All information in these pages is copyright (c) 1989-2003 by Roger Nichols.
All rights reserved. Permission for personal reference only, and may not
be reproduced by any method without written permission.
"Sirius As A Heart Attack"
by Roger Nichols
I was in the studio last week recording a group called "Gary Vincent
And The Swamp Honkys" They have been a solid fixture of the "other
than country" scene in Nashville for quite a few years. I go to most
of their standing room only bar gigs and have always wondered why they didn't
have a record deal. They finally got involved with a good manager who put
them in the studio to do an album. (My first analog album since 1986). There
is some radio interest in the band and they have been getting air-play on
demos that were cut in Gary's basement project studio.
During the session one of the guitar players wanted to replace a guitar
solo that everyone thought was "genius". I asked him if he was
serious and he answered "I'm as serious as a heart attack". What
more could I say. I punched in the replacement solo which wasn't any better
than the original solo, but it made him happy.
Since I seem to have an affinity for puns, I said "Speaking of Sirius,
recording analog makes me about as lethargic as the Dog Days of Summer".
All I got was a room full of blank stares. I waited 2000 years for that
pun. Ya see, Sirius is the brightest star in the sky. During the summer
the sun is in the constellation Canis Major where Sirius resides. Ancient
cultures thought that those hot days of summer were caused by the light
and heat from Sirius adding to the light and heat of the Sun during those
few weeks. Canis is the "dog", thus the "dog days of Summer".
I can't understand why no one got it!
Back to the analog recording. We recorded analog (24 track 2") because
Gary wanted to. He wanted that raw rock & roll tape crunch. Well, he
got it. We did all of the recording and overdubs in six days. By the sixth
day you could definitely hear the increase in distortion on instruments
and vocals. Band members started commenting about the change in sound during
the week. Could it be the console? It was a Neve V3 with Flying Faders in
perfect condition. Could it be the tape machine dying? No, it is the tape
doing what analog tape does. "We didn't hear anything like that over
at Gary's little basement studio", was the comment. No, they didn't,
because Gary's studio has ADAT-XLs and he mixes to DAT. Everything stays
put with digital recording.
I could see the realization sink in that project studio recording has improved
so much that project recording quality often exceeds that of the big studios,
if you pay attention to the details. Microphone technique, control of unwanted
hums buzzes and air conditioner noise, proper recording levels and use of
EQ, together result in a recording that you can be proud of.
They thought that analog tape would add to the project. In this case it
seems to have subtracted a little. In two weeks I have to go back in the
studio to mix. I get to mix on an SSL 4000G+ with Oxygen free internal wiring.
If they include the Oxygen free control room environment, my "dog days"
will soon be over.
DAT Basics Revisited
I got some email asking about the difference between R-DAT and ADAT. Here
is the skinny. ADAT stands for Alesis Digital Audio Tape. This includes
the ADAT and ADAT-XL that Alesis makes, as well as the ADAT compatible machines
from Panasonic, Fostex, and whoever else signs up to make ADAT compatible
eight track VHS based digital audio recorders.
Now, stay with me here. About the time the Sony F-1 was the consumer digital
audio flavor of the day (1982-1988), development was already under way in
Japan for the replacement. There were two basic standards under development:
S-DAT and R-DAT. S-DAT stands for Stationary head Digital Audio Tape and
R-DAT stands for Rotary head Digital Audio Tape.
Digital audio requires a lot of information to be stored on tape. If you
have a lot of information to get on tape in a small amount of time, then
you must have a high average head-to-tape speed. There are three ways to
attack the problem:
1) You can have two tracks on 1/4" tape (one each for left and right)
and crank the tape speed up to about 75 ips. A 12 1/2" reel of digital
tape would last about 20 minutes. At a cost of $125 per reel, it gets pretty
expensive to store two channels of information.
2) If you have ten tracks on 1/4" tape, (five for each audio channel)
you can split the data between tracks and slow the tape down to 15 ips.
This is basically what Sony did for the 3402 reel to reel digital machine
and Mitsubishi did for the X-80 and X-86. Now you can record for an hour
on one reel of tape. Still expensive for consumer recording, but fine for
professional use.
With this same scheme, you can build a machine that uses 1/8" tape
with 40 tracks. Now you can record at 3 3/4 ips or even 1 7/8 ips with tape
improvements. Yamaha built a 20 bit eight track (eight audio channels on
1/4" tape in a cartridge) recorder using this technology. DMP records
made a lot of amazing sounding records using this Yamaha system.
3) How about using a video based system that has high head to tape speed,
but instead of using video decks, start from the ground up designing for
digital audio. Because the tracks are so small (about the size of a human
hair on 4mm tape) the linear tape speed can be low and the tapes can be
small and inexpensive.
In the mid 1980s rotary head technology was more advanced and therefore
the R-DAT technology won out for the consumer digital tape format. An R-DAT
machine in 1987 cost $2500. A professional stationary head digital recorder
cost $22,000.
DATiquitte
If DAT machines cost $10,000 and DAT tapes cost $100 each, most people would
take better care of their machines and their master tapes. I have seen artists
and producers hand carry their masters with them on flights from L.A. to
New York. They make sure that the tapes are hand checked by security and
do not go through the X-Ray machine. The then carry them on the plane and
put them in the overhead bin right by their seat. If you question them about
why they do it, they say "I have two years of my time and lots of money
invested in these tapes, they are priceless".
Five years later I ran into one of the same artists, on the same flight
to New York. I asked what he was up to, and he said "I'm going to New
York to master my new album, would you like to hear it"?
I said "I would like very much to hear it, do you have a copy with
you"? He reached in the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a DAT tape
that was covered with more dust and grunge than you would find at a belly-button
lint convention. He pulled his portable DAT player out of his briefcase,
popped it in and handed me the headphones. I asked if this was a copy and
he said "No, man this is the master. Sounds pretty good, huh"!
The difference here is that the new album was done in his own private studio
and mixed to a $10 tape in a $1000 DAT machine. What he didn't realize was
that the same amount of effort went into the project and the final mix tape
was just as priceless and even more vulnerable to damage.
I get DAT tapes all of the time that are in less than master condition.
Check out the DAT RULES side bar.
I'll be at the AES show in L.A. this November. I'll be the guy with the
Sirius look on my face while listening to a MiniDisc copy of my favorite
"Jack Mack And The Heart Attack" songs.
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