The Lost Art of Tape Recording Workflows // Soyuz Spotlights with Belmont University

Michael Janas heads the Audio Engineering Department at Belmont’s Curb College of Music. While instructing students on recording to tape and using analog outboard gear, he’s noticed that many of today’s up-and-coming engineers are completely unfamiliar with the concept of commitment while producing music. In an age where much of our music is built through multiple takes comp’ed together, looped, or built entirely in-the-box, he teaches students to learn how to recognize good takes, commit to them instead of relying on playlisted alternates, and then move on to the next stage of production. The musicians who perform in Belmont’s tape recording sessions find their jobs equally daunting: “If you wanna punch something in, whatever you did before is gone,” Michael says. “Once you hit record over it, you can’t go back.” Musicians have to be well-rehearsed, performing in full takes rather than comp’ing together phrases or riffs one at a time. In this special tape recording session, musician Christiana Alaire and her band of Belmont alumni recorded her song “Lie Here” on a menagerie of Soyuz microphones. She has graciously offered the multitracks of this session for you to download and practice mixing or listen to the raw, unedited recordings of Soyuz microphones on a variety of sources. Enter your email to download those below! Watch our latest Soyuz Spotlights video to learn more about the workflow challenges that tape recording presents for engineers and musicians and see which Soyuz mics were used on the session.