Editing Analog Tape
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.พ. 2015
- Bradshaw Leigh demonstrates editing analog tape.
Full Analog tape and alignment course at
udemy.
Music "All I've Ever Known" By Justina Soto
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This isn't editing, this is art.
this definately is an art
Editing is an art
Love your vids
Nooooo shxt.
Art and patience.
I did plenty of this when I worked in radio 45 years ago. The machines were 1/4” Ampex half-track stereo. Fortunately, I wasn’t editing music, mostly news sound bites. I remember editing down a nearly 20 minute interview with a guy who couldn’t say three words in a row without a long “uhhh” in the middle. It took a while to make him sound intelligent.
Make hime sound intelligent. Hehe
xD
Same. 30 years in radio 1979-2009. On the way out cart machines and Otari reel to reel decks were long gone and PC automation systems like Audiovault for on-air DJ work and Cool Edit (now Adobe Audition) for production. Now any kid at home with a laptop can do what we did with 50k dollars worth of broadcast equipment.
@@MattS-On-Air I was editing on tape 93-95 but it was a bless Win95 and first edition of Cool95 and then Cool96 and later multitrack Cool Edit Pro (with first real soundblaster Creative AWE32). Now looks nice but on radio under constant pressure of time, tape editing was a pain in the ass. Hard work half hour was done in 5 min on PC. Nice days...
@@MattS-On-Air and ask "what's tape" 🤣
21 year old engineer here to say I'll never complain about comping a vocal in pro tools again
From a 66 year old tape editor....Word!
LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.. this just floored me!
Love tape editing!
@@dharkknight4747 - So says the guy who only has 1 vid and only 12 views ! X-D
@@bob4analog TF are you going on about trick?? ..you clearly don't belong to this discipline coz if you do you'd understand why I caught Zolanis1's sense of humor.. 2nd I don't mop around stacking online videos, I got more money than your entire muppet village will ever dream of in one life time!
Makes you realize how easy we have it with modern daws
all the buttons and plugins are no substitute for raw talent 🤣
@@Dr.W.Krueger not a substitute but a good compliment. Not sure what the need for a laughing emoji was
This is an art that was lost in the late 90's. Some people still do keep it alive which is beyond cool. Thanks for the lesson!
Fortunately things are A LOT simpler nowadays. Even though I never worked on this I gotta say, it's an awesome thing to see that people still do this. I wouldn't mind learning and making a few tracks like this
I do this with VHS tape using scotch tape on the back of the tape if there's a damaged section
Who...in the modern age... would do this by choice ?
@@CFox.7 It's just very cool to those electronically inclined. It pays homage to decades of recording. Also, it's widely known that reel to reel provides a particularly beautiful warmth in the tape sound. They have modern plug in's that emulate that warmth for digital recording. There's a lot of debate to whether those emulations properly replicate that authentic reel to reel sound.
@@Alex-Defatte I use those tape emulation plugins and I bet my left nut that NO ONE could consistently and reliably tell which was which in a blind AB comparison
I do get the whole retro gear collectors paying homage thing. There's all kinds of retro collectors out there.
I remember those days. It's the only thing about analog I don't miss much, well, that and the cost of tape.
It's 3:16am and i should be sleeping but here i am. I don't even own any recording equipment.
But it's cool to learn new things though.
same here
@@KitsukiTheLostIsland 3:26 here (I do have a reel to reel though)
3:09 and yup! same here
same here man like this kinda old tape
3:30 here
As a performing musician for 55 years, an audiophile for 55 years, a recording engineer for 35 years I have been through recording history from tape to digital. I still don't understand the obsession for analog today. I bought my first CD player in 1986, played my first CD and then never listened to vinyl again. I was shocked at this CD audio quality, just as shocked as I was when I bought my first audiophile stereo at 14 years old in 1973. The CD had:
1) No noise floor.
2) 2x the dynamic range (because of the low noise floor).
3) The first play was as good as the 1000th play. No wear of media.
4) No record pops.
5) No needle in groove rumble.
6) Longer uninterrupted play.
7) Shuffle so the album was new each play.
8) No tape hiss.
9) No degradation of signal from bouncing.
10) More detail in higher frequencies. Analog distorts waveforms above 10kHz.
11) Later higher resolutions and bit depth increased dynamic range and accuracy even more.
12) No degradation of signal in copying.
13) Media could be protected with WAV back-ups.
14) ....and so much more!
Maybe the lack of DAC understanding is preventing people from actually hearing how good digital can sound? Maybe non-engineers never heard the degrading quality from 24/96 to 16/44 to MP3 of their precious mix? Maybe it is just a bunch of people without trained ears repeating what some expert said? I don't understand, I would never go back to tape recording today, and I don't use a computer for tracking or editing. I record the same way we did in tape days, no computer, just a hardware 24Track SD recorder sitting all alone, I never "see" music, the entire recording process is from fantastic artist performances, and we use only our ears/brain to know when it is correct. Timing errors, vocals slightly out of perfect pitch, harmonies out of pitch, second choruses are performed not copied and are different from the first, slightly out of tune instruments. All that would happen on a stage is in the recording, humanity is preserved.
I like the sound of tape degredation, pops, hiss. 😊
@@hanglider I like the sound of an artist musician as if they are sitting in front of me.
@@WildernessMusic_GentleSerene That’s reasonable
Although I was never involved with music, my dad was and I used to go into the studio where ALL the musicians & performers were present. Mixing was done in real time and placed on taps. They would record a sing over and over with an audio slate and pick the right recording for mastering to vinyl. The recording was organic and not sterile as everyone could see each other and motion with hand or eye gestures.
I was in magnetic video recording since its invention in 1955. Audio was easy to understand how it was recorded. You only had a 30khz bandwidth to deal with. Video on the other hand had almost 5MHZ of band width to place on magnetic tape. I dont think most people on here would understand how challenging that was!
You obviously make a lot of sense, I'm 53 and have been playing music and playing with all kinds or recording systems since I was 8, and even though your arguments are logical an on point, digital always sounds too bright for me, even since the first CDs I heard. DDA vinyls didn't have that.
Currently I prefer hybrid systems, both for recording as for guitars, synths, drums, bass, etc.
Pushing to the red in analog has no equal in digital.
I go for the best of both worlds and tracking as you say definitely makes a ton of difference.
Cheers
Every time I rewatch this video, it still astounds me how perfect the transition is.
Haha - you’ve reminded me, sometimes there was a picky producer who insisted that they could hear the edit, so one trick was to stick another piece of sticky tape before the one that had the edit, and they would see the first piece coming through and would be satisfied that they couldn’t hear an edit. Because actually wasn’t anything to hear! Or if they did say they could hear it, you knew they were bluffing! And because when you’re editing fast, against a deadline, you can’t afford to be wrong and got really good at it - it’s an astonishing skill to build up, which we’ve sort of lost in the age of being able to infinitely undo/save versions of things.
As these edits are all hard edits, you really had to choose where to edit. Which usually wasn't at exactly the first beat but sometimes on the 3rd beat just before the actual edit. That skill of listening to the best edit points helped me tons in computer editing later
Wow. This just expanded my patience with digital editing. That process has to make you feel good after completing a project and hearing the playback.
A real work
Jesus,... THANK GOD FOR Software, and 24bit Digital. I would NEVER have the patience for this. And,.. think about it. ONCE IT'S CUT - IT'S CUT!!! WOW!
tape is where its at, I use to do this on a regular basis, miss those days, COMMITTING to takes
Back in 1989 i was working in a radio station. We had REVOX MK2 for editing the news. It was a fun and delicate process... I still have one REVOX in my home studio.
Nice machines.
Try doing all this under the pressure of a time deadline for a radio commercial to go on the air. Multiple splices, editing different voiceover reads together, strands of audio tape strung around your neck or taped hanging to the edge of the machine and/or desk top...all while the clock is ticking to get the spot produced for the clients approval! Invariably the razor blade would slice your thumb as well as the tape. Bandaid dispensers should have come mandatory when purchasing splicing blocks...
Perfect, memories of local independent radio in the 80s putting stings & interviews together for broadcast.
Way back in the late 70's I was just beginning my career as television sound engineer / sound recordist. There was a weekly programme which highlighted the Top Ten records for that week. Part of my job was to take those top ten singles and whip out 10 seconds of each one and join them all together. It was done using quarter inch tape, exactly as in the video. Took most of a day shift to do it and get it to sound right (beats, bars etc..) but after you've done it a while, it becomes fairly easy.
As soon as I saw that little piece of tape fly by after the edit and the track was still seamless, my jaw literally dropped. This is so cool!
Suddenly this video has made me more patient with my digital work.
this is way beyond my time as an 18 year old but man pre-2000's everything was so human. it was this amalgamation of probably hundreds of years TOTALLED UP of love, care, and passion for the musical art form. nothing was quite done for you. art was a trust fall, even TRYING to calculate it was completely out of the question. there was nuance, texture, imperfections. you get that now but only from people who want it on purpose. humanity in music is rare, this video was super interesting to me even as someone that has no idea what the hell is going on. i loved it.
OH MY GOD the angle cut of the tape letting the transition fade in is literally what that effect on the computer is based off of, that blew my mind.
keep in mind, once this method was used by underground djs in the 70s/80s (like ron hardy from chicago or larry levan from new york) to edit (rearranging) whole disco tracks for extended playtime. just image the massive effort those folks had to put into this. this is how so called disco, dub, 12" or extended versions were born, especially in the dance music industry.
Nice.
Kinda reminds me of the early days of hip hop beat making before it became affordable for the home. Using tape decks to create "pause" tapes. Making a 4 second loop into a 2 minute beat. Wild.
On the debate of Digital vs. Analog recording mediums , I recommend both.
Especially if you're a music producer and want the options for either clean or dirty depending on what's needed per track.
Digital is wonderful for exact copying, bouncing and bulk utility work whilst being quick to use where Tape has degradation with extended use/lengthy archiving while having the high learning curve needed to edit and splice. Analog on the other hand is grand when it comes to controlled chaos; that is the "color" and "dirt" of the sound when the imperfection of tape or synths lends to the style/feel of the work whereas Digital can only try to emulate that or sound "tinny" and "sterile".
I say find the equipment from either side that sounds good to you and roll with it. Remember, we live in an era of too much variety, so find some equipment and make some badass music.
There are good plugins out there for that warm tape sound. I can't tell the difference but I grew up on cassettes.
If you can't make a sound feel colored, dirty & imperfect from inside of a computer, you simply aren't a skilled mix engineer.
That tape machine costs more than my car - not a realistic option for about 99% of people.
@@trevor_mounts_music Yes. The well-paid professionals who advocate for analogue tape don't seem to realise how expensive it was and is.
it depends, because you can reproduce some analogue systems digitally just fine. others are very difficult to emulate properly without a relatively large neural network.
tape = easy. guitar amplifier & cabinet = very hard.
warmth or other effects can be reproduced just by knowing what they are. for example, producing even order subharmonics.
the trouble is knowing the original dimensionality of what made the sound. for example you can EQ boost lows, but that won't sound the same as a microphone's proximity effect because the proximity effect is a 3D phenomena projected onto a 2d membrane. the collapsed result's output is yes frequency changes, but the choice in what got those changes is unavailable to you once you're already collapsed into 2d audio timeline.
its like trying to change a person's weight by changing their shadow. yes, you can increase their stomach outline but plenty of things could also reproduce that shape.
analogue EQ sucks for doing that as much as a digital one does.
the point is that the 'amazing analog' stuff will typically just be complicated and hard to model. or it will be acoustic. something where you don't know the original dimensionality.
there's nothing 'warm' about analogue anything. thats not the choices we have to choose between.
5 minutes for something that today is done in seconds. Amazing! I used to be a film projectionist so I know how that feels.
My last razor blade cut was in 2004. There was nothing so satisfying when the edit was perfect. I miss it at times. I don't miss when you just cut the top of a vocal sibilance and have to literally crawl around on the floor to find the millimeter sliver back onto the edit.
I used to splice tape left and right, along with a whole bunch of other little tricks that you young 'un's' never heard of, and some analog vet's never thought of...you have no idea how easy you've got it, especially if you produce commercials!!
I have been doing this since 1955. I also did it with 2" video tape as well....
And you cut music audio tape at 45° so the edit is no so noticeable its like a cross fade from one tobthe other. With diaglog audio you make a 90° cut as you want the transition to be instantaneous.
Interesting!
I started in television in 1983, just late enough to avoid having to cut 2" videotape. Not something I regret :-)
@@londislagerhound no one cut tape in the 80s as electronic editing was in full swing. Cutting tape was in the 60s, way before time code was invented. the art of cutting tape was lost in the 70s and was impossible in the 80s because of the idiocy of helical scan
that's amazing
I record basic tracks like drums, bass, & guitars to 2 inch analog tape then dump to protools and do all overdubs and editing in the digital domain. That's the best of both worlds especially with my Burl converters. No problems here I love analog and digital!
Biased Audio? Aught to call this channel Based Audio. Had no idea someone was making editing tutorials on OG equipment. Kick ass dude!
Thanks for this video! People know the music of The Beatles and Pink Floyd but they don’t realize how their effects and sound quality were achieved over 50 years ago without auto tune and all the crazy electronic pedals musicians have today. The musicians were very talented but they don’t realize the sound engineers back then we’re working with tube amplifiers, 8 channel mixers were SOTA, the tape machines had wow & flutter issues, azimuth alignment issues, so even when you made perfect edits the recording level from one take to another might not match. People think Thomas Edison deserves the credit for recording sound, but Les Paul invented 90% of what’s used in a modern day studio!
Well there are 70s mixers that have 48 channels
@@error-xo7hr it's not just about having channels, it was using tube amplifiers, tape masters that had wow & flutter, microphones that either picked up all sounds and you had to make your studio an anechoic chamber, or microphones that you had to be directly in front of, and then dealing with the S/N ratio of analog. There was a lot that went into recording albums back then because people a lot of money on Hi-Fi's to reproduce the recordings as faithfully as possible and it was impressive to get the sound quality bands like Pink Floyd and The Beatles produced. You had to be there to understand and appreciate it.
@@rwfrench66GenX yes I'm a musician and even if I'm young I can understand the difficulty and the art of producing music in the 60s-70s-80s, the analog world has always fascinated me
@@error-xo7hr I meant no offense. It's cool that you're a musician and desire to learn about your passion. The Smithsonian Channel had like a 12 part series about recorded music that was amazing! It started going back to the creation of microphones and being able to electrify instruments. Then it went into creating records and jukeboxes and how songs had to be formatted to fit the length of the record to play in the jukebox. Then radio stations wanted more content so record companies started cutting songs down to 3 minutes on the 45 but longer on the LP's to appease the artist and appeal to consumers. Then Les Paul comes along and revolutionizes the recording studio and opens up all kinds of opportunities for bands to explore their creative boundaries. The thing is, I'm 56 and I work with a lot of young people and sometimes I get questions about how real "That 70's Show" was and honestly, it was like a documentary to me. I mean, yes, there was a bicentennial in 1976, but it really started around 1973. Cars, motorcycles and bicycles started coming out with red, white and blue paint schemes on certain models. Everyone had flags on their houses, in their cars, they had flag shirts, oh, and the parties, everyone was hungover until 1978 when they interrupted Happy Days to tell us Elvis was dead! That stuff doesn't go into a history book. Your generation has it's own stuff my generation wouldn't understand. Just because we were here doesn't mean we were part of everything going on. I watch this channel Brewstewfilms and this guy is from Michigan where I grew up but he grew up in the 90's. Some of the stuff in his videos I relate to, like going to his friend's and going on the trampoline and then adding a cinderblock and getting points for how hard you get hit, but when he makes Pokemon references I have no clue what he's talking about! I know there are trading cards and it probably had a cartoon or comic book or something, but I have no ideas who the characters are, but I understand the rest of the video and laugh my ass off!
@@rwfrench66GenX no, you did not offend me, indeed thanks for all this information :D. How I wish I was born a few decades earlier ...
Excellent video! I still record to tape myself. For me there's nothing like it...
Same here too
Me too!
Those were the days! I did so much editing just as you are doing. On a Studer A80 1-inch machine.
This is wizardry. So much respect for the old school engineers.
Don't know if you could do this on a Studer but on the Ampex 102 you could flick the take up tension arm and the section you wanted to remove would just spool off into your hand. Looked very cool and always impressed producers :) That was 30 years ago and I've more than forgotten the knack now! Also the most extreme thing we did back then was editing 2" tape and running it off the machine around a mic stand to get a drum loop.
Studer likes this.
You edited the right reel of tape. I "dig" that song and love it very much.⭐
When I was a child, my father was editing at home.
It's nostalgic.
Nevermind the haters, this is science right here!
MarkusAudio the haters couldn’t do it! I know I fuckin can’t!
For real.
@@gabet3754 For reel to reel
This is how I edited my first radio reportages back in the days. It made me a better at digital editing too.
as a kid I watched my dad edit tape on his 24 track a lot, so cool to see the actual process explained
So much _souvenirs_ of splicing hours. Still love it to this day.
what a time to be alive. i can do all this in seconds on my computer.
+Aplebutoms goria Yeah, it will sound clean.
Probably sound better actually. Analog is great and have a real nice sound which I and all audio engineers love, but so has digital. No noise, MUCH clearer and realistic reproduction of sound and the ability to edit whatever you want in a heartbeat, and return the track to it's earlier state two seconds later if you are not happy with the edit. You can also do VERY realistic and faithful emulations of analog tape if you crave for that kind of sound.
The fact of the matter is that every engineer loves the sound of analog, and prefer that to digital. But if one day every engineer woke up to a world without DAW's and only analog tape, I think many if not most wouldn't want to keep on living.
Aplebutoms goria go listen to tape then
And you can instantly provide everyone with that sound at no cost or loss of audio quality (data wise) vs the expense and drawbacks to analog reproduction methods and media
Computer? iPad, bitches.
That cut was on point. I was too late to use cassettes, but from my limited experience editing a few tapes, whoa, this is incredible!
I would love to learn this stuff. It's obviously very time-consuming, but I'm sure it's very satisfying when it's done right. And frustrating af if you make a mistake.
Very cool video.
get an OP1
This is so crazy...genius, mad skill, art and hard work all at the same time
These analog machines and editing processes are amazing.
Incredible to watch this thanks...... there's no sound like it, but the convenience of digital audio is undeniable.
Theres a great version of bohemian rhapsody where you can hear the dozens and dozens of cuts during just vocal takes, sometimes sentences broken up by splices. This makes me appreciate that way more.
Unbeatable quality. Its my favorite format of music both reel to reel and audio casette .
I used to do this back in the late 90's with a Tascam 4 track. Folks don't know how good they have it now.
This demonstrates how complex humans are, they can adapt toa any situation and master their skills with every repetition.
This takes me back. Making the cut, then holding your breath making sure it is perfect, even though you have been doing this for years.
Yup you never knew until you played it back.
This is a real skills set. The sound of analog is just so special to me to this day.
It's much more dynamic than digital
@@Norrbottning Errr... not really. Unless you love hiss.
I did this. A lot in the early 70's. It is an art. One that I do not miss.
Technology is a blessing for today's editors.
Nice, that was a perfect, seamless edit!
Went to college in 1995 at OCC in NY and this is exactly what we had to edit on, Ampex they were awesome. and this was a talent and skill you had to learn, When I went back to college in 2007 they were using computers and Adobe Audition. I aced my classes because using a computer was like cheating after having learned the analog ways. Would love to come and try that machine!
Being glad I grew up in a hybrid age...first time I was in a studio, when I was 14, I had to record to tape (or better had the chance to record to tape). I myself feel lucky to have DAWs to record and edit stuff, but I love this video...pure genius and truly masterful craft of editing tape...absolutely awesome!!!
Oh man, I spent many a day editing tape all day long. Digital editing is a snap.
I'm 56 years old now and I learned it when I was 18. At that time we were already working with rolls that were open at the top and a better cutter, which made things easier. today it's seconds on the computer
Impressive! and to think that now young people complain and any DAW cuts in the same millisecond 100 tracks simultaneously in a click ... incredible!
When I had a Revox B77 (which has an edit block on its panel) in the 80s, I was such a terrible editor no matter how carefully I spliced and joined tape that I had to give up. Digital was a delightful innovation. Those who yearn after analogue tape should take note.
That was awesome! Great edit - and a great video on it, as well. Thanks for sharing.
Oh wow... this is what I did while eating until the early to mid 1990s... cutting and pasting every day.
After mixing at the record company, I made a master tape, which I did every day...
Sometimes, while editing, I needed to find sounds that were missing because they could not be recorded, so I looked for them in other master tapes and cut and pasted them to make them.
This is amazing, digital editing really was a game changer its so easy compared to this artform
I always asked how it worked before cool to see!
And thanks for not adding trash background music 👌
This is lost art. Thanks for this. I can remember rocking the 2 inch tape back and forth through Urei 811 speakers to get the edit just right.
My pleasure!
I once did this to Tom Sawyer by Rush, it was nearly 15 minutes long! So much fun.
And gosh I want this tape machine....
This is awesome.
I love the sound when the tape is scrubbed back and forth
Scrubbing was always my favorite part. Just don't hit rewind or FF with the tape lifters down. It gets loud.
Like scratching with a vinyl. :)
such a great craftsmanship! This totally exprains that until recentry, only experienced ones can did those editing jobs.
Quite fascinating to watch the process, and seeing the age of this video, just to recognize how easy things are becoming in the digital age. Just imagine being a pilot in the 70s? Photographer? And imagine the studio of Jean-Michel Jarre, only to have it all replaced by a laptop with a DAW!
Sometimes the simplest things seem the most magical. Very cool!
Wow, what an eye-opener. Great video.
I NEED to hear this song. Sounds so warm and beautiful
Justina Maria Soto - All I've Ever Known
I made that for years and as I was showing this video to my 15 years old daughter she said : there was no Ctrl Z ! ;-)
Thanks for sharing this demo. Quite the skilled craft!
I don't think I could make a cut that clean digitally, that is insane.
That's so perfect!I'm just a beginner but i would love to try this out if i ever get a chance.I feel like this is so much harder but it would be fun to learn this.👍
Very exciting to see this work done !!!
Make sure that your blade is not magnetized.
Yeah a few wipes across a bulk eraser would take care of that but by the time a blade got dull and had to be thrown out it would not have picked up enough magnetism from being in contact with tape to cause any issues.
Radio stations I worked at usually kept a fresh box of blades from the local hardware store handy along with yellow or white china markers. (the crayon like pencil things that had a little string to pull and peel off the surrounding material to expose more surface as it wore down from use.) He calls it a grease pencil.
Love it! Old school music production. Very interesting.
One thing it taught you is to make the right decision as there was a limited ability to go back and remake it and you were almost always working with the only copy of the tape. Can’t say I miss having to do it this way but it was fast. You had to be decisive - no messing around trying 20 different cut-points! Did speech, sound effects, music and drama editing - all slightly different arts.
This is great! I took a class for this in 1996. Now I use software. I never made it a career, but I am currently running 2 YT channels. ☕️👍🏻
Even the audio from the video is great!
Masterfully done. Wow!
I am old enough to have been working like this. It was a pain, but it was what we had and results were excellent, anyways. Good times
Man, this is beautiful. Thanks for sharing!
Audio engineering with analog equipment is a fascinating yet arduous task. Digital audio editing is faster and less tedious but it has yet to supersede the quality and aesthetic of analog sound.. home cooked meal vs fast food.
Did this many many times during my time in television. Pressure was on when doing it for live TV, but it soon became second nature (like lacing up an Ampex VPR 2, but that's another story).
Oh yes! The old days. Looking for the “click”. Love DAW’s also.❤
I did that during years, and im still doing just for me, im used to make great editions with this technique, it was expensive and tired but very funny and such quality.
Always wondered how this was done, so cool. Reminds me of a dj beat matching when mixing records
As someone who has had to deal with this day in and day out for 20 years, this is soul draining and actually saps the fun out of being an engie.
Honestly, thank god for digital.
Well it did add stress. I always felt proud when the edit sounded good. Though I wouldn't want to do it all day.
I remember doing this on my TEAC 2000M. It was great fun.
Incredible. Absolutely incredible.
Studer is the coolest reel-to-reel tape recorder on the Earth
Brings back memories!
Jesus christ this looks like a pain in the ass. But what an art it is
I so want a 1/4" version of one of those. Beautiful.
I love watching masters in their craft.
For some reason this is the last step they teach you in recording engineering school, we did pro tools for like 2 semesters and than not one day spent in an actual studio until end of fourth semester so 9 months only half a month spent actually doing this, its crazy, what a art form this was think of the Beatles records. This is why you need to practice and get good takes.