Talk:Tom Dowd/Archives/2018

Multi-track recording

Hello. As a former professional recording engineer, I can say quite firmly that the following sentence (currently in the "Legacy" section of the article) can't possibly be right: "It was he who encouraged Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records to install an Ampex eight-track recorder, enabling Atlantic to be the first recording company to record using multiple tracks."

Eight-track recorders appeared quite a few years after two-, three- and four-track recorders--and people used all those earlier recorder types for the kind of recording that I think is meant here. It involves creating different layers of sound that aren't recorded at the same time (i.e. you record one or more tracks, then play back whatever has been recorded while one or more performers listen to that playback and simultaneously record new tracks, which then become part of the eventual mix). It is also possible to "mix down" one's interim work (say) from four recorded tracks to two, then add new tracks; one could continue mixing down and "bouncing" in that way for almost as long as desired, subject only to the limitation of tape noise buildup (greatly mitigated by the use of Dolby noise reduction). Finally, people could approximate the capabilities of an eight-track recorder by synchronizing a pair of four-track recorders; that type of arrangement was used to record "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" for example.

So whatever Tom Dowd's particular technical contribution was--and I, for one, would like to know what it was--this article unfortunately doesn't say. DSatz (talk) 22:54, 14 August 2018 (UTC)