Does Timbaland record with tape?

there's an old Remix Magazine article that you should be able to find on www.remixmag.com with Missy Elliott, Timbaland and their engineer Jimmy Douglass where they talk about recording to tape on occasion in the past, if you listen to his more recent stuff, I doubt if he uses it, but you can also look for interviews with Jimmy Douglass, there's a few out there where goes into a little more detail about recording, he doesn't always go all the way out anymore because of things like ringtones where people will rarely be listening to your music at full quality
 
In that Kanye vid, the dude sitting beside Tim in the red hat is Hannon Lane. Childhood friend, used to produce w/me. I'm familiar with that circle, I could answer the question in respect to 10 years ago and what I've seen in spots Tim used to work out of without him being around since then, but I'd rather not. Tim's some type of god up here, so all folk would do is tell me how wrong I am and how "no one knows".

Just know in the end, Tim records in multiple places including tourbuses, and doesn't mix. He sends the songs to engineers in Pro tools sessions.

You do the math on "what Tim Does". Also don't confuse "tape" with the multiple peices of analog gear that are sampled and/or played directly into his production.

You shouldn't care what he does, you won't be anywhere close to "the next Timbaland" basing you sound on speculation of what he may or may not do.

wow man, chill out, you sound a little bitter that that dude isn't working with you anymore, lol. Believe me I'm not interested in sounding like timbaland. I'm getting a tape deck from that era to try to get a soft rock/r&b sound from the late 70's, early 80's, and likely won't even be making hip hop with it. Tim's music is weak today, imo, but I like the stuff he did in the 90's/early-mid 00's. I'm just a fan of production/engineering in general and I'm always interested in others' process. Not because I'm trying to copy them.

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there's an old Remix Magazine article that you should be able to find on www.remixmag.com with Missy Elliott, Timbaland and their engineer Jimmy Douglass where they talk about recording to tape on occasion in the past, if you listen to his more recent stuff, I doubt if he uses it, but you can also look for interviews with Jimmy Douglass, there's a few out there where goes into a little more detail about recording, he doesn't always go all the way out anymore because of things like ringtones where people will rarely be listening to your music at full quality

Thanks for the link. I think this was the article I had in mind, I know I had read some interview or something a long time ago, but couldn]t find it anywhere. Thanks, appreciate it.

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Do you happen to have the direct link to the article? This is just the homepage and I can find it in the search. Thanks

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As someone who records to tape myself, I want to welcome you to the hybrid recording and mixing generation. :cheers:

Thanks man, it'd be cool to have a sub-forum on here for tape recording.

I wonder if some of the more consumer friendly companies like Tascam and Fostex that are still in the recording market today, will ever make new, affordable reel to reels, so that more ppl can use them today, with the home studio boom of late. Instead of having to work with old machines from the 60's and 70's. But maybe the new ones wouldn't have that same sound.

I know Otari still makes and sells new 2 tracks, but the price is astronomical for any home studio.

http://www.otari.com/product/recorder/mx5050/index.html

$5,800 plus shipping :mad:
 
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^That's a pretty niche market though b/c most people are using tape saturation plug-ins & as someone said b4 sound quality isn't really on the top of list (in terms of music importance) in today's popular musical landscape. Might be more trouble than worth it for them to start creating & selling new units.

Another person who i know does a lot of his stuff on tape is Mark Ronson.




He talked about it a bit in another vid that i can't currently find.
 
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wow man, chill out, you sound a little bitter that that dude isn't working with you anymore, lol. Believe me I'm not interested in sounding like timbaland. I'm getting a tape deck from that era to try to get a soft rock/r&b sound from the late 70's, early 80's, and likely won't even be making hip hop with it. Tim's music is weak today, imo, but I like the stuff he did in the 90's/early-mid 00's. I'm just a fan of production/engineering in general and I'm always interested in others' process. Not because I'm trying to copy them.

If I sound bitter, it's because I was nice enough not to point out why I didn't stick around waiting on someone else rather than doing aiight for myself as my own man. Those my folk, much love to everyone who was involved w/Beatclub(I don't know these "Mosley Music" folk).

I honestly was simply being generous enough to offer insight on why you were off in the wilderness in need of a compass based on your thread title and 1st post.

Didn't mean to offend or "sound bitter". I wouldn't have typed any of that if I wasn't trying to educate.
 
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I think a lot of it comes from the samples he chooses. Timbo has amassed a huge collection of drums over the last decade.

If your looking for that analog warmth and naturalness, check out some Neve gear.
 
If I sound bitter, it's because I was nice enough not to point out why I didn't stick around waiting on someone else rather than doing aiight for myself as my own man. Those my folk, much love to everyone who was involved w/Beatclub(I don't know these "Mosley Music" folk).

I honestly was simply being generous enough to offer insight on why you were off in the wilderness in need of a compass based on your thread title and 1st post.

Didn't mean to offend or "sound bitter". I wouldn't have typed any of that if I wasn't trying to educate.

No prob, sorry for calling you bitter, i was just messin with you :) glad to hear your doing alright on your own.

I appreciate you taking the time to respond. For whatever reason this thread came across to some like I'm looking for how to get the timbaland sound or whatever for my own production, which isn't why I started the thread. I was just simply curious if he used tape or not, because it kinda sounded like it to me. If you havent seen some of my responses to the other threads w/ ppl looking to copy someones sound, I'm pretty much on the same page as you on that topic. I didn't expect this thread to get this big, lol, but thanks for all the input from everybody, good discussion.

Great video on Ronson Musikfiend, thanks. That 2 inch is A LOT better than the one I'm getting ,lol, but i'm hopeful I can do something interesting with mine. Was that Wale's album they were producing? I'm going to hvae to check that one out. I liked a few wale tracks i've heard, but never lisetened to any more.
 
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^Yeah i figured Ronson's was top of the line, lol. I think he uses it on pretty much everything he does but doubt it was used on Wale's album b/c Ronson only produced 1 track. That track on the reel is from one of Wale's old mixtapes. I believe he most likely used it on the Amy Winehouse stuff & his own albums though.
 
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^Yeah i figured Ronson's was top of the line, lol. I think he uses it on pretty much everything he does but doubt it was used on Wale's album b/c Ronson only produced 1 track. That track on the reel is from one of Wale's old mixtapes. I believe he most likely used it on the Amy Winehouse stuff & his own albums though.

cool, i didn't know Ronson was a producer, I thought he was a DJ for some reason. Maybe I'm thinking of that lesbian chick that dates Lindsey Lohan, lol haha.

Check out Sharon Jones and The DapKings. Their like a 60's Motown soul group brought to 2010 in a time machine, lol, but seriously they sound exactly like the 60's soul sound because they use all the same equipment from that era, and have immense talent of course. Here's a video of their studio. The guy with the mustchae is the man behind the sound, the producer, engineer, songwriter, etc.

The studio is called Daptone Records and is inside a little flat in brooklyn I think, just like Hitsville in Detroit. It looks like a dump compared to even some home studios, but there's magic coming out of there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wmdDYUFfMM
 
^Mark Ronson DJ's too but you're talkin about Sam Ronson who's actually his sister, lol. Mark is mostly known for his work on Amy Winehouse's Back To Black album but he's got a pretty extensive production career.Yeah i saw that vid awhile ago & was amazed & had previously heard of Sharon & The Dapkings, but had forget about them b4 i could check out some of their music but you just reminded me so i'm definitely gonna check them out.:cheers:
 
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After listening again, I think its just his ASR-10 thats giving it that warm analog sound. I had been listening to nothing but analog tape machines for a few days straight so anything that I heard after that was even the slightest bit warm sounded like tape I think.
 
Just saw a great video with Jimmy Douglass, and he said they record everything to 2" tape, but today I think he uses just pro tools, though I'm not sure. From the interview, it sounds like all the late 90's, early 00's Timbaland productions were tracked to tape. So I just thought I'd update this thread with the answer to my original question.

And wanted to share this video, which was one of hte best hour-long production interviews I've ever seen. I really enjoyed this. if you got time check it out. peace.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/video-vault/396605-red-bull-music-academy-jimmy-douglas.html
 
There is one good plugin that really emulates the warm tape character...that plugin is available for free.

You can achieve everything with plugins these days...

But if your material is wack no real tape can save it...you can run it 10 times through it and it will still sound like shit. Especially if it isn't mixed right.
 
Not sure if it's tape, but those consoles they use are definetely have a nice warm sounds. If you say you can do everything with plugins you definetely haven't heard a quality console working.

But the fact that you only use softwares shouldn't stop you from making good sounding records.
 
use FL Keys and make it sound like a Bösendorfer. Good luck :cheers:

i think he meant you can make fruityloops sound good too, i mean lets be honest, you think these people listening to the records care about the quality? most of the systems they listen to the music on r pretty basic plus the music gets squashed down to mp3 format n passed on to youtube lol only a producer can hear the quality properly and even better when he sitting in his studio wid expensive headphones or studio monitors lol

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why you think dr dre released them beats by dre headphones, he did it as a plan b in case people aint feeling detox at least when they listen to it tru detailed headphones they gon b like wow this shit hot as fuk can u hear that sound lol....
 
i think he meant you can make fruityloops sound good too, i mean lets be honest, you think these people listening to the records care about the quality? most of the systems they listen to the music on r pretty basic plus the music gets squashed down to mp3 format n passed on to youtube lol only a producer can hear the quality properly and even better when he sitting in his studio wid expensive headphones or studio monitors lol

it's two different things.

just because the average listener don't care about quality it doesn't mean that a quality sounding record won't impress them subconsciously more than a wack sounding record. they don't know why but they feel it.

a quality piano will sound better than FL keys on any listening system.

of course you can make FL sound good. but you can't make FL keys sound like a Bösendorfer doesn't matter how skilled you are.

you don't make good sounding records to impress other producers, you do it because it'll work like magic for the average ears.
 
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