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CarstenKuss Group: Musicians Posts: 362 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: Aug. 29 2002, 18:57 Hello all, I have a problem. You know, the history of pop music goes hand-in-hand with recording technology. And Mike has always been state-of-the art. Some other artists have, too. As a private fun project, I'm currently working on a timeline of recording technology and pop history. Like, interactions between technological innovations and musicians' careers. You know what I'm talking about? Now, my exact question is: IN WHAT WAY WAS MIKE A PIONEER IN MULTITRACK TAPE RECORDING? To be more specific: - We know that Les Paul introduced Sound-On-Sound recording in 1949, recording up to 37 generations with a bouncing-technique using 2 Ampex-machines. - We know that in 1964-1967 Lawrence Horn of Motown used a standardized bouncing-technique to record 8 tracks on 3-track tape. - We also know that Tubular Bells wasn't bounced but recorded on so-many tracks, or am I totally cloth-eared here? BUT: When did tape-recording evolve from stereo to 4-track, to 8-track, to ... 24-track? What studios, and what artists, used this before 1972? The Web seems to have a black-out at this point. At least, I could find nothing! Anybody? KORGSCREW? -------------- -Carsten- Back to top

Thea Cochrane Group: Musicians Posts: 445 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: Aug. 31 2002, 11:00 I have some places I can check for you, but I think that it was just a case of manufacturers squeezing more tracks on to tape in response to the demand. I think 8 tracks came out not long after The Beatles did Sgt. Peppers - as most of that was recorded on a four track machine and bounced using another four track machine. The rules with tape are that the wider the track, the better sound quality. So obviously, it is better to have 8 tracks on tape 1" across than 8 tracks on tape 1/4" across (we still used inches back then). Also they would have problems with the tracks near the edge of the tape (often the first track and the highest track) as they would be more prone to drop outs. As the techology improved they were able to make tapes wider to make the quality better, and this meant that they could fit more tracks on the tape too. But in terms of audio fidelity, it's much better to have a small numer of tracks on a wide tape. I suppose people in the future could have similar problems working out how we went from 486s to 1Ghz processors. I'm not even that sure myself, but I'm getting off topic now. Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: Aug. 31 2002, 16:38 Indeed, the more tape area used, the higher the quality - higher tape speeds give higher quality as well (though some people prefer the sound of the bottom end that a lower speed gives...). I was going to check up on some things before giving a proper answer. I believe that the 16 track machine used to record Tubular Bells was about the best thing they could get their hands on at the time (that is to say, it wasn't necessarily the most advanced thing available). I believe that some bouncing down did go on in places, in order to fit the numerous instruments onto the 16 tracks. I might see what I can come up with... Back to top

CarstenKuss Group: Musicians Posts: 362 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: Sep. 01 2002, 17:19 Thanks, Mat & Korgscrew. So, in 1967 (Sgt. Peppers) it was still 4-track.  OK, now when did 8-track appear, and when did 16-track appear, and can we name some records that first used these? I'm looking forward to more results. -------------- -Carsten- Back to top

Thea Cochrane Group: Musicians Posts: 445 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: Sep. 01 2002, 19:16 I've done a bit of research. It appears that they had 8 track as early as 1940 as it was used by Disney for Fantasia - the trick seems to have been setting things up so that you could overdub. Up until that point you could have multitrack recordings, but everything had to be recorded in one go - so no one could have done what Mike did, even when he was covering the erase head with cardboard. If you think about overdubbing - you have to be able to hear what you've already recorded and record what you are playing at the same physical point on the tape. If there is a delay between the playback and record heads, then the overdub will be out of sync with the rest of the recording. This wasn't sorted out until 1955 when Ampex came up with the "Selective Synchronous Recording" system, and it was used by Les Paul to make an 8 track recording the following year. After that it just seems to have been a case of letting the technology filter through to the industry and develop. They were very unsure of who would want to use this and why, so it took a while. Unfortunately I don't have dates for when 4 track, 8 track and 16 track machines became available commerically at recording studio quality - this would explain why the Beatles were still using 4 tracks in 1966/67, either the technology wasn't available, it was prohibitively expensive (unlikely at Abbey Road), or it wasn't considered to be of a high enough record quality. Interestingly enough, the first digital audio recordings were made in 1969. I got my information from here Certainly, bouncing must have gone on during the recording of Tubular Bells - it said so somewhere in the book The Making Of Tubular Bells. Mike apparently still has the orginal multitrack recordings - I would love to see a copy of the track sheets some day. Back to top

morten Unregistered Posted: Sep. 02 2002, 09:56 I think I have read somewhere that ABBAs Dancing Queen was the first recording on 24 tracks in Sweden. That was 1975-76 Back to top

CarstenKuss Group: Musicians Posts: 362 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: Sep. 02 2002, 16:54 Mat, what you say about Fantasia is interesting. I think they used the photoelectric cell (movietone), but no magnetic tape. However, it must have been 'mixed-down' so to be reproducible in normal cinemas... I'll check my copies of TB to make sure about the bouncing... morten, if 24-track was first used in 1975, then 16-track must have been pretty innovative in 1972, mustn't it? Interesting input from you, too! Please keep this going! -------------- -Carsten- Back to top

a_r_schulz Group: Members Posts: 425 Joined: Sep. 2001 Posted: Sep. 02 2002, 18:18 Some more sources :from Google   http://www.studer.ch/company12.htm 1964 first J37 Studer 4-track tape (used for Sgt.Pepper 1968) 1970 Studer A80, capable of up to 2"/24 tracks http://www.music.columbia.edu/cmc/courses/g6630/recordproduction1.html from a music class paper at Columbia University, shows that Les Paul (and others) already started multi-Tracking in the 1930's. As an ancient predecessor of Mike, ...the great Sidney Bechet played two saxophones, clarinet, bass, piano and drums on his version of The Sheik of Araby (and they even have TB as music example in the lesons...). More about Fantasia : http://www.mtsu.edu/~smpte/forties.html TASCAM company history : http://www.tascam.com/company/index.php http://www.apogeedigital.com/users/users_linett2.html: the second machine was a 1in 8-track recorder at CBS Studios - the first studio to install an 8-track machine, in 1965 http://www.eclipse.net/~synergy/semiconductor.html : ...During the summer of 1975 House of Music upgraded to 24 tracks and installed a new MCI console... http://www.tonyvisconti.com/spaceoddity.html: ...(1969)Trident had only just received their new 16-track machine, the first one in England.. <Yaaawnnn> well, time to go now, I'm afraid.... Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: Sep. 02 2002, 21:52 I must say I have a bit of a soft spot for the A80 (I know some that are still working fine 30 years on)... It seems like the 24 track versions weren't very popular at the beginning, due to their high cost - the 8 and 16 track models were more popular. Back to top

Horse Group: Members Posts: 29 Joined: Aug. 2002 Posted: Sep. 03 2002, 02:29 Sgt. Pepper wasn't done on 4 tracks, but 8. Engeneer George Martin linked two 4 track machines together and thereby made the first 8 track machine. He did not bounce anything between the machines, but callibrated them to syncronicity. Back to top

a_r_schulz Group: Members Posts: 425 Joined: Sep. 2001 Posted: Sep. 03 2002, 03:34 Well, haven't found anything about bouncing/synchronizing for the Sgt.Pepper case, just that they used 2 machines, but if you say so... (just looks like there's something else bouncing, Horse ) Some more about Beatles' recordings: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/3968/unlimited.htm Back to top

Thea Cochrane Group: Musicians Posts: 445 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: Sep. 03 2002, 07:31 Horse, apologies for my bad information on George Martin/ Sgt Pepper then. I had read that synchronisation between tape and MIDI/ Synths had first been achieved by Vangelis whilst at Nemo studies where they plugged the CV-gate signal into a mixer channel and recorded it as an audio track. I had also heard that they used two four track machines, but assumed that they wouldn't be able to play then in sync at that time. I'm not sure about tape-to-tape sync, I wonder how they did it. Be warned if you are looking for information on this, don't let anyone tell you where the edit point is in Strawberry Fields Forever, I did and it's spoiled the magic of the song for me. Back to top

morten Unregistered Posted: Sep. 03 2002, 09:21 I think I have heard that Pink Floyds The Wall was recorded on two 24 track machines synced together in 1978-79. To avoid that the basic tracks were damaged by many overdubs, they mixed them down to two tracks on one tape and finally synced the two tapes together in the final mixdown. Back to top

Thea Cochrane Group: Musicians Posts: 445 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: Sep. 03 2002, 11:53 I've used that method but it was simply because we were adding some overdubs in a studio which only had one 8-track machine as opposed to two running in sync. The roughly mixed tracks can be removed later. Apparently Mike works by submixing like this as he goes along, sometimes adding an instrument as he is doing it. So when the album multitrack is finished he doesn't have to mix it, he just copies the mixed tracks from the multitrack to a mastering machine (probably all done in a computer now, but it's sometimes easier to think in terms of lots of connected boxes). I think I got this info from the Sound On Sound artlicle somewhere in the Tubular.net archives. Back to top

CarstenKuss Group: Musicians Posts: 362 Joined: Nov. 1999 Posted: Sep. 07 2002, 17:21 a_r_schulz, I like your last link: http://www.tonyvisconti.com/spaceoddity.html So, can we come to the conclusion that the 1st successful 16-track recording was Bowie's 1969 Space Oddity? -------------- -Carsten- Back to top

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