Wotcha,

We've just received our new tape machine and it comes loaded with Dolby SR which both our tech and a mastering engineer we work work with rave about. We have yet to use it but have a wind quintet recording pending and wondered if it was worth trying it out on that (it's a freebie for my Dad so y'know, if you can't experiment on your parents....)

Thoughts?

you mean dolby SR?

Dolby S was a consumer product used in cassette decks. It wasn't very good. I think it was marketed as a budge version of SR. Was it ever installed in multitrack tape machines?

elisha wiesner wrote: Dolby S was a consumer product used in cassette decks. It wasn't very good. I think it was marketed as a budge version of SR. Was it ever installed in multitrack tape machines?

That's what I thought, that's why I asked.
FWIW, I don't really like noise reduction on most things. On dynamic classical music, it's almost necessary, and sometimes you are doing it unknowingly by cutting high end. Dolby SR is a Multiband Dolby A which is compression/expansion. In. theory, SR is better because you can separate the Low end dynamics from the fluctuations in the high-end hiss, but to my ears it always sounded odd. Kind of like a noise reduction plugin with fewer bands. Can be cool as an effect, but I try not to use NR. Depending on what unit you have applying the NR (eg 360, 361, 363), you can adjust the range of noise reduction compression/expansion. The lower you can get away with the better.

I used to do a lot of tape archiving and classical music is my jam, so if you have any q's, hit me up.

You are quite right, I meant to put Dolby SR. I must look quite the fool. I have corrected this so I don't look quite as much the buffoon.

elisha wiesner wrote: Sat Dec 10, 2022 10:06 am Dolby S was a consumer product used in cassette decks. It wasn't very good. I think it was marketed as a budge version of SR. Was it ever installed in multitrack tape machines?

Dolby S was used on the Tascam 16 track pro-sumer machines as we had that at college. Some of the lo-fi kids would record with it in and mix with it out. Sounded awful.

airloom wrote: Sat Dec 10, 2022 11:36 am I used to do a lot of tape archiving and classical music is my jam, so if you have any q's, hit me up.

Thanks Airloom, no doubt I will. I think I am unlikely to use it myself as most of the stuff I record will be noisy enough. I do some archiving for people and have a tape just come in with Dolby SR on it but also recorded at 30ips. Have yet to listen to the source material so do not know if they were such a quiet band that they needed to reduce the noise floor on 30ips to negligible.

FWIW I used SR on one multitrack project in the 1980s and by the end of it I swore I'd never use it again. Small hi-frequency sounds, specifically hi-hat steps, the breath before a vocal line, lip smack sounds, finger movement on an acoustic guitar, that sort of thing all had a kind of weird wah-filter effect and I fucking hated it. We got two or three songs in and I wanted to shut it off but didn't want to remember which takes of which songs I had to switch it on for compatibility so I just left it.

I basically never use noise reduction. DBX type II was reasonably well integrated into the Tascam MS16 and given the format and tape formulations of the day it was acceptable, but with modern 500 nWb/m tape you absolutely do not need it or any other noise reduction scheme.

Calibrating SR is a nuisance, and expecting a future engineer to be able to reproduce your SR calibration is wishful thinking. Just skip it.

-s

Thanks everyone.

Thanks everyone.