Return-Path: crispen <@ada3.ca.boeing.com:crispen@eight-ball>
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Fri, 22 Jan 1993 08:51:51 CST
From:         crispen <crispen@EIGHT-BALL.BOEING.COM>
Subject:      Re: Technonerdophilia, Song Listing

This is a long one, but there are some goodies at the end (I think).

Paul Heroy <HEROY%LSUVM.BITNET@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU>

> Ya... you definitely don't want to push an analog deck as hard when you're
> recording, say, jazz with lots of cymbals, brass instruments with lots of
> HF overtones etc., as opposed to solo acoustic guitar and voice. With digital
> you don't have to worry about the frequency content, but overall levels are
> the killer, as I mentioned above.

Well, sort of.

(1) Media.

CDs have a greater "practical" dynamic range than any other medium
except live performance.  That is, a CD can range from the barely
audible to the threshhold of pain, all with an excellent signal to
noise ratio.  Tape, on the other hand, has a relatively low practical
dynamic range, due to the tape head's having to bias tape particles
with a magnetic field, which is subject to the laws of physics.
"Inertia" makes tape less responsive to low signal levels, and tape
saturation (you can't bias the particles more than 100%) limits peaks.

Further, tape is a noisy medium.  The most significant noise component
is tape hiss (which is inevitable and very audible at low signal levels
unless you use Dolby or dbx), but there's also mechanism noise and hum.
The lower the signal level, the more this noise seems audible.

So, obviously, you want to record below saturation, but *just* below.
The question is, how?

Unfortunately, things are complicated by the fact that tape saturation
is a non-linear phenomenon.  That is, some frequencies will saturate
before others.  Tape formulations tend to be fairly consistent in this
behavior from batch to batch (a TDK SA-X tape will behave pretty much
like another TDK SA-X) but different tape formulations will differ
from one another (a Maxell XL-II will sound different from a TDK SA).


(2) Musical genre.

Ever notice that some heavy metal/rock recordings have a very, very
small difference in signal between the loudest part and the softest?
I'm thinking of a Boston's third record, for example.  You can record
this music at or near the "optimum" setting -- just below tape
saturation, so this might be recorded less hot than other music whose
peaks might go into saturation.

Or take jazz piano trio music.  The peak reading probably comes when
the piano, bass and kick drum are playing the same note at the same
time, and this will occur relatively frequently.  You'll want to make
sure to stay below saturation on this kind of music.  You'll record
this a little "cooler" than, e.g., pop music (McDonna, etc.) which,
even though it has the same kind of rhythmic loud points, is
nevertheless subject to so much compression during production that
you don't have to worry about accidental saturation.

The answer, of course, is to ride the gain whenever you're recording
from a medium (e.g., CD or live performance) and musical style (jazz,
chamber music) that has a greater practical dynamic range than the
medium you're recording on (e.g., analog tape).

When you're lazy like me, though, you want to set and forget your
recorder.

<<<Good part>>>

TDK has made a CD that has lots and lots of 0 VU tones that are
chosen for type of music and tape formulation (TDK brand tapes, of
course, but you can't have everything).  That is, you'll have a
tone for opera music on TDK MA tape, heavy metal on SA-X, and
jazz on SA-X (and dozens of other permutations).  I use it
religiously and can recommend it with only the following reservations:

(1)  Exceptional piece of music.

Let's take a probably nonexistent classical piece (though
I recorded one like it not long ago) that has one big orchestral tutti.
The tutti is three notes, staccatto, and the hall they recorded in is
very reverberant.  The rest of the piece is at medium to low levels.

My contention is that there's so much distortion at the mic on the
tutti that adding a little more by over-driving the tape probably
won't make that much difference (one should avoid audible clipping,
of course), but recording the rest of the tape too low *does* make
a difference because of the poor signal-to-noise ratio you get.

(2) Unusual CD mastering.

I will contend that most CDs have been mastered so that they'll work
with the TDK CD.  However (and this is especially true for CDs on
indie labels) some are recorded way too soft.

<<<Another good part>>>

Gary, if you're making liner notes, the Stan Kenton song is "Chiapas",
not "Chipas".  I've got an idea -- how about letting me substitute
"Malaga" since you've got to change the liner notes anyway.  The song
is (or can be made) about the same length (there's a lot of applause
at the end).

I had grossly misunderstood the instructions -- I thought the five
songs were in order of performance, not rank order (I don't know where
I got the idea that you could get five songs from everyone onto a
sensible number of tapes).

Also, I have the CD with "Malaga" on it in my possession, and can send
it to you, while you'll get a second generation tape of "Chiapas".
"Malaga" is a much better piece, and a much better performance, in
front of a more enthusiastic crowd.

>Before I get started here, an additional note should be added to the
>last posting: DO NOT record your songs using any form of Dolby or DBX
>noise reductions.

Really lousy idea IMHO!!!!  Read the above about tape hiss.

Now, close your eyes and try to imagine someone who could be more of
a pain in the ass than I've been about this tape thing.  Go ahead.
You can do it.

Bob
crispen@foxy.boeing.com
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