Tell us about your rig

TheLustyGhost · Post by **TheLustyGhost** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 10:02 am

That's a pretty fantastic setup, but so much digital recording equipment! I'd go nuts without a single reel-to-reel!

moogerfooger · Post by **moogerfooger** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 9:36 pm

theres a teac A1230 in there too -it works OK - doesn't get much use any more though

TheLustyGhost · Post by **TheLustyGhost** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 8:50 pm

I've been moving more and more toward mid-level analog recording gear these days. LAst week I actually chose to bounce between an old Tascam Syncasette machine and a portastudio rather than using the reel to reel, and I haven't even had a working computer in my studio in a year (Got a 500mhz DEC workstation I'm going to fix up this winter and network with an old p3 server, but who knows how useful those will actually be for music. I have produced a couple of albums for other people on a PII without too much trouble, though, so I guess it just depends on working style.

OysterRock · Post by **OysterRock** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 2:28 am

TheLustyGhost wrote:I've been moving more and more toward mid-level analog recording gear these days.

A week ago I would not have agreed with you, but my philosophy is changing. Three days ago my hard drive crashed, I lost everything I've recorded over the last 2 years. Its my own stupid fault for not backing it up, its a lesson you only need to learn once. On the bright side it was an eye opening experience, I like fresh starts.

What I also learned: Screw computers! I'm going to go fix my reel to reel.....

TheLustyGhost · Post by **TheLustyGhost** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 9:46 am

The last straw for me was having not one but TWO removable hard drives fail during a move last year. I carried them in my lat the whole way (a ten minute drive) and was generally laughably careful with them, but to no avail. So there went the bulk of the music I'd worked on for the last two years, both mine and other people's. I had some stuff backed up on CD rom, but CD-R disks have a tendancy to fail after two or three years of storage, too, so I don't trust them all that much.

Computers are GREAT for generating certain kinds of sound, great for editing, great for sequencing. They're good for mixing, although the more I listen the more I don't like the sound of even the highest-end digital workstations I've heard compared to middle-of-the-road analog gear. I prefer to mix digitally only because I don't have a large income and can't afford lots of compressors.

Apparently the US government is now subsidizing Quantegy becasue reel to reel tape is the only storage medium that is reliable enough for the library of congress to use (I guess a metal mother-disc for making vinyl stampers would be more reliable, but not actually practical since it couldn't be played).

Anyway, yeah. In the last five years I've gone from being a life-long gung-ho supporter of digital audio to being a grouchy tape bastard.

EDIT: who would rather play a casio keyboard than a K-2500.

OysterRock · Post by **OysterRock** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 2:47 pm

Ghost,

Can you recommend anything for someone looking to get into analog recording? There are so many reel-to-reels out there its hard to sort through it all. Any general pointers?

chinard · Post by **chinard** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 3:03 pm

OysterRock wrote:Ghost,

Can you recommend anything for someone looking to get into analog recording?

TheLustyGhost · Post by **TheLustyGhost** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 10:42 am

I do stricktly semi-pro stuff (partly an aesthetic choice, partly a financial choice) but I would say right now, if you're doing it mainly for yourself especially, try to find a 1/4" 8 track machine. The sound quality is pretty good and tape is exponentially cheaper than 1/2", which is the next step up. 8 tracks is plenty, especially if you don't need to record live drums. It will force you to be more creative in your recording because you have less to work with, and therefore have to put more thought and deliberation into how you allocate the tracks you have.

If you do a lot of work with synths, incest in a SMPTE-to-MTC converter and SMPTE time code generator so you can sync external sequencers, drum machines, etc. to tape (I don't actually do this right now, but will eventually).

In some ways I think a narrow-format reel to reel machine can be a better choice than a more "professional" 1" or 2" these days precisely because it colors the sound a lot more. If the ultimate delivery medium is a CD, A certain amount of quality will be lost when it is digitized no matter what you do (I tend to find 16 bit audio seems more 2-dimensional than tape, like looking at a framed photograph of the view from your window, while tape is like looking at the actual window), so to a large degree tape is now more of an effect than a recording medium. Instead of being the industry standard recording medium, it's now an aesthetic decision. Digital has analog beat in every area except sound quality and reliability.

Otaris tend to be good; Tascams are better than their current reputation suggests, and tend to stay well aligned longer than a lot of other types. I haven't gotten to really get into the different major brands or anything. The opinions are strictly those of a serious hobbyist.

monads · Post by **monads** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 12:02 pm

This type of thing scares me. What brand of harddrives were you guys using? Not that it matters because they all have a failure rate but certain brands failure rate are not as high as others.

OysterRock · Post by **OysterRock** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 12:14 pm

monads wrote:This type of thing scares me. What brand of harddrives were you guys using? Not that it matters because they all have a failure rate but certain brands failure rate are not as high as others.

It was the hard drive that came standard in my Powerbook G4, Toshiba I believe.

The truth is its not a question of if your hard drive will fail, but when your hard drive will fail. It is a mechanical part, it WILL fail eventually. The best thing you can do is BACK UP YOUR CRAP on an external hard drive. Every week. Don't be stupid and cheap like me.

Also, run drive checks on your computer often.

Oh, and be careful when moving your computer, laptop or not. Those bumps don't help.

MC · Post by MC » Tue Sep 26, 2006 2:41 pm

They started to sell hard drives with a 1 year warranty - they used to be 3 years. When I bought a USB external removable HD last year, I chose a HD with minimum 3 year warranty. When I saw a 200G HD on the bargain table at Staples, I noted it had a 1 year warranty and I passed on it. They are bargains for a reason.

Tape is still the best backup medium. I have backup tapes from five years ago that still work. The trick is to always retension them before you use them.

TheLustyGhost · Post by **TheLustyGhost** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 2:59 pm

One Maxtor removable, one Western Digital removable.

OysterRock · Post by **OysterRock** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 3:53 pm

TheLustyGhost wrote: It will force you to be more creative in your recording because you have less to work with, and therefore have to put more thought and deliberation into how you allocate the tracks you have.

This is exactly how my creative process works. I feel that "limitations" breed creativity because I have to be more resourceful and plan things out more. I use Ableton Live right now, its an amazing peice of software. You can do things on it that you can't do any way else, but sometimes I feel like all the options distract form really *making* music. Yeah, you can do all this cool stuff, but you could click the mouse until your eyes bleed and still not have a decent complete track, just some "cool stuff" slapped together.

This is also why I don't like to own a lot of synths or other stuff. A lot of people here have PILES of synths and other gear, and thats great. But for me all those synths would just be a distraction.....OK, that and I'm broke and can't buy all the gear I want.

Anyway, that's just how I work and is by no means disrespect to people who DO use a lot of gear to make great music.

monads · Post by **monads** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 12:10 am

OysterRock wrote: It was the hard drive that came standard in my Powerbook G4, Toshiba I believe.

The truth is its not a question of if your hard drive will fail, but when your hard drive will fail. It is a mechanical part, it WILL fail eventually. The best thing you can do is BACK UP YOUR CRAP on an external hard drive. Every week. Don't be stupid and cheap like me.

Very true. I had the same problem with my G4 Powermac hard drive made by IBM that crashed. Piece of crap. Then I replaced it with 2 Western Digital hard drives & 1 replacement IBM drive. I've had them for 3yrs now without problems. I use the Western Digital as my main hard drive/clone.

In case you're wondering why 3 hard drives with the smallest at 180GB? 1 for the core, the 2nd as an exact clone (bootable) and the 3rd an additional backup of audio data/files.

Now if all 3 go then I have horribly bad luck. and call me crazy but I learned my lesson the 1st time and I refuse to loose my work and also iTunes library that I've spent forever ripping CD's from my personal collection.

After going this route, I'll never look back

and hell it's one of the reasons why I never liked the G5s, only 2 internal slots for hard drives

Which reminds me, I'd better clone and backup tonight

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