Members frosty55 Posted March 8, 2012 Members Share Posted March 8, 2012 I have a Teac 80-8 and would like to know more about tape saturation. I hear if you want to record kick and bass guitar on tape, you get a natural compression of sorts by recording into the red. Can this sort of practice damage anything on the machine?How high can you set the recording level to, or doesnt it matter? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Zooey Posted March 9, 2012 Members Share Posted March 9, 2012 I have never heard of anyone damaging a tape machine by recording too hot. You may as well experiment and see how you like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted March 9, 2012 Members Share Posted March 9, 2012 I recorded on an analog machine for years, sometimes slamming the input to create distortion or saturation, and never had a problem. I've also never heard of anyone causing damage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted March 9, 2012 Share Posted March 9, 2012 Here's a really important tip for you: The VU meters on the 80-8 only show average levels, and not peaks. The peaks of the transients on things like kick and snare will be WAY above what you can see on the meters. Just because the meters are not showing as going "into the red" doesn't mean that peaks aren't slammed and compressing due to tape saturation. Use your ears. No, you won't hurt anything by recording too hot or running hot levels into your recorder (within reason - don't expect me to pay the repair bill if you run speaker level outputs from your amp straight in to the 80-8's inputs ), but those VU meters are not going to tell you the whole story either. You're going to have to listen to it. PS The "overload" LED indicators can help too... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted March 9, 2012 Members Share Posted March 9, 2012 ^^ Neither will the tape. Different brands and grades of tape saturate differently. Problem is, ampex is the only company that still makes reel tape, so you're stuckwith what those tape grades can do for you. If you set the recorder to monitor whats being recorded, then you can dial upthe exact amount of saturation you want. Problem is theres a distance between the record and playback heads so there will be a time delay in what you're hearing soyou cant record that way, but you can at least set it up for the saturation you want. I too did a good 35 years recording analog and saturation is over hyped. Most of the time you battled to get a clean sound at a strong level, not adistorted sound. You would sometimes drive the signal to its limits just short of flatening the signal and for some instruments that had consistant dynamicsyou could clip peaks for a cool effect. The musicians had to have highly consistantplaying abilities though otherwise it could sound horribly amaturish. heads Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members frosty55 Posted March 9, 2012 Author Members Share Posted March 9, 2012 I would only be wanting that sort of natural tape compression for kick drum and bass, rather than use the cheap Behringer compressors I own. Apparently it would do a better job than using the outboard I have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Krank'N Posted March 9, 2012 Members Share Posted March 9, 2012 Usually tape saturation is better done on electric guitars. Heres a trick that will get you tape-like saturation in an easier way. Run the mic signal into an OD pedal and then onto a noise-gate. Depending on the settings it can be a subtle tube-compression sound or something radically electronic. You could also do this effect in post if you have a mixer or in your DAW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted March 10, 2012 Members Share Posted March 10, 2012 I used to occasionally use tape saturation on overheads, but most of the time, we were just getting good levels to minimize noise and tape hiss. A lot of the tape saturation is marketing hype, as tape saturation, unless you really went out of your way to drive it hard, was rather subtle and musical, not something that one typically did overtly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Beyer160 Posted March 11, 2012 Members Share Posted March 11, 2012 It's been a while since I worked on a 1/2" 8-track, but those decks were only built to use +6 tape so I'm pretty sure you'll clip the electronics before you start saturating tape. If it sounds like a cheap fuzzbox, you're clipping the electronics. Actual tape saturation is more like compression. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mo Facta Posted March 11, 2012 Members Share Posted March 11, 2012 Usually tape saturation is better done on electric guitars. Says a guitarist. Tape saturation is more often heralded as a tool for taming transients and fattening instruments like drums. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted March 11, 2012 Members Share Posted March 11, 2012 Yes, and although sometimes overlooked, tape saturation seems to work its wonders on dynamic things such as vocals as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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