I own this same tape machine but 24 channels, and I still enjoy watching this video.

IIRC, they recorded to ADAT. :)

@Aron Trent bot moment

Ahahahaha good joke

I think it's the way he's lighting up while talking about his passion. It seems like this is the first time he's had this kind of conversation with someone who's genuinely interested and understands what he's saying. Honestly I'm really glad with what Rob is asking and the way in which he's asking it.

Jay Wilkey just seeing this comment, but agreed!

Lol that would be a nightmare

Guess i’m a real engineer then

Intentionally or unintentionally?

Harry Selby I have a feeling some idiot will try to correct you, but you have puns on your side!

The mechanism is relay cool as well...

MCI JH 24/16 tracks 1980

oh8203 right. What we think of as regular cassettes/tapes are actually called “compact cassettes.” Tapes and machines were originally large like this reel to reel setup, until we invented compact tapes. The more you know!

Yes.

when in the sync mode the record head lets you and the musician hear tape playback while recording the musicians performance with the same record head, everything outside the tape machine happens (effectively* ) at the speed of light or just as if the complete band was performing together.

No you cant use those tapes. Same way toy cant use 2" audio tape on a 2" quad machine. I worked in the largest post production facility in the east coast of USA. One day we fot a shipment of tape. I noticed it was AUDIO tape. I rejected 24 reels of tape. And our production came to a halt until we got proper tape. Video tape is coated differently than audio tape. The magnetic particles on quad video tape are oriented 90° different than audio tape. And 2" audio tape is coated 90° different than video tape. I restore 2" quad machine now

Check out ATR magnetics master series tapes

You're not doing your job. Rob signed the pact. Now the onus is on you, sir.

Apples and oranges

ok and excellent!

Even in digital audio, if you turn down how many points per second your taking, you'll start losing higher end, because the frequency is faster than the point per second. So it makes sense it would be a thing to me.

No I thinks its bolocks!

Audio recording on magnetic tape is very simple. A tape mist be pulled at a constant speed past the heads and this is done by a capstan & pinch roller. The reels only supply and take up the tape. The capstan rotates with precision either by a motor that was synchronized by mains voltage (old days) or in modern times by a precise oscillator (either crystal Controlled or by some other electronic method) id this motor varies in speed, if not, the machine will experience bad "wow & flutter" in addition to faithfully reproduce a sound it mist be at a precise speed all the time. Some capstans can be sync'd or locked to a frequency. This is what happens when two tape machines are "locked" together. As long as they start together, they will stay together. Those are known as "servo" signals. If you want I can describe those as well. The first head a tape comes in contact is the erase head. In multitask recorders each track has its own head that is stacked up on each other. Multitask heads are normally called a "Stack". Each head is a coil of wire wrapped around a structure that looks like the letter "C" with a microscopic air gap. The tape closes this magnetic gap. The finer the particle and the finer the gap results in better quality you will have. The erase head is supplied with a set bias frequency. & voltage. The bias frequency is normally 3x the frequency of the highest frequency u want to record, normally around 100khz. This "erasing" will align all the particles the same way, and effectively "erasing" any previous signal. Then we move onto the record stack. The heads are made the same way except fed a different signal. Both the bias frequency and desired audio is fed to the head. The bias frequency is there to "stir" the particles on the tape to almost a fluid As the tape leaves the gap, only the audio portion of the signal remains on the tape. Bias frequency & voltage are extremely important and mist be set properly for each tape formulation to get the most optimal quality from the tape itself. Some machines have switches to select which tape formulation you will be using. Most recording studios will stick with one type of formulation as changing bias on a multi track machine can take a while (if done right). Bias setup is only for erasing & recording. And tools like oscilloscopes should be used. The playback stack is the reverse. When a magnetic field is applied to the head and voltage is created proportionate to the strength of the magnetic field. As the tape moves past the head the varying magnetic particles create a varying magnetic field in the coil that is proportionate to the audio signal. The result from the playback stack is a varying voltage proportionate to the audio signal. This voltage is amplified, and sent along its way, eventually to speakers which convert electrical waves to sound waves, and we hear it as sound. I restore 2" quad professional broadcast video tape machines and extremely familiar with magnetic recording principles. A 2" quad video tape machine is far more complex than a simple audio recorder.

30khz not at 0dB! what for no one can hear maybe your dog!

The point is that digital sounds 2 dimensional, lifeless, and shit.

Ackshually, the waveform is not approximated. For all intents and purposes, it's reproduced perfectly as long as you have enough data points (44100 Hz is enough to reproduce all sound within the human hearing range). The only possible point of data loss is the bitrate, but I'm pretty sure 32 bits per point is enough to bring you below what you'd lose due to the analog noise.

In the end, you have to move a speaker. That is always analog. If you hear it, it is "real audio". The engineer even mentions some of the reasons people prefer analog, and they don't have to do with fidelity per se.

@@dryued6874 I think 24 already gets you there, but I'm not positive.

@@dryued6874 You can also oversample. For instance, a 1-bit DAC with a sample rate in MHz.

He goes from analog (mics) to digital (ADC) in his mixer, back out to analog (DAC) to analog tape, then back into his mixer where it again gets digitized, mixed and sent who know where. You're correct. However analog mixing boards introduce a lot of noise themselves