To my knowledge, before the use of computers in audio recording, to cut out errors etc. producers had to physically cut the tape from the analogue recorder and glue it back together. Especially the last part I can’t really comprehend. How do you glue together two loose ends of a tape without any overlapping exactly at the right place and without hearing any errors, stutters or something on the final recording?
In: Technology
With tape.
You cut the audio tape, butt the two ends together, and then stick adhesive tape over the cut. The best devices cut the tape on an angle to prevent making a “pop” on the splice. {[example on eBay](https://www.ebay.com/itm/175867949707 ), no I’m not the seller}
I used to rejoin cassettes with nail varnish, either to repair them or even to make wonky music.
[this is a great demonstration](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkEfo4IVpjk&t=83s) of how an audio engineer would cut up reel-to-reel tape and then glue it back together and make it all sound seamless.
It shows how they’d “scrub” the tape looking for the exact spot to cut, mark it, cut it on an angle, and then tape it back together.
The tape they used for the splice is “clear” to the magnetic process that reads the sounds. But yes, it’s literally tape.
I used to do these back in the 70s, both audio and 8/16mm film. I had one like this (not exactly, but very close) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD0Bc9eTBQ8
All very finely explained above. We sure have it easy these days with literally a complete audio and video studio in the palm of our hand.
[Here is a full video demonstration with explanations.](https://youtu.be/_TARpAdIjRM?si=og8RSYnJf_D_iygj)
The tape is marked where the cut will be.
The tape is then slacked and put on the editing block, which is a rail that contains the tape and also has some cutting guides at several angles.
The editor aligns the mark on the tape with the center of his chosen angle, and cuts along the guide with a razor.
The tape is then joined with adhesive editing tape with another tape that has been similarly cut from another reel.
The editor puts the two ends of the tape on the editing block, meeting the ends together, and securing them with the adhesive editing tape.
The tape is then fed back properly into the machine.
As a college freshman in 1985, I learned to do it in a broadcasting class and I am amazed by how far we’ve come since then.
Vhs tapes, 16mm film, audio tapes. I’ve had to splice them all. Even added metal splices to betamax tapes to have them automatically rewind at the end of the recorded program.
> before the use of computers in audio recording, to cut out errors etc.
If you’re talking errors in a player’s performance, you can have that player do an overdub (or “punch”) that part by rewinding the tape, playing it back up to the point where the mistake was, starting recording then, and then stopping recording at some point after. The playback and the recording were independent operations, and a separate magnetic tape head achieved each.
Multitrack analog tape would allow you to do this for selected tracks only, leaving the rest of the tracks untouched. The engineer or producer could manually choose where to punch in (start recording) or punch out (stop recording) by pressing the record button. As the technology improved over time, the option to program the punch in and out points and automate the punch became available. After analog tape but before computer recording, linear digital tape formats like ADAT or Tascam’s mini-DV one (whose name escapes me) could do the same thing.
A skilled engineer would be able to punch at places where either the player was not playing, or where the other tracks masked any change in level or tone if the punch occurred mid-note. You’d always go back and listen after punching to be sure that it sounded natural. If it didn’t, you’d re-do the punch and coach the player to try to match the sound of the existing part. Or you’d decide to re-take a whole section of the song.
All of this happens while you still have the instruments on separate isolated tracks, before the song has been mixed. In analog tape world you might record the raw tracks on a 2″ 24-track reel-to-reel tape machine, then mix to a separate 1″ or 1/2″ stereo tape. Splicing the multitrack tape was more of a rare occurrence, and I never did it myself. If you wanted to take a section out of the song, it’s easiest with the final mixdown.
You have a reel-to-reel machine and likely some headphones. You play the tape up to the point where you want to make an edit, mark the start point with a marker, find the end point and mark it, then use a razor blade to cut those points and cellophane tape to tape the splice together. The marker and cellotape go on the outside part of the audio tape, where the magnetic film isn’t. You can also disengage the motors that drive the reel hubs and manually spin them to slowly “scrub” through the audio to find a good place to splice. You have to get used to hearing the slowed down audio and knowing where a splice won’t be too apparent.
Because of the nature of magnetic tape, being an analog representation of the signal, and also due to the speed with which it passes over the tape head, 15 inches per second or more for professional machines, the edit doesn’t click and pop like edits in the digital realm do. You’re inducing a current on the electromagnetic playhead, and that current doesn’t immediately change when a sudden change is encountered on the tape- there’s an inertia to it, and the edit is a razor thin line in a medium that’s moving past the head at 15 ips or more.
Source: I worked in a small recording studio just as they were phasing out the analog reel-to-reel machines and transitioning to computer based DAW recording. I don’t have the most experience working with analog tape, though perhaps I’m the wordiest at describing it, so I’ll gladly accept corrections from those who _really_ know it.
bonus fact: you can even do a crossfade between two sound sources by cutting the tapes on a long diagonal
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