On how we have it so good

jimi_t

This is for the oldies, taken from the persistently brilliant analogindustries.com

"I was trying like hell to come up with a better lead-in for this column than the incredibly prosaic "you kids today, you just don't know how easy you have it" but nothing's working, so I'll just out with it.

The "easy" I'm referring to is the re-mix, and its retarded foster child, the mash-up. Prior to the advent of the modern DAW, doing a remix was a big, big deal. A step-by-step process of a typical remix:

1. Book time in a studio that has two 24-track machines so you can make a copy of your 2" tape. Keep in mind that a roll of tape cost around a hundred dollars. If the song was recorded on an SSL board, you also needed to make copies of the 8" floppies for the recall and automation. Make a photocopy of the track sheet and throw that in there. Wrap the whole thing in several layers of tin foil and Fed-Ex it to the remixer.

2. The remixer then needs to book time in a studio. The first hour or so is spent biasing the deck to the tape. The next couple hours are spent making a facsimile of the original mix, and figuring out what the hell is on each track. (Since you only had 23 tracks to work with, it wasn't uncommon to have a couple different parts on any given track. The main instruments would have their own, but all the extra stuff would be somewhat jumbled.)

3. Now the real fun begins. Chances are just about 100% that whatever sequencer you're using isn't going to chase the SMPTE on the tape, because SMPTE and the chasing thereof was a very fickle thing. There were numerous tricks and tools to deal with this one particular aspect, and all of them would be applied. Eventually, usually, you'd get it working, and your sequencer (which was almost always either an Atari ST or a hardware unit) would be chasing the SMPTE and more or less in time.

(At this point you've burned at a bare minimum four hours of studio time, for a few hundred dollars.)

4. We'll leave out the middle part where the remixer does Things to make it a remix. Usually, it would be just that, a re-mix. If it was a "dance" mix, the drums would probably be replaced with other drums, but generally the main parts of the song would be left alone. Maybe some various other things would be added, but generally, you worked with what was already on the tape, and maybe just added a couple little things here and there.

5. You'll notice I didn't say anything about tempo or pitch. On a tape, the two are immutably tied. You couldn't change one without changing the other. Time stretching, when it came around, was such an incredibly tedious process that it wasn't often used except to get a loop to sit in with a song.

6. So, the remixer, in the interests of saving money (the more he spent on the studio time, the less he got to take home) would come in to the process with a fairly good idea of what he was going to do. If this involved lengthening the song, or changing the arrangement in any way, the process got truly silly. The method here would be to run the individual sections on to a master 1/2" (or 1/4" occasionally) tape, and get out the splicing block and razor blade. The word "edit" is not ill applied here.

7. Once all these pieces were assembled, if it was post-91 or so, the 1/2" master would then be run to a DAT and sent to the label. The label would then play it for the original artist, who (usually) got to approve or disapprove it. If the latter, it was generally shelved, as there was too much money involved to actually do all that over.

And my point in all of this? It's thus: you kids today. You just don't know how easy you have it. The only thing better about the pre-DAW era is that mash-ups were completely impossible to make, so we never had to find out what the vocals of "Closer" sounded like over the music of "In Da Club." The world was a better place. "

PaulBrewer

Ah the good old days ... still have the scars on my fingers ...


I remember doing demos for a US record label in about 88/89 and we had the first Casio Dat machine . We sent it to the US thinking we were SO modrin .... which we were, they had no idea what it was and requested we FedEx over cassettes !

woodsdenis

You youngsters have no idea. What always gets me is when the younger generation go on about how wonderful the sound of analogue tape is, without
ever having to go through the practicalities of actually using it. OK so a well set up Studer/SR/Neve sounds great, but how much did that cost and how long did it take to
get back to a mix. Today 5 mins, then hours/days. Give me a computer any day. Rant over :-)

tweeky

+1,
and also the lockup time for 2 tape machines and a mac everytime you hit play!

madtheory

+++1!!
And I never liked the wobble on tape with piano, although I never heard a Studer, just the Otari MTR90 II. That had a slightly higher flutter, according to specs.

I think when the S900+Atari+M1+DAT rig became "standard", they would put each track on the multi onto DAT? And I think we had the Panasonic DAT by 1990, not sure though.

studiorat

Alingment took 20 minutes. It was done before the session started.

Personally, I prefered the work flow and ergonomics of a desk and tape machine.
Rewind times gave you time to fill in track sheets light a fag or take a sip of coffee too.

Obviously a DAW is easier but I really do miss the way we worked with tape.

danjokill

studiorat wrote: »

Alingment took 20 minutes. It was done before the session started.

Personally, I prefered the work flow and ergonomics of a desk and tape machine.
Rewind times gave you time to fill in track sheets light a fag or take a sip of coffee too.

Obviously a DAW is easier but I really do miss the way we worked with tape.

+1

woodsdenis

studiorat wrote: »

Alingment took 20 minutes. It was done before the session started.

Personally, I prefered the work flow and ergonomics of a desk and tape machine.
Rewind times gave you time to fill in track sheets light a fag or take a sip of coffee too.

Obviously a DAW is easier but I really do miss the way we worked with tape.

but you could smoke in studios then. !!!!

PaulBrewer

This thread and a couple of recent ones about promotion got me thinking.

In ye olde days it was a big deal to get a record out, even if it was a bad one.It took a lot of work, effort and money so it didn't happen very often !

That was one of the things that made it exciting - so and so actually have a single out , 'Wow' !

Nowadays of course it's M-Box /Shed/ 'How much for promotion?' and every Cream Cracker is at it.

Not as much fun at all really when what is really a 'demo' is being hawked around as a 'product' ...

SeanHurley

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Nowadays of course it's M-Box /Shed/ 'How much for promotion?' and every Cream Cracker is at it.

Not as much fun at all really when what is really a 'demo' is being hawked around as a 'product' ...

This is very true, infact I will put my hand up and say I have been one of those merchants.

In the last year or so tho I think I have realised that no amount of money will make people like your music, they either like it or don't like it. In my opinion there is no shortcut to becoming successful. Like anything you have to build things slowly based on a solid foundation (i.e. be a good band, have good songs). If you are good enough and dedicated enough (foolhardy enough) the popularity will come.

PaulBrewer

SeanHurley wrote: »

This is very true, infact I will put my hand up and say I have been one of those merchants.

In the last year or so tho I think I have realised that no amount of money will make people like your music, they either like it or don't like it. In my opinion there is no shortcut to becoming successful. Like anything you have to build things slowly based on a solid foundation (i.e. be a good band, have good songs). If you are good enough and dedicated enough (foolhardy enough) the popularity will come.

Well put Sean.

ZV Yoda

PaulBrewer wrote: »

This thread and a couple of recent ones about promotion got me thinking.

In ye olde days it was a big deal to get a record out, even if it was a bad one.It took a lot of work, effort and money so it didn't happen very often !

That was one of the things that made it exciting - so and so actually have a single out , 'Wow' !

Nowadays of course it's M-Box /Shed/ 'How much for promotion?' and every Cream Cracker is at it.

Not as much fun at all really when what is really a 'demo' is being hawked around as a 'product' ...

Not as much fun for who? It's fantastic being a hobbyist & having the ability to record/edit/mix our own music to a standard we couldn't have dreamed of back in the late 80s.

As a musician, in many ways I couldn't care less about what other think of our songs, but if somebody started to throw money at us to let them record our songs, then I for one would happily discard my artistic pretentions.. I'd take their money & run!

Personally, I can't think of anything that would scare/bore me more than cutting up a £100 roll of tape & Stanley blade.

PaulBrewer

ZV Yoda wrote: »

Not as much fun for who? .

Music fans !

I think the tape talk was all tongue in cheek, so I wouldn't take that too seriously.

Also I totally agree with your attitude - doing music for fun is what I still do and hope I always will.

But it's the eejits (in my opinion!) who start taking themselves serious before they can tune a guitar, they drop the standards.

If I had a Euro from every band who went to 26 in the charts with some self produced pile of kak ....

The other side effect of that is it encourages other morons !

Pah !!

i57dwun4yb1pt8

talenteless , no feel moron enters

S'up ?

PaulBrewer

DaDumTish wrote: »

talenteless , no feel moron enters

S'up ?

The usual ...

studiorat

And a launch party meant free drink, not paying 15quid in to get a free copy of the album and have to sit through the band playing!

PaulBrewer

studiorat wrote: »

And a launch party meant free drink, not paying 15quid in to get a free copy of the album and have to sit through the band playing!

They were good days weren't they? If I could only remember some of the good nights we probably had in the Pink Elephant ...... when Tweeky had a ponytail