/4-inch deck, and swapped out the repro head – the first time I’ve done that myself. I did have to call in Mike Everhart to align the heads properly as that’s still something I’m not skilled at.
This week, we’ll be taking full advantage of our Rupert Neve Designs RND 5088 console. It’s pretty hard to track to tape without a mixer to listen to it on! Plus we’ll need to route instruments to our headphone mixing system. I did once have a studio I was working at force me to monitor an analog tracking session through Pro Tools because they couldn’t help me figure out how to set up the console in a “split” way. That sucked. This place was selling itself as an analog-based studio as well! I can assure you that is not the case here, as we can go full analog like we did when Jackpot! opened in 1997.
So, please keep in mind that we offer full analog recording if you want it. Book some time! Of course, we can always work in many hybrid modes, and we’ll talk about that next week!
Here’s the Gouge Away song I produced, tracked, and mixed below, with a spiffy video to boot! Adjust your speakers as needed!
Below is what it looks like when 2500 feet of tape has to be dumped off a reel and thrown away because it is shedding and falling apart!
