Why Tape?

I was talking with one of my co-workers the other day, a younger guy who may have missed the days of cassettes and I was telling him about the retro project (see previous posts, like here).  I told him I'd forgotten how difficult it was to work with tape and he asked the very logical question, "then why do it?"

Even as I've been reveling in the sound of analog audio, it's been in the back of my mind that no one is going to hear the difference.  In fact, I'm sure a lot of people will be turned off by the hiss of the tape itself in the background.

I was talking to another friend, who's getting her masters in Electronic Media, someone infinitely more plugged in than I am, and she was lamenting the loss of film in movies.  She could see why digital would be preferred for blockbusters, since it's so much cheaper and convenient to shoot, but wondered why it was losing ground on art films as well.  She had actually been having the same conversation with her professor at school, days earlier and he told her it just wasn't economical anymore.  And she said, "but it looks so much better"  But he was ready for that too, "Young people can't see the difference, like you or I can.  To them it doesn't matter."

I remember when DVD and MP3 first landed in the late 90s.  I was slow to adopt each.  People kept raving about the higher quality of DVD over VHS.  But even expensive machines back then had serious artifacting issues, which annoyed me.  I preferred the analog noise of VHS to the digital compression issues of DVD.  Same with MP3, it sounded like someone sucked the life out of the recording, though it was hard to put ones finger on what had changed.  MP4/AAC was such a relief when it came along.  But I digress.

Now with the prevalence of flash video, especially from YouTube, much of which is awful quality, DVD and MP3 seem like super high fidelity formats.  Which is ironic to the core.  But if YouTube is what you're used to, you really will have trouble seeing the quality difference between HD video and Film, they're both going to look so spectacular you'd be hard pressed to identify one being better.  But I'm not here to complain about young people.  I'd happy join their ranks if it weren't a quantum impossibility.

Why work on tape?

It's unforgiving.  It has quality issues (hiss).  It has severe limitations (very limited numbers of tracks and dynamic range).

There were two important thrusts in my education:

• critique (and self critique)
• process

Both are about making your work better.  The second is also about overcoming creative blocks.

The thing about tape is it radically alters my process for making music.  It throws so many wrenches at me I often feel I will fail before I even start.  It's a hurdle, to get up the courage to even lay down an analog track.  So much can go wrong (and does), and as I've mentioned before, each additional take diminishes the sound quality slightly.  When I record on the computer I have the most lackadaisical attitude to the process, and I record anywhere I have my laptop, train, car, park, etc.  If I make a mistake, I keep playing and edit it out later.  Not so at all with tape.  I rehearse, get comfortable, and leap into the abyss.  Often I lose my way out of nervousness and have to repeat the process.

Additionally, I usually try to play more than one instrument at a time, to maximize my 4 limited tracks.  I would never bother to do that on the computer, where I have limitless tracks.  I also have to plan what is going to go on each of my 4 tracks and how I eventually plan to mix them together (something that needs to be center mixed cannot be recorded on the same track as something that needs to be panned right or left).  On the computer I don't even think about the mix when I'm recording.

All these little things change the process dramatically, and by changing the process, you change the music.

Will it be good?  Who knows.

But it will still sound like Tribrix.  Regardless of what process I use, at the end of everyday I cannot be someone else, I'm forced to be me.  I can evolve and change over time, but my DNA is always the same (transcription errors not-with-standing).  We can't help but be who we are, even if we try to be someone else.  But changing our process, our routine, our geography, anything significant will awaken something new in us and take us down a different path.  That is why one works on tape.