Are 60's tape recorders an important part of the "60's sound?

[neon indicator]

I'm transcribing some cassettes to MP3 via Audacity.
One is about 34 years old and a copy from a Akai Reel to Reel made about 2 years before (I don't have the Reel to Reel). Some Manx Radio and BBC Radio dates it.

Part is stereo (or possibly Mono on both channels), but most is stereo playback of Mono 4 track. I hope to improve it a bit after recording HDD @48KHz 16bit before conversion to 256k MP3.

Some of it is a bit "bassy". I think mostly recorded off a German valve Radio (not Grundig) via FM/VHF. Some SW too. It had a "keyboard" band selector and all German writing (KW, UKW etc). May have had a V type oblong window "magic eye" tuning too.
I think the Akai was a 1720? belonging to my Dad's Work. Some species of more expensive Amstrad "HiFi" Cassette deck used to make the cassette I think.

The Manx radio was not typically received in the area. I had a home made aerial in the Attic made of cut up coax and we lived on highish ground in Co. Antrim overlooking mouth of Belfast Lough.

While I have old Reel to Reel etc, I'd use a 12 channel firewire mixing Desk connected to PC via Firewire (all inputs and master mix recorded as separate tracks) to live record and then make a copy sound like what ever was wanted later.

C.S. Lewis was wrote that when he heard a live concert for first time it was a bit disappointing compared to the Gramaphone.

FM Radio is poor today compared to 30 to 50 years ago, not because they are using Digital Playout instead of tape, but because to sound "louder" they have it compressed and processed to hell.

No wonder less Music is sold.

[Welsh Anorak]

Hi
This is an interesting one.
The 'holy grail' in the Sixties was to achieve 'the closest approach to the original sound' as Quad put it. Recorders add their own colouration, noise, hiss, what you will, and engineers working in those days tried to compensate.
Now we do have very true recorders - and guess what? We don't like them! Clinical, harsh, uninteresting - these words have been used to describe them. But as mentioned above, it's not so easy to get the sixties sound - even using contemporary microphones and tape recorders and tape the recording will then (probably) be transferred to CD and played on a modern system.
So we need to try and recreate that sixties rose-coloured sound. There are of course Pro-Tools plug-ins to imitate the 'feel' and they may be worth investigation, especially if you're handier with a guitar than a screwdriver. Don't forget every sixties studio had a team of engineers keeping the equipment going, and we are talking about machines over forty years old!
If you do decide to go down the analogue road, I agree the Revox is a great machine if well set up. They are much used today as the 'final pass' before committing to CD to add that certain something. The Nagra is a lovely machine (I used to use the 4-L) of course, but possibly a bit too good and uncoloured if that makes sense - and on a practical level is restricted to small spool size without the expensive adaptors.
Experiment and see what happens - you may find a cheap domestic machine will give you just the sound you're after. Your ears will tell you what no end of graphs can't.
Glyn

[TIMTAPE]

Originally Posted by brenellic2000

Now here is interesting one for you Tim, the legendary Yma Sumac - the Andean singer of the 1950s whose vocal / octave range was regarded as the widest ever heard. Contemporary records of her voice, recorded on tape and replayed on 1970s/80s Garrard decks sound superb, yet today's CD digital compilations sound shrill and truly awful - yet they would have been copied from the same 'Parlophone' master tape!

How come?..
Barry

Impossible to say without more information, but as a general rule, making an excellent, even essentially perfect, digital copy of an analog master tape from that period is not exactly rocket science and suitable equipment isnt expensive either.

So why are CD reissues of older recordings sometimes worse sounding than a pristine original LP pressing? In almost every case, I'd suspect "the nut behind the wheel", meaning the person(s) involved in the transfers including final mastering.

If the original, or close to original, tapes are damaged or lost, even an unworn vinyl LP copy can usually be had as a source, and in that case a CD that sounds worse than that source LP is a no brainer. Some fool's messed it up somewhere along the chain.

One of my personal beefs is the seeming cult of denoising where clueless people try vainly to make the original master tape into something it never was or could ever be, such as making the tape miraculously acquire a CD's vastly superior signal to noise ratio with no apparent tape hiss. To me this is foolishness but even some professionals in the business do it and dont seem to learn from their mistakes.

On the other hand there can indeed be hearing loss issues. As we get older we are less able to tolerate extremes of volume, both loud and soft. The former hurts and the latter is inaudible! LP's had a much more limited dynamic range than CD's and as a result they may be easier on the ears of older folk, including myself, than being exposed to the full blast of dynamic range that a CD is capable of.

But then again by a strange twist, modern CD's can be heavily compressed in dynamic range such that they can sound fine even to the elderly or hearing impaired. It just depends on how the CD was produced. This is not a forum on audio production but it really is a whole subject in itself.

It's important to note though that a CD of itself is capable of great fidelity and alters the original sound little if any in most situations.

I've never heard of Yma Sumac. I'll look up some samples of her singing. Sounds like the female equivalent of Rebrov!

Tim

[Roger13]

Hi.

"So why are CD reissues of older recordings sometimes worse sounding than a pristine original LP pressing? In almost every case, I'd suspect "the nut behind the wheel", meaning the person(s) involved in the transfers including final mastering."

Absolutely Tim. I waited years for the 1967 Solti/Vienna Philharmonic 'Verdi Requiem' to be reissued on CD. When it finally arrived it was really,really dreadful - thin sounding and totally lacking any body to the sound. A classic case of tweaking for tweaking's sake.

Thank heaven I saved the analogue recording.....

Roger.

[brenellic2000]

I think Tim you'll be amazed at Yma Sumac's vocal range - from very deep bass to high soprano.

There are very few CD's of her songs but there were about 4 or 5 mono 10" EPs, 12" LPs pressed in the 1950s - get hold of one of those records if you can, then listen to the CD! Of course being human voice it was within the recording parameters/latitudes of 50s/60s recording technology so I doubt it needed any clipping or compression to make it sound good.

Barry

[neon indicator]

Still limited in Frequency content even to 1950s Disc Recording and FM Radio.

I'd agree that if everything else is equal, any inferior CD release is someone at the Studio messing up, or using a biscuit tin, carpet tack, rubber band and ruler to play back a retail pressing because the mice ate the master tapes.

[veffreak]

wow, guys, you're blazing fast - it's hard to hold up with you!
I haven't read all the input yet, but my impression until now was that on 60's records i hear a great deal of character that i associate with the tape recorders or reel to reel recorders that were used. I might be wrong and these specific characteristics might be somewhere else in the chain or in the recording technique (micing, etc.) itself, but 70's records sound very different to my ear, more hifi for sure, while 60's sound quite a bit far from "ideal" recordings of the following decades. I personally like this non-hi-fi sound and this is what i'm after. Though i have no dog- or Eric-Johnson-ears, what i hear specifically is that some of the highend is lost. For example in the Hendrix records. Maybe there were some 60's machines that were supposed to be transparent, but at least here i BELIEVE i hear some impact from the tape recorder. And i believe i hear similar things in other 60's recordings. I sometimes even wonder how Hendrix and others would sound on 70's recorders, as i wish to be able to hear out more details and nuances, that are a bit lost in these older recordings. Maybe i have it wrong and the cause is somewhere else, but at least to me it seems i hear a tendency. Does anyone agree/disagree and why?
Again, thanks for the many many and fast replies - i'm overwhelmed by your responsiveness guys!

Kind regards,

veffreak

[veffreak]

Now i read all of your input guys - thanks again!

Another thing that might be the root of the un-hi-fi (i don't want to say lo-fi) quality of most of the 60's recordings miught be the mics. But somehow i still think that the recorders might be a better bet?
Also, i know a couple of VST plugins that "simulate" tape and i have trioed some of them (forgot the titles to be honest) - as with ALMOST all sims or VST effects - they sound LIKE the thing they emulate - you "catch the drift" but you still hear it's not the real theing. It may sound good, but not exactly what you want. And another thing is that i see myself always tweaking a lot more when working with software than with analog gear. It's very hard sometimes to get it right in software, at least to me - i know some people have different opinions.
There is something to the "hiss" and all the artefacts tape introduces - similar as with vinyl, i think the distortion itself lends very much to the feel of warmth to the tone.

veffreak

[neon indicator]

It wasn't professional Studio Tape recorders.

It was Analogue Effects units, Spring line Reverb, mixing technique.

And the content.

When I was in BBC in mid 1970s there were still some very old gear in use. They used single sided recording (no flipping over tape reels) to have tracks on stereo x4 width a cassette track. They used 7.5 ips (19cm per sec) instead of 4.8cm per sec cassette speed.

Not sure how many tracks was on multitrack, but as far as I remember it was 2" tape only used one way up, thus 8 tracks at x 4 cassette track width, or 16 tracks at 1/4" tape 4 track width.

The 4 track decks based on cassette not flipped for "home" recording are rubbish compared with a professional 1/4" tape @ 7.5"ps in 1960s.

Also the high end is lost quickly on playing vinyl on cheap gear and esp. vertical jukeboxes (I repaired one in 1970s while still at school).

I remember in mid 70s I had a Cream single with no treble left. My CD sounds much better.

Also as mentioned earlier you can't know what they did in processing or what source they used for later vinyl or CD re-releases.

The 60s sound is mostly the playing techniques, artists and instruments, followed by effects, mixing etc. (production). Not the recording process.

[neon indicator]

you could have excellent condenser or ribbon mics. Or rather more coloured dynamic microphones.
(In mid 1970s I was taught to always scratch the grill of a mic and never to blow to test if PA live, in case it was a ribbon)

I think a €2 dynamic "karoke" mice from high street is not as good as best 60s studio dynamic mic but better than many dance hall / stage mics of the era.

Some cheap electrets are not far off the 1960s studio condenser mics, a good Studio mic (of what ever kind) today would not be hugely "better" than 1960s studio mic.

Now if you were talking about 1940s recording and Microphones, then I'd agree.

If you believe that Gold plated jacks and expensive cable labelled "oxygen free" gives better audio, then you may disagree with the above (all copper wire for electronics has always been Oxygen Free or it would be brittle). Gold is pretty and doesn't corrode, but causes damp tinned connections to corrode.

[brenellic2000]

Don't forget that most 1960s microphones, even ribbons, were hard pushed to better 16,000Hz response, which helps explain a lot of top end loss!

Don't forget also that "hi-fi" only really came to the fore in the mid 1970s with affordable stereo tape-records and record player cartidges/stylii and affordable stereo LPs! Most pop music even of the late 1960s was still recorded in mono as their main target audience was teenagers listening to pop on their Bush battery-portable trannies - which made stereo (and hi-fi) superfluous! They wanted 'the music' not the bee's-knee of audio technology!

Everyone seems to use Pink Floyd's 'Dark side of the Moon' as 'the' record by which others are compared for fidelity, yet this is a mid-late 1970s piece only made possible by Pink Floyd and others using 'modern' home-studio multi-channel decks, such as their Brenell 1" 8-track, and recording in their own studios (Britannia Row) - thus they were not held back by EMI's sound engineers who were guided by the limitations of their record pressing technology.

Barry

[neon indicator]

Most 2010 Microphones are hard pushed to better 16KHz and don't need to either!

Most people over 25 can't hear above 16KHz.

Speech doesn't go near 16kHz.

AM is less than 9kHz
FM Radio less than 15KHz
TV sound was maybe 12kHz. Not sure what Nicam uses.

High C (about limit for Soprano) is around 2.1kHz You need harmonics to give the voice its timbre and colour. So FM Radio sounds much better than AM radio (assuming both have no noise or distortion).

The audible whistle from 405 Line LOPT core and scan core vibration is 10.125kHz. With 625 it becomes 15.625kHz. As you leave the teenage years it's inaudible.

The "Mosquito" Anti Youth gadgets use 16kHz to 18kHz to give loitering youths at shops an annoying shifting "whine".

Even in Orchestral music or Chamber music there is not enough content to notice if the signal is -3dB at 16KHz or -3dB at 20kHz.

The point of 22kHz limit on CDs or HiFi is that filtering can be more gradual. If you wanted up to 12kHz and nothing above 16kHz, that would be a very costly filter and likely would have a nasty phase and impulse response above 2kHz.

Ribbon mics are exceptionally good and have been since before the 1960s.

A "30 Hz .. 16 kHz +/-3 dB" microphone is STILL very good.

Most pop music in 60s and today in live performance uses dynamic moving coil. About 50Hz .. 8kHz or up 10kHz for a few expensive models. Less easily overloaded or damaged than ribbon or condenser/electret.

[dseymo1]

Speech doesn't go near 16kHz

Surely it has harmonics which do?

[neon indicator]

5th harmonic of High C soprano is 10kHz. As you go up in harmonics the effect is less.

So you certainly don't need above 12kHz to 16kHz even for singing. Talking or male singing voice needs less.

If you have a decent sound card it can see the pilot tone of FM. @19kHz. Some "HD" sound cards have near 40Khz response (96kHz sampling), I can look at 38kHz DBSC mux L-R with those. I've not found one good enough to look at RDS signals, the models with 192kHz sampling still have a 40kHz low pass filter on input.

Get a young virgin to screech into an electret (most bare capsules are -3dB at 18kHz, i've managed to pickup 44kHz ultrasound with the 4mm capsules).

Download free Spectrum analyser SW for your sound card and have a look if you don't believe me.

[TIMTAPE]

Veffreak,
Yes I do think you're on the wrong track. I've not noticed any general loss of high frequencies in 60's recordings compared to 70's. Even if there were, high frequencies could easily be modified with eq.

For a good example of the effect of tape (distortion) in production, listen to many Motown recordings of the 60's such as the Four Tops to name one. Listen to the drums, and especially the snare drum. They have that crushed distorted sound that you got when you deliberately overload the tape. It can sound quite nice if not overdone in certain types of music.

Another example on voice is some of Ray Charles earlier recordings. There are probably many other examples.

Today some people still use tape machines to record the drum kit and bass for a particular distorted sound.

Overloading the tape somewhat compresses the sound and adds harmonics which can be appealing in some cases. Perhaps that's what you are hearing.

Hendrix? When I listen to Watchtower, Hey Joe, etc I hear great music, playing, production etc. Hendrix's guitar solo's are of course distorted courtesy of overdriving his valve amp. Lack of high frequencies? On the guitar yes. But also the presence of extra middle harmonics due to the overdriving the valve amp.

Tim

[veffreak]

I have seen wild things on a good spectrum analyzer and it always is a different thing what and how we hear of it. Dark side of the moon is a very good example of what i mean - there is nothing from the 60's to my knowledge that has been recorded in a quality level near that of this album in the 60's. And i think this is the recording side...

[Michael Maurice]

The Dark side of the moon was recorded in 1973, There was a quite a technology change in the recording processes, the switch from valves to transistors and IC's, the introduction of multitracking and of course Dolby noise reduction.

[Antlong]

Hello all,

When I were a lad I always reckoned that the STC 4038 ribbon microphone could not be beaten for speech. All the "fancier" microphones available in my bit of the BBC were just too, ermm, clinical for want of a better word. It's also vital to spend some time listening closely and making pernickety adjustments, perhaps staff are now under too much pressure?

Even now I find that all the high frequencies involved in the sibilant output from the mics now fashionable are often painful to listen to, even though my hearing is not what it was. Perhaps it's to drive teenagers away from Radios Three and Four!

As far as recordings went, comparing input and output showed no difference on well maintained machines at 15ips. Tape drop-outs were a greater hazard earlier on, and print-through too.

Regards Ant

[Ted Kendall]

Agreed. The 4038 is in fact as near as dammit flat to 15k, and can be made more so with the application of a mild "smile" curve. A lot of the top on capacitors is diaphragm resonance or deliberate response tailoring or both - and people brought up on such tend to fall over when they encounter a 4038 and find how good it is.

[TIMTAPE]

Antlong I agree.

I often notice a difference in the "polish" of the speech soundtracks between a top drawer movie on DVD, and the speech audio on the small documentary " bonus extras" that are often included on the disc.

The latter are often overly sibilant, or bassy. As well lapel mics can so easily give that horrible distant, uneven sound, especially when the mic gets hidden under a collar or a jumper.

Another trap for young players is different speech levels in different segments of the doco.

In the end I guess the big budget movies can afford the best audio people, and it shows in the finished product.

I play an old movie like Casablanca and though the audio facilities were primitive from our standpoint, with system background noise and very limited frequency range, you can hear every word. Perhaps because the technicians were so keenly aware of the equipment limitations, they worked that much harder to get it sounding as good as they could.

Tim