Recording digital to tape. What happens?

[Mike]

Studer J37 – A legendary tape recorder – How Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, Daft Punk, Taylor Swift, Norah Jones… sound on this J37 recorder?

Today, we’re going to take a look at the Studer J37 tape recorder, a true legend in the world of tape recording. Find out how to use the Studer J37 used for this test, as well as all the vide…

magicvinyldigital.net

 

[rbbert]

Recording a digital recording to analog tape and then reconverting back to digital is a not uncommon mastering procedure.

 

[nicoff]

TL;DR? Tape sound “better” than digital (the noise of the tape helps).

 

[atmasphere]

Any properly functioning tape machine has a 3rd harmonic as its dominant distortion product (insignificant until you get to higher saturation levels), which imparts a 'warmer' sound, which is another reason studios continue to use tape.

 

[a.wayne]

I have always done and still continue to do tape transfers today. Tape sonics are very dependent on VU levels used when recording, fuller and with gains in dynamic power is the side benefit , lost is the typical electronic ping associated with digital …!


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