Vintage Recording?

[MajorWest]

Not sure if I'm posting in the right section. Anyway, besides vintage radio I've been into music now for over 2 years. I play a keyboard synth and also started singing and writing songs. My music is heavily influenced by Brian Wilson, The Beatles and sometimes seventies funk. I've never really made any decent recordings at all. I tend to record myself on a basic mobile phone just so as I don't forget the track and also to at least get some idea how my voice sounds.

Now I want to make some more upmarket recording. For the first time I'll try singing with a microphone (possibly even process my voice a bit). I was also curious about using vintage recording, maybe the old reel-to-reel tape machines. Maybe you have noticed modern recorders now only record from the radio and, according to Maplins, external recorders are now dictaphones.

However, I record, ultimately I want the whole thing on a C.D. so as to put a track or two out online. I only have very vague ideas at the moment. Maybe a pick up microphone with a tape recorders or maybe just a C.D. burner workstation.

Any idea welcome but I don't want to spend thousands in cash at this stage.

[mark pirate]

I use Minidisc for home recording, and have always been impressed with the quality produced.
And you can copy to CD digitally from Minidisc, so well worth trying.

Mark

[G6Tanuki]

Pretty much any PC/laptop will deal with the initial recording side of things - you may need to add an additional soundcard [either internally or as a USB-attached thing] to get additional audio-channels.

Then grab yourself a copy of Audacity:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about

so you can spend some time editing/tweaking your recordings. Any worthwhile PC will have a DVD/CD-writer so you can then burn your work to CD.
(though physical media are so last-millennium: you'd be better distributing your work as a digital file using a lossless/low-loss encoding format like .OGG or .FLAC

[Restoration73]

Or why not use a standalone device
http://uk.focusrite.com/usb-audio-in...s/scarlett-2i2

[Timvintage]

Hi MajorWest,

Like previous posters have said, it depends on what you'd like to do. I am a musician and song writer and have actually recorded both in the analogue and digital way.

From the analogue side, I have used multitrack cassette recorders in the past. Most of these machines are 4track, meaning that you can record 4 things on top of each other, for example, if you are a multiinstrumentalist, you could play drums, then rewind the cassette, record a guitar, rewind then record vocal etc etc. The same applies to reel to reels. You can buy 4-track, 8-track, 16- track or 24-track reel to reels. I am currently in the process of building up a fully analogue home studio and plan to use a multitrack reel to reel in there. The first machine I bought was a fostex model 80, which is an 8-track, recording on quarter inch reel to reel tape. However, I soon realised that this would not give me much room if I wanted to play several instruments on the recording, so I bought a Fostex B16 16-track reel to reel. This I think will be plenty for what I will need. This does mean that I need to sell the model 80 at some point soon as there's no point having both! The B16 records on half inch tape. Once you've made your recordings, you can connect your machine to a computer, and mix it down digitally so that you can put the tracks out on line etc.

The other side of the coin is doing the recording with audacity. This is a free programme, and you can do multi-tracked recordings directly with your computer. Either way, you probably will need some sort of mixing desk, unless you get a multitrack cassette machine which has the mixer built in, then you just need a couple good microphones and you're away!

Right! I'm going to stop now, as that may be too much info to take in, and I may not have really been that much help. Do ask if you need any further info, and either me or someone else I'm sure will be able to help!

[Nicklyons2]

I have to say, and it pains me to say it, just use a modern digital recorder (Zoom, Tascam etc) and record in .wav format at 44.1KHz on an SD card. Directly burnable to standard CDs, no compression. I've done this 'recording lark' professionally for over 25 years from lugging Revoxs and Nagras about, portaDAT, TimecodeDAT, MiniDisc, and I can tell you the 'fi to weight ratio' is on the side of the handheld digi units. I wouldn't entertain using a laptop or any other multi-use bodged up contrivance - it will always crash at the worst moment. Record onto a proper dedicated piece of equipment then you can put the card into your laptop and do all the 'post production' with 'audacity', 'protools', 'avid' or whatever you fancy in your laptop at your leisure.

[paulsherwin]

Some form of digital recording is the way to go, either using a general purpose computer or specialised hardware if you can afford it. There's a reason almost all professional recording has been done that way for the last 25 years - studio quality reel to reel recording is very expensive and needs specialist skills which take years to acquire.

Initially get hold of a basic analogue portable mixer and plug it into your computer soundcard. If you want to be a bit more serious buy a good quality USB or Firewire multichannel audio interface. Once you're happy playing around with that you can think about a dedicated Tascam recorder as Nick suggests.

Don't get sidetracked into messing about with old Revoxes etc. You're unlikely to achieve consistently good results and you'll soon get fed up with the whole business.

[unitaudio]

Paul Sherwin is right. As much as I love analogue audio, having worked with both analogue and digital systems, I'd say probably the best buy I ever made was a Boss BR-8 digital 8 track recorder back in 2002. However, I wouldn't recommend buying one of these secondhand because they record onto ZIP disks (remember them?) and they're getting harder to find nowadays. They last very well though and I've got a decent stock of disks so this machine isn't redundant just yet, to me anyway.

A quick search online will reveal plenty of other secondhand machines at reasonable prices (from about £75 upwards) that record on more readily available media. I mostly play drums although I dabble with a few other instruments and the occasional vocal and when I bought the BR-8 my only previous experience of multitrack recording was with a Yamaha MX-1 (?) 4 track cassette recorder which was lamentable by comparison to the BR-8. Result were lo-fi at best. But with a bit of care and attention to things such as microphone placement, use of the machine's built - in effects and final mix, the sound quality attainable from modest recorders such as the BR-8 and similar machines is simply jaw dropping!

Since buying the BR-8 I have also acquired a Tascam series 34 analogue quarter inch 4 track reel to reel tape deck. I adore this machine! The sound is just as good as if not better than the BR-8 but predictably enough it's different to digital sound. A 10.5" reel of tape costs from £13 bought online and at a tape speed of 15" per second you might fit 4 or just possibly 5 songs on it. However, a £13 reel of tape probably won't stand being re-recorded on too many times and when correction of mistakes and overdubs are taken into account it's probably a false economy to use it for a multitrack application. £30 pounds upwards is probably a safer figure for a reel of tape given the circumstances. That's why I hardly ever use the Tascam, I simply can't afford to so most of my recordings are made on the BR-8 and once mastered onto CD, Minidisc or whatever I wipe the ZIP discs and use them again and it effectively costs nothing because it's such a long time since I bought them and I've re-used them so many times that I recouped the cost long ago.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful.

Regards,
Paul

[terry vin]

I have an old Tascam DA30 professional DAT recorder you could have for £25.

[Nicklyons2]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

Some form of digital recording is the way to go, either using a general purpose computer or specialised hardware if you can afford it.
Don't get sidetracked into messing about with old Revoxes etc. You're unlikely to achieve consistently good results and you'll soon get fed up with the whole business.

Let's be honest the 'Edirol', Zoom and Tascam units at around £120 - 200 are, in real terms cheaper than a Philips cassette recorder or Fidelity Playtime cost in the 1960s and considerably cheaper than Ferrographs, Revoxs, Tandbergs were at any point in any time.

Analogue tape formats: eq, tape path, azimuth, wow & flutter, absolute speed etc, etc all potential variables - all potential pitfalls.

[MajorWest]

At the moment, my music is very simple. My synth is an old nineties Casio and has about 6 tracks. I vary my recording quite a bit these days since I mix tracks but also I play solo piano. I like to select possibly Street or Grand Piano and then I mix it in with something called Warm Pad which gives body and depth to the piano.

When mixing, I do my own bass and sequence everything.

When I sing, I simply use a mobile phone so I get some idea how I sound. I'm one of those guys who gets very hung up on his singing voice and am sensitive over how I sound. I was encouraged to hear it took George Harrison ages to get a good singing voice so I suppose it's just practice and work. However, I happen to know that, in truth, vocalists today process their voices. Even the Beatles did, especially overdubbing.

I've now written ballads, Rock tracks and especially Psychedelic Rock.You know, I happened to have found out that Gilbert O Sullivan very often uses a ghetto blaster on top of his piano to do his very basic recording. He says he puts the microphone adjacent, plays, sings and then gets some idea how it sounds. In Maplins they suggested a Dictaphone for this but I keep my eyes open at any car boot for an old fashioned ghetto blaster (still have lots of spare cassettes).

I'm really curious how I will sound singing with an actual microphone. My voice is high but not M Jackson high, sort of an octave down.

[MajorWest]

Well, ultimately I want to get a track or two out online and imagine this will be more at home in Indie circles as I dislike modern music and all my influences are from late sixties era up to Scritti Politti (big fan of Green Gartside actually). I'd need to hook up my synth to a C.D. burner if I go digital but not sure then how I get my vocals in on the track. Maybe it's as simple as using an extra recording channel and singing into it with a microphone.
I don't have a laptop at the moment but presumably this too could plug into my synth. Really I don't know much about software these days.