Analog Recording to Go

When it comes to the character of analog tape machines, most of us think of the massive units found in recording studios throughout the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. But companies like Studer also produced smaller units, which became staples in broadcast and location recording.

The Tape Machine 99 re-creates the Revox PR99 Mk II, a compact, rack-mount stereo recorder produced by Studer in the 1980s under their Revox brand. Engineered around a hybrid design that takes the best of discrete and op-amp topologies, it offers an un-hyped, elegant sound with an extremely smooth frequency response.

The PR99 has almost no trace of the typical “head bump” effect, reducing the bass boost caused by the heads gap and making the overall response extremely linear. This unit quickly became popular in broadcasting and for on-location professional recording because of its impressive sonic performance. It also was a reference for audiophiles wanting to dub their beloved LPs on tape, without sacrificing the sound quality to those inadequate-sounding cassettes.

Re-creating the Magic

Analog tape audio recorders are complex systems. They impart magic to the audio material, lifting the art within the music to a higher level. They add musicality to music.

What a tape machine adds to the audio is the result of a number of interactions amongst several interdependent factors. More than just saturation, compression, or EQ alone, these factors work together, one affecting each other with the dynamics of music, adding a “movement” that goes into the soul of what we perceive.

Decades of music produced on these pieces of artful human engineering have tailored the way we think music should sound. It’s imprinted in our DNA.

Trying to recreate this magic in the digital domain has been attempted since the early days of real-time audio plug-ins, with various degrees of success.