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Re: [ARSCLIST] Information on open reel players and tapes
In response, I have drafted a page for my CD-recording primer and posted it at
http://www.mrichter.com/cdr/primer/tape.htm
Private comments are welcome since I suspect that this thread should be
short on this list.
I feel it's an appropriate discussion for this type of list. After all,
that's one of the things this list is about!
I found a couple of things I disagree with on the page....
>Tape width is quarter-inch for open reel and cartridges
>and 0.150 for cassette.
Shouldn't that be 0.125 for cassette? I'd always been of the impression
that cassette tape was 1/8"....
>Note that the properties needed for digital recording differ from
>those for analogue; in general, digital tape is a poor medium for
>recording audio and vice versa.
OK, considering how this is written, it seems to be saying (via the comment
"and vice versa") that digital tape is a poor medium for recording audio
and audio is a poor thing to record on digital tape. Perhaps an alternate
wording would work better?
>though chromium oxide had a brief heyday for high-end cassettes
That would be chromium dioxide, not chromium oxide.
>For serious recording, three heads are involved, one each to
>record, erase and play back.
In that order you'd still end up with a blank tape. That should be erase,
record, and playback. Picking nits, I know, I know.......
Regarding cassettes:
>There is only one tape speed - 1 7/8 ips, one layout of tracks and
>one configuration of shell.
Well, mono units don't use the same layout as stereo. In fact, if you play
a cassette that was recorded on a mono tape deck on a stereo playback unit,
the right channel will be softer because the single mono track doesn't
cover the full area used by the two stereo tracks. As for speed, there are
decks that do 3 3/4 ips as well, switchable to 1 7/8 ips obviously.
You can also have portastudio type units that have more than 4 tracks, some
as many as 8 tracks. Those 8 tracks are usually compressed with dbx noise
reduction to make them usable in a multitrack format and the tape speed on
such a unit is often 3 3/4 ips.
--------------------------------
David Bradley - Webmaster - Official Klaatu Home Page, klaatu@xxxxxxxxxx
Check out the Official Klaatu Home Page at http://www.klaatu.org/
Carpe Ductum - (seize the tape)
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