multi track recorders

7/31/2019 Multi Track Recorders

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RECORDING SEPTEMBER1999

Have you ever bee n picked on b y some bully in school?I have . After the event I replayed it over a nd over in mymind until I came up with the perfect comebacktheone I wish ed Id d elivered inste ad of giving him my Spamand p otato chip sandwich .

The desire t o improve history by rewriting it is pre t tyinst inct ive . And in music-making it isnt ju st a wish, it s amodus operandi.

The tool that lets us relive a situ ation as long as ittakes to perfect it is the mult it rack recorder. Ra ther thanliving with th e live -to-2 re cording, t h e m ult it rack givesus that much -appreciated secondor third , or fifteenthchance to get a bette r take .

The ins and outs

Heres the idea: as music ma kes its way from t he var i-ous microphones to th e final 2-tra ck master, we store ittemporarily on a mult it rack. And t hat s how its hookedup: microphone out, through the console record path(channel path) , to the mult it rack recorder. On playback,we send signals from the mult it rack recorder out throughthe consoles monitor path t o the mix bus. (F igure 1sketches it out in a gen eral way: check out our previoustwo installmen ts to re fresh your un derstanding of theconsoles busses a nd s ignal pat hs.)

Falling in between t he channel pat h and the m onitorpath , t h e mult it rack recording devicewhether a com-

puter h ard disk recorder, digital tape deck, or analog

tape recorderreceives whate ver tra cks you are cu rre nt -ly recording at its input; it plays back whatever tracksare already recorded. The mult it rack is nothing morethan a n audio storage device. It stores the drums whileyou add bass. It stores the rhythm section while you a ddvocals a nd solos.

What are good devices for aud io storage? There are justa couple of valid a nswers (so far): tape and disk. For analogstorage, tape is the only practical multitrack medium. Fordigita l,t heres tap e me dia like ADAT and TASCA M ,b u tdisks in all the ir formats are also possible: magneto-opticaldisks, internal or external hard disks, removable disks

Naturally th e recording device must p ossess highsound quality, re liability, and affordability. Three otherfeatures are pe rhaps less obvious.

First , i t must be able to be erased and then re -recordedove r, on the off chance someone makes a mistake.Second, th e r ecording must be available for immediateplayback r ight after be ing recorded. So while 35mm filmmight be a great release format for sound, it is impract i-cal in the studio because it re quires processing in a filmlaboratory before it can be played back.

A final functional re quirement of the mult it rackrecorder is that it must be able to record and play backsimultaneously. Its power as a crea t ive t ool in the record -ing studio depends on its ability to overdub: r ecord a newtrack while simultaneously playing back previously

recorded tracks.

Pa rt 3i n o u r b e g in n e r s s e r i e s

M u l t i t r ac k Re c o r d e r sM u l t i t r ac k Re c o r d e r s Al l ab o u t t h e mac h i n e att h e cen t er o f ever y s t u dio


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How can a r ecorder p lay back onething while recording another?Simple enough. Each tr ack of themult it rack recorder a ssumes one oftwo states: playback or r ecord. Whena track is in the playback mode, itsaudio is sent t o the mu lt it rackmach ines output . In record mode,new audio for that track iswrit ten/stored on the tap e or disk.

Overdubs

The cool thing about a multitrack isthat it can enter re cord mode selec-tive ly, track by track, so that it recordsonly on the tracks desired.The othertracks arent b eing r ecorded onto, sothey instea d stay in playback mode.This accommodat es the overdub.

Lets check out a power trio sessionconsisting of drums on t rack one,bass on track two, guitar on trackthree.Vocals are t o be done a s anoverdub onto track four. During the

overdub, it is pretty clear what mult i-track outputs one, two, and three are .What signal appe ars at output

number four? Seems logical that itshould be t he vocal being over -dubbed. But one wonders how arecorder can play back the sam etrack its recording. In fact , it cant !So it d oesnt .

On the tra ck actually being record -ed, the ta pe machine cant play backwhat its laying onto ta pe or disk.There is an inevitable delay betweenwhen the signal is recorded andwhen it is played ba ck. That delay islong enough to cause the musicalequivalent of a tra in wreck.

The solution is that the machinedoesnt even at tem pt to p lay backthe track it is re cording. Instead theoutput for the track being recordedis its own input. Honest . No typothere . The vocal signal be ing record-ed is sent t o mult it rack input num-ber four, and it is split within themult it rack machine before beingrecorded.The divided vocal signalgoes both t o the re corder and simul-taneously to the mult it rack output .

This is standard operating proce-dure, and is shown in Figure 2.

The mode that routes the inpu t ofthe track act ively being recorded toits own out put is called input mode. Ifa t rack isnt in input mode , its outputsignal is the audio already recordedon that par ticular track. Playbackmode (or repro mode, from repro-duce) describes this configura t ion,and it is the stan dard signal flow fortracks not currently being recorded.

So there a re two choices for whatsignal appe ars at each output of a

mult itrack. I t can playback wha tsalready on the t ape or d isk (thats

repro mode), or it can play backwhat is curren tly being sent t o thetape or disk (thats input mode).Youve got two options here : rereadthis paragraph h alf a dozen times orsit in front of a ta pe ma chine for acouple minutes. Its much more con-fusing to say than it is to do.

The tr icks and t reats

Okay, so a mult it rack is used t orecord the ra ther e laborate audioarrangement of a pop tune a fewtracks at a timean arra ngementthat m ight use m ore than 24 tra cksof recorded music.

Naturally, we do more th an ju stprint tracks with the mult it rack.

Le ts explore some of the more sub-tle production capabilities offered bythe humble mult it rack recorder.

One handy feature is the ability torecord from one tra ck to another, aprocess called bouncing. There are afew reasons to bounce tracks.

The first re ason is for convenience .As a project progresses, t h e m ult i-t rack can get a little me ssy, with

alterna te vocal tra cks, solo out-takes,background vocal harm ony ide as,and that experimental (but ultimate-ly rej ected ) contrabassoon solo allspread out to various locationsamong the keeper tracks.

Its often h elpfu l to reorganize thetracks into a more logical order: all the


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drum s on the first few tracks, a ll thevocals on the last few tracks, with therhythm section laid out in an order

that is logical and comfortable for you.To move a signal from one tra ck toanother, simply hook up the outp ut ofone track to the input of another, setthe source track to playback, the tar-get track to record mode, and record.

On ana log ma chines, this costs youa generation of quality, which ismore tha n tolerable on some of thebetter machines. On digita lmach ines, this bouncing ability oftenexists digitally within the machine.No patching, and no generation loss.Needless to say, we bounce tracks

more often on d igital mult it racks.Another varia t ion on the bounc-ing theme is submixing. Instead of doing a direct tran sfer from onetrack to another , i t is of ten handy tocrea te and re cord a sub mix of acomponent of the tune. If drumswe re rec o rded across 12 tra cks ofthe mult it rack , i t can b e a good idea

to mix just the dru ms down to twonew tracks, leaving the non-drumtracks unm ixed for n ow.

This is helpful in two ways. Fir st , itfrees up tracks for other pur poses.Digital r ecording software can some-times offer infinite nu mbers of

t racks, but that can be l imited bythe size of the storage med ium andthe p ower of the machine doing therecording. And analog recorders, anddigital ta pe a nd MiniDisk ma chines,have fixed numbers of tracks avail-able . So bouncing downlets you ta ke


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a large number of tra cks and pre -mixth em to ma ke room for more of yourorchest rat ion.

Second, if some elements of thetunelike the drums in th is caseare already care fully pre-mixed , thencrea tive ene rgy, effects devices,patch cables, and fader f ingers arefree to focus on the remaining ele-ments of the mix.

Of course, there is a downside tosubmixing. In order to free a tra ckby submixing, you must pe rform t herather scary act of erasing the origi-nal. Submixing twelve drum t racksto a stereo pair of tra cks will indee dfree up ten tracks for vocals, solos,

and other mu sical ideas, but only ifyou are willing to erase the originalsnare track, the original kick drumtrack, e tc.

And the submixed drum s are onlyuseful in the final mix if the submixitself is, as they say, totally killer.Without knowing exactly what t heentire mix will sound like, youve gotto create an appropria te ,complemen-tary, compelling submix of the dru ms.

Clearly, submixing some number oft racks down to fewer t racks is itsown skill, requiring not only basicmixing chops but also a little bit ofex t ra-sensory perception to pre dictthe appropriate mix goal of a give nelement of the overall mix. Expect tomake a few mistake s. P lan to remixthese submixes a few times, and tryto have a backup of any tra cks youerase. This is easier t o do with digitalsystems t han with an alog recorders,since you d ont lose a gen era tion ofsound qua lity when you dub off abackup.

Sometimes submixes are pr intedto the mult it rack not so mu ch to freeother tracks but to store a mix

move . Prin ted mix moves are a goodway to have manual fader r ides andcrazy pan pot m oves in a mix withoutautomat ion. Just do the mix movemanua lly, recording the a udio resultto spare tracks of the mu lt it rack.

Yet a nother variation on t hebouncing theme is called comping. Acomp is hip-spea k for a composite. Itrefe rs to creating a single tra ck th atis in fact a collection of pieces of anynumber of different t racksthe bestchorus happe ned on take th ree whilethe best bridge happened on take

seve n, and the best intro was yester -days scratch vo c a l .A a ck !

Mixdown with vocals all over themu lt it rack coming up on faders allover the console is very distract ing.They are comped by re cording allthe ap propriate pieces to a separa tetrack. The comped track thenappears in one place, on one fader,and is a lot less distracting duringmixdown. In fact , comping is nothingmore than bouncing from many dif-

fe rent source tracks one at a time tothe same de stination tra ck.

The multit rack can do more th anjust re cord instruments , other t racks,and subm ixes. Why not record someeffects to the multitrack? If youstumb le upon a tru ly magic effecttha t you th ink may be difficult toreproduce, record it to its own tracks.

Sometim es its necessary to r ecordthe effect because youre borrowingth e $3500 Spast ron Digital NirvanaBox and it has to be retur ned tonight.More likely its becau se th e tota l

effect uses an elaborate signal paththrough 14 different effects units, andthough you actually own them , theexact settings may be difficult tore create. Printed effects are a goodhabit when you have spare tracks andhave create d a rathe r dramat ic effect.

Finally, there is no rea son theent ire mix itself cant be recorded onthe mult it rack. Naturally, the m ix isrecorded t o the 2-tra ck mastermach ine, be i t DAT, disk, or analogtape. But if you have spare tracks,print a safety version of the m ix onthe mult it rack. Beyond t he comfortof having a backup copy, you createthe basis for a fast , and the re forech eap, recall.

Youve no doubt experienced thetempt ation to recall a m ix.You, theart ist , or the label decide a week ortwo afte r mixdown that everything inthe mix was gorgeous... bu t i t ju s tneeds a little ext ra reverb on thesnare, and some slap echo on theslide guitar would be nice.

These changes generally requirethe en tire mix to be reca lled.That is,the sam e studio full of the same gear

has to be restored to the exact sameconfigurat ion it was in the d ay youmixed, knob by knob, switch byswitch . And all manual moves mustbe re-performed exactly as before.

This aint trivia l. It s difficult to ge ta recall to truly match the originalmix. Often t he best you can do is getclose enough for rock and ro l l a n dmove on. If the ent ire mix is on twotracks of the mu lt it rack, the recall isp retty trivia l.

Push up t he two faders with th eoriginal mix on them, and use the

snare and slide guitar t racks assources for the additional effects. Mix

Excerpted from the September edition of RECORDING magazine. 1999 Music Maker Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission.

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the ne w effects with the old stereo mix, and for just a fewminutes work youve got a new-and-improved mix that willplease everyone for at least another week or t wo.

Pros and cons

We can see where a mult it rack is a core par t of yourstudio and its opera t ions, and the r ight machine will letyou do everything from storing an d a ssembling passes torecalling entire m ixes. So how do you choose the rightmach ine?

When evaluat ing which multitrack to buy, rent, or bor-row, the norma l priorities ap ply. Youll be looking for th ebalan ce of sound qua lity versus price t hat fits your budget.

When evaluating t he cost of a multitrack, do keep inmind t he cost of the m edia as well as th e cost of themach ine. Youve got th e one-time cost of buying the ta pemachine to ta ke care of first, but the per-project cost of the

tap e (or disks) to justify to yourself or the clients later.Beyond th is value calculation, some other featu resshould be given d ue considera t ion. The mult it rackrecorder, whether t ape- or disk-based, is a mechanicallycomplicated device. Unlike, say, a digital mu lt ieffectsunit , a mult it rack has moving parts, and lots of them. Itneeds t o be well designed and well maintained.

For a t ape m achine, look for a manu fa cturer you or acolleague knows to be trustworthy. If new, make sure ithas a war ranty to get you through any manufa cturingfa ult s. If us ed , try to assess the am ount of loving care orsloppy abuse the machine endure d.

If the ma chine h iccups during day one of an album youmight lose the gig. If the machine crashes on day 231 youmight lose all the audio for t he en tire project . It s t oug hto put a price on reliability, so give it some t houghtbefo re you transact .

Relat ed t o quality is the feel of the ma chine . Howquickly does it fast forwa rd and rewind? Is it coopera t iveor cantankerous as you re cord a chorus, rewind to thebeginning of the chorus, re -record the chorus, rewind tothe second repeat of the words ...baby, yeah..., r e-record the words ...baby, yeah..., rewind, repeat , e tc.

The process of recording a song is fa irly active an dve ry non-linear, and the mu lt it rack needs a transpor tthat can keep up with the creat ive n eeds of the session.Some feel like Italian sports cars, anticipating your everyrecording desire; some dr ive like an old school bus with aflat front left tire .

The decision to use a digital or an analog mult it rackshould really be governed by how it m eets the above cri-ter ia . Choose the machine you feel gives you app ropriatesound quality for the dollar while offering acceptab lereliability and a comfortable transpor t .

If you go analog, you get the abili ty to edit tape. Allyou nee d is a razor blade for cutting, some special tapefor taping the tape to another, er , p iece of tape, and an

editin g block to help you cut consistently. With appro pri-a te equipment, c lean and s teady hands, and a wil lingness

to live on the edge, you can literally cut and paste t hetap e t o chan ge the song in any way you de sire. Swa pve rse one for verse three. Cut the solo to half its length.Pull out two bars of the intro. (Dont shudderit s howwe all did it, until very recently.)

Should you go d igital, youve got the additional decisionof whethe r to be tape- or disk-based. Compared to harddisks, tape-based formats are generally much less expen-

sive, are often more portable , and they offer the ability tochange instant ly from one p roject to another. Changingtape s is a lot easier and qu icker tha n backing up one harddisk project and restoring another (unless you switch harddrive s ,w h i ch can also be an option, if a n expensive one ).

Splicing digital ta pe is possible on t he (very expensive )open reel formats, but is verboten for helical scan, car -tridge -based t ape s like th e ones used in DAT, DTRS (DA-88 series) , and ADAT formats. Hard d isks overcome t hatd isadvantage by offering nondestructive software-basede di t ing.Nond e s t ruct ive means that the edits dont alterthe actual aud io filetheyre done in software on thefly, so youre free to change your mind .

There are other advantages to hard disk recording.

These include ever -decreasing prices, external and re mov-able dr ives to improve portab ility, and random access.You are familiar with t he ap pea l of random a ccess if

you have ever tr ied to zip to the fifth song on an alb umon both CD and cassett e. The CD gets there instantly andeffor t lessly. On cassett e you fumble for the location, fast-forwa rding and rewinding until you find it.

Tape -based mult it rack machines have the same p rob-lemonly theres the adde d ben efit of a room full of peo-ple waiting for you t o find the r ight place on t ape. Tapecounters, memory locations, and good notes on a takesheet can m ake th is less of a hea dache , but disk-basedrecorders offer true random access. Want t o hear t racksix? Click. Here it comes.

Another type of mu lt it rack recorder we havent m en-tioned is the DAW (digital aud io worksta t ion). These sys-tems are in the hard disk category, but theyre rea lly awhole subje ct unt o themselves. Th ey combine all theadvantages of stand-alone hard disk re corders with excel-lent edit ing. And track bouncing in a DAW is differe nt ,because you can do it without d eleting the originaltracks. If this sort of power appea ls to you, you shouldfollow the DAW Diaries in this magazine for tips and

t r icks that have worked for my fellow writer s.In my recording life I use both tape and hard disk

mach ines. I guess Im showing my age, but I prefer t hevibe that comes from using tape-based multitrackmach ines. Rewinding before re -ta king a solo gives the se s-sion a sort of pace that I find na tura l. Instant access to thebegin ning of the solo makes it a ll to easy to work way toofast and lose the chance to take a b reath a nd be creat ive .

On the other hand , random access locating and itsassociated nondestructive editing are clearly a powerfulproduction tool. The choice is yours, and a bi t of pract iceand forethought will help you pick the mult it rack th at sright for you.

Alex Case welcomes suggestions forNuts&Bolts. You c ancontact Alex at [email protected].

Mul t it r ac k Re c o r d e r s

Th e mul t it r ack g ives u s t hat much-appr ec iat ed s econd

o r t h ir d , o r f if t een t h c han ce t o get a bet t er t ake.

Mul t it r ac k Re c o r d e r s

multi track recorders

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