In article ,
RJH wrote:
On 29/04/2014 09:46, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 29/04/14 08:04, RJH wrote:
On 28/04/2014 14:19, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
snip

Tape was truly AWFUL.

CD MUCH better.


Pre-digital (1980ish?) audio recordings were all 'awful'?


I didn't say that.
I said tape was awful.


I'm afraid i don't follow. Pre-digital recordings of, say, the 60s and
70s were done on tape.

IF you had a wide enough tape running fast enough and you calibrated the
kit on a regular basis and re spooled the tape every few months to avoid
ghosting and' it COULD, with a sacrifice of a virgin and a goat at
midnight, give a passable imitation of 'a recording device'.


*Much* better than passable, I'd say. Even something by, say, Elliott
Smith (who used a portable 4 track) sounds stunning. At least to my ear,
and certainly not 'awful'


Unless you added Dolby, in which case you needed three virgins and a
prayer to St. Bridget as well.

Can't say I agree.


Well since you were disagreeing with a straw man you yourself set up.
that's not surprising.

Did the BBC achieve miracles of recording with tape? Yes they did. They
had engineers who understood it.

Is the average analogue recording from a rock band so bad as to be in
places unusable? yes.

I remember standing behind a desk and saying to te 'sound engineer;''
'er the hi hats are totally overloading' and of course I could hear
that... because hi hats are sharp transient high frequencies which
tape does NOT like. 'No they aint' he said pointing at the VU meters
just tipping into the red...

I thought about telling him about short high frequency transients, high
frequency tape pre-emphasis, and the sort of averaging a VU meter does,
its needle inertia the like. Then I looked at him, thought better of it
and nodded' and left.


I think you're referring to *using* tape, and not tape per se. In the
hands of decent engineers, I'd defy a good number of listeners to able
to distinguish between tape and digital.

I remember being asked to set up a Nakamichi cassette recorder to give
the 'best possible' sound. Widely hailed as the best cassette recorder
ever made. I was completely unable to get a flat response beyond
2.5khz, and it was largely dead at 8khz, about -4dB more on on track
than the other irrespective.

I tried it on a variety of cassette brands and technologies. Each one
had a completely different frequency response and gain. Enough to make
using Dolby a complete joke.

IN the end I decided not to look at the meters and just got as much
treble as I could without being edgy, and made sure it gave an adequate
response to its owners favourite recordings. "Isn't it a piece of kit?"
he enthused.."Yes, it certainly is," I agreed and left hurriedly.

The Russ Andrews syndrome* we call it today I think.


Not really, you're talking about cassette tape, rather than pro
machines. I did have a semi-pro Revox a while back. I couldn't reliably
distinguish between a recordings and original CDs. I'm not saying that
'test' is the last word in scientific rigour - simply that tape is far
from 'awful'.

some years ago, I was running sound on production of a Noël Coward play. I
called for a member of cast to play the piano. Unfortunately, the actor
involved could not do more than pick a tune with one finger, so I made a
recording - on tape - at a friend's house (she had a Steinway). Most of
the audience thought the music was really coming form the concert grand
they saw on stage. Mind you, if I'd used the cassette the director gave
me, I don't think anyone would have been fooled.

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