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Re: [ARSCLIST] Tape problems, was Re: [ARSCLIST] Collection for sale
Thanks for the tip on radio broadcast tapes. I've been tempted to buy
some in the past, but never did. I've seen the condition of machines
that had spent their lives racked up in radio stations, then shoved
into store rooms for god knows how many years. Not a pretty sight!
I'm interested in the tapes that were made during performances in
venues that had a built in control room/studio such as large concert
halls. The ownership of these tapes seem to be all over the place.
The rights are a different matter. I know one guy that was the tech
at one and essentially saved the tapes from going into the dumpster.
After reading dl's post, maybe he should have let them. I guess
that's show biz. Doing live recordings for broadcast week after
week,.. " So I forgot to switch the feed on one channel. They get
what they get."
Some jazz clubs did recordings of the performances that took place
there. I'm sure the quality of these varies greatly but on the other
hand, small combo recordings seem to be more forgiving in their
consistency-enjoyment ratio (or maybe that's just me).
Steve
On Feb 23, 2008, at 10:35 AM, Tom Fine wrote:
For-broadcast duping was a little bit less slipshod than mass-
market duping but problems like you describe were still common.
Acquire a few copies of a King Biscuit Flower Hour program from
different places around the country and see how different the same
program can sound. All the variables of multiple duper slaves,
multiple record heads, multiple production cycles, etc. Plus again,
duped radio stuff could be 4 or 5 generations removed from the
master. Radio guys I knew in the early 90's were thrilled with CD-
based syndication because the quality was so much better and more
consistent vs. the duped tapes. Now I think everything is
distributed by satellite or internet and it sounds like most of it
is distributed in lossy-compressed formats to boot.
And radio stations were classic abusers of tape technology.
Usually, especially by the 70's, the "tech" was a substance-addled
hack and the tape machines were over-used and ill-maintained (the
magnetic equivilent of a rented mule). Over the years, I've
collected dozens of produced-on-site radio programs and the quality
varies all over the map. The best stuff is amazing because it was
produced under typically pretty primative conditions and worst
stuff is awful.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Lennick"
<dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2008 12:49 PM
Subject: [ARSCLIST] Tape problems, was Re: [ARSCLIST] Collection
for sale
But London allowed itself to get into 4-track tape because they
were impressed by the operations at United Stereo Tapes (Ampex's
duping division). It says so right on the back ad in a 1959 High
Fidelity issue (I've been going through a ton of these lately).
It's in print, it must be true..heh heh.
Duped tape disasters weren't limited to 4-track consumer product.
I remember the Cleveland Orchestra coming in on ten-inch reels
with horrible sound and on more than one occasion, an entire
channel missing. This was in the early 90s.
dl
carlstephen koto wrote:
Tom, I agree completely regarding the dismal sound found on most
factory produced r2r tapes. It's a real shame since the few that
were produced following the items you've listed, reveal a texture
(particularly with orchestral recording) to the sound that's
absent on most lp's. I've got a number of Mercury 1/2 tracks and
a few RCAs that are spectacular. Some of the Verve 1/4 track jazz
titles are really something to hear also. BTW I almost never buy
tapes from online auctions. That's a sure formula for
disappointment!
Steve
On Feb 23, 2008, at 3:43 AM, Tom Fine wrote:
The craziest thing in all of this is, mass-duped tapes generally
are TERRIBLE, I mean awful. If you understand anything about how
they were made, you'd understand why they generally sound
terrible. A few specifics:
1. 4x to 8x and later 16x duplication speeds. Generally on Ampex
3200-type transports, which were hardly stable at 60IPS or later
120IPS.
2. duper masters generally made by low-skill personnel from many-
generations-removed copies sent to the duper plants. The duper
plants would get a 15IPS safety (second generation from master,
which could be a generation or more from the session tapes,
particularly in the multi-track era), it would be a safety that
close to the master if they were lucky because one common
practice was the keep the safety at a studio and run series of
duper masters from it for popular titles. Then this 15IPS tape
would be reduced and combined to make a 4-track usually 7.5IPS
dupe master. If someone decided to make a 15IPS dupe master that
meant the duper's playback transport would be running twice as
fast as the record transports, adding still more variables to
the system. This all got even worse with 8-track carts and
3.75IPS duped reels. Those formats are such dog-doo, I won't
even discuss them.
3. the tape stock used by dupers varied and was usually lousy.
By the mid to late 60's, Ampex in Illinois was the biggest
duper. I think even then RCA and CBS did their own duping
(generally with better results). Ampex used their own tape,
which is notoriously bad. They never perfected slitting so the
tape "country lanes" and at high speed duping that leads to
severe azimuth instability. Plus, the Ampex tape is notorious
for warping, so most of those 40+ year-old tapes on eBay are
badly curled or warped and full of left-channel dropouts. Any
acetate tape will warp with the way most of these were stored by
consumers, so I probably shouldn't single out Ampex.
4. Azimuth varies widely from tape to tape and even on parts of
the same reel (and sometimes different sides of the same reel
since some dupers used different record heads for each side of a
quarter-track reel -- the heads were offset and would run at the
same time but early 3200 systems didn't accomodate 4 tracks on
one record head). Unless you check azimuth with a scope for each
side of each tape (sometimes difficult since of course there are
no alignment tones on these tapes), you're only somewhere in the
neighborhood (and often outside the ballpark).
5. maintenance of the duper equipment varied from day to day,
line to line and worker to worker. Sometimes there's hum in a
channel. Sometimes level is all wrong. Sometimes channels are
reversed. And remember that this junk sold at a premium to LPs.
6. finally, the hiss and wow/flutter level on most duped tapes
I've heard is unacceptable. Unless you like digital artifacts
better than hiss, there is no digifilter that satisfactorally
cleans this up. I don't even think something like Plangent that
locks to bias would help since the wow and flutter could date
back any generation between the studio tapes and the duped tape
and the bias recovered would only be the duper bias on the final
duped tape.
Meanwhile, in contrast, a properly done LP was mastered right
from the master tape and if it was mastered and pressed
properly, it is much closer to the source than a duped reel.
Also, I should mention that some dupers were better than others.
Ampex was particularly bad in my experience. So was Bel-Canto.
And early 2-track duped tapes are a whole other matter and often
sound better than the early stereo LPs, if you can find one
that's not completely worn out from age nowadays.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "carlstephen koto"
<cskoto@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2008 1:11 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Collection for sale
Speaking of crazy,.. I collect reel to reel tapes (in a minor
way) and an auction of one came to my attention a couple of
weeks ago. It was a Japanese 7" 7.5 ips 1/4 track issue of
Pink Floyd's "Adam Heart Mother". The reason this auction
attracted the interest of several tape collectors was that it
had already reached a bid of over $400 with two days left. By
the next day, it was over $700. At that point, I speculated
that it would go for over $1k. I guess that's why I usually
lose bidding wars. The final price was over $1800! We were
flabbergasted. Luckily, I suggested some reasons why a single
7" tape could be worth that much to someone when one of the
regular posters let us know that he'd bid $1600 on the tape.
BTW reel to reel tapes have had a dramatic upswing in prices
the last year or so. But nothing like that!
Steve Koto
On Feb 22, 2008, at 7:55 PM, Roger and Allison Kulp wrote:
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