# Recording to tape vs digital direct comparison



## muk (Jan 6, 2017)

Hey good people,

stumbled upon an interesting direct comparison between recording to tape vs recording digital. We all know that it can be topic of countless heated debates, which I hope we can avoid here. Instead, I found it very interesting to have a real direct comparison sound example. Very instructive listen for me:

 (uncompressed audio files download link provided in the description)

I am young enough to have missed the days of tape recording, and I have never before heard a direct comparison between the two. Now, lets not go down the fruitless route of discussing which is _better_. None is absolutely better, but both are different. At least a bit. The audio comparison above gave me a good idea about how the sound differs.



Don't read below if you haven't listened to the audio files for yourself first.
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Here are my impressions:

There are definitely audible differences between the two. They are not night and day - a casual listener probably wouldn't notice a difference at all. But if you do listen, you do hear them.

I now get what people mean when they say tape sounds 'warm'. There is less high end content in the tape recording. Interesting, given the frequent use of smiley eq curves, which are in fact the opposite of what tape seems to do.

The most interesting and surprising difference I found is in stereo width. The digital recording sounds precise and focused. The tape recording sounds warmer and wider. Very interesting. I've never heard that tape can have more stereo width than analog.
That seems to be a very useable difference to me. If you want a well blended sound, recording to tape may be a good choice. If you want precise localization of the instruments, digital might be the medium of choice.

Both sound very good and useable. I see why Spitfire chose to record to tape. At the same time I dig the focused and clear sound of digital recording. Different flavors, both tasty.

Recording digitally and then bouncing to tape does induce the warmth of the tape, but doesn't give the same stereo spread as the tape recording. At 7.5ips wow and flutter are more clearly audible. Probably more useable as an effect than as a clean recording. The Kramer tape emu doesn't do much in my opinion. I'll certainly test what my Nebula r2r does to the digital recording. I would also love to hear how the UAD Studer compares.

For this guitar recording, my favored sound would probably be somewhere between the tape and the digital. The wider stereo image of the tape sounds very nice to my ears, and maybe a tiny bit less high frequency content than digital would be nice (but not quite as much less as on the tape). That's personal preference of course, but the comparison is very instructive in this regard, as I can try to shape my 'ideal' version with the mixing tools I have. That should prove valuable for my future mixes.

What's your impression of the sound examples?


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## emid (Jan 6, 2017)

I am also very interested in this topic, thanks for bringing it up.

My impression is very much like you; wide, warm and lively with analog recording. Specially taming the high frequencies and naturally boosting the lower. I remember Alan Meyerson saying something like he uses less eq (or tend to use less eq nowadays) and use more saturation to naturally bring down the harsh frequencies and get that rounded low end still not loosing the character and warmth pleasing to ears.

Don't have direct experience with analog stuff that's why am in search of 'that' right plugin (at least close).

Out of interest, so far Kramer had been my go to digital plugin. However, Magnet II (Nomad factory), Tape echo (IK multimedia), Tube Saturator (Wave Arts), and some other like Softube's are also not bad. Free ones from Variety of Sounds are equally awesome but 32bit, can be used with jbridge. There is only one game changer and affordable for me so far is Nebula stuff specially R2R. All eight emulations including Struder, Ottari, Teac, Sony have their own character. Other truly admirable is CDSoundmaster's VTM and I have their free one from the owner which he gives away with 7.5ips. Amazing thing. 7.5 gives more low end to my ear which is why my favourite ips. UAD may be good but not an affordable variant. I have come to conclusion that no digital plugin faithfully emulates which it should not but if you are looking for an affordable and closest-to-the-real thing, go for Nebula plugins. Just got free Pink eq with Computer Magazine which is far better than most big names eq plugins for only some £s.


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## JohnG (Jan 6, 2017)

My first film scores were recorded to tape, and I also prefer the sound. Unquestionably, there are many audible differences between digital and tape. Even with tape, there is an audible difference in recording at 15ips or 30ips (inches per second), with 15 delivering better bass. Like the OP and others, I always felt I could hear some of the other "feeling" of a more-homogenous, blended, cohesive sound.

Hats off to Spitfire for using tape as their source material.

*Engineers a Requirement*

There also was an indirect benefit: you had to work with an engineer, because few could afford the analogue gear so you had to go to a studio, and there was no way they were letting some stranger operate their equipment. With that came a lot of mixing and other knowledge that one struggles to learn on one's own now.

In consequence, my early scores had a professionalism from Mike Aarvold, my engineer, that helped to buffer my neophyte composer blunders. (And, of course, there were players, because generally samples were not presentable enough to use as the backbone of a score).

*The Bad Old Days*

That said, I would never voluntarily return to tape. You can correct errors in digital that you had to live with then (performance errors, noise, all kinds of problems). Even leaving aside the astronomical cost of a high-quality 24 track recorder, it also cost a lot of money for all that tape, not to mention the weight of carrying it around. Even for the low-budget films I scored, it would be 3-4 reels of it, plus the half-inch masters. On top of that there was the hassle of striping the tape (you had to record time code signal onto it ahead of time so it would sync), aligning tape heads, maintaining and de-magnetising the tape heads -- an ocean of tedium for the engineer.

And that's not even beginning to address the fact that you can have dozens of delays or other FX now if you want them for virtually (ha) nothing. You can overdub infinitely -- all the flexibility of digital.

I do love the sound, but do not hanker for a return.


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## wst3 (Jan 6, 2017)

Tape is cool. Analog is cool. There is an immediacy, and a kind of forced discipline, and sometimes it remains the best way to work.

Digital is cool too. As mentioned, I was never going to have 16 of any processor in my studio. Heck, I barely had 16 processors total<G>! And undo? Undo makes you courageous. I try edits I probably would have skipped over if I had a razor blade in my hand.

A couple nights ago I was trying to record a guitar part, not a terribly challenging part, but I just couldn't play for squat-all! In the old days I'd have gone upstairs and watched a movie with my wife. Now I chugged on through, comp'd something like 14 takes, and still ended up with a punch-in or two. But I got it done, and still managed to watch an episode of "The Crown" with my bride.

Which is better?

I miss the need to think things through before I start. I still try to do that, but since there is no track limit hanging over my head, and everything can be automated, well, sometimes I don't do as well as I might.

I miss the sound - the UA Studer and Ampex plugins are good, really good, and if I limit my track count sufficiently that I can have a Studer on every track, and still have horsepower to add some cross-talk and it's there for all intents and purposes, and the speed is consistent, and there is no noise. Everything is a trade-off, and I think the folks at UA did a magnificent job of capturing those artifacts I like without the artifacts I don't!

But mostly I miss the ability to listen to cue points. I did a voice-over session last night, I probably hit 90% of the edits on the first try, I've learned to gauge timing from the screen, adjusting the gaps between words based solely on visual input. And most of the time I can maintain that musical quality I strive for. But the edits that I didn't get on the first try took many tries, and I know I'd have gotten them on the first try too if I could have rocked the reels and listened.

That's it, someone figures out a way to easily and accurately rock the reels and I might even sell my two-track machines (and buy a six pack maybe?).


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 6, 2017)

You can always record to tape and transfer it into a DAW. That ends all of Bill's issues.

But I agree with John. There's nothing like the excitement of going into a studio and having great players read parts you've only heard in your head.

On the other hand, it's more fun writing with samples, and my fingers find things my ears don't (and v.v.).


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## higgs (Jan 6, 2017)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> You can always record to tape and transfer it into a DAW. That ends all of Bill's issues.



A couple of guys I worked with at this great studio in Colorado used to do something similar to this. They would frequently record through an expansive collection of outboard gear, into a large old SSL console, into Prism ADC's, then into Pro Tools. When tracking was done and edits were ready for mixing they'd do a roundtrip with the individual tracks to-and-from multi-track tape using all the nice converters. Essentially they did the cutting digitally instead of with a razor, and got to mix with tape-sourced material. I personally like that technique a lot, particularly with 2" tape and superb conversion in play. It's like the _almost-best_ of both digital and analog worlds. But who can afford this?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 6, 2017)

Well, these days multitrack tape recorders aren't a lot of money... at least they weren't when I last looked. Tape is hard to come by, but it was always expensive. (Back in the day, $250 for each reel of 2" tape could be a significant part of the music budget for the kinds of things I was doing.)

My larger point is that the nice sound is something tape adds. Digital sounds just like what you put in nowadays, in other words it doesn't remove it.


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## jcrosby (Jan 6, 2017)

muk said:


> I now get what people mean when they say tape sounds 'warm'. There is less high end content in the tape recording. Interesting, given the frequent use of smiley eq curves, which are in fact the opposite of what tape seems to do.
> 
> The most interesting and surprising difference I found is in stereo width. The digital recording sounds precise and focused. The tape recording sounds warmer and wider. Very interesting. I've never heard that tape can have more stereo width than analog.
> 
> That seems to be a very useable difference to me. If you want a well blended sound, recording to tape may be a good choice. If you want precise localization of the instruments, digital might be the medium of choice.



The tape was obvious right off the bat. The hiss was a dead giveaway obviously but if you listen to the low end it's less cluttered and more defined. 

The roundness is mostly caused by the head bump, but tape also saturates and compresses naturally as well, and often there's a dip above the head bump which cleans up the low rumble depending on the machine and tape stock... One thing to note is the head bump drops or increases by an octave depending on the speed. 15 or 7.5 can be cool but you want to grab an analyzer and cut the rumble afterward. It can get noisy down in the sub range if you use lots of plugins in the same session... Also if your room can reproduce subs well you'll find head bump isn't subtle at all, it can be pretty dramatic. Nothing fattens up and tightens low end quite like tape..

The width is interesting. I've never been able to do an A/B with the real thing but I'd imagine is something you see change from machine to machine. Makes sense though, anything nonlinear can cause differences in the stereo field and tube processors can do the same thing. I had a tube EQ years back that did this and ran everything through it for that reason.

Also some tape machines can actually emphasize the high end or midrange, not all tape sounds "hushed". 



muk said:


> The Kramer tape emu doesn't do much in my opinion. I'll certainly test what my Nebula r2r does to the digital recording. I would also love to hear how the UAD Studer compares.



Not a huge fan of the Kramer, next to UAD it doesn't hold a candle IMO. Slate is also very good. Both emulate Studers, UADs is a little more true to form and you can really play with the bias if you like to experiment. I've tried a lot of tape plugins and UAD wins everytime for me, but Slate is aok if I'm on my laptop... 

The ATR is particularly cool. It can create a big presence boost with the right settings. Even more interesting is that it can 'appear' brighter at 15 IPS using 1 inch... It has lots of little tricks up its sleeve and very different on a mixbuss than the Studer...


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## muk (Jan 7, 2017)

It was interesting for me to hear that recording directly to tape does sound quite different from recording to digital, and then bouncing that to tape, even though it's only one instrument. If you want the full package of tape sound, apparently there is no way around recording to tape. And I totally get that it is a huge hassle, for the engineer and the players both. But bouncing the mixbus to tape just doesn't sound the same. It lost a bit of the digital recordings focused precision, but it doesn't have the beautiful stereo spread of the tape recording. And I guess that effect would be even more pronounced the more tracks are involved.

It looks like there will be a bit of spare time to mess around with Nebula r2r in the coming days. I'll post the results if it leads to something interesting.


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## emid (Jan 7, 2017)

@muk give Cdsoundmaster's VTM free one a try too.


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## jcrosby (Jan 7, 2017)

muk said:


> It was interesting for me to hear that recording directly to tape does sound quite different from recording to digital, and then bouncing that to tape, even though it's only one instrument. If you want the full package of tape sound, apparently there is no way around recording to tape. And I totally get that it is a huge hassle, for the engineer and the players both. But bouncing the mixbus to tape just doesn't sound the same. It lost a bit of the digital recordings focused precision, but it doesn't have the beautiful stereo spread of the tape recording. And I guess that effect would be even more pronounced the more tracks are involved.
> 
> It looks like there will be a bit of spare time to mess around with Nebula r2r in the coming days. I'll post the results if it leads to something interesting.


 That's true, you have crosstalk and all kinds of nonlinearity that happens with actual tape. The cool thing about slate's tape is you can create groups and simulate multitracking to tape fairly well...


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## muk (Jan 8, 2017)

So, Slate VTM emulates crosstalk then? I played around with the files today with some interesting results. R2R is definitely very subtle, even in combination with Tapebooster+ and VTM free. Here is what that chain does to the Digital bounce:

https://app.box.com/s/9b4dedgohocv6bkamm8ihtebfdndf14b

It does a little something with the transients, and adds a faint bit of warmth. But it's still much closer to the original Digital bounce than to the real Tape bounce. No discernible change to the stereo width at all to my ears.
So, instead of simply loading up a tape emulation plugin I used my ears and tried to come as close to the Tape bounce I could. Here is what I got:

https://app.box.com/s/9tdtdamcilm3wvycekv9474iu1s2pv70

It's not exactly the same, but pretty close I would say. Close enough to cure me from the itch to buy a tape machine, with all the hassles that would bring 

With the experience of getting as close as I could to the real tape recording under my belt, I used my mix tools to shape my personal ideal tone I had in mind. It should have the width of the tape, and the clarity and precision of digital. The tone should be somewhere between the two, warmer than digital, but not as 'woolly' as the tape:

https://app.box.com/s/idl9571sc30w14ckhlfs5b4vmlckr794

I'm pretty happy with that outcome, and with the experience of getting there. It certainly gave me a few presets for future reference.


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## Goosewinkle (Jan 18, 2017)

The hiss is pretty objectionable, isn't it? It is to my 21st century ears anyway 

I hear an obvious difference in frequency response (the digital sounding more "smiley" like people have said). That alone could be responsible for any change in stereo width.


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## jonnybutter (Jan 18, 2017)

JohnG said:


> There also was an indirect benefit: you had to work with an engineer, because few could afford the analogue gear so you had to go to a studio, and there was no way they were letting some stranger operate their equipment. With that came a lot of mixing and other knowledge that one struggles to learn on one's own now.



This is so true. And just having another set of finely tuned ears in the room with you was great. But it was also expensive, among all the other problems John mentions....


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## KEnK (Jan 18, 2017)

Hi muk-

Just wanna say I enjoyed this vid and the follow up-
where you use the Kramer Tape and V-Comp plugs to match the sounds.
(saw it quite by accident)

I've been swearing by emulations in general and always use them for that sweet saturation effect.
Sometimes I thought I was nuts, but you showed me that my ear is right.
thanks-
Now I know I'm not imaging things

k


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## muk (Jan 19, 2017)

Glad you like it KEnK. Just to make it clear I didn't make the videos myself, I just linked to them. My own conclusion from experimenting with the audio files was somewhat different from yours, namely that i don't need the emulations. I came much closer to the tape recording with just an eq and a stereo tool than with the emulation plugin I tried.



Goosewinkle said:


> The hiss is pretty objectionable, isn't it? It is to my 21st century ears anyway
> 
> I hear an obvious difference in frequency response (the digital sounding more "smiley" like people have said). That alone could be responsible for any change in stereo width.



Interesting thought. It might be a participating factor, but probably not the main one. I tried to copy the frequency response of the tape with an eq. With my eq curve the digital recording was very close to the tape tonally. But the difference in stereo width was still there. I used a stereo tool to mimick that difference.


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## re-peat (Jan 19, 2017)

Tape does more than just alter the frequency spectrum. It also changes the dynamics quite a bit (as I recall from my Tascam38-and-Revox days, and which is also very noticeable when the Anamod ATS-1 (link) does its thing).

And it is perhaps also worth remembering that the revered 'tape sound' isn't something that was generated by a tape machine all on its own. A tape machine — in the age of tape, anyway — was part of chain of analog devices (mic's, console, pre-amps, hardware processors, tubes and/or transistors, ...) all of which coloured or modified the sound in a very distinct way.

It's the combined effect of all these things — and certainly not forgetting the art & craft of the musicians and engineers involved —, which resulted in 'that sound' which many sexa-, septua- and octogenarians tend to speak of so fondly.

_


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## KEnK (Jan 19, 2017)

muk said:


> Just to make it clear I didn't make the videos myself, I just linked to them.


Hah! I thought you were "that guy". 

k


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## muk (Jan 20, 2017)

KEnK said:


> Hah! I thought you were "that guy".
> 
> k



No, I'm not quite as nice as that


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## muk (Jan 20, 2017)

Good points Piet. Recording to tape must have been a completely different workflow. Lets just take editing, for example. Splicing tape takes much more time than cutting in your daw, so I guess there was less room for bad takes. That alone must have had an influence on the recording session, and ultimately the resulting music.
Piet, are you using an Anamod? It's an interesting device. Not for what I do mostly, but out of curiosity, do you prefer it over it's virtual siblings? For this example here I am pretty happy with what can be done with an eq and a stereo tool. It offers more control than the Nebula emulation as well.


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## tav.one (Jan 20, 2017)

muk said:


> I used a stereo tool



Can you tell what tool?


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## muk (Jan 20, 2017)

itstav said:


> Can you tell what tool?



Sure, DrMs by Matthew Lane:

http://www.mathewlane.com/DrMS.html


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## tav.one (Jan 20, 2017)

muk said:


> Sure, DrMs by Matthew Lane:
> 
> http://www.mathewlane.com/DrMS.html



Powerful plugin, I just wish they had a non-iLok dongle version or some alternative that comes close to what DrMs does.


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## KEnK (Jan 20, 2017)

muk said:


> Lets just take editing, for example. Splicing tape takes much more time than cutting in your daw, so I guess there was less room for bad takes. That alone must have had an influence on the recording session, and ultimately the resulting music.


Film as well and in a very big way.


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## robgb (Feb 9, 2017)

I bought the same recorder he's using a few decades ago for 3K. Used it for years and loved it. i've also recorded on 24-track tape in the studio. There is something about the warmth of analog that can't be beat.

That said, I would not trade the convenience of digital for the sound of analog. The recording process is so radically different now, and so much EASIER that the subtle differences between analog and digital don't mean squat to me.


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