Comments on: The reel end of analog?

The reel end of analog?

pfafflin — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:31:05 -0800

Tip and Shout: 2'' Tape: "But last Friday, [Jeff] Tweedy hit a snag as he prepared for a session in Wilco's Chicago studio space: Nobody could find any of the professional-grade audio tape the band is accustomed to using."

By: jon_kill

jon_kill — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:34:54 -0800

This is truly fucked up. I had to put a reel on reserve for myself until I could get there with the $220.

By: phong3d

phong3d — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:36:13 -0800

"Neural-band recording devices just don't have the same connection with the artist as computer recording does", laments Oscar Young, audio engineer at Tranquility Moon Base V's Cosmic Wavetron Studios. "Digital recording confers a level of richness and warmth that these new bio-active implants can never match."

By: drezdn

drezdn — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:38:34 -0800

My friend who spent several thousand dollars on a 2" deck is going to be really depressed soon.

By: mudpuppie

mudpuppie — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:38:35 -0800

[i love wilco, but i never again want to see jeff tweedy done in a WSJ line drawing.]

By: The Card Cheat

The Card Cheat — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:40:41 -0800

Interesting, but sad. Analog recordings do sound better (this belief might be the only thing Lenny Kravitz and I have in common), IMHO. Nice to hear that Mr. Albini is still a crank, albeit one on the side of the angels in this case.

By: Joey Michaels

Joey Michaels — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:48:05 -0800

Aw, man. This shouldn't be so painful to read, but it is. Digital recording is ok, but you can really hear the difference. I need to go listen to Being There again now.

By: mikrophon

mikrophon — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:48:34 -0800

We were just talking about this the other night. The studio where we record just added a 1 inch 8-track machine, and now we can't get any tape for it. It's tricky, man, like the floor just dropped out.

By: Lynsey

Lynsey — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:48:49 -0800

I'll bet that those who stockpiled 2" tape are making a killing on eBay right now....

By: orange clock

orange clock — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:49:59 -0800

great article. lots of possible knock offs on ebay.

By: mikrophon

mikrophon — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:51:32 -0800

At the same time, could we all be getting a little Y2K nutty, what with the hording tape and all? The article did say that they are courting investors, and that the shut-down was probably temporary . . .

By: pfafflin

pfafflin — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:52:54 -0800

And the conversation continues over at the forums at Albini's Electrical Audio studio.

By: goatdog

goatdog — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:57:48 -0800

It seems like there is enough of a demand for this tape to support a small company. Hopefully when Quantegy gets its financial mess straightened out, it will be able to serve that demand. If not, the demand might prompt someone else to do it.

By: p3t3

p3t3 — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:15:57 -0800

I agree w/ goatdog. Lots of people still want analog. I'm sure some manufacturer will step up to feed off the niche market. This said, if you are good with your digital equipment, you can get pretty close to the analog sound with quality dsp mastering plug-ins. Especially if you release on analog media like vinyl. I have heard some pretty impressive "pseudo-analog."

By: turtlegirl

turtlegirl — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:22:53 -0800

According to an engineer friend of mine, Quantegy is still sending out tape, but at a very slow pace, as they have only a skeleton crew working while they figure out the financial situation/future of the company. All of the 2" tape got snapped up by the bigger studios, but there is still some 1/4" (for 2-track mixdown) available (depends on the retailer). I'm bummed because I just got a 1" 8-track machine but I only have two reels of tape to use. Anyone got a good deal on a degausser? ;) Digital is fine for editing, but audio always sounds better when recorded to analog first, IMHO.

By: keswick

keswick — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:24:40 -0800

You know, I liked Wilco a lot more ten years ago. You know, when they were good.

By: tweak

tweak — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:25:16 -0800

Thanks for the article. Looks like Albini hit a sort of retro-jackpot. And hey, if Wilco runs out of tape, they can probably get the hook-up from Albini's studio. Here's a really interesting interview where Albini talks shop to a group of students (caveat: its really, really long, so you might want to download the 149 megabyte quicktime file). He discusses digital versus analog, how he works, and what kinds of music he finds interesting to record.

By: RockCorpse

RockCorpse — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:25:17 -0800

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration uses Quantegy tape on its space shuttles to record information ranging from pressure to temperature. For that heavy, warm sound you only get from tape saturation? Well, I've got 5 reels of used 996 Wilco can *have*.

By: turtlegirl

turtlegirl — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:40:45 -0800

tweak: great link, thanks for sharing!

By: ludwig_van

ludwig_van — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:54:15 -0800

You know, I liked Wilco a lot more ten years ago. You know, when they were good. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came out in '02.

By: LionIndex

LionIndex — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 12:18:23 -0800

They haven't even reached the 10 year anniversary of A.M. yet--maybe you meant you liked Wilco better when they were Uncle Tupelo? Or before they actually released anything?

By: p3t3

p3t3 — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 13:33:08 -0800

Speaking of Wilco and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, I recently heard about the whole Irdial/Wilco lawsuit deal for the first time (previously on MeFi here which I apparently missed). Well as an update on that old story if anyone's interested- Irdial scored a settlement for around $30,000 - and they used the money to repress the Conet Project Box Set. The Irdial site doesn't seem to be updated, but it's been available for a few months now. A little googling should bring up a copy.

By: keswick

keswick — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 13:52:07 -0800

Oops. I always think AM came out in 94, because their first gig was in 11/94. I was being a bit of a prick (surprise) in my earlier post. Basically, I liked Wilco better when they were a band and not Jeff and some sidemen. Wilco died to me the day Jeff fired Jay Bennett.

By: LionIndex

LionIndex — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:05:31 -0800

I was being a bit of a prick (surprise) I figured you were just taking the piss. That's why I extra-special had to call you on it.

By: COBRA!

COBRA! — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:16:51 -0800

I liked Wilco better when they were a band and not Jeff and some sidemen. How quickly you forget John "Rasputin" Sitiratt.

By: COBRA!

COBRA! — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:17:20 -0800

Stiratt

By: Joey Michaels

Joey Michaels — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:17:48 -0800

AM, of course, was pre-Bennett, though he is thanked on the liner notes. Wilco, in my mind, was Tweedy, Stiratt and Coomer - Bennett still seemed like a session man to me, albeit an amazing one. Since Stiratt and Tweedy are still in the band, I feel like Wilco is still the band I have loved for song.

By: gigawhat?

gigawhat? — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:23:51 -0800

Your favorite band used to not suck.

By: abcde

abcde — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:27:14 -0800

Is tape reusable? If so, can't you just keep like two or three spools for a studio, and do it in tape before digitizing it? Of course that way you won't have the master tapes for all eternity, but using it as an effect rather than a storage medium is way better than nothing.

By: Joey Michaels

Joey Michaels — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 15:56:37 -0800

song = so long.

By: sunexplodes

sunexplodes — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 16:34:24 -0800

p3t3: Irdial scored $30,000 for claiming copyright on radio signals they recorded??? that's pretty funny abcde: yes, tape is reuseable, though pristine (virgin) tape is the only useable stuff for high end audio work

By: keswick

keswick — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 17:08:27 -0800

I think the things Jay brought to the band are pretty obvious. It was great hearing Brian Henneman tear into "Casino Queen" on AM though. Brian doesn't get enough love. Then again, "Idiot's Revenge" probably didn't win him many friends with the indie kids. In summary, YHF = great. AGiB = teh suck. Palace at 4am = great. Chelsea Walls = teh suck. The things Stiratt brings to the band: background vocals, bass. Possibly coffee or bagels. oh snap Oh yeah, and ObOnTopic: um, I expect someone will start manufacturing the stuff. Possibly Larry Crane. okay, maybe not.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:09:21 -0800

Is tape reusable? If so, can't you just keep like two or three spools for a studio, and do it in tape before digitizing it? My understanding is that you'll lose quality each time you rerecord over tape, and you'll sometimes get stuck with ghost noise.

By: Vidiot

Vidiot — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 19:30:48 -0800

Degaussing the tape after each usage helps, but the more you use a tape, the more little flecks of oxide will physically chip away from the plastic backing.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 19:43:59 -0800

According to another message board, there are other companies with the ability to produce the tape, and someone will probably pick up the slack.

By: Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 23:32:24 -0800

Looking ahead to a tape-starved future, Mr. Tweedy has a fallback: The band has an archive of around 100 reels of tape it has used in recording its various albums. By splicing out and saving the final version of each song, he figures they can maintain the archive and also generate a supply of tapes that can be recycled for future recording sessions. This makes me want to cry.

By: keswick

keswick — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 00:53:39 -0800

C'mon, 20 reels of that is probably alternate takes of "Less Than You Think."

By: bendybendy

bendybendy — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 03:36:11 -0800

Is tape reusable? If so, can't you just keep like two or three spools for a studio, and do it in tape before digitizing it? My understanding is that you'll lose quality each time you rerecord over tape ...a producer friend of mine has been hoarding tape. He's been experimenting with recording to disk, then bouncing it to 2" tape. He's likened it to "adding a generation" rather than loosing one. He doesn't seem real worried; I think the 2" tape can be erased a lot more fully, and more times than consumer tape. He's planning to get by with a few dozen reels that he can reuse. He'll archive to digital. Other counter-intuitive Tape-Op nerd things he's told me: you loose a generation ripping Audio CD -> WAV -> Audio CD -> WAV. It's not a perfect transfer. And that there's debate that mass produced CD-Rs have better fidelity than glass mastered Audio CDs.