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Author Topic: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master  (Read 25797 times)

Offline john

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Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« on: August 05, 2008, 10:40:52 AM »
Does anybody have experience or knowledge of this tape? I have seen some nos for sale, just curious.
John Taylor

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Offline ironbut

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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2008, 01:23:58 PM »
Hi John, on buying old stock tape my general advice is not to. There's several reasons for this, the first being that it's a crap shoot. Tape is sensitive to temp/humidity and can also have problems like mold which can infect your entire collection (through the release of spores during use and attachment of these spores to uninfected tapes as they're played on the same machine). With most of the Ampex/Quantegy backcoated tapes, there's also the chance of sticky shed syndrome. There are lots of folks that use NOS tapes that have been picked up at bargain prices off of eBay and are lucky enough to get good ones. But as time marches on, the odds against this increase.
The second reason is that your record electronics need to be biased to particular tape formulations to get maximum fidelity on your recordings. For most folks, this has to be done by a service tech with the proper test equipment. Considering the cost of having this done and sometimes it will necessitate not having you machine for a while, you don't want to have to do this very often. So why not have it biased for a tape that is currently available and is selected for your needs.
The last reason and one that I feel may be the most important is that with such a niche user base, we should try and support the companies that still make and sell the supplies for our machines. RMGI and ATR Magnetics have stuck their necks out to make the best blank tape ever made. It's expensive for sure, but if you're like me, I'm involved in reel to reel to get the best sound possible. That said, there are some users that prefer the sound of certain tapes and to them I can only wish them well in their searches. But these are certainly the niche of the niche of the niche.
Just so you know, the 3600 is the length of the reel. To put that much tape on a reel it has a thinner backing which makes it more prone to stretching and slipping. I like to have that extra length for some of the things I record but for the most part prefer using the better 2500' tapes. That's one of the reasons I had my deck biased to RMGI 911 which is also available as LPR35 which is the thinner version of the same tape formula. It can be had here;http://usrecordingmedia-store.stores.yahoo.net/
There is a sticky at the top of the General forum page that has this and lots of other r2r related links.
steve koto
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Offline rbwtapeinterlink-Bob

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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2008, 01:50:58 PM »
Hello John and Welcome Here. I had 6 rolls of this tape on 10 inch metal reels. I purchased this tape in 1982 new after I purchased a Crown reel to reel. The Crown had some problems that soon developed which I never got repaired. Needless to say that since Ampex Grand Master tape was said to be the best available, I decided to save these brand new rolls and use them later. In 2000 I purchased a Pioneer 10 inch reel to reel machine and pulled out one of the Grand Master tapes to do some recording. Shedding was a major problem. I tried one more tape and found the same problem. I decided to get rid of the tapes and keep the metal reels. My advice is shedding is a major problem with this particular tape. Needless to say it took me a great deal of time to get the tape heads and other parts on my Pioneer cleaned and back in playing/recording condition. Thanks for joining us here. We are family.

Bob W.
Bob W. (African American) VPI, Ref Standard Grado, Denon 103r, Threshold, DecWare tube pre and Classe pre amp, Jolida tube phono pre amp, (Peter Gunn) modified Magnapan 1.6, Tascam 32-2B & 42B tape decks, Parasound belt drive CD transport, Pacific Valve tube DAC, VPI  TT, various upscale cables.

Offline Marie

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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2008, 07:28:41 PM »
Unfortuately this tape, as mentioned, is very prone to SSS (Sticky Shed Syndrome).  I think it is also only 1 mil thick making it not desirable for long term storage making it very prone to print-through.  1.5 mil is a professional standard, and remember to store it tailout.  Ampex 456 is particularly prone to SSS as is Agfa PEM 469.  I would recommend that you steer clear of these if you spot them for sale as you are in for disappointment, not to mention wear and tear on your valuable heads.  RMGI  (EMTEC/ BASF) is good tape stock, the extra money is worth it in the long run.

Cheers
Marie
Marie O'Connell
Analogue Tape Specialist
Sound Archives/Nga Taonga Korero
Radio New Zealand House, Level 1
51 Chester Street West
Christchurch

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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #4 on: August 05, 2008, 08:55:54 PM »
OK spore Meister, I just bought a few tapes which were not advertised as having mold, but there it is anyway.
I also suspect that a batch of Cook tapes I bought a while back could use a gentle cleaning.  Think the delicate cycle on my new front loader will do the trick?
In both instances the evidence is limited to the edge of the tape; right.  Rust never sleeps either.
One is in a sealed plastic bag; your personal favorite.
The other is Au natural in the box.
Since I cannot play anything ( see other post on the gut the listening room blues elsewhere) the chance of cross contamination is slight just sitting in an Office Depot box with 30 of its' tape buddies.
However I have the 5050 B II available to gently play tapes to get a good tape pack and store tails out if I can decipher your instructions.
I never felt dyslexic before this forum!
Anyway, what do you suggest or can you point me to a link where I can confuse myself on the least harmless way to attack these insidious spores?
Sorry to steer the topic away from the tape question.


Offline ironbut

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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #5 on: August 05, 2008, 09:48:47 PM »
Sorry to say it Charles, but I would discard the molded tapes (perhaps after making high quality transfers to 96/24 digital files on a machine just before you sell it ,.. just joking but you will need to do some heavy duty cleaning on it) since the cost of having them professionally cleaned would be pretty high. Really a shame that it's Cook tapes since they're fairly rare. To give you an idea of just how tough it is to deal with moldy tapes I'll give a link to some research that was done to study ways to safely eliminate the problem. I'd keep them isolated from the rest of your collection along with any other tapes that you got from the same source. Most of the tapes that I've seen with mold were pretty mild (compared to the ones that are sometime retrieved from flooded library basements) and appear with a dusty white substance on the edge/s. I don't know if this mold presents itself as any more of a health hazard than any other common household mold, but anytime you're cleaning any mold the spores become airborne so some respiratory protection is in order. If any members decide to try and clean mold from their own tapes, be sure and use a respirator and do it outside or in an area totally away from your other tapes. And thoroughly wash those clothes before you visit other folks with tape (gee,.. I've never written a disclaimer before).
So, here's the link
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~anagpic/studentpapers2006.htm
The pdf is at the bottom by Jim Thurn.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2008, 09:50:31 PM by ironbut »
steve koto
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Offline Marie

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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #6 on: August 05, 2008, 09:57:15 PM »
Hi Charles
Are you saying you purchased some moldy tapes?  Do they have any audio on them?  If there is no audio on them then, in my opinion for what it's worth, I would ditch them and keep the reels, especially if they are 10.5inch metal reels.  If there is valuable audio on them there are a few steps you must take.  Wear a mask and gloves, mold is hazardous to health.  This is one method I have used -
1) Keep these tapes away from any other tapes.
2) Don't play them on any machine that non-moldy tapes will be played on.
3) Remove the metal flange and carefully soak in some Hydrogen Peroxide (the flange, that is!)
4) Lightly vaccum with a Hepa cleaner the first side of the pancake.
5) Lightly soak a cotton ball with Hydrogen Peroxide or Isopropyl Alcohol (more than 91% pure) and lightly wipe the tape edges in a circular motion.
6) Repeat this on the other side.  You will have to use a spare reel whilst the moldy one is being treated.
7) Using a dedicated machine, cover the heads with pellon and run the tape through this, fixing any splices as you go. (you may need to take the machine out and away from other equipment, like in the garage).
8) This tape will require baking, the longer and slower, the better.
9) Put back onto original cleaned reel, ready for transfer.
Hope this helps a bit.
Marie O'Connell
Analogue Tape Specialist
Sound Archives/Nga Taonga Korero
Radio New Zealand House, Level 1
51 Chester Street West
Christchurch

Offline ironbut

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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #7 on: August 06, 2008, 12:45:59 AM »
Fantastic tutorial Marie. Thanks for sharing that. I have a tape that I've kept sealed up just in case I'm not able to replace it that has light mold on it. I'll follow your procedure and hopefully I'll be able to save it.
How large is the collection you're responsible for?
steve koto
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Offline Marie

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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #8 on: August 06, 2008, 01:41:26 AM »
Hi Steve

I believe in sharing as much info as possible as there aren't many of us around!  Our collections are on all formats, from wax cylinders to digital.  Our open reel tape collections range from 3" to 10.5 inch, plus cassette.  Given that, we have about 50,000 hours of analogue tape with more accessions coming in all the time (my figures are rough as I am at home and don't have the stats nearby). It gives me more than my lifetime of preservation work.  I really love the challenge of preserving something that others say can't be saved.  There are techniques I use which are perhaps, not the norm, such as my isopropyl drip machine, but at the end of the day I get results.

Feel free to ask me any questions and if I don't know the answer, I'll find it or invent something ;-)
Cheers
Marie 
Marie O'Connell
Analogue Tape Specialist
Sound Archives/Nga Taonga Korero
Radio New Zealand House, Level 1
51 Chester Street West
Christchurch

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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #9 on: August 06, 2008, 08:45:43 AM »
Fortunately I have only two tapes with mild mold/mildew residue evidenced on the edges of the pack.
Based upon your cautions and the relative value of the two tapes in question I may just can them or send them to Marie for an after work project in her second life since this life already sounds as though it is spoken for.

The Cook tapes I suspect need a gentle cleaning as I saw no visible tell tale whitish residue.  Fortunately the Cook tapes are segregated from the other tapes I own.

For good or ill, I don't have that significant/rare/deteriorated material that Marie comes across in spite of the best efforts of EBAY vendors.

Let me add my thanks to Marie for the step by step walk through on the desporing.  As soon as my hazmat suit arrives and my portable detox lab is set up I may give it a go.

I live not too far from Camp Meade, you know the anthrax capital of these United States.
Perhaps if I get good at this there may be an opening.
Then again, the likelihood of me getting good at this is pretty remote.

I digress.

Marie, as for tape baking.
It seems that a real 'stove' to bake the tapes is beyond the $$$ reach of most mere mortals.  Any thoughts of what would be an effective device for the rest of us?  With your suggestion to 'bake low and long, you would think a crock pot would work better!  I'm kidding.
I usually see references for food dehydrators to do the trick for amateurs.  Yeah beef jerky and recording tape seems reasonable enough.
I suspect there may be more exotic versions of jerky material in New Zealand than in Maryland, but you never know.
Blue Crab jerky?
What if you just want to reduce the actual or suspected moisture content a tape may have absorbed over time in just a typical storage condition rather than sitting in a bog in some basement.  Is there an ideal/preferred relative humidity to achieve?  Perhaps a good room dehumidifier would work? 
Again Marie, if there is a link which does the trick I don't want to give your digits cramps from typing.
Now you know how Steve K feels.
Sorry.
CV


Offline Marie

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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #10 on: August 06, 2008, 03:55:50 PM »
We store our collections here at 18 degrees celsius with a maximum of about 50-55% of relative humidity.  For storage in a home I would find a dry cupboard  that doesn't have fluctuations in temperature, so NOT in the attic or basement (unless you know the basement is dry and won't flood).

I have not personally used a food dehydrator but I know people who do and have great success, so as a cheap option I would say, go for it! 

I have seen tapes in all kinds of conditions especially when I was in LA.  Tape covered in cow dung (they were stored in the barn!), cat pee and vomit!  Plus, I was in Hurricane Katrina when I lived in MS and we had to salvage tapes from Biloxi that were submerged in water contaminated with sewage, dead shrimp, etc.  The smell was BAD!
Marie O'Connell
Analogue Tape Specialist
Sound Archives/Nga Taonga Korero
Radio New Zealand House, Level 1
51 Chester Street West
Christchurch

Offline ironbut

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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #11 on: August 06, 2008, 05:22:19 PM »
Holy cow Marie,.. your destroying the rose colored mental images I had of you guys! I recall a while back when someone on the list was talking about a collection somewhere in Bavaria that a sister had recorded of liturgical music. I pictured a Studer 820 in a stone tower with snow cover peaks through a leaded glass window, the lights of the VU's reflecting a pair of spinning cucifixes on the vaulted ceiling and heavenly chorus' in the background and now you tell me about cat pee and vomit!
Well, just like any other job, if it was all fun and games, we'd have to pay them to do it.
steve koto
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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #12 on: August 06, 2008, 06:49:29 PM »
Marie, now that you mention it perhaps the tapes from EBAY aren't that bad after all.
You may want to offer a segment to that guy on TV who does the dirtiest jobs shtick.
On the Katrina job, you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or did they bring you in to save the recorded material?
Did FEMA have a role in your work?
I am not trying to stir up trouble!
Since we all are involved in an archival interest of sorts when we buy our little reel of used tape and try to get it ready to roll so to speak,
if you would care to give us an overview of what is involved in your work, from what is deemed worthy to preserve to a broad brush outline of the steps and time involved, I for one would be most interested.
Again if a link is available, I do not want to impose on your good nature.

Offline Marie

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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #13 on: August 06, 2008, 10:43:29 PM »
I was working in Mississippi at the time of Katrina so experienced the full force of it.  As I was closely involved with MDAH they sought my assistance with damaged tapes.  On a personal level I found FEMA less than helpful.

From this site you can download Sound Directions and a tool called FACET -  http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/projects/sounddirections/papersPresent/index.shtml
This, along with the IASA TC-04 document are the 'bibles' we work with in the archiving field.  At least now many archives have an international standard to work to so we can all be on the same page.  The FACET tool is a way of grading a tape or disk.  It gives points taking into account how at risk an object is and then a report so you can justify a decision of whether to preserve something.  It's very useful.

Here, we do what we call 'preservation on demand' (POD) as well as normal preservation.  PODding is when a client wants something and it hasn't yet been preserved in the digital domain.  They may only want 1 minute of audio from it but we preserve the whole item.  This could involve several tapes, being part of a series, so it can be very time consuming.  For example, the other day I had a client wanting about 4 minutes of audio but it actually took me 6 1/2 hours of digitizing so they could have what they wanted. 

Everything takes time and patience is the name of the game!  Before I even get to the actual digitization part there is all the preparation to do.  Fixing old splices and replacing them with archival grade splicing tape, changing or putting new leader on, getting it from a tailout position to headout, which I run at 15 ips (no FF or RW here!), checking tape type, does it need baking, is it acetate tape (if you hold it up to the light and you can see through it then it is acetate and NEVER bake it!).  Also I check the box and any slugs (announcer sheets) for acid content, analogue tape deteriorates more in high acid content containers.

When we get to the actual preservation part we record it flat at 96kHz/24bit NO FRILLS!  We don't fiddle around with EQ or de-hiss or anything at this point.  The only time we use the 'fun' toys is when a client wants it.  The reason for recording it flat is so in the future the next person won't have to try and figure out what we added and we want to leave a 'fingerprint', if you like.  We also document everything we do and note this in a database - tape type, speed, thickness, machines, software, splices, baked, styli, everything.

I have at my fingertips 6 x Studer B67's (one I have adapted as my Isopropyl Drip Machine, Richard Hess has the story and some pictures on his site) and 4 x Studer A807's, plus we have about 10 x Otari MX50-50's, some that have been specially by the RNZ tech's.  In storage we have a few gems, but I'll let you in on that at a later date ;-)  For cassettes we use Tascam 122 MkII and III i think.  We just managed to get 10 more so we can mass digitise the cassettes, we need to move as fast as we can to save our broadcasting heritage.   

We use Quadriga and Wavelab.....I could go on!

Cheers
Marie
« Last Edit: August 07, 2008, 12:39:21 AM by Marie »
Marie O'Connell
Analogue Tape Specialist
Sound Archives/Nga Taonga Korero
Radio New Zealand House, Level 1
51 Chester Street West
Christchurch

Offline Marie

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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #14 on: August 07, 2008, 05:21:19 PM »
Now to give you some background of the sort of recordings we deal with here at Sound Archives/Nga Taonga Korero (the Treasures of Speech).  Radio New Zealand comprises National Radio and Concert FM (music).  Up until about 15 years ago it also featured the commercial network which was sold off to private networking.

We are a radio broadcasting archive so our collections are predominantly programmes that have gone to air, even though we do have many tapes that are unedited raw interviews that a producer has used to compile the completed programme.  The types of programmes we have are news and current affairs, radio serials, radio comedy, World War II recordings, sport of many genres, New Zealand composer's collections, all kinds of music programmes, disasters, Maori programming, Parliamentary broadcasts, early Newsreels, etc.  This list could go on!  We do accession collections from private individuals to other radio stations and educational institutions, plus we actively record other radio stations around NZ on a daily basis to get a cross sample of the types of broadcasts people are listening to all our the country.

Our collections are used by all sorts of places from advertising agencies, journalists, schools, students, television to private individuals.  A journalist may use a short cut of historical interest to compliment their story or television may use our audio in a documentary especially if it pre-dates television here as radio WAS the only source of audio.  We often get requests from private individuals about a relative who performed on the radio many years ago and it's always nice to find those but, sadly, many of those went straight to air and weren't recorded unless they were quite famous!

Copyright is a big issue and we have to be very careful about supplying audio that contains music.  As a rule, anything that is commercially released we don't provide unless the client gets the correct permissions and clearances, which is a real process but can be done.

The Mobile Unit World War Two recordings are very interesting.  These were made overseas and feature soldiers messages home, entertainment for the troops, speeches from high ranking military, etc.  Because of the sensitive nature of war the soldiers messages would be written down and checked for security reasions.  They would line up and then make their recording which would be played over the wireless on a Sunday night once they got back to NZ.  However, before they went to air, they would be checked by the War Department to see if those soldiers were still alive.  If they had been killed in action then the family would be invited in to have a private listening and it wouldn't be played to the general public. We have a disk cutter which could have been the one used at the time, remembering these disks were cut as they were made.  There is a rather famous one made by Arch Curry, war correspondent, and he is describing the Battle of Cassino.  His voice is very calm and factual as he describes the big bombers going overhead, which you can hear and then the eventual bomb being dropped.  Interestingly, this recording was despatched by horseback (from what I am told) and made its way to the BBC and was broadcast with 24 hours of the battle.  Not like these days with the internet but amazing in itself.

An interesting project I am working on at the moment is rather unique in itself.  An ex-broadcaster donated his personal collection to us and in it were three "reels" containing paper tape.  The unique thing about these reels is that he used six laquer transcription disks to make three open reel reels!  He has drilled extra holes in the middle and made a wooden hub and bolted them together!  The paper tape (sound mirror) is brittle and full of splices and my challenge is to get them off his "reels" and transfer them to standard 10.5" reels.  They have been stored poorly and are all squashed down on one side making the tape very difficult to release itself freely from each layer.  It does have sound on it also which makes it even more exciting!

Next installment coming soon!

Marie
Marie O'Connell
Analogue Tape Specialist
Sound Archives/Nga Taonga Korero
Radio New Zealand House, Level 1
51 Chester Street West
Christchurch