Recording Recording Studios with Mixing Deck and Magnetic Tapes

[Jules]

And hairstyles.

Artists - Island Records

www.islandrecords.co.uk

I loved all the ritual of the old studios. All weekend and All night and late sessions, eating crap blah blah.waiting to play and for engineers to sort everything out ahhhh.very fond memories.

I remember the first day of recording an album in central brighton back in 2005. We descended into the underground bunker with instruments, junk food etc mid morning one summer day and worked for about fifteen hours straight… on coming back up at about 2am we discovered we had totally missed FatBoy Slim’s infamous beach party (a nationally infamous debarcle). It felt like we’d popped back up into the zombie apocalypse- utter chaos and mile upon mile of drunken idiots.. one of the most surreal experiences of my life

 

[6441]

I have dozens of DATs and my Sony recorder died after being fixed once or twice. Zoom-like devices work better today.

 

[Iain]

Additional option:
What was the first format you recorded on in a studio?
With the demographics so far, I'd say probably 2" 24-track tape?

First time in a pro studio, mid 60s. Ampex 3-track. Backing track recorded across two tracks, with the third tracks saved for vocals. Soon after, the Studer J37 (valve/tube electronics) became the industrial workhorse (Beatles, Moody Blues etc) To get more tracks, submixes were made 4 to 2 tracks (of a second 4 track machine. Halcyon days! When eight track on 1" arrived (Scully, Studer etc) we had the luxury of putting Bass drum and Bass on separate tracks - a quantum leap!

 

[6441]

First time in a pro studio, mid 60s. Ampex 3-track. Backing track recorded across two tracks, with the third tracks saved for vocals. Soon after, the Studer J37 (valve/tube electronics) became the industrial workhorse (Beatles, Moody Blues etc) To get more tracks, submixes were made 4 to 2 tracks (of a second 4 track machine. Halcyon days! When eight track on 1" arrived (Scully, Studer etc) we had the luxury of putting Bass drum and Bass on separate tracks - a quantum leap!

you didn't mention wire. That was my first, although I may have already said it.
Still, very impressive foundation, sir.

 

[Iain]

you didn't mention wire. That was my first, although I may have already said it.
Still, very impressive foundation, sir.

Wire was interesting, but lamentably poor for music.

The studio were I was apprenticed had a technical store with equipment going back to 1927. A colleague and I made a recording using an acoustic wax-cylinder recorder with a huge horn. There were plenty of good musicians on the studio staff. The tune we recorded was Duke Ellington's "Chloe" Cornet, alto, tenor, trombone, piano, banjo, tuba, drums. One take only - no overdubs or editing!! Great fun!

 

[6441]

Wire was interesting, but lamentably poor for music.

The studio were I was apprenticed had a technical store with equipment going back to 1927. A colleague and I made a recording using an acoustic wax-cylinder recorder with a huge horn. There were plenty of good musicians on the studio staff. The tune we recorded was Duke Ellington's "Chloe" Cornet, alto, tenor, trombone, piano, banjo, tuba, drums. One take only - no overdubs or editing!! Great fun!

I give up, you win!
And yes, wire was only good for spoken word, and noisy at that.

 

[Pete Thomas]

Tape allowed editing. Biggest innovation in music recording since sliced bread.

 

[Iain]

I give up, you win!
And yes, wire was only good for spo

Tape allowed editing. Biggest innovation in music recording since sliced bread.

Indeed. A quantum leap! When recording on multitrack, backing tracks were often made up of two or three takes. We used to cut the 16 or 24 track tape (2inch) to make up a composite for overdubs. Any chatter in the control room faded to nervous silence when you took out the 2" editing block, and white Chinagraph pencil !!

 

[Pete Effamy]

Tape allowed editing. Biggest innovation in music recording since sliced bread.

Sliced bread really was poor. The wheel was better

 

[Veggie Dave]

My first ever recording session was on 2" tape, at Mike Harding's studio in Manchester (called Moonraker if I remember correctly). Yes, for the folk people, that Mike Harding. When I started working as an engineer, ADAT had taken over most of Manchester's studios. I can't remember if CDs had made any inroads to the public at that point, though, so mastering to DAT was never an issue.

 

[6441]

Yes, tape editing was a non-trivial craft, as were the aforementioned sub-mixes! However, now with digital non-destructive editing (NDE) almost anything is possible.

 

[Iain]

Yes, tape editing was a non-trivial craft, as were the aforementioned sub-mixes! However, now with digital non-destructive editing (NDE) almost anything is possible.

Taking a razor blade to a 24 track tape certainly separated the men from the boys

 

[Iain]

My first ever recording session was on 2" tape, at Mike Harding's studio in Manchester (called Moonraker if I remember correctly). Yes, for the folk people, that Mike Harding. When I started working as an engineer, ADAT had taken over most of Manchester's studios. I can't remember if CDs had made any inroads to the public at that point, though, so mastering to DAT was never an issue.

One can have the best of both worlds, and record in analogue (say Studer A80 24 tracks with Dolby SR) and then transfer to digital and edit, overdub and mix in the digital domain. Great fun!