Analog or Digital?
Tape is available new for reasonable prices locally at SuperDigital (503-228-2222) or for great deals order from Pro Tape Northwest in Seattle 800-331-6107. If you are on a tight budget, you can purchase used tape from Tape Tape – Bill at 888-909-6775. We’ve used this tape on many records but have recently been having problems, so buy at your own risk. We can run the machines at 30 ips, which gives you 16 minutes per reel or we can run at 15 ips for 33 minutes per reel. If were using Pro Tools we recommend you bring your own FireWire drive. This will speed up backup time. Sessions can be backed up to CD-R or DVD-R but it takes a long time a typical session will take one hour per song to back up, much more expensive than a FireWire drive. You can bring your own CD-R or DVD-R (not DVD+R) media to save money, but please bring your own CD cases if you do.
Tape is rarely available new and is getting pretty expensive. We’ve had very good results renting tape that we’ve used from previous sessions. We can run the machines at 30 ips, which gives you 16 minutes per reel or we can run at 15 ips for 33 minutes per reel. We typically transfer tracks from tape to ProTools for the overdub and mixing process. The advantage is that you’re always moving forward with the project and can quickly jump from song to song. If we’re using ProTools we recommend you bring your own FireWire drive. This will speed up backup time. Sessions can be backed up to CD-R or DVD-R but it can take a long time. USB drives are also slow.
