It's time for Saw to rule the world (ProTools 9) !!

[Cary B. Cornett]

I think at one point they actually did find a way to sync the two machines' motors, though the details elude me.

On rare occasions they would record a tone to one track of a machine, and use that to feed an amplifier driving the capstan of the other machine. Getting them to start together was quite a trick, and was done by hand.

I'm curious, too, about how they got all the first generation tracks digitized, since I'd understood the same thing... that the bouncing was happening to free up tracks for more tracking, meaning they'd be wiped after the "reduction" to another track or stereo pair, if they even did that. I suppose they could've bounced to another machine, then archived the first generation tape instead of reusing it. That would be some serious forward-thinking.

Original tracks were always preserved. The bounce was always to a second machine, and they kept all the original reels.

[Richard Rupert]

To paraphrase a famous 60s and 70s commercial "We've come a long way, Baby"!

Frankly, the largest project I've ever done required "only" 60 tracks. Coming to SAWStudio from a 2" 16 track format with no other machine in sight (other than the mixdown half track), that's big doin's.

Thanks for the replies.

[TotalSonic]

True. I've run up against the track limitations in a large scale 5.1 mix. Though I have to say (and I've mentioned this to Bob previously) that the six auxes caused me more headaches than the 72 input tracks. I'd love to see an option for, say, twelve auxes.[/LEFT]

Well - there is the freeware JMS Audio Buss Extension - which will allow you to rout back to/from other aux and input channels give you up to 8 more Aux Send/Returns (for a total of 14) if you wish. Not the same work flow elegance as simply having more Aux/Return channels - but can be handy when you need it.

Info:
http://www.jms-audioware.com/jmsbuss.htm

Direct download:
http://www.jms-audioware.com/progs/JMSBussExt01.exe

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Dave Labrecque]

On rare occasions they would record a tone to one track of a machine, and use that to feed an amplifier driving the capstan of the other machine. Getting them to start together was quite a trick, and was done by hand.
Original tracks were always preserved. The bounce was always to a second machine, and they kept all the original reels.

Thanks for the info, Cary. So, do you know, were there times when they'd add a live performance (guitar overdub, say) during the bounce? If so, that first generation material would be lost, except where accompanied by second (or third or fourth) generation bounced material, yes?

I seem to recall that the term they used for bouncing was "collapsing", rather than "reduction". Does that sound right?

[Dave Labrecque]

My understanding is that they did not generally "lock" 2 machines, but rather simply would play one 4-track tape to one or more tracks on the other machine, then fill up the remaining tracks, then do it all again if they needed to. The fact that the tape was 1" wide gave them a better S/N ratio, which allowed them to do more generations of bounces if needed. As a result, the original tracks for one song might be spread across several reels.

Years ago I had the experience of using similar methods with 24 track machines. The studio I worked at did not own a synchronizer, but had two 24 track rooms with tie lines between them. When I was doing some tracking work for George Clinton, the most common start of a night's work was him telling me, "make a slave", which meant mixing the tracks from one "filled up" reel to 4 or 6 tracks of another reel (in addition to copying time code across). We would then have up to about 18 open tracks to work on. At the end of the session, I would run a rough mix from the slave reel. I remember there was one song for which there were four total reels (original plus three successive "slaves"), for which the final reel had submixes from the previous 3 reels included so that I could run a rough mix that included everything that had been recorded on all 4 reels. Final mixdown was, of course, done at a studio that could do at least a 3-machine lockup (I did not get to see that process). I used to call working for George Clinton "going to the land of a thousand tracks". I shudder to think what he might do now....

You must feel pretty lucky that you didn't have the added pressure of creating submixes along the way which wouold be used in the final product, like Geoff and the guys did. Can you imagine?

[Tom Roberts]

You must feel pretty lucky that you didn't have the added pressure of creating submixes along the way which wouold be used in the final product, like Geoff and the guys did. Can you imagine?

I think guys that worked on 16 or 24 track analog had to do that quite frequently. For example, bounce down the background vocals or guitars to a submix to open up more tracks. Or create a composite of the best lead vocal lines and erase the originals to make room for more lead vocal tracks. In this case the original takes were erased.

Thomas

[UpTilDawn]

I think guys that worked on 16 or 24 track analog had to do that quite frequently. For example, bounce down the background vocals or guitars to a submix to open up more tracks. Or create a composite of the best lead vocal lines and erase the originals to make room for more lead vocal tracks. In this case the original takes were erased.

Thomas

There's a great video tape (on dvd now????...) about Electric Ladyland where Eddie Kramer demonstrates some of the weird bouncing they did for some of Hendrix's tracks.

The big Beatles Recording book talks about recording live guitar solos while bouncing.... I've always had the impression this was common when the multi-tracks were limited to 4 or less.

[Cary B. Cornett]

Thanks for the info, Cary. So, do you know, were there times when they'd add a live performance (guitar overdub, say) during the bounce? If so, that first generation material would be lost, except where accompanied by second (or third or fourth) generation bounced material, yes?

Don't know if they ever did that, but yes, your analysis is correct.

I seem to recall that the term they used for bouncing was "collapsing", rather than "reduction". Does that sound right?

I don't think so, but then it has been a while since I heard the relevant interviews (part of the video "Beatles Anthology", I think).

[Cary B. Cornett]

You must feel pretty lucky that you didn't have the added pressure of creating submixes along the way which wouold be used in the final product, like Geoff and the guys did. Can you imagine?

I have wished that I had copies of those session rough mixes that I could compare with the final mix on the CD. I have to say, though, that I deliberately kept those mixes very simple, partly by just using the monitor mix section of the Neve 8048 console that we used for the sessions. It was a small panel, all rotary controls, 24 inputs, just level, pan, and 2 sends for each input, no EQ, no patch inserts. I usually sent that mix to the cans during the session, then made maybe a couple of minor level adjustments. Nothing fancy, but very clean and a good record of what the performers did.

I doubt that Geoff Emerick considered the expected quality of those bounces as "pressure", since he had done many sessions where the whole performance was mixed live to a single track, and that was the record. With that experience, it probably wasn't much of a stretch.

[Cary B. Cornett]

I think guys that worked on 16 or 24 track analog had to do that quite frequently. For example, bounce down the background vocals or guitars to a submix to open up more tracks. ... In this case the original takes were erased.

Yep. Been there, done that. One day I may actually release the results...