Making analog warmth from digital.

[Mystery-Moon-Pie-Aud]

Hey audio mates, to skip to the important part,...

I am in the most general sense, aiming to make my sound very analog and old-timey and basically the younger days of electronic sound. I cannot, of course, go out and buy thousands of dollars worth of analog synths. Besides, that's not an efficient choice. How can I make both vocals and synths/samples sound like something that might be heard from a 40's TV show?

An example of what I mean is music by Boards of Canada, this song shall be an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQEmaj9C6 ko&feature=player_embedded

Notice how the synths in the song don't sound clean and clear as digital does, but a warm fuzzier feel, the way analog and it's errors create. I know there are synths out there that simulate analog, but I have none of those. Also, for vocals, what is are good effects/eq to put? A "radio" or "phone" kind of filter doesn't do justice. So essentially:

1. How to get the errors and warmth of analog from digital?
2. How to eq vox to get a similar warmth?

[Nav]

Use this.

It does pretty much all of it for you.

[Mystery-Moon-Pie-Aud]

At 10/28/10 02:22 PM, Nav wrote: Use this.

It does pretty much all of it for you.

You know, I've always seen it, but at the times I saw it, I was tired of doing email/registration codes and never downloaded it. It really does all that? What about if I don't have access to that or want to try it with other effects? Not that I don't appreciate the link, but I feel like I am cheating my way through it and not learning anything if I just use that.

[Nav]

You're cheating by using digital to begin with. If you want to do it all yourself, EQ out some of the highs and lows, add some low triangle waves or something to simulate hum, and sample some crackles and clicks from a record.

iZotope Vinyl just saves you the hassle.

The secret to "analog warmth" is that it doesn't exist, except to sell more products.

[Mystery-Moon-Pie-Aud]

At 10/28/10 02:40 PM, Nav wrote: You're cheating by using digital to begin with. If you want to do it all yourself, EQ out some of the highs and lows, add some low triangle waves or something to simulate hum, and sample some crackles and clicks from a record.

iZotope Vinyl just saves you the hassle.

The secret to "analog warmth" is that it doesn't exist, except to sell more products.

I understand that it is cheating using digital, but when it's all you've got, well, it's all you've got. And that is right, analog is just the more direct version of a synthesized sound using the actual components for synthesis, whereas digital is using the transistors and such to send the signal of processing to make the sound. You know, it's harder to explain when others don't understand it, but you know what I mean.

It's always been an aspiration to get old equipment from like the 30's-60's and set up a whole recording area using only those old electronics (which still work) and get a whole session/recording from them. Just to get that truly older sound. Ah, the sweet errors of our predecessors in audio production.

[Chris-V2]

Everyone sits and home and waxes over the ideas of owning some vintage 50's inductor based EQs or old Moog synths. Unfortunately they're really fucking expensive! I can recommend this if you're looking for a cheap analouge filter, however. I've been looking at buying one and modding it.

Realisticly? That iZotope plugin in a good example. Get some tape emulators, tube compressor ( keep the ratio fairly low!)emulators etc.. Lightly distorting, rolling off the top end are good things to look at. Maybe a touch of hiss on a channel - it doesn't have to be obvious, but it'll add to it.

Effects wise: Spring and plate reverb plugins can be good for vocals or surfy guitars! If you cant get that then I'd recommend just putting your reverb send through maybe a comb filter and a then bandpass. Slap back echos are common too, especialy on those old Nashville recordings.

Reverbs are the trick to older sounding tracks, imo. Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue? Reverb was an omni in a church cellar picking up the sound from above! Lively rooms and lots of bleed were the trick. Elvis' stuff in Nashville, Abbey Road, BBC Studios. Famous for good room sounds!

Amp modellers like Guitar Rig or Sansamp have AC15's and such (remember that old synths and organs had speakers too - those got mic'd on alot of recordings. Infact when recording the nicest keyboard tones I've gotten have been through using a guitar amp).

Tremolos are very common. ADT plugins are worth a look in, too. Again, if you can't get one just copy the track and delay one track by about 10 Ms. I do that alot for panned rhythm parts or vox if they never double tracked it, can add some depth. Don't do it on bass though!

[joshhunsaker]

Synth1 mate. It's free and totally analog and gooey warm.

[Mystery-Moon-Pie-Aud]

At 10/28/10 04:15 PM, joshhunsaker wrote: Synth1 mate. It's free and totally analog and gooey warm.

Thanks a lot chris for the info. I'll definitely use it when doing analogue type stuff. Also, is that monotron an actual synth or is it just a controller that modifies incoming sound and sends it out modified?

And I have synth1. Didn't think about using it. I use it to make reeces and stuff, but never considered it fully for that. Thanks.

[Chris-V2]

It's both! It has a (shitty) little keyboard on it, but you can just plug something in the back and use the filters, which is what I intend to do.

To be honest it's a wet dream of a stompbox just waiting to be rehoused. I'd like to see if I could modulate my input signal (guitar) with the keys - I think it has a bypass, but I'd like to bypass that bypass.

[Krank]

Don't use that mechanical noise emulation crap.

The warmth of analog comes not from all the problems with the gear, ie, the hum, the hiss, the crackle, the lack of highs and lows.

The warmth of analog is summarized in one word: saturation

why is the tape saturation the most important part? Is it that hiss and noise inherent in the tape machines? hell no. Is it any sort of low end hum? nope. It was the way tape changed the sound of a signal as the signal approached the max volume the tape could handle.

Tape, if you know, is a strip of material coated with a magnetic dust. The tape heads would rearrange the ions of the magnetic material. More material would be arranged the louder the signal got. Because of the fact that there was a limited amount of magnetic material on the strip, and the signal got louder and louder, the tape wouldn't clip, instead the tape would slowly saturate the signal. this saturation particularly affects the low end, acting as a multiband compressor, where the low end is progressively compressed faster than the highs.

THAT is why tape sounds so good, that inherent multiband low end compression, among its other sonic properties. We refer to this as tape saturation. Old skool engineers would have to make sure they recorded instruments they didn't want to be too heavily saturated at a lower volume, and anything they wanted to be saturated to be recorded loudly.

If you wish to emulate this sound, the vintage sound of tape, tape saturation, get yourself some quality tape saturation plugins, and experiment with them.

[jarrydn]

Scope out pawn shops for old tape decks, especially reel to reels. You could have a lot of fun with an old mono reel-to-reel. You can physically malipulate the tape whilst it's recording/playing back. Fuck you can record your source, then actually dirty up your tape by throwing it down the street, pouring weak solvent on it, using magnets in places etc.

BoC apparently rely on tape machines quite a lot for their sound.

If it's analog warmth that you're after, then a tape deck is hard to beat. Especially for drum tracks. Record the signal so hot that it clips and you get some god damn tasty tape compression.

Don't even bother with tubes, they won't give you what you're after.

[Mystery-Moon-Pie-Aud]

Oh gosh this tape saturation sounds so delicious. Nothing beats a tape deck I suppose. I'll look out for some. Pawn shops can be a bit price gouging but I can haggle. I didn't exactly understand the whole ion saturation part with the magnet, but I'll read up on it. If tape is what is needed, then tape it shall be! I don't know exactly about rolling my tape down the street and layering it in gunk, but I could imagine the fun I'd have.

[jarrydn]

At 10/28/10 09:18 PM, Mystery-Moon-Pie-Aud wrote: I don't know exactly about rolling my tape down the street and layering it in gunk, but I could imagine the fun I'd have.

Quentin Tarantino did a similar thing with "Death Proof". He shot on 16mm, developed the film, then abused the hell out of it. Throwing it around and getting it all scratched up to make it look old and crusty.

[Krank]

At 10/28/10 09:18 PM, Mystery-Moon-Pie-Aud wrote: Oh gosh this tape saturation sounds so delicious. Nothing beats a tape deck I suppose. I'll look out for some. Pawn shops can be a bit price gouging but I can haggle. I didn't exactly understand the whole ion saturation part with the magnet, but I'll read up on it. If tape is what is needed, then tape it shall be! I don't know exactly about rolling my tape down the street and layering it in gunk, but I could imagine the fun I'd have.

tape is exensive! i think a 24 track reel of tape, 50 minutes it like 120 bucks.

If you are poor, try out a bunch of tape saturation vst's, the emulation sounds pretty much indistinguishable

[jarrydn]

At 10/28/10 10:13 PM, Bjra wrote: tape is exensive! i think a 24 track reel of tape, 50 minutes it like 120 bucks.

If you are poor, try out a bunch of tape saturation vst's, the emulation sounds pretty much indistinguishable

Yeah, but that's 2 inch tape!

Cassettes are cheap as chips and still do the whole tape saturation thing. And old reels of stereo tape are always popping up on eBay for pennies.

If I had 24 track tape, I certainly wouldn't be throwing it around!

[Chris-V2]

Tape quality varies in terms of SNR, bandwidth, which frequencys the saturation effects (Some 400hz resonance or a bit of a 260Hz hump) and so on. So it's hard to generalize what tape sounds like.

Though we should all agree drums on tape is fucking tasty.

I like it as an idea -I've been looking for a tape player for a while. We have an old Ampeg at the College studios, was thinking of making an offer since they never use it. I've had to talk them into doing a tape tutorial because alot of people are very interested in recording to tape, even if you just dump it into a DAW afterwards - there's definitely a market for it.

It's also a nice, very manual way to do things like flanging or ADT and the "wow" and "flutter" you get can add some instant wonkification to loops!

[masheenH3ad]

I suggest just buy those analog stuff. It will save you a huge amount of time by doing so.

[Chris-V2]

At 10/29/10 12:27 PM, masheenH3ad wrote: I suggest just buy those analog stuff. It will save you a huge amount of time by doing so.

Care to buy us all some Moog's while you're at it?

The issue is we're taking 5 and 6 figure mixers, compressors, microphones and synthesizers. And even tape aint cheap.

[Mystery-Moon-Pie-Aud]

At 10/29/10 03:18 PM, Chris-V2 wrote:

At 10/29/10 12:27 PM, masheenH3ad wrote: I suggest just buy those analog stuff. It will save you a huge amount of time by doing so.

Care to buy us all some Moog's while you're at it?

The issue is we're taking 5 and 6 figure mixers, compressors, microphones and synthesizers. And even tape aint cheap.

You can always record over a tape though and erase the previous memory, so getting a few tape reels would really be all you need right? Of course, a few is never enough, but it would suffice for the job we are looking for.

[jarrydn]

At 10/29/10 03:38 PM, Mystery-Moon-Pie-Aud wrote: You can always record over a tape though and erase the previous memory, so getting a few tape reels would really be all you need right? Of course, a few is never enough, but it would suffice for the job we are looking for.

Precisely. And seriously, tape doesn't need to be expensive.

Here's a bunch of 1/4" for peanuts:

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-UNOPENED-1-4-TAP E-LOT-REEL-REEL-ACCESSORY-/220687728557?
pt=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item33620 37fad

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-200-x-1-4-x-3-AU DIO-TAPE-LOT-6-REEL-REEL-/220687715700?p t=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item336203 4d74

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-UNOPENED-1800-x-
1-4-x-7-AUDIO-TAPE-REEL-REEL-/2606838530 77?pt=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item3c b1f7ed15

And yeah, it's not 2" tape, but once again, you don't really need it. 2" tape is used for 24 track recordings, whereas 1/4" tape is generally for stereo and 4 track recordings. In fact, if you divide the number of tracks by the size of the tape, you'll find that theoretically, the 1/4" tape will give you MORE headroom per track than the 2" tape.

Tape recording is cheap. Anyone who says otherwise is misinformed. If you can't afford a reel to reel and a few reels of tape, get a cassette deck. It's still tape, and it still exhibits the same characteristics.

I've heard of a few engineers that still pull out their dusty old Portastudio 4-track tape decks for recording drums!