Ask Ralph : # 2 - How a tape was edited

[soulster]

.....and making sure you didn't immediately lose or damage the section you cut out, just in case the 'edit' you had made didn't sound right. If so you had to put it back and make another cut in a slightly different position - somethimes not possible [[or easy) if your first cut was very very close to where it really should have been. Also there was the danger of putting the tape section back in the wrong way round...so that the edited length plays the sound backwards!

Some engineers were wise to create a 1:1 copy and cut that instead.

[bradburger]

Interesting that this question should come up.

I was watching part of a documentary on BBC4 the other day about the LA studio 'Sound City', and it showed how an edit was done on analogue tape in the old days [[exactly as Ralph describes), and then how it's done today in a DAW.

I found some videos that show the technique.

Here's the first one : -



Cheers

Paul

[thomas96]

Some engineers were wise to create a 1:1 copy and cut that instead.

Wouldn't some of the quality [[of the new one) be lost when copied?

[soulster]

Wouldn't some of the quality [[of the new one) be lost when copied?

Just a tad. If you copy the tape backwards, which is normal procedure, you preserve the transients. Another thing to preserve quality is to make a 30 ips copy with no Dolby.