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Author Topic: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master  (Read 25839 times)

Offline Marie

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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #15 on: August 07, 2008, 07:13:40 PM »
Some stories of the little gems I come across as I preserve analogue tape -

We have many hours of Royal Tour broadcasts from 1952/53, 1956, 1958, 1963, 1970, etc.  They are quite telling in themselves as they were huge events and the Queen would visit cities and townships all over NZ.  The radio coverage was enormous with broadcasters dotted at locations all over each event so they could 'paint a picture' for the listeners of what the Queen and crowds were up to.  They contain plenty of actuality of crowd sounds, brass bands, descriptions of what the Queen is wearing, etc.  There are handwritten books which accompany the audio plus produced books of the Royal parties itinerary so the public could go to get a glimpse of her.  The language used is very colourful and highly descriptive so that you almost feel like you can actually see what is being told to you, plus with all the atmosphere involved.  Remember that the earlier tours were before television here and so it is radio at its best.  They are important historical recordings in that they show the style of broadcasting for its day, the NZ culture and the then importance of tours of this nature.  Some of these tours lasted 3 weeks and no expense was spared.

One such broadcast with the 1956 royal tour when Prince Philip visited for a 'working' holiday, he visits the Wairakei Geothermal power station.  The announcer describes the scene of what is about to take place when they will demonstrate for HRH a 'bore with its hat off".  In other words they are about to open the bore up.  There is much anticipation which is represented in the broadcaster's description.  The picture forms in your mind and then OFF it goes!  The sound effects of this bore going off would have almost blown any wireless to kingdom come and they play it for almost 2 minutes!  The joys of radio :-)

A gem I happened across was of another nature but hugely funny.  From the late 1960's we have a recording of a radio personality who is involved in a talent quest in a public forum.  He introduces a young woman and her friend and they are going to perform a song with one of them playing the guitar.  The song is 'I am a rock' and so you hear the sweet voice and guitar strumming away until you get to the bridge of the song..........all of a sudden I heard something which I thought I heard but wasn't sure until the reel was completed and I could go back to it.  I couldn't wait........at the bridge the girl who had been so sweetly singing says quietly to her non-singing friend - "sing, you bitch"!  It is hilarious because when the friend does start singing her voice isn't exactly in tune!  This would have gone out over air but back then was in AM and so most people wouldn't have even heard those words.  Now this is one of the reasons I love my job!
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 #16 on: August 07, 2008, 08:09:53 PM »
Great stories Marie. I hope you have someone at work with you that you can share these things with.
Backtracking a little (or I guess back to the present day project), I've only seen pictures of paper backed tape. How long ago did they use it and was it during a transition period of tape types (since it seems to be very rare today)?  And I never really realized that since most tape was distributed on pancakes back then, you probably see a good bit of squashed tapes.
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Offline Marie

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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #17 on: August 10, 2008, 05:25:16 PM »
Paper tape was not widely used in broadcasting here in the 1950's.  We only have a small collection of paper and mainly from private collections.  With that said, I have seen photographs with a Sound Mirror featured being used by a broadcaster.  But as a general rule we went from lacquer disks to analogue tape in 1952/53 to coincide with the Royal Tour in that year. 

The squashed paper tape is like that due to the nature of the unique reels made, which ofcourse also include audio!  A double source!  Plus they were poorly stored and probably had a lot of uneven weight on them.  By the way, we stored everything vertically and not horizontally.

This project has shown me some of the fickleness of this delicate tape.  The paper backing has gotten wet or damp at some point and has then dried out making it extremely warped.  The first aim is to get it off the homemade reels and respool it onto 10.5 inch reels.  It will fit on two such reels.  Then, with careful library wind spooling I need to get the pack to flatten out as much as possible.  This will take time.  I'm using a defunct Technics SP 10 to hold the homemade real as I hand wind it on to the takeup reel on a Studer.  As it goes on to the takeup it is almost going into an egg shape due to the warping!  Patience, patience.
Marie O'Connell
Analogue Tape Specialist
Sound Archives/Nga Taonga Korero
Radio New Zealand House, Level 1
51 Chester Street West
Christchurch

Offline Lance Lawson

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Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master
« Reply #18 on: July 22, 2009, 09:04:48 PM »
It had been both my good fortune and mis fortune to live down the street from a very nice high end audio store in the late 1970's.  I purchased a great deal of Ampex Grand Master and loved its sound.  However a great many of those Ampex tapes broke down with serious shedding issues now.  I tossed a lot of my old tapes before I knew about baking them.  I think Grand Master was my favorite though when it was current.