Believe me, the Ampex's of that era were much easier on the fingers than
the Maggies were in the brake department ! The PT- 6 series had one
motor for the rewind. The other takeup side was driven by the capstan
motor, so there was no feathering of that system.
Ampex did make one horrible semi pro machine- the 400 series - which
also used 2 motors- 1 capstan, and 1 motor which flopped back and forth
between the supply and takeup spindles which couldn't be feathered
either. Crummy mechanical brakes !! Friction back tension control. No
solenoids and bands on a drum as the 300 and 350, 440 uses. The capstan
motor and shaft was on the LEFT side of the head nest. I hated those !!
Can you say slice and dice?
BH
tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 6/15/2007 9:28 AM >>>
Sheesh, you old-school fellas must have fingers of steel. I'd never
think of grabbing hold of a
spinning reel on my Ampex 300's. One method I've seen with the VPI NAB
hubs (the ones that
click-lock) is to put pressure with the palm on the top of the VPI to
retard winding speed. I was
taught the shuttle method, which takes some practice on a 300 (my fater
had several reels of junk
tape on hand the day he taught us kids how to do this, and I'm not sure
any of them survived the day
unscathed), although a 300 has a better fail-safe mechanism than a 350
or AG-440/440B (the 440C
includes a fail-safe motion sensor system). If one is shuttling between
FF and REW on a 300 and
accidently trips the lever switch into PLAY, the machine breaks circuit
and stops, brakes engaged.
If one is shuttling with the pushbuttons on a 350 or AG-440/440B, and
one hits the PLAY button by
accident, the machine goes into death-tape-spill mode. If one then
reacts by hitting FF or REW, the
machine goes into death-tape-shred mode. This was not a problem until
you got into the studio drug
haze of the late 60's and early 70's when less-than-professional types
were operating the machines
and couldn't coordinate shuttling correctly while high or tripping. The
same less-than-professionals
started populating radio production rooms, and thus Ampex got demand to
come up with a fail-safe
when they were updating the 440B to the 440C. They used a light-pulse
system to prevent the machine
from going into play until tape motion stopped. AutoTec had a similar
system using feedback from a
magnetic head and a spinning circular magnet mounted to the bottom of
the brake drum. The tape
machine would not go into play until pulsing stopped from the magnetic
head. I'm sure Scully and 3M
also had motion-sensing systems but I don't know any details. I believe
that once logic controls
came along, this problem went away.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven Smolian" <smolians@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 8:54 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] OK - Does Anyone Know More About This?
This modification was famous to those of us who grew up on Ampex 350s
and 300 who were used to
breaking the speeding reels with our fingers. The Maggies would
slice into a finger pretty
quickly.
Steve Smolian
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Hodge" <rjhodge@xxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 8:40 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] OK - Does Anyone Know More About This?
FWIW,
Magnecorder had a modification kit which allowed 10.5 inch reels to
run
on the Pt 6. I have one of these machines with the kit..
Bob H.
Robert Hodge,
Senior Engineer
Belfer Audio Archive
Syracuse University
222 Waverly Ave .
Syracuse N.Y. 13244-2010
315-443- 7971
FAX-315-443-4866
tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 6/14/2007 8:40 PM >>>
Hi David:
Of course I can't put my hand on any of Bert's articles about those
days right now (I believe he
wrote about it some for Radio & TV News in the 50's and then later
at
greater length in Audio
magazine in the 70's), but I think he was running snippets of the
sessions onto tapes, experimenting
with mic placement and maybe levels or the like. The Magnecorder, I
think, used 7" reels, so if he
was going at 15IPS he'd have to be changing tapes frequently. He
may
have been told to only record X
minutes of any session but I'm not sure about that because I was
under
the impression that he was
pretty much given carte blanche. I imagine it was a trip working
with
Stokowski in what was by far
the highest-fidelity stereo medium yet at that point. Stokowski was
veteran of Bell Labs stereo disk
recordings in the 30's and Fantasound optical recordings, so I
imagine
he was tough customer about
what sounded right from tape. And he and Bert worked together again
when Stokowski recorded for
Everest.
Speaking of Bert Whyte, he wrote a really nice column after he was
introduced to Mercury 3-channel
stereo:
http://www.wendycarlos.com/surround/surround6.html#column2
Fact correction: the listening venue was actually Fine Sound Studio
C
at 711 5th Ave. (today it's
the Coke building, owned by Coca-Cola Co.). I agree with Bert --
there
should have been a 3-channel
consumer medium but it was thought just too complex and expensive
at
the time (and, based on how
well quad and later SACD did in the marketplace, perhaps the
thinking
was right -- plus no one had
any ideas about a 3-channel disk medium). One other interesting
thing
-- Ampex was able to build
3-channel tape machines as early as 9/53 (Ross Snyder of Ampex wrote
an
article for International
Sound Technician magazine that showed pictures of a 3-track
headstack
and described 3-track magnetic
recording on 1/2" tape), but no one started recording music in
3-tracks
until 1955.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Lewis" <davlew@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 7:08 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] OK - Does Anyone Know More About This?
Tom,
Thanks for this very helpful answer. That basically answers my
question,
although in this case:
I'm not sure how much tape Bert ran that day but one would think
that
if a
tape of the piece you cite existed it would have been issued on
that
CD.
There may be hope. "Tabor" is tagged on to the end of a disc that
otherwise
consists of a Stokowski concert in stereo from Detroit, 11/20/1952,
consisting of Jacob Avshalomov's The Taking of T'ung Kuan with the
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5. It was included, in part, as the
recording
was
at one time mis-marked as being by Stokowski, but was matched to
the
Kubelik
performance through comparison. Certainly if there are other bits
and
pieces
of Ma vlast in stereo, they would not have fit on the 65 minute CD.
Not that I would throw away my Mercury of "From Bohemia's Woods and
Fields;"
it's still great. But it would be interesting to hear Whyte's
recording
if
anything survives of it.
David N. Lewis
Assistant Classical Editor, All Music Guide
"To collect [folksongs] without a phonograph - until there's
something
better - is mad and criminal." - Percy Grainger, 1907
-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tom Fine
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 6:07 PM
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] OK - Does Anyone Know More About This?
Hi David:
As widely written about through the years by Bert Whyte, my father
took
him
along on some of the
early Mercury single-mic sessions and Bert was allowed and indeed
encouraged
by those present to
make experimental binaural (what 2-mic recordings were called back
then
although the definition of
binaural has been refined to mean something else now) recordings on
his
Magnacorder staggered-head
machine. I think Bert used a pair of U-47's but I might be wrong.
Apparently
the copyright owner of
these sessions, Universal and/or the CSO, is OK with the CD release
of
some
of Bert's tapes (at
least I haven't read about any copyright-infringement actions). The
Stokowski recordings are the
Bell Labs disk recordings from the 1930's, which I believe are PD
but
might
not be because an
elaborate agreement was made between Bell Labs and the Stokowski
family
and
the Philadephia
Orchestra when Bell Labs issued their LPs in the late 70's (this
according
to the original mastering
engineer; I did some investigating about reissuing a CD from those
master
tapes under AES auspices
but too many rights issues involved). Again, I would assume the
issuer
of
the current CD cleared all
these rights or they would have been sued.
I'm not sure how much tape Bert ran that day but one would think
that
if a
tape of the piece you
cite existed it would have been issued on that CD.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Lewis" <davlew@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 5:00 PM
Subject: [ARSCLIST] OK - Does Anyone Know More About This?
According to Music & Arts' "Stokowski and Kubelik conduct
Experimental
Stereo Recordings from 1952" (MUA 1190) contains an experimental
stereo
recording, made by Bert Whyte, during the sessions for Rafael
Kubelik's
Mercury recording of Ma vlast. The piece is "Tabor," and annotator
Edward
Johnson writes "Other such experiments from THAT and later
Kubelik/CSO
sessions are known to exist but this is the first to be
released..."
What "other such experiments" from this session "[is] known to
exist?" I'm
particularly - strongly, in fact - interested in any stereo takes
of
the
movement "From Bohemia's Woods and Fields" from this December 1952
session.
Even in mono, this performance is positively electrifying.
David N. Lewis
Assistant Classical Editor, All Music Guide
"To collect [folksongs] without a phonograph - until there's
something
better - is mad and criminal." - Percy Grainger, 1907
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