Re: [ARSCLIST] Wishing for old tapes, was Yet another great box set from Mosaic

["Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 06:20 PM 2008-04-18, Tom Fine wrote:

> It's too bad that the newfangled Magnetofon never made it over here 
> in the late 1930's. So much good music was made in the last decade 
> of 78's and almost all of it would sound better if it had been 
> recorded on tape. The flipside of course is that those tapes might 
> well be dust now...

Hi, Tom,

This is a complex and not-clear-cut issue. I have transferred second 
generation Magnetophon tapes from 1946 and there is a fair amount of 
distortion on them -- not DC bias distortion but an obvious lack of 
understanding of the tape's compression/overload characteristics.

While there is some excellent sound -- the AES stereo CD from second 
generation Magnetophon tapes sounds better than the material I did 
from 1946 -- the process/conditions/operator knowledge was very 
variable, as was the tape.

There is a huge jump in quality with Mullin's electronics -- think of 
what he did was sort of like the Aria electronics of its day. He 
changed the original AEG electronics -- in fact, all he brought back 
from Germany were tapes, heads, and transports.

The 1946 / 1947 material that Mullin recorded sounds really, really good.

In the late 1930s, AEG did bring a machine to GE -- being a related 
company -- and GE turned up their nose at it. They appeared to be 
suffering from a huge case of NIH from all I've read. I can't cite 
exact quotes right now, but I think the memo has been published someplace.

So it wasn't as if the opportunity wasn't there, it wasn't exercised. 
Meanwhile Semi Begun at Brush and Marvin Camras at Armour were doing 
things, but Brush's work was low end and Camras was stuck in wire, I 
think, at least during WWII.

Apparently several Magnetophons were brought back, including Orr and 
Ranger, in addition to Mullin's two. We know where Mullin's two still are.

So while it's a good wish, it wasn't to be and the results might have 
been uneven and perhaps even disappointing. Everything seemed to fall 
into place in 1946/47.

Oh, and the vast majority of the WWII era German tapes are still 
marginally playable -- at least the ones that I have seen. The 
Magnetophonband Typ L which is the homogeneous PVC material still 
works well, although its magnetic characteristics are, ummm, 
interesting by today's standards. Magnetophonband Typ C if stored in 
the original metal cans is at grave risk of vinegar syndrome -- it is 
a coated acetate material.

I even played one reel of 1930s carbonyl iron tape from Jack's 
collection, but it had nothing but tones on it. It's the gray tape.

Anyway, I'm glad everyone likes the Mosaic box set!

Cheers,

Richard

Be careful, the tape is 6.5 mm wide, not 6.35 mm.


Richard L. Hess                   email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Aurora, Ontario, Canada       (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.