Mastering To Tape

Foo · June 24, 2009, 11:25am

I thought I would start a little thread to dedicate to this subject and see if anyone else is doing it. I recently posted about this on my blog http://m.thequietrevolution.net/mmd/2009/0…machine-sorted/ Quote:

However, it’s apt to share with everyone that my Tascam BR-20T reel to reel tape deck has been completely sorted out ready for pro-level mastering. I hear the geeks of you asking “what was wrong with it?” while everyone else goes “Tape? Yawn!”.

Well, for the geeks who were kind enough to ask: two things were not addressed when I used the deck for remastering Vulcanella Self Destruct a while back. The first was the quality of tape I was using which was mere low grade duplicating tape. I’ve since got my hands some reels of Ampex 456 – which for many studios was one of the standard mastering tapes used in the 80s (just check out the sleeve notes for Mike Oldfield’s Crises record). In this day and age there are better reels out there (like ATR mastering tape; and ATR-102 decks are better than my Tascam as well: but that’s another story) – but the Ampex 456 is the best I can use for my deck seeing that Ampex tape tends to shed coating onto the heads and affects them in a way that prevents you from using any other tape. To prevent this dreaded shedding problem, I baked my tapes in the oven for about 12 hours at about 50C. And then, wha-la: perfectly usable tapes. Nothing like a bit of baking to help out the audio engineering!

The second issue was a matter of deck calibration. Calibration involves a series of technical procedures done with the deck to perfect I/O levels and tone. This required quite a bit of patient fiddling with geeky detail I won’t go into here. I wouldn’t have had a clue what to do without help from Simon. Simon is also currently getting deep into the world of tape, not only with 2 track mastering tape, but with 8 track session tape. So thank you Simon! After some fine tuning I got an excellent standard system using a combo of Reaper and the tape deck to do both standard digital mastering as well as using the ‘magical sound’ tape method. To use Simon’s words, tape is an instrument: you play it. Finely riding the input levels just to get that sweet spot nestled between clarity and punch, it’s just so fabulous to finally get that sound I’ve been after for so long.

This means that my mixing and mastering business is officially back up and ready to go! So if you need any mixing or mastering done on your songs, please visit the site, read the FAQ, and get in touch with me. I’ve already got one client’s project on the boil, and a few more lined up. And hopefully some of my big projects will soon see some tape action as well.

Needless to say I’ve learnt a great deal recently about reel to reel decks. If anyone would like some technical info just shoot.

benJam · June 24, 2009, 2:07pm

this sounds kinda weird and interesting in the same amount of manner.

BYTE-Smasher · June 24, 2009, 2:33pm

So wait… if I shove my mix in the oven at 450 degrees for 4 hours, it should sparkle with the light of a thousand suns?

shoves his laptop in the oven

s-n-s · June 24, 2009, 2:40pm

i was actually thinking on getting a tape machine,but with me being a dad soon,it would have to be a very cheap one,what price range do these go at??

and how easy is it to get tapes for them??

BotB · June 24, 2009, 2:56pm

Awesome. Congratulations captain!

… Very decent pricing by the way, VERY decent!

benJam · June 24, 2009, 3:02pm

would be nice to have an “before”/“after” mastering example, especially for tape mastered piece.

Foo · June 24, 2009, 11:36pm

I’ll have some public examples soon.

Prices are quite varied for second hand decks, anywhere from a few hundred to thousands. There’s a high risk of buying a crap worn out deck if you go second hand, and other risks like not having access to important technical manuals. And if any second hand deck has had ANY old Ampex tape on the heads you can kiss goodbye your chance of safely using other tapes like RMGI and ATR. The shedding problem wears a groove in the heads so that other tapes would be distorted due to not smoothly passing over the machinery. However, if you get a barely used old later generation Tascam like mine you’re still cheering: I got mine for a steal second hand for $200AUD, and the Ampex 456 gives top line results.

Brand new decks are hard to come by. Otari are still making a mid-level deck: the MX-5050bIII - I got a quote for one of these and surprisingly the figure was just under $10000AUD! I’m sure you could get one cheaper. But, for absolute top end deck quality, the king of the decks is no doubt the ATR-102 (especially the later versions). I’ll just say right now you can’t afford one. Forget it. If you want THAT MUCH quality to your music go to a pro mastering house and get it done there.

Top end tape for all sorts of head sizes is still being produced and sold today. The two companies are RMGI and ATR. You can do a lot of reading on what the differences are between these two, but I’d recommend ATR as the RMGI’s have been known to recently cause shedding. Reels are re-usable and quite affordable given their supreme quality: I saw some quotes on RMGI for 1/4" tape at $30us. If you’re not using the tape for archiving, then that’s really cost effective. Don’t buy used tape. Just don’t.

Two other things I didn’t mention before:

Cleaning the heads. Don’t use metho - use IsoPro (or Isopropyl Alcohol) as it’s very pure. Wipe the heads with this stuff using a cotton swab (those little sticks with the cotton on the end of them) and be thorough. Every contact point of the mechanics must be super clean for smooth tape rolling.
De-magnetising the heads is a must. You need a little purpose built tape-head demagnetiser (I got one online) that is used to ‘clear the heads’ of built up field distortion once every 6 hours of usage. You have to be careful with one of those things: approach the heads gently from a distance of 1m or more and move evenly and slowly across the heads at a constant pace, removing the device in the same slow fashion.

Then there is the whole calibration issue, which I won’t go into here unless someone asks and needs to know specifically. All of this isn’t easy, but it’s fun and the results are worth it.

kazakore · June 25, 2009, 9:44am

Been a long time since I’ve done any calibration of reel2reel (or any analogue, audio) tape machines, although I do still service/calibrate DigiBeta VTRs for work. Did you purchase an official calibration tape or trust you had a good enough tape to work from? Did you keep your heads with the grooves caused by the tape running across them? After calibration this wont sit on the same part of the tape path, pushing your tape out of alignment, and would definitely be worth considering replacing them if you can feel the lip with your nail.

Enjoy the machine and good luck with the mastering business.

Foo · June 25, 2009, 11:29am

I doubt I’ll find replacement heads for my Tascam. The deck hasn’t seen much use and has always been calibrated for Ampex tape, hence why I’m stuck with it. I’ll see how long I can go with this approach, and when the time comes upgrade to something a little more snazzy.

I’ve an engineer friend who has a calibration tone tape which we used and found that everything was set right anyway. The rest of the calibration I did was with the 456 tape using the Tascam BR-20T manual, plus an oscillator and a meter.