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Is it possible to transfer analog tone and soundstage of vintage reel to reel to digital.

Sam here again. I have a hi-res digital rip of the rolling stones sticky fingers album from an original commercial reel to reel tape from 1971 and the analog warmth and soundstage is as good as it gets to my  ears. loudness war free sound.   https://postimg.cc/rDmzvR80

I realize there are many digital plugins that emulate the sound of analog tape and vinyl, however when I use them in post processing of digital audio I seem to get further away from the sound I'm trying to achieve? Now I may be naive on the subject, but if I want to digitally replicate the sound of vintage analog tape in the digital domain, why not go directly to the source? Heres what I did I extracted 1 second of analog tape sound between tracks and made an impulse file for the convolver dsp filter for foobar2000. I believe it made the digital download sound better, however, I'm not 100% sure.  Here are my audio samples (1) reel to reel (2) commercial digital download (3) commercial digital download with the impulse filter applied. I used replay gain to normalize the volume to 89db for all three samples.

(1) reel to reel (1971) 24/192 http://u.pc.cd/d2qrtalK

(2) commercial digital download flac16/44 2009 remaster http://u.pc.cd/4oditalK

(3)  commercial digital download flac16/44 2009 remaster.impulse applied http://u.pc.cd/99ActalK
guitarsam

Showing 5 responses by glupson

glupson
7,842 posts
 
geoffkait,

"Don’t be such a negative Nellie, everything’s fine. No admissions, no second wave."
Are you telling me I have been preparing for nothing? Bummer!

Still, I hope you are right. When is the time to stop wearing mask while being in public?
glupson
7,842 posts
 
geoffkait,

You are welcome. I diverted rightful attacks on you and you can continue making fun of me. Well, if you only had some sense of humor.

By the way, what do you think, increase of admissions in about two weeks or not?
glupson
7,842 posts
 
Are compact cassettes also considered reel-to-reel? They have two reels. At the same time, speed and sheer size may account for differences so, what are the opinions on that?

(this is my feeble attempt to derail boiling adversaries)
glupson
7,842 posts
 
In my book, you just made a case against reel-to-reel.

I prefer #3, very closely followed by #2, and would take #1 as acceptable on AM radio or some other nostalgic moment. So, if I were into this, I would do everything as #3 but would not consider it "analog sound" at all.

Do not get me wrong, nothing sounds as good as your favorite song on AM radio in the middle of the night.

(above was listened to on a laptop computer with Sennheiser IE80 earphones, if that matters)
glupson
7,842 posts
 
mapman,

"I do digital recordings of vinyl all the time and the results sound just like the original."
What do you use? How do you do it?
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