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Michaeldila
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| Posted: 26 April 2023 at 8:05am | IP Logged
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Thanks for the tips and information, very helpful! I am using audacity and it
has its good points and bad points, for sure. For example, i can never seem
to create a pleasing fade-out... maybe I'll look into adobe.
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crapfromthepast
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| Posted: 26 April 2023 at 8:45am | IP Logged
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Extremely minor point:
For analog tape splices, the tape is indeed cut at 45 degrees, but the left and right tape heads are also offset by 45 degrees, so that the splice takes care of both channels at the same time.
At least that's how our broadcast decks were set up. I'm sure there were other decks with heads that didn't have the 45-degree offset. For those decks, you'd make your splice at 90 degrees, rather than 45 degrees. The splice blocks all had notches cut at 45 degrees and at 90 degrees.
I've been using the default settings in Audacity to do my edits, and they come out just fine. I haven't paid much attention to the crossfade time values, although I'm sure there's a setting that allows you to tinker.
Edited by crapfromthepast on 26 April 2023 at 8:45am
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mjb50
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| Posted: 26 April 2023 at 9:58am | IP Logged
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Ah, that makes sense; the timing difference, if any, depends on whether the channel offset on the playback head matches the direction of the cut. I imagine, then, the cut can sometimes be in the opposite direction, and played on a deck with an offset, resulting in an even greater offset. And 30 vs 15 ips tape speed may affect this timing when dubbing, as well.
I think this explains why I see so much variation in splices when looking at the waveforms & spectrograms. The vast majority have the left and right transitioning at the same time, or the music is such that I just can't tell. The rest have a visible offset. I've tried replicating the bigger offsets in my reconstructions, but to be honest, I don't really hear the difference.
But as for choosing a 90° cut for the non-offset heads, I'm doubt if that was universal. A 45° cut was still ideal for keeping the transition smooth within each channel, the tradeoff being that timing difference, especially at lower tape speeds. But my understanding is that it comes down to the personal preferences of who's doing the edits, as well as what kind of material they're working with; there was no universally correct way.
Some blocks have a 60° option as well!
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crapfromthepast
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| Posted: 26 April 2023 at 11:15am | IP Logged
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Michaeldila wrote:
| Thanks for the tips and information, very helpful! I am using audacity and it has its good points and bad points, for sure. For example, i can never seem to create a pleasing fade-out... maybe I'll look into adobe |
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Aaron taught me a great trick many years ago:
The "Effect > Fade Out" in Audacity produces a linear fade, which is perfect for radio but is a little drastic for recorded music. If you apply "Effect > Fade Out" twice or three times in the same location, you can effectively change the shape of the fade so that it starts quick, then tapers gently to zero. I think one of Aaron's tricks is to move the endpoint of the fade into the silence for the third application. You can tweak the beginning/end points and the number of applications to mimic any fade shape.
I found this to be much easier to use than the sinusoidal fade options in Cool Edit Pro (now Audition), or manually attempting to mimic a fade shape using linear segments.
Edited by crapfromthepast on 26 April 2023 at 11:16am
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Michaeldila
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| Posted: 26 April 2023 at 12:27pm | IP Logged
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Thanks Ron, that's very interesting. I'm going to try that! I've never done it
that way before.....
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EternalStatic
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| Posted: 26 April 2023 at 2:54pm | IP Logged
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This is all good info. on the tricks of the trade. Thanks for sharing. I know that in trying to re-create edits digitally, I've run into
situations where no matter how careful and precise I am, the digital result doesn't quite match the feel of the original tape-cut edit.
Sometimes the digital copy actually sounds "better" in the sense that it's smoother -- and in those cases, I just accept that the little
differences are inherent to the fact that the two methods of editing just work differently. But those cases where the "magic" of the original
tape-cut just can't seem to be found in the digital, it can be very frustrating. Good nerding out. Thank you.
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mjb50
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| Posted: 26 April 2023 at 3:55pm | IP Logged
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Yeah, I rarely see fades that are perfectly linear or perfectly sinusoidal. They're usually either aggressive at first, then gentle, or vice-versa. There's always a bit of experimentation to try to get a match. Sometimes I have to just say "close enough". Also I try to be clear in my filename & tags when a file is a "fan reconstruction", which I think implies "probably not perfect"! :)
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AdvprosD
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| Posted: 04 May 2023 at 4:26pm | IP Logged
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mjb50 wrote:
Yep, that vocal starting each verse begins a little before the downbeat each time, but the edits are on the beat. It all works out.
Tape splices of this type are normally made at a 45 degree angle, which creates a quick crossfade, smoothing out the sound so it's not so abruptly cutting from one segment to another. When you are doing the
edit digitally, if you just join two sections without smoothing their boundary somehow, it might not quite sonically match the real edit.
In Adobe Audition you just need to make sure in the preferences you've got "smooth delete/cut boundaries with crossfades of __ ms" and "smooth all edit boundaries by crossfading __ ms" enabled. I do 2 and 5
ms, respectively and am happy with the results. In Audacity, I think the best you can do is select the area of the boundary and do a Repair operation. |
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I had never even considered this in the scope of Tape splices vs Digital editing. (I also red the follow-ups in the 3rd page.)
Man! I am always learning things in editing I never knew before just by reading these comments.
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EdisonLite
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| Posted: 14 May 2023 at 12:04am | IP Logged
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Interesting stuff here. I never knew about these 45 & 90 degree angles. I
simply use crossfade in Wavelab, and often times the edit is better than the
45, but I don't consider that a bad thing.
And I'm sure there are ways to fade an LP version to match exactly the fade of
the single version, but I just look at both WAV forms and do my best to match,
but I'm sure it's never perfect. I guess people can subtract one from the other
until they've got the exact right curve that was used to fade the 45.
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Topic: Gloria - Laura Branigan
