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So you want to record an album


Introduction

The process

Budgets

Computer recording

The great debate

Lead sheets

Demo - Broadcast quality

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So You Want to Record an Album ?

How to get started and get the best result for your dollars

The Great Debate - Analogue vs Digital

 

This is a subject which has caused great debate between engineers, producers and others in the industry. In extremely general terms most established Professionals now favor the digital format because of the editing and the fact that the sonic difference between digital and tape being a lot less today.

 

Analogue (e.g. 2" 24 track)

Digital (hard disk)

Pro’s

Sound Quality – 1. The higher frequency regions. 

The analogue formats while having a spec sheet which says that its highest reproducible frequency is around 25kHz can actually still play back audible information in the 40kHz region as the response is slowly decreasing with frequency. The specs are normally measured at 3dB down from the level measured at 1kHz. This means that sound in this region is more accurately stored on the format. While there is still more debate on whether humans can hear this, most people can hear the interactions which are caused by these frequencies.

Sound Quality – 2. Harmonics

Analogue distortion produces odd harmonics (i.e. 3rd, 5th, etc.). This type of distortion while not being desirable is more pleasing to the human ear and can in some cases be used as an effect. If the level exceeds the maximum indicated by the meters tape compression occurs with distortion slowly becoming evident. This is a fairly forgiving phenomenon which is often used to great effect.

Maintenance - A

While requiring regular maintenance, these machines can be serviced in the field by technical staff. Except for major component failure most faults can be remedied quickly on site and even if a motor fails it is possible to get it repaired by a generic "Electric Motor Servicing Workshop" if spares are not readily available.

Pro’s

Cost – 1. Machines

The machines used for these formats are considerably cheaper than the Pro analogue machines.

Cost - 2. Hard drives

The hard drives used are cheaper then the standard analogue reels. A hard drive that will fit a number of 32 track albums on it will cost about $200 compared to $450 for one reel of 2" tape the lasts 15 minutes at 30" per second.

Size

These units are small and rack mountable so can be used in a demo setup without losing a lot of space.

 Maintenance – A

The advantage side of the maintenance issue of these machines is that the only moving parts the may ware out (excluding keyboard, mouse & monitor) are the hard drives and these are throw away/replace and cheap.
 

Noise

As a function of the way in which the Digital encoding / decoding works, any noise generated on the storage medium is eliminated from the reconstituted audio. This means that there is virtually no "Hiss" type noise produced when playing the tracks back. 
 

Analogue (e.g. 2" 24 track)

Digital (hard disk)

Con’s
 
Cost
These machines are very expensive and can be very costly to keep properly maintained. Especially as they get older they require more "tweaking" to keep them up to top performance. 
Noise

The standard noise floor of these machines is not that good. The noise is normally heard as "Hiss". As the tape tracks became narrower the noise floor increased so Noise Reduction systems were added to improve the "signal to noise ratio" The modern versions such as Dolby SR can give a signal to noise ratio extremely close to that of the Digital formats.

Size
The space required to house these machines is often to much for a small facility. Most units also create more noise than is acceptable in a control room so require a special space to house them.
Tape
A standard reel of tape for one of these machines cost approximately 100 times that of the hard drive for the same minutes.
Maintenance – B

Daily and Weekly maintenance is required to keep these machines in peak performance. This involves cleaning the heads and guides as well as demagnetizing the heads, although this doesn't take long when you know what to do.

Con’s
 
Sound Quality – 1. The higher frequency regions.

Because of the nature of Digital the highest frequencies recorded by these machines are either 20kHz or 22kHz. Also as the frequency becomes higher there are less samples taken so the reproduction is less accurate. Most people can determine this as being "grainy" or "harsh". With the newer 96k 24 bit recording the higher sample rate allows the higher frequencies to have higher detail and the higher bit rate improves the dynamic detail as well.

Sound Quality – 2. Harmonics
The Digital process produces Even Harmonics (i.e. 2nd, 4th, etc.) which to the human ear sound harsh and unpleasant. If the level exceeds the "0" mark on the display the resultant sound is a sudden harsh crunching sound.
Maintenance – B
While there is no weekly maintenance required there is also very little that can be fixed in the field. If a hard drive fails you generally will have lost the contents of the hard drive. Though you can get the system going again by putting in a new hard drive, unless you have backed up you will have lost what was on the faulty one.

A common practice with a higher budget album or single (particularly rock), is to record the rhythm tracks to 2" tape then transfer it all to hard disk for overdubs and then mix either in the software or via the console using a combination of software plugins and mixing and outboard processors and console mixing.