Hello!
I´ve read alot on this board for quite a while and finally have a question myself.
I wonder what was/is the way to cut/edit one track of a multitrack-tape-recording? I heard some studios record the wanted track to a DAW, make their changes / cuts / whatever and dub it back on the multitrack. But then it´s not truly analogue any more.
So how to do it all analogue? Or how was it done when there was no digital recording yet? Take a 2-track, record on it, cut it and play it back to the multitrack?
I´m really curious!

Daniel

You put the tape machine in "cue" or "edit" mode, manually move the tape past the heads and scrub it to hear an appropriate edit point. You then mark the back side of the coat with a grease pencil. You do this twice to find you in and out edits. Next step is to put the tape on the splicing block and cut it with a sharp razor. It's usually done at an angle to ensure the edit isn't audible. Once you've made your edits you get the two sides that you want to put back together and nudge the cut edges together and use some tape to hold them in place.

Note that these edits apply to everything on the tape, and not just one track. That sort of editing (to my knowledge) isn't possible on tape. Loading a track into a daw to edit and then loading it back on tape seems like a nightmare because of time alignment issues.

There should be plenty of literature on this if you want to know more info.

Punch in and re-record.

I'm not a tape machine guy, although I wish I was. But I was thinking of this:

Have your multitarck synced with your 2 track. Now, I never synced anything, so there's a good chance I'm talking out of my ass, if you don't waste a channel on the 2-track then you're on the right track. Bounce the track you want to edit from the multitrack to one channel on the 2-track, edit it the way you want and then record it back to the multi track. I guess that it wouldn't be as easy as slicing and such on a DAW, but I guess it's a way to go. Unless syncing taking a channel on the multitrack and on the 2track. Then all I said is rubbish.

Seems not so easy to do... I´m just curious cause Steve often said he can do everything he needs to do in analogue also (compared to digital). So editing a guitar track or whatever is pretty much a standard nowadays. Though I´m not a fan of extreme editing it can be kinda handy sometimes or the band wishes to do so. So with my ProTools that´d be just a few clicks and it seems pretty uncomfortable with tape?!

In an emergency (guitar player dropped dead after this one shitty take you need to use) then I would do what you describe (and have occasionally had to): record the part on another reel or onto a DAW, edit it and then fly it back onto the multitrack. That it isn't "all analog" is less than a trivial detail.

In a non-emergency, I try not to leave things on tape that nobody likes with the intention of fixing them later. It's bad engineering practice to record something you can't use and hope you can do circus tricks with it later.

steve wrote:It's bad engineering practice to record something you can't use and hope you can do circus tricks with it later.

ok, thanks for the answers!

It's bad engineering practice to record something you can't use and hope you can do circus tricks with it later.

This is very true!!!