Telefunken T9 tube tape recorder - how to integrate in a modern DAW studio

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bernbrue

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 13, 2006
Messages
1,516
Location
Wolfenbüttel - Germany
Hi,
we are going to install a Telefunken T9 all tube tape recorder in our studio. My friend had given away his T9 a few years ago and was now able to get it back. Well, our studio is a typical mix of DAW with Cubase 6 and lots of plugs on the one side, and quite a lot of tube outboard compressors, EQs etc on the other side. Monitoring, recording and mixing is done on my Mackie 32-8bus console, which I really love for what it does. I would like to bounce vocals, drums and guitars from DAW to tape and back. Should I give it a try as mastering machine as well? How would you integrate a tape machine in this setup? Any hints and comments are very much appreciated.
regards
Bernd
 
In my experience I have found that tracking things to analog first and then transferring them to DAW gives the most analog quality to the sound.  Obviously there are limits depending on how many analog tracks you have available but well worth it IMO.  I particularly liked how the front to back depth and width of tracks was maintained when going to tape first. 

I've experimented less with going from DAW to tape but the instances that I tried it were a mixed bag.  In some cases it helped peak smoothing and gave a subtle texture to the overall mix that was nice.  The drawback was the increased noise from tape and amps and losses from the DA conversion.  I think I only kept one DAW to tape mix and opted to stay ITB for the others.
 
I have gone both ways to tape first then the daw and the other of daw first then to tape. Both have sonic bounuses and drawbacks. How many tracks can the machine record, Is it just a 2track?
 
Hi,
thanks for your comments. It´s just a 2track tape machine. It was built in the 60ties and used as a mastering machine in a German TV/Radio station. I´ver never thought of recording to tape first and then bounce it to the DAW. But it is so obvious.
regards
Bernd
 

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