Roots: Magnetic Recording and Multitracks (Part 4)

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Today’s Music Industry

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West Virginia University

Today’s Music Industry

60 ratings

This course provides an engaging and methodical insight into the past and present cultural and commercial music industry developments, directions, and trends. It will equip the students with the knowledge and skills necessary to appreciate, understand and more productively participate in today’s music industry field.

From the lesson

Magnetic Recording and Multitracks

Roots: Magnetic Recording and Multitracks (Part 1)11:30

Roots: Magnetic Recording and Multitracks (Part 2)7:53

Roots: Magnetic Recording and Multitracks (Part 3)5:44

Roots: Magnetic Recording and Multitracks (Part 4)6:02

Meet the Instructors

Darko Velichkovski
Music Industry Program Director
Music Industry

Back to the reel-to-reel multitrack tape recorders. We left that story back in the 70s, with 16-track

recorders becoming the standard in the recording studios, remember? But, if we can have 16

tracks, why not more? There is that question again. Such a human curse, right? When is

enough, enough? Is there enough? But that’s another course. And another department. Anyway,

Music Center Incorporated, or MCI, an audio equipment manufacturer that will eventually

be acquired by Sony, developed the first 24-track machine using a 2-inch tape, almost at the

same time as the first 16-tracks were hitting the market, back in 1968. Ampex followed,

and started to produce their 24-track machines in 1969. But these 24-track recorders were

so expensive, that Ampex’s most advanced 1979 model ATR-124 sold only 50 or so units.

It would be several years before the price tag would come down to the point where the

24-tracks were replacing 16-tracks in the professional studios. But eventually it did

happen. And so in the mid to late 80s and throughout the 90s, the 24-track tape recorder

ruled as the professional recording format.

But wait, and there is that question again of course, if we can have 24 tracks, why not

even more? We are gluttonous creatures aren’t we? Well, MCI made a 32-track machine, using

a 3-inch tape in the late 70s, but never released it. The tape was just too wide and unwieldy

and it would have been just too expensive to deal with all the problems of the tape

transport on such a machine. So that idea was out. But could we maybe sync two 24-tracks,

and record on all 48 tracks simultaneously, or one at the time? Yes, we could, and we

did. A 48-track method, using two synced 24-tracks, became the hi-end way to do it. And it still

is, in the analog part of the music production world today.

Of course, digital recording technology eventually arrived on the market. After the initial introduction

of the digital multi-track tape recorders by Sony, Studer, 3M, and Mitsubishi in the

early 1980s, which were prohibitively expensive, and thus never really became standard production

equipment, in 1992 the first affordable digital multi-track tape recorder was introduced:

the so-called ADAT machine, by ALESIS, using a VHS format video tape as a recording medium.

Tascam followed with its price friendly digital 8-track, called DA88, using a Hi8 video tape.

Both, ADATs and DA88s, could be synced up to 16 units, creating a possibility for a

128-track digital system. 128 tracks. OK, so is that enough? Aaaa, can we have more?

Because if we can have more, we would like to have more. I mean, what’s the harm? Can

we really have more?

Well, computers and software would bring us more. Eventually. Not just more available

tracks, but also unprecedented editing possibilities, bordering on endless and infinite. At about

the same time that the ADATs and DA88s were introduced, several audio software companies

are introducing their latest products to the industry as well, using computer based digital

recording and editing. Digidesign’s Pro Tools appeared on the market, in its first

version, in 1991, as a result of about 7 years of development, and several different preceding

platforms. Most of the user interface and the engine was licensed by Digidesign from

a San Francisco software company, OSC, that a year earlier created the Pro Tools predecessor

called DECK, D E C K. It will eventually become one of de facto standards in the recording

productions worldwide, as it still is today. That 1991 Pro Tools version offered only 4

tracks, and cost 6,000 dollars, which was pretty steep, but it offered editing capabilities

that digital tape recorders just couldn’t touch: non-destructive, GUI interface editing,

with undo options, and many other editing and processing features.

Which is just what the doctor ordered if one needed or wanted to have control over the

material down to a sample, and to be able to edit it to the Nth degree. And we did.

We like the Nth degree. And so Digital Audio Workstations, DAWs, as we know them today,

entered the race for our attention, use, and dollars, of course. In addition to Pro Tools,

others that were developing similar products throughout the 80s joined the race - Cubase,

Logic, Digital Performer – all of which are still in the market, and in the studios

across the world today. And that gluttonous dream of ours of more tracks, finally became

a reality. OK, so how many tracks is that today? No count. Just more. As many as you

want. Actually as many as you are willing to spend on your computer processor and memory,

since the amount of available tracks on a DAW today simply depends on that, and not

on the limitations of technology. Hundreds? Sure. Thousands. Yes, thousands, if you need

thousands of tracks to do your music production, which if you do, you probably need to reexamine

your life, pick another profession, and start over.

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