Tape vs. console sound

[heavenorlasvegas]

Hello all,

In listening to classic recordings from the 70s and 80s, what is being heard on the record?

Is it the tape, or the console?

I have always read that the best tape machines are the ones that are the most transparent.

This would mean that the console was responsible for the sound that ended up on the record.

In your humble experience, would you agree with this theory?

Thank you sos.

[Wonks]

It's far more the band and the engineer's experience than either the tape or the console. Probably followed by the outboard gear used when recording. But the console's small contribution is probably greater than the tape's.

[sonics]

It's actually a sum of all the elements. Thinking the "sound" comes from the tape or the console is just modern marketing used to sell another 1073 clone or tape emulation plug-in.
Most of the sound is the engineer/studio/mics etc. The there are the instruments, players, producer, mixing and effects, all in various combinations.
Console and tape come at the end of the list.

[RichardT]

It's actually a sum of all the elements. Thinking the "sound" comes from the tape or the console is just modern marketing used to sell another 1073 clone or tape emulation plug-in.
Most of the sound is the engineer/studio/mics etc. The there are the instruments, players, producer, mixing and effects, all in various combinations.
Console and tape come at the end of the list.

Is this really true? Engineers, studios, and in many cases mics haven't changed that much, but analogue recordings from the 70s sound very different from modern recordings - soft, warm and quite unrealistic in many ways. It's such a common thread to recordings of that period that I assumed it was down to the recording technology. Maybe I was wrong.

[James Perrett]

I really don't think that it is the core recording technology. If anything it is more about aesthetics and technique. The 70's started with 8 track being the state of the art and ended up with the first digital multitracks so you are talking about huge variations in technology over that period.

To my ears, recording techniques very obviously changed over that period with the sound becoming tighter and more defined. The 80's just extrapolated this with every note being painstakingly worked on in some cases.

I think radio also played a part - in the 60s things had to sound good on AM radio whereas in the 70s more rock and pop music moved to FM with the advent of commercial radio in the UK. Rock and pop could now take advantage of the whole frequency range rather than having to concentrate on the midrange as before. Nowadays just about all radio can handle a wide frequency range so there's no point in mixing for AM radio.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Tape has always had a more pronounced audible effect than the console, especially when bouncing down was involved. But most of the album character stems from the performance, instrumentation, and particularly the recording /production techniques used.

[sc1460]

It's actually a sum of all the elements. Thinking the "sound" comes from the tape or the console is just modern marketing used to sell another 1073 clone or tape emulation plug-in.
Most of the sound is the engineer/studio/mics etc. The there are the instruments, players, producer, mixing and effects, all in various combinations.
Console and tape come at the end of the list.

Is this really true? Engineers, studios, and in many cases mics haven't changed that much, but analogue recordings from the 70s sound very different from modern recordings - soft, warm and quite unrealistic in many ways. It's such a common thread to recordings of that period that I assumed it was down to the recording technology. Maybe I was wrong.

I think both above are roughly there; very dry studio acoustics, mics on everything, pre-amps with transformers, console electronics with transformers, the EQs on every channel, the voltage mix buss, the tape-type itself, tape speed, mastering back to to tape via more analogue outboard …

I listen a lot to 70s productions on vinyl (as opposed to the 80s, a horrible decade for production in my humble opinion hehe, it got a lot better in the 90s) … listening now to an Ann Peebles 1974 album playing, you can just hear that entire 70s chain coming through… only possible perhaps to emulate today in studios with vintage gear….and as someone said earlier the engineering techniques themselves I guess have changed anyway…almost everything came through a mic, whereas today hardly anything has to use a mic except vocals, though with AI dreamtonics plugin can even replace real vocals now….

The past is another country - James Baldwin

Cheers
H

[Arpangel]

If you’re listening to vinyl "records" then it’s the sound of vinyl you’re hearing!
Any other audible contributions from studio equipment will be struggling to be heard.

[tea for two]

One thing is that bands musicians said I want the album, single to sound as xyz band musician. Which meant there were plenty releases having a similar sound aesthetic in a given era decade.
There were also various engineering recording trends in a given era decade, which also meant plenty releases having a similar sound aesthetic in a given era decade.

Genres dictate the sound aesthetic as well usually.
Prog pumping with in your face beatz at club level loudness just wouldn't do lol.

[amanise]

One thing is that bands musicians said I want the album, single to sound as xyz band musician. Which meant there were plenty releases having a similar sound aesthetic in a given era decade.
There were also various engineering recording trends in a given era decade, which also meant plenty releases having a similar sound aesthetic in a given era decade.

Genres dictate the sound aesthetic as well usually.
Prog pumping with in your face beatz at club level loudness just wouldn't do lol.

There's a lot in that. Each decade has it's production trends as well as it's technology breakthroughs and changes. A pretty good example for me was the huge change in the sound of AC/DC when they hired a guy called Mutt Lange to produce an album for them. It sounded way different to their earlier albums. I think it coincided with their change of singer as well. Before very long, everyone wanted Mutt Lange to produce their albums too - and the sound of rock started to change across the board. He had a huge influence on the sound of the eighties as people tried to emulate his work. I'm not disagreeing with anything anyone has said about bits of equipment - but it's the whole thing that makes a given 'sound' in my view.