Real Tape harmonics vs their emulations

[DonnyThompson]

Info:

The tracks were transferred from the original analog multi track master, transferred in stems and converted to digital; then remixed, remastered.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that digital can sound good. It's not the medium that sounds bad... it's what you do with it that determines its fidelity.

By removing the bulk of the compression/limiting that was added when it was first released on CD back in the 80's, and by using better conversion, they were able to get back almost 10db of dynamic range.

And just to be clear, what you heard on the video above was not "hi res" 32 bit, or 24, or, even 20. It's a 16 bit file, mastered for CD Release. And by the time it hit the youtube vid above, it's been even further knocked down in resolution, yet it still sounds fantastic. All the warmth and silk, and no "brittle" or "harsh" frequencies, no weird phasing anomalies. (Listen to it on your studio monitors or through really nice HP's )

If it sounds this good on Youtube, can you imagine how good the original remastered digital version sounds before it was released on youtube??

 

[audiokid]

I think you guys [="http://recording.org/members/7836/"]@Kurt Foster[/] [="http://recording.org/members/1/"]@audiokid[/] , should give some of these things a chance if you haven't, not as tape plug-insat all, just as kinda one button maybe maybe not type plugins. The tape part is mostly hype, but I have found some of them useful particularly the Steven slate tape stuff, on some things. But we all like what we like.

I'm far from Kurts reasons lol.. But we do see eye to eye on the marketing thing here.

I prefer my hybrid process and analog synths with pink noise to get me noise. Nothing better than an analog synth in the background . Been doing it like that since I got into hybrid mixing. I like the emulation, but I don't the marketing behind it. It irritates me.

 

[Kurt Foster]

I understand what you are saying. But before you make your final decision, I think you should check this out - http://recording.org/threads/a-very-interesting-read-on-mastering.58552/ and in particular, check out the second post, and the first YouTube vid for The Carpenters, Re-Mastered from the original tapes.
The fidelity on this absolutely blew me away. All the original warmth of the analog release, but with the compression that was applied to it - when it was first released on CD - relieved and eased back, to the point of gaining back almost 10 db of dynamic range.

In fact, here...I'll save you the step...

Check this out:

And I still think you should read the entire article, BTW.

http://recording.org/threads/a-very-interesting-read-on-mastering.58552/

Donny, i am not going to be able to read that post. the page is way too heavy and it freezes my computer up .

 

[paulears]

They've done quite a lot of other things to the carpenters tracks. Some work, but some are a bit strange - like pianos very much one sided, but it does seem nicer - quite a bit of hiss revealed in certain places too! I really wish I had kept it, but a few years ago somebody let me listen to a direct dub from some Buddy Holly tracks from (I think) 1958 - and they were stunning.

 

[DonnyThompson]

Donny, i am not going to be able to read that post. the page is way too heavy and it freezes my computer up .

You can listen to the Carpenter's youtube link I posted, though, right?

 

[Kurt Foster]

no