Foto de Ana Carolina Freitas. Modelo Verônica Moschiar
Abaixo, o engenheiro John Vestman ensina como gravar bem um disco de vinil aproveitando ao máximo as vantagens da gravação analógica para esse tipo de mídia. Mais abaixo, leia respostas dadas por mim em diversos sites onde o vinil foi questionado em suas qualidades.
John Vestman ensina...Ah, the old school... Competing for level is an old trick that dates back to vinyl, but with vinyl, there was a different reason for cutting a hotter lacquer. Since vinyl inherently had surface noise to it, the hotter the sound (and therefore the wider and deeper the grooves), the less you'd hear the surface noise. Also, if the song come on strong, level-wise, it seems more exciting right out of the gate. (You never get a second chance to make a first impression, right?) Vinyl is an analog medium, and it is a flexible medium, in that there is an acceptable range where the signal can be increased depending on the dynamics of the music.
In the analog world, we watched levels to reduce or eliminate tape hiss, keeping our eyes on how much headroom we had above zero VU to avoid distortion. With CDs, it's different. We set the high peaks right at "0" and bring up the rest of the program material (as desired by the client) to make the product hot, but still maintain some degree of dynamics.
Quick tip: Never put paper labels on your CDRs - they inhibit the rotational balance and can cause the player's error correction to work harder. Only write on the top of CDRs with a soft felt-tip pen (preferably alcohol free) prior to burning the CDR, not after. The top is more fragile than the bottom! I also love this little gadget: the Ionoclast!
MIX TO ANALOG TAPE on an excellently maintained machine! The vast majority of projects do not need the hiss-less format of digital, and the bottom is so much better on analog! There is just a "hole" that is hard to describe in digital audio. For some reason, the extra thump that analog has (or holds onto) is great and the top end has a silky sound that's hard to beat.
Plus people sometimes don't realize that those good old analog machines were loaded with high-grade electronic circuits that your favorite DAT machine or even Masterlink doesn't come with. Typical stereo digital machines are low-priced because the emphasis is on a semi-pro buyer, not the ultra-high end recording studio.
Analog tape recording has a "sound shape" almost like a processor. When you put in a square wave test signal into an analog recorder, the output looks different - the "hard" edges are smoothed out - they are less square, which accounts for the silkier sound, the wetter edge and woodier sound to acoustic instruments. Ideally, record on both analog and digital mediums, because it's a great way to have more options with just a bit more involved in the set-up.
Given that Quantegy may or may not still be available, and rumor has it that Emtec (formerly BASF tape) will be making tape, it's a little up in the air about whether you can even get analog tape. When several brands were available, I felt that Quantegy 456 was somewhat cloudy sounding,. While 499 is better sounding than 456, I would probably go with GP9, which is an old formulation of 3M tape. The old BASF 469 was my favorite and 468 was good too. Emtec's 900 series may be the way to go... check around.
I don't recommend elevating your level above +6dB. Why? Marketing hype has made the overload capabilities of modern tapes overrated. There's a lot to consider about the plus' and minus' of tape saturation vs. signal-to-noise vs. print-through, etc. Take print-through for instance: Tape machine heads pick up magnetic signal, and the stronger the signal (louder you've elevated the tape) the easier it is for the adjacent tracks to pick up what's recorded. Result: more crosstalk, especially from 500 hz down. That means that all the low end will bleed slightly from track to track to track. At +9, track 5 "hears" more of track 4 & 6 than if you elevate to +5. All that low bleed makes for mush in your mix. You'll have no hiss, but the bottom will be tubby and slow sounding.
Trick: If you don't mind breaking the rules, align your machine so that you set 1K at -2 (using an NAB 250 nW/M alignment tape) and 10K at -3. That way you have to elevate the high end more. The tape can handle the extra high end level, and it doesn't mush up the bottom. It's not enough to saturate the highs, and it's not dangerous enough that if the tape goes to another studio people will faint. Think of this trick as a broad-range, simple form of noise reduction (which is the whole goal of tape elevation, anyway!) Now you get the hiss reduction of a +6 master with the clean bottom of a +5 master! Voila! (Or just use IEC (CCIR) equalization instead of NAB. It's a standard, and it's reproducible and accomplishes the same noise reduction effect.)
Site de Vestman: http://www.johnvestman.com/secrets_of_mixing.htm
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Blog índice do autor: http://joaquimcutrimblogs.blogspot.com
Blog pessoal: http://joaquimmartinscutrim.blogspot.com
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Joaquim Martins Cutrim é escritor pesquisador de médias analógicas e digitais, tendo várias publicações em sites, revistas e jornais. Técnico em Eletrônica. Advogado e professor.
Jornal “Diário Catarinense”, de 10 de Fevereiro de 2008, encarte de domingo, por Felipe Faria. Ver matéria integral em http://minhaspublicacoesjoaquim.blogspot.com/
Clube da Vida Moderna – Por Sirlene Sabóia.
http://www.clubevidamoderna.com.br/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=99%3Aa-volta-dos-lps&catid=265%3Aatividades-esportidas&Itemid=371&showall=1
Site Livrevista, por Camila Fernandes.
http://www.livrevista.com/article.php?id=758
http://www.livrevista.com/article.php?id=759
Site Meus Caros Amigos – Por Laís Novo. http://www.excelenciaglobal.com.br/noticias/ver/negocios/33066/O%20vinil%20n%C3%83%C2%A3o%20morreu
Revista Vídeo Som de 08 de Abril de 2009, por Nathália Braga. Ver capa da revista e trecho da matéria em http://minhaspublicacoesjoaquim.blogspot.com/
Juliana Ferreira, formanda em Jornalismo pela UNICEUB – Em PDF. Ver matéria integral em http://minhaspublicacoesjoaquim.blogspot.com/
