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Author Topic: For sale - SM468 pancakes with splices  (Read 20774 times)

Offline docb

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For sale - SM468 pancakes with splices
« on: February 13, 2009, 02:33:45 PM »
When we make an album we use about 2/3 of a pancake of RMGI 468 for each reel. Consequently we end up with a lot of leftover unused tape. These unused portions of the pancakes are spliced together onto a hub, usually with two splices and reboxed in the original packaging. We would love to get a little of our cost back on all of this tape. And so we are offering five spliced pancakes at $50 and a case of 20 spliced pancakes at $120 (plus shipping). That's way less than you would pay for pancakes from RMGI! I should note here that the splices on these pancakes are for utility and if one intends to use the full pancake for recording it will be best to carefully resplice before you record. If you're just using it to tie up your lover, it's probably OK as-is.

Contact Eileen to purchase - [email protected]
Dan "Doc B." Schmalle
President for Life, Bottlehead Corp.
Managing Director - retired, The Tape Project

Offline astrotoy

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Re: For sale - SM468 pancakes with splices
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2009, 05:10:24 PM »
I picked up a bunch of pancakes from the Studio a couple of days ago. I think we should give the Studio a new name - International House of P.........? ANyway, I did my first taping with the stuff yesterday and it worked out fine for what I am doing. I didn't notice more than one splice in the entire roll and it was very minor. BTW, pancakes of SM468 are currently not available at US Recording Media - Kurt said that they were backordered and USRM may not carry the pancakes anymore - not sure why.  In bulk Dan has a great deal. 

Larry
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Offline ecir40

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Re: For sale - SM468 pancakes with splices
« Reply #2 on: February 25, 2009, 11:33:59 AM »
And so we are offering five spliced pancakes at $50 and a case of 20 spliced pancakes at $120 (plus shipping).

Doc,

About how many feet would be on each pancake?

Brad
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Offline astrotoy

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Re: For sale - SM468 pancakes with splices
« Reply #3 on: February 26, 2009, 05:00:23 PM »
Brad, the pancakes so far are VERY full - I would say 40-41 minutes worth of tape- that is 3000-3100 feet, if my tape recorder is accurate in speed. I've taped three albums so far, and the longest was just over 38 minutes - there was quite a bit of tape still on the reel, after doing about 20 seconds of blank tape on both sides of the album.  Larry
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Offline ecir40

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Re: For sale - SM468 pancakes with splices
« Reply #4 on: March 16, 2009, 02:59:23 PM »
Thanks Larry, forgot to enable notification of this thread so I missed your reply till now. Will probably purchase some this week.

Brad
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Offline astrotoy

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Re: For sale - SM468 pancakes with splices
« Reply #5 on: March 16, 2009, 04:35:31 PM »
I've opened up about 25 of the pancakes so far. About 80% are 10 3/8" or slightly larger in diameter. This compares to about 9.5-10" for the 2500' SM911 tapes I have. There are a few that are smaller, but only 1 of 25 was less than 10" (about 9.5") with a few in the 10.2" range.  I've taped on five of them so far, with excellent results. There are typically 2 spices on each tape.   Larry
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Offline sound signal

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Re: For sale - SM468 pancakes with splices
« Reply #6 on: March 20, 2009, 03:40:46 AM »
Have emailed the address given above requesting a quote on the shipping charges for one box of 20 pancakes to my address below but have had no reply.  Have they sold out?

In case they're still available I'd consider having two boxes.

Best regards,
George Karaolides
Nicosia, Cyprus

Offline astrotoy

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Re: For sale - SM468 pancakes with splices
« Reply #7 on: March 20, 2009, 10:16:06 PM »
Paul said essentially that they will never run out of pancakes as long as the TP is ongoing. They are constantly producing more pancakes with the left over tape.  Now that I have recorded about 12 or so pancakes out of the 40 that I have bought, I have noticed a couple of things. First, as Paul and Romo have stated, don't use the tapes for live recording that you can only do one. Their splicing is quite good, but it isn't perfect and sometimes you can hear the splices. Also at the splice (and there are typically two and sometimes up to 4 splices per reel) normally for one revolution, the tape sticks out a fraction of an inch - so you can easily see where the splice is. In a few cases (probably about 10% or less of my 40 pancakes) the tape sticks out enough to get wrinkled and is not usable. You can see that pretty easily and resplice that areas after cutting out the bad tape. I also have put all the pancakes onto flanges and rewound the tapes before recording on them. This makes the wind more even and removes the parts that are sticking out, so they won't get damaged in the future. I also listen to the tapes as they are being made so I can hear if the splice makes a noticable blip on the tape. If it does, then I resplice and rerecord that section. Since I am copying my 45RPM Classic Record LP's, it isn't too much of a problem. So far I have had to resplice three times in 12 pancakes, not too bad.

Larry
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Offline sound signal

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Re: For sale - SM468 pancakes with splices
« Reply #8 on: March 21, 2009, 04:53:56 AM »
Thanks for the pointers Larry.  I understand very well that a splice made quickly to simply store some blank tape would need to be re-made carefully before an important recording is made on the tape.

In any case since we use the Nagra IV-S TC for location recording, we wind the tape down to 7" reels for location work and then edit everything back together onto 10 1/2" reels in the studio.  Once these pancakes are wound down to 7" reels there'd be either one splice or no splices per 7" reel.

When recording live on location with two machines, there's no avoiding splices and little choice as to where to make them when transitioning from one machine to the other, besides allowing for a sufficient overlap so that a good spot can be chosen.   But with a 7" reel of 468 only lasting 15 minutes at 15ips, there's only so much overlap you can allow for.   You would be surprised how many of the "Golden Age" recordings considered to be audiophile milestones today were made in precisely this manner - Decca's 1955 Keilberth Ring cycle, for instance.  When listening to that, I don't think I can hear where they made the splices.  I can't hear most of mine either, even on headphones.  I have got to be quite good at it...  The trick is to use a good splicing block, a sharp single-sided razor blade, and to demagnetise the blade before use.

I still haven't heard from the Project about shipping the pancakes to Cyprus...

Best regards,
George Karaolides
Nicosia, Cyprus

Offline ironbut

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Re: For sale - SM468 pancakes with splices
« Reply #9 on: March 21, 2009, 10:50:59 AM »
Hey George, speaking of 7" reels, I guess RMGI stopped making the 7" low torque reels a while back. I was wondering if you knew of a source for them?
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Offline xcortes

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Re: For sale - SM468 pancakes with splices
« Reply #10 on: March 21, 2009, 11:11:20 AM »
Quote
When recording live on location with two machines, there's no avoiding splices and little choice as to where to make them when transitioning from one machine to the other, besides allowing for a sufficient overlap so that a good spot can be chosen. 

So that's how they do it! I always wondered how people managed to change reels at the middle of a concert! Sometimes I'm either naive or stupid I guess.
Xavier Cortes

Offline sound signal

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Re: For sale - SM468 pancakes with splices
« Reply #11 on: March 21, 2009, 11:55:57 AM »
Hi Steve,

Hey George, speaking of 7" reels, I guess RMGI stopped making the 7" low torque reels a while back. I was wondering if you knew of a source for them?

A quick Google search yielded the website of a company called  Elmar Plastics.  They seem to make these.  As you can see from the web page, they offer 7" reels with 4" centres and apparently they'll sell you a carton of 200 at 65 cents each ex works...  So depending on how many of them you use per month, I guess 130 bucks plus shipping should see you sorted out for a while...

With best regards,
George Karaolides
Nicosia, Cyprus

Offline High and Outside

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Re: For sale - SM468 pancakes with splices
« Reply #12 on: March 21, 2009, 01:46:00 PM »
Hi Steve,

Hey George, speaking of 7" reels, I guess RMGI stopped making the 7" low torque reels a while back. I was wondering if you knew of a source for them?

A quick Google search yielded the website of a company called  Elmar Plastics.  They seem to make these. 

Elmar no longer makes them, they just haven't updated their website.
Paul Stubblebine
Managing Director, The TapeProject

Offline ReelPROAudio

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Re: For sale - SM468 pancakes with splices
« Reply #13 on: March 21, 2009, 02:13:02 PM »
Good offer, thanks! The problem is where to find reels. The only company I used to buy from, Elmar Plastics discontinued making plastic 10 1/2" reels.

Does anybody knows where to find plastic (or metal) reels at common sense price. What I did find are places offering as high as $25 per empty metal reel - which is out of line per my humble opinion?

Angel at ReelPROAudio.com

Offline astrotoy

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Re: For sale - SM468 pancakes with splices
« Reply #14 on: March 21, 2009, 09:17:54 PM »
Angel, I've been looking and haven't found anyone who is selling plastic 10.5" reels. US Recording Media seems to be the cheapest for whole metal reels - about $22 which come in boxes, or about $15 for a pair of flanges - you need to buy the screw sets and the empty boxes separately. I bought a bunch of flanges for the pancakes I bought from the TP. I also bought several packages of screw sets (the 12 packs) and a bunch of empty boxes. It was enough so the shipping was free. I think I was able to get the price down to about $18-19 per reel with screws and boxes. It was cheaper than I have seen on ebay, especially when you consider the shipping costs in buying 1 or 2 reels at a time. It was funjy that the reels cost about 3 times the cost of the tapes themselves.   Larry
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