Wilco and recording on tape vs digital

[pivoboy]

In all of the numerous interviews with Tweedy and co. in the last month I have not seen a reference or question asked about the recording process of late other than a change up in the production seats to allow Pat to help out. My curiousity is that some years ago there was an article in the Wall St. Journal about a handful of bands that prefered to record using analog tape as opposed to digital - Wilco was one of the bands, and the article cited Tweedy as having to scour much fo the U.S. to still find any tape anywhere because no one was manufacturing it. In some cases bands were re-recording over their old work tape or buying masters from other bands that didn't want them to reuse the tape.

 

Has anyone read how they have dealt with this problem in recent years? I think the article dates back to the AGIB period so obviously they have had to live with this technological issue for more than a few years now.

[GtrPlyr]

There's still a few stores online that sell analog tape for 24-track machines. I believe ATR Magnetics still manufactures various analog tape types. So it's totally possible that Wilco are still recording to analog.

 

 

Found a picture of their Studer 24-track:

 

 

[tinnitus photography]

i read that Steve Albini bought as much tape as he could afford to when the last US plant stopped making stuff.

[jff]

If I'm not mistaken, in one of the interveiws posted here last week, it said they recorded EVERYTHING, forcing them to record digitally. The "finished" tracks were later transferred to tape for mixing.

 

EDIT: Here's the quote:

 

http://www.sonicscoop.com/2011/09/21/behind-the-release-wilco-the-whole-love/

 

Originally, we had it set up to go to 24 track tape. But as soon as we started, we realized we would have gone through probably $50,000 worth of tape at the rate we were going [Laughs]. We ended up going to Pro Tools, and put the whole mixes through tape with Bob Ludwig during mastering.

[rockinrob]

The tape manufacturing plants in the US closed around 2004, but then reopened in 2008 (ish) so tape is again available, at right around $250 for 15-30 minutes, depending on the speed you are running the tape. High speed sounds more hi-fi, but has less time.

 

When you record you usually do a couple takes back to back, and you dont really want to stop the flow, so you can go through miles and miles of tape. The analog to digital converters have gotten so much better in the last few years that recording to good hi-res digital through vintage gear and then mixing to tape is probably the best way now.

[pivoboy]

Ah thanks for that Nothin' - super article that I normally wouldn't see - written for gear geeks like me.

[lost highway]

There are new tape manufacturing companies.

 

They recorded in Pro Tools and then bounced it to tape when they were mixing down.

 

What Rockinrob said is the way most records with a budget seem to be recorded these days.