It's not all PT for PT

chrispick · Post by **chrispick** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 5:32 pm

From the liner notes for the new The Who album, courtesy of Pete Townshend:

All the tracks on this record started life in my home studio, recorded on Quantegy 499 tape using a Studer one-inch 8-track tape running at 15 ips. Vintage Neve, vintage and modern Focusrite, JoeMeek, Manley, and vintage Pepy Rush analogue modules were used during recording. Microphones were by Neuman, AKG, Soundelux, AEA (Wes Dooley), Calrec-Soundfield, Shure and Sony. Digital Performer HD computer hardware and software was used for additional track-laying and MIDI programming on various Apple computers. Sample rate was 96Khz/24 Bit. Important additional MIDI software by Ivory, Ableton Live, Sibelius.

The RADAR digital multitrack recording system was used at 192Khz/24 Bit to advance the tracks at Oceanic Studios. ProTools HD computer hardware and software were used for final editing and mixing. McDSP, Focusrite and Oxford plug-ins were big favorites. Digital reverb by Vintage Lexicon PCM60. TubeTech analogue summing and three band compression were used to prepare the ProTools files for mastering to CD via Sadie at Metropolis. Manley 400 Watt Triode Tube Monoblock amplifiers and Manley-Doug Sachs 10" Tannoy speakers were used for critical monitoring along with various Dynaudio and Genelec speakers. Keyboards by Bosendorfer, Hammond, Kurzweill, Roland, Korg and Yamaha. Guitars by Gibson, Fender, Martin, Collings, Rickenbacker and Fylde. Equipment supply and support by Stirling Audio London and Jigsaw UK.

The man likes to mix it up.

matwell · Post by **matwell** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 6:22 pm

Sounds like a bunch of unnecessary transfers. What a mess! Were they *resampling* the tracks from DP, to Radar, to PT, etc.? Even if they were digital transfers, they weren't always working at the same sample rate so there must have been conversions at some point.

Honestly? Sounds like poor project planning to me.

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 7:30 pm

matwell wrote:Sounds like a bunch of unnecessary transfers. What a mess! Were they *resampling* the tracks from DP, to Radar, to PT, etc.? Even if they were digital transfers, they weren't always working at the same sample rate so there must have been conversions at some point.

Honestly? Sounds like poor project planning to me.

Whew! Makes you wonder about some of these guys, doesn't it? Would they have experienced the same success had they started in 2005 instead of 1965? (or whenever)

Shooshie

chrispick · Post by **chrispick** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 7:43 pm

It doesn't seem that complicated to me. Looks like they tracked on tape and in DP in a convenient surrounding, then bumped everything into RADAR and ProTools to mix and edit.

Sounds pretty typical to me.

Unless I'm missing the point here. I mean, rate conversion isn't a big deal if you have interns.

matwell · Post by **matwell** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 8:06 pm

chrispick wrote:...Sounds pretty typical to me.

Unless I'm missing the point here. I mean, rate conversion isn't a big deal if you have interns.

Typical? In 2006, typical would be track, edit and mix in Pro Tools HD. *That* would be typical.

Also, leaving the transfer of a major, super-group's latest album, through multiple digital transfers in the hands of interns? I don't think so. So, I'm hoping you were joking about that.

Going from DP (at 96k) to RADAR (at 192k) to PT (at ???) -- wow, each step could've introduced jitter, snats, sync errors. Pardon me if I'm amazed that they didn't track on tape, and then just transfer directly into *one* DAW and stay there.

In my book, it's sloppy. But, I'm sure they will sell a gazillion CD's so... whadda I know?

jstaczek · Post by **jstaczek** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 8:59 pm

It sounds pretty typical to me. Projects get done how they get done, and the only thing that matters is how they sound at the end. We get stuff in on 2" tape, 1" tape, PT, DP, even a GameBoy for a recent project. Some go right into PT, some go back to tape before mixing, etc.

For the record, digital-digital transfers won't introduce jitter or sync errors. Those are artifacts of A-D or D-A conversions. And I wouldn't have any qualms about interns importing DP projects into PT or Radar into PT. We've had a lot of great interns who do much more than make coffee and clean bathrooms!

matwell · Post by **matwell** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 9:39 pm

Stories of malfunctioning (or improperly) clocked digital transfers abound in this industry. It's not like copying a computer file! Just because it's a "digital" transfer doesn't make it a "perfect" copy. Unnecessary transfers just show a lack of planning.

Meh. This topic is already way past OT. Sorry for contributing to that.

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 6:15 am

chrispick wrote:The man likes to mix it up.

It's almost like the fantasy of an unlimited budget, space and time.
There's always the danger of drowning in honey, though. (Caribbean expression).
MM

newrigel · Post by **newrigel** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 7:05 am

matwell wrote:
chrispick wrote:...Sounds pretty typical to me.

Unless I'm missing the point here. I mean, rate conversion isn't a big deal if you have interns.
Typical? In 2006, typical would be track, edit and mix in Pro Tools HD. *That* would be typical.

Also, leaving the transfer of a major, super-group's latest album, through multiple digital transfers in the hands of interns? I don't think so. So, I'm hoping you were joking about that.

Going from DP (at 96k) to RADAR (at 192k) to PT (at ???) -- wow, each step could've introduced jitter, snats, sync errors. Pardon me if I'm amazed that they didn't track on tape, and then just transfer directly into *one* DAW and stay there.

In my book, it's sloppy. But, I'm sure they will sell a gazillion CD's so... whadda I know?

Not if your using a master clock like a Big Ben or something along that level... It's really just up to the quality of your clock...

David Polich · Post by **David Polich** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 8:19 am

Hey, Pete was just explaining how they did it. In all fairness, he's not some guy in a home studio working on one thing at a time - he's got plenty going on, and I think the convoluted recording schedule and use of different hardware and software was more a matter of scheduling and who was where at what time.

I dig the fact that we're getting a brand new Who album. Props to them for not sitting around doing nothing creatively. Pete and Roger could have retired years ago. And they're not taking the attitude of some old fart musos I've met who freak out if you use anything other than a reel to reel deck and a microphone.

I think the point of the original post was that DP gets used more than you might think in today's supposedly "Pro Tools only" world.

The last time AES was in Los Angeles, I had lunch with Jack Douglas (producer for Aerosmith, John Lennon, Cheap Trick many others) and he asked me what I used and I said DP. His reply, "Man, I like DP. But...uh, everybody wants it in Pro Tools".

Resonant Alien · Post by **Resonant Alien** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 8:23 am

Townshend is such a tweaker! I have never seen liner notes include this level of detail on the recording process (I wish more did - I love this kind of info).

kinnylandrum · Post by **kinnylandrum** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 8:28 am

For the record, Jack Douglas also engineered at least some of "Who's Next". So is the album any good? I hope so.

Kaszper · Post by **Kaszper** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 8:54 am

kinnylandrum wrote:For the record, Jack Douglas also engineered at least some of "Who's Next". So is the album any good? I hope so.

Jack Douglas? Wasn't he in one of the 'Carry on' films?

Yawnstrosity · Post by **Yawnstrosity** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 1:36 pm

Check out Townshend's liner notes for his Scooped album, where he describes the inspiration and gear for each track. He expresses himself so well and gives just enough info for gear lovers. Apparently he played all the instruments on many of his demos. He's a genius, I love him.

spirit · Post by **spirit** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 4:12 pm

Doesn't he have severe hearing damage? Or does have acute tinitis not indicate that one has lost some ability to hear audio?
Maybe the analogue machine (why not a 2" 16 track?) hi frequency compresses stuff to make it less likely to offend the increased sensitation to sound and volume that comes with tinitis.
In summary- is his concern with using "warm analogue" gear because he can hear the difference, or to mitigate the pain?

His guitar sound has long been one of the brightest in rock and roll. Without some high frequency compression from tape maybe it would have been even more untamed.