Warm Tape, Part 2
Posted on | April 27, 2009 | 3 Comments
Since I picked up my new 1/4″ machine, I ordered some ATR master tape and got busy with a little testing.
The first thing I was interested in hearing was a digital file transferred to analog and sent back, prior to mastering. Below is the result of my first test. I used a Benchmark DAC1 to transfer a 24/48 file to 1/4″ and then sent it back to my workstation through an RME A-D converter.
You’ll notice a few things…
- The analog file (the bottom one) has a higher noise floor: the grayish-purple background color compared to the “digital black” of the original file (above it).
- The analog transfer slowly fades away at the high frequencies, where the digital file is brickwall’d.
No scientific data here, just visual feedback reinforcing the more forgiving, non-linear quality analog tape using a carefully calibrated DAD transfer of professional-quality converters, cables, and media.
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3 Responses to “Warm Tape, Part 2”
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From Ohm to Om reflects the opinions of mastering engineer Paul Abbott, owner of San Diego's ZenMastering.
We welcome comments from readers...pro or con!
April 27th, 2009 @ 1:43 pm
Paul,
Is this an XY type graph- where vertical is freq and horizontal time? (or the other way around?)
thanks,
Carlos
April 27th, 2009 @ 2:15 pm
Carlos — Yes, horizontal is time and vertical is frequency (low to high = top to bottom). And the strength of color (not color itself) is amplitude. I would have put the whole screen shot in, but I’m limited in space (unless I want to do a high-res version that is launched from the low-res version) and normally do these posts in 5-15 minutes…writing and all! Hence the non-scientific disclaimer.
I matched -20dbFs to +4, and probably got within .5-1db accuracy, so even that could have been closer. The obvious story here, though, is how a transfer back-and-forth can sound (and look) slightly different.
May 31st, 2009 @ 10:54 pm
[...] have been following my vintage reel-to-reel exploits, I ran into a bit of a snag. As mentioned in part 2, there was a balance issue that a technician suggested may be based around the tape I was using [...]