Six Great Reasons to Return to Tape-Based Multitrack Recording

About five years ago when I had a mid life crisis, decided to drastically downsize my digital home recording facility and set up a 1990s-spec, tape-based studio in the space, I saw the tape studio serving as an occasional change. But it’s actually seen more use than the digital studio.

The digital studio is more capable, controlled and precise, and much easier to use, but tape has easily won the battle for attention. This year, I’ve started to ask myself why. Here are six key answers…

EMI Studio DRM XDR Chromium Dioxide Audio Cassette

Going from yesterday’s epitome of 1970s lo-fi, to the other extreme – a 1990 paragon of audio cassette fidelity. High spec chromium-dioxide tape media, XDR quality control processing, Dolby HX Pro noise reduction, full digital remastering – all in a highly successful effort to bring a 1965 recording up to 1990s fidelity standards.

Pre-Recorded Ferric Tape vs Blank Ferrics

I thought this would make for an interesting experiment. I’ve griped a little recently about expensive, pre-recorded cassettes, manufactured between the mid ‘eighties and mid ‘nineties, being produced with ferric tape formulations, as opposed to chrome. So I thought I’d assess exactly what customers were getting, in terms of sound quality, from these pre-recorded, CD-era ferric tapes.