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Is it possible to transfer analog tone and soundstage of vintage reel to reel to digital.

Sam here again. I have a hi-res digital rip of the rolling stones sticky fingers album from an original commercial reel to reel tape from 1971 and the analog warmth and soundstage is as good as it gets to my  ears. loudness war free sound.   https://postimg.cc/rDmzvR80

I realize there are many digital plugins that emulate the sound of analog tape and vinyl, however when I use them in post processing of digital audio I seem to get further away from the sound I'm trying to achieve? Now I may be naive on the subject, but if I want to digitally replicate the sound of vintage analog tape in the digital domain, why not go directly to the source? Heres what I did I extracted 1 second of analog tape sound between tracks and made an impulse file for the convolver dsp filter for foobar2000. I believe it made the digital download sound better, however, I'm not 100% sure.  Here are my audio samples (1) reel to reel (2) commercial digital download (3) commercial digital download with the impulse filter applied. I used replay gain to normalize the volume to 89db for all three samples.

(1) reel to reel (1971) 24/192 http://u.pc.cd/d2qrtalK

(2) commercial digital download flac16/44 2009 remaster http://u.pc.cd/4oditalK

(3)  commercial digital download flac16/44 2009 remaster.impulse applied http://u.pc.cd/99ActalK
guitarsam
ddude003
161 posts
 
I think your injecting noise into the small signals...  Sometimes noise can sound good (think tubes)...  And it is noise nonetheless...
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
The results can sound just like the original. Minus the air and sweetness of course. Otherwise virtually identical. 😟
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,210 posts
 
They can. I’ve transferred many cassettes to digital as well as records. Also a few hifi vhs. If you try it and do it right you will see.  If you do it wrong then .......
mlsstl
1,436 posts
 
I had a number of direct open reel copies of studio masters as well as some open reels I personally taped of live performances. I transferred all of those to digital some years back and was very pleased with the results -- I couldn't tell the difference.

As I noted on your vinyl threads, there is a difference between preserving on digital the sound quality of existing traditional analog sources versus trying to recreate that sound on digital without the intervening analog process. Frankly, I'm not sure I understand your goals, but it seems to be keeping you busy.
roberttdid
534 posts
 
I think you have your answer already in the last 4 words of your statement. It is all in the mixing, and what you like is the mixing. The format is secondary in this case.

Sam here again. I have a hi-res digital rip of the rolling stones sticky fingers album from an original commercial reel to reel tape from 1971 and the analog warmth and soundstage is as good as it gets to my ears. loudness war free sound.

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