Hi!
I'm Jon San Paolo in Studio B at Electrical Audio, and today, I'm going to show you
how to make a 1/2-inch stereo tape edit.
[clunk, clunk.]
For this project, you will need:
a mix down tape machine, a console with mute or solo-in-place functions,
analog audio tape, a new razor blade,
a China marker, multi-track source audio,
and splicing tape - today we're using 1/2-inch.
So there are actually a lot of different reasons why you make an edit to a mix after you've
printed it.
The one we're going to do today is the intro to the song, where there's just one instrument
playing, and the rest of the band is sitting idle for the first several
measures of the song.
Our goal is to get rid of all the excess tape noise and errant sounds
that happen during that intro.
So it's just the bass... and then when the rest of the band kicks in, then we have the
edit where the whole band is playing - and
I'll demonstrate what that sounds like for you now.
Our sample music for today comes from the band My Canadian Girlfriend.
Once again, the setup is that there is a bass guitar intro, and then the full band kicks
in a couple of measures later, sounds like this...
[full band intro plays]
So, this setup today is actually 22 tracks, and in that intro, we're only using 2 of them,
so that means that we have 20 tracks of
either nothing happening, or of errant sounds: either amp noises, or the sound of the vocalist
kind of pacing back-and-forth, and, like, mouth sounds and breathing and...
basically a lot of clutter that we don't need in the intro of the song.
Sometimes that sounds cool, but in this case, I want to be able to clean that up.
And there are a few ways to approach it:
You can - if you have enough fingers, you can just hold down the mutes and then
let them go when the time comes.
Most analog consoles will allow you a mute group, or if you have automation built-on,
even better.
But, if you're trying to run a mute group live, you may not nail it in the first take.
It may take you a half-a-dozen or more takes.
Where, in this case, I can surely record it once with just the bass-intro, and once with
everybody-in, and make one edit, and it's done.
So, there's no right or wrong way to do it, but I often prefer this workflow.
So the next thing that I will do is solo-up just the bass - actually, I'm gonna MUTE just
the bass guitar tracks, and play you all the sounds that I intend to cut out.
[band intro with no bass guitar plays]
So the way I'll do it, is I'll actually solo-up the bass guitar tracks.
And if I recorded the intro with just the bass guitar, I wouldn't know when the band
actually kicks-in, and it would be a much harder edit to do.
So, I'm actually going to have 3 tracks solo-ed: the two bass guitar tracks (it's one mic per-track),
and the bass drum channel.
So, again, out of 22 channels, I only have 3 up, so that'll reduce the noise and errant
sounds significantly.
So, the next step will be for me to record a bass-and-bass-drum-only intro, and as soon
as that bass drum is struck, then I can stop the tape, rewind, and record the introduction
with the full band, and then I'll walk over to the tape machine and make the edit.
So I have my multi-track reproducer cued-up.
I have my stereo recorder ready to go.
I have the channels that I need for the noiseless intro solo-ed up.
I should mention, you can do it two ways:
You can either - if you have a - what's called a "solo-in-place" or "destructive solo", you
can just solo-up the tracks you need.
If you're not sure, or if you don't, just mute the tracks that you don't need for that.
If you're not using a "solo-in-place" or "destructive solo", you'll hear the intended effect in
the speakers, but it won't necessarily make it to your stereo recorder, so you'll just
wind up recording the same passage twice.
So now I'm ready to record the bass-only version of the intro.
[bass-only intro plays]
...and that's literally all I need of it.
So the next thing I'll do is put the board back in the state where everything that I
want in the mix is up where I want it
and,
I'll do it again.
[full band intro plays]
Then, normally, I'd go ahead and mix the entire song, but we just need a short passage for
this demonstration.
So now it's time for us to make our edit.
So now I'm gonna listen through both versions that I've printed, and I'm gonna find that
first bass drum, and I'm gonna mark that as my "in" point during the first section, and
my "out" point during the second one.
[bass-only intro plays]
[sound of tape moving back-and-forth slowly]
So, I'm moving it back and forth and I'm both listening for that sound and and watching
the VU meter.
And I'll mark it, and then I'll check my work.
...seems to be there.
Now we'll play it and find the next one.
[full band intro plays]
[sound of tape moving back-and-forth slowly]
So now I've made the mark and shown where I'm gonna discard it.
It lines up, so I'm ready to make the edit.
So now we'll put the tape on the splicing block and make the splice.
In lining up my line, I I typically try to sight the top of the mark on tape
with the top-side of the splicing block.
It's different for everybody, I think the most important thing is that you're consistent.
Now we pull the tape and look for the other side of our edit.
This is at 30 inches-a-second, so there's actually a lot more slack
than if we would have recorded at half-speed.
So I usually line 'em up, just to see...
It looks like that will work.
So now I'll grab some splicing tape. I'm gonna use the 1/2" tape, and I'm gonna cut off -
I just need shy of an inch.
So, I don't know if you can see it against the light it's about "that much".
And I'm gonna try to - when I make the splice, I want to avoid splicing THIS way and trimming
off the edges.
You can get away with it with 2" tape, but tape this thin, once some time has gone by,
if you do it this way where you chop off the edges and put it on vertically, the adhesive
can ooze out and actually spread kind of to the top-side of the tape and it may not glue
both layers together, but it'll definitely make them tacky.
And that can cause some playback errors in the future.
Speaking as somebody who has dealt with reels like that in the past,
it's generally a good idea to avoid it.
So, what we'll do is, we'll actually lay it down horizontally so that the width of the
splicing tape should go over the width of the edit that we've made.
So, with any luck, I'll be able to square it up.
Looks good. And we also want to use a Q-tip of the back
of your fingernail or something like that to get all of the air pockets and air bubbles
out of your splice.
So, let's check it.
Looks like no tape creeping over the top.
Now, we check our work.
[edited band intro plays]
[tape stops]
That sounds good to me.
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