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Author Topic: Tape Catalogs and Production Thread  (Read 14067 times)

Offline ironbut

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Tape Catalogs and Production Thread
« on: March 28, 2009, 05:42:31 PM »
We've had a very interesting thread going regarding prerecorded tapes and their origin under "Stereotape History". Information regarding that label can be found on that thread but I'd like to branch off to a new one that will be a little more easy to find with the "Search" button.
I'll start this off with a link to a site that has a pretty good listing of prerecorded reel to reel tapes that will help the guys who are just starting to collect.
http://www.r-vcr.com/music/prerecorded/index.htm
This is a pretty bare bones listing but I think it'll make a decent jumping off point for further discussion.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2009, 10:26:01 PM by ironbut »
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Offline Ben

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Re: Tape Catalogs and Production Thread
« Reply #1 on: March 28, 2009, 06:31:26 PM »
But I want to BUY!
Other than epay ... I mean ebay who sells R2R tapes?
Ben.
BTW Will they take cash ... No credit card.
PS.  35M audio film ... that must have been short lived!

« Last Edit: March 28, 2009, 06:34:51 PM by Ben »
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Offline JoeG

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Re: Tape Catalogs and Production Thread
« Reply #2 on: March 29, 2009, 09:35:48 AM »
Steve,
Good link. I was able to see most of the RCA 2 tracks that I own. I now at least know that they are all pre-1961, as according to that site, 4 track was in production after 1961. My tapes are all in original boxes, with cover art and liner notes. The notes have zero information about where and who did the dubbing. I am thinking about contacting the guy at "Radio Ranch" to see what he may know. I am playing through most of the collection, and to date, only one tape has drop outs and/or serious print through, some have leader, some do not. Just ordered an ATR splicing block from US Recording media.

The acetate on some of them is really brittle and I have had some break off in my hands while threading them up. The transport on my machine is being gentle on them thank goodness.
Joe Galbraith
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Offline ironbut

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Re: Tape Catalogs and Production Thread
« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2009, 10:46:30 AM »
The really brittle ones (such as what you've described) should have a ton of leader like the TP tapes do. That way you'll never have to handle or thread the acetate itself. Also, avoid stopping and starting them. Some old tapes can benefit from re-hydration. I'll see if I can dig up some info on that and add it to the "Beginners Guide" Tape Basics section.
I'd forgot about that site. I think the last time I looked at it was a couple of years ago and they hadn't finished listing their collection. Bear in mind that all those tapes listed are the ones that they have and not the ones that were produced. There used to be pictures of their shelves but I couldn't find them anymore. It was pretty impressive!
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Offline ironbut

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Re: Tape Catalogs and Production Thread
« Reply #4 on: March 29, 2009, 12:12:35 PM »
For anyone who hasn't seen Charles Kings epic listing of 2 track stereo tapes, here's a link to the file posted on the Yahoo Groups Reel to Reel group.
http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/EKnPSbFBp4Z9kRmCNUmqVGhX3wV4jlMGYnZ1sYmQfaNOaVH403MQ9iSr8C11F-2VpXIhclYwGNY7Tov8HE25V1dQX2Qpww/tapeind.prn
Sometimes these links can be problematic when folks who are non-members so if you're have trouble linking to it;
go to Yahoo and register
join the reel to reel group
log onto to reel to reel group and click on files (on the left)
scroll down to tapeind and choose the appropriate file type
This may seem like a little trouble but believe me, if you have any interest in 1/2 track stereo tapes, it's worth it!

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Offline reel zealot

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Re: Tape Catalogs and Production Thread
« Reply #5 on: March 31, 2009, 07:35:45 PM »
Steve - Agreed, this is a great lising.  Found to be pretty accurate.  Those checking it out should recognize that the production data is a little flawed, e.g. London never made their own tapes.  They were always made by Ampex or Columbia House.  Some years, Columbia House contracted with Ampex to provide the London tapes, but other years they dup'd them themselves.  As Ampex was winding down, you will find certain albums only available from Columbia House.

Glenn
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Offline ironbut

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Re: Tape Catalogs and Production Thread
« Reply #6 on: April 09, 2009, 09:43:11 PM »
One of the inquiries I made regarding the production of prerecorded tape has offered a wealth of first hand information. So without further adieu,

Hi Steve:

The first written account of a commercial reel duping facility I have is from Radio & TV News, April 1952, by Leon Wortman, desribing the custom setup at Audio & Video Products Corp, NYC. What was made there, out of in-house modified Ampex 300 decks, was essentially what evolved into Ampex's duplicator systems, but Ampex made some changes. The system Wortman describes duped full-track and half-track tapes. By the time Ampex's system came out, it allowed for two tracks. The earliest manuals I have for Ampex dupers indicate the master tape could be recorded at twice the speed of the dupes or at the same speed (ie the master playback ran at both the same speed and twice speed of the dupers, and the dupers could run at half the speed of the master playback, too, offering a wide range of master and slave-product speeds). In the US, I think Ampex owned the "plug and play" duplication market into the 60's.

The early 2-track stereo tapes, especially the classical products, were a premium-priced niche product with a demanding audience. So, at least in the case of Mercury (and I think RCA and Columbia, too), the duping was done in small batches in-house. In the case of Mercury, the dupe masters were one generation removed from the 3-track session tapes. I assume there was an extra generation loss at most other places. Given the vagueries of 1-mil tape in those days, plus the mechanical demands on the duping equipment, I'm amazed that these tapes generally sound as good as they do. The ones I have heard are hissy but otherwise quite good as far as music reproduction. Some tapes from the smaller players have strange azimuth, but one can tune this by scope and ear if your playback deck has an accessible azimuth screw. Early on in the 2-track days, there was a brief format war between Magnecord's staggered tracks and Ampex's stacked tracks. Ampex used its market-share muscle to quickly kill the staggered format, and Ampex personnel argued vehemently for a standard format in several industry publications and meetings of the time. I have a few staggered-format tapes. As long as the tape itself isn't too warped/shrunken, I've had good success fixing the staggering in Soundforge, and ending up with a properly-phased stereo image. In some cases, adjustment was required every 10 minutes or so, but that was with somewhat warped tapes. One of my favorites of this type is a first-generation "Sound In The Round," both volumes, from Concertapes. The subsequent versions of this I've heard are inferior, as is the LP.

The quarter-track format, which came along at the end of the 50's, is what moved duped reels to a larger audience. Now, at a reasonable cost of production (half the tape, half the duping time), a full-album product could be offered, still at a premium to LPs. At first, at least in the case of Mercury, some or most duping was still done in-house. I think RCA and Columbia kept their duping operations in-house, too. Ampex got into the tape duping business in the early 60's, and a company called Bel Canto got big by the mid-60's. Ampex duped tapes for the European classical labels Decca and DGG, and Bel Canto and Ampex eventually did the duping for Philips/Mercury by the mid and late 60's. I think Ampex ended up as by far the biggest duping operation in the US.

As for smaller operations, I can only talk in detail about Fine Recording's duplication division. This was started in the late 50's, with Enoch Light's Grand Award and Command labels as the first big clients. The operation eventually took up the entire basement of the Great Northern Hotel, had its own street entrance and offices and employed dozens of people. The initial formats were 2-track, full-track and quarter-track reels, but the operation was the first or one of the first to do 4-track cartridges and then 8-track cartridges in NYC, and one of the first or the first to do cassettes in NYC. The equipment started out as Ampex duplicators but was heavily modified, including special heads for new formats from John French's father and also IEM. There was a dedicated dupe-mastering room and a dedicated maintenance guy just for this operation. At peak there were two quarter-track/8-track lines (with rolling loader bays to put the tape in the cartridges) and a separate full-track line for radio commercials. For 2-track and quarter-track reels, experience taught that 1:1 master to slave speed ratios ended up with the best playback quality, so the dupe masters were recorded at 7.5IPS and the dupes were 7.5IPS. What you lost in the master recording you gained in the duping. The primary tape brand was Audiotape. Judging from pictures of the dupe-mastering room I've seen, some dynamics-control was applied (there was a UREI compressor patchable into each channel). In the case of Command titles, if the master was a 2-track, the dupe master was made from the master. If the master was 35mm or 3-track tape, the dupe master was made from a 2-track created when the 3-2 mix was made for LP mastering. From what I've been told, duping was a mildly profitable business. I'm not sure how big the duped-reel market ever got. I'd assume it was a tiny fraction of the LP market. Interestingly, duped cassettes surpassed LPs after the Walkman Revolution, and then were obsoleted by CD's.

-- Tom Fine

Hopefully, there'll be more coming. And yes, Tom is the son of Robert and Wilma Cozart Fine.
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Offline ironbut

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Re: Tape Catalogs and Production Thread
« Reply #7 on: April 15, 2009, 10:04:24 PM »
As kind of a follow up to the above posting, and for anyone who has admired the works of Bob and Wilma, here's an excellent article on Mercury with a strong audiophile bent.
http://www.soundfountain.com/amb/mercury.html
One surprising thing is the first photo of Wilma posing over the WE console, it looks like a real old archive type picture. But as the text points out, the Cello Audio Suite dates this photo a little more accurately than a quick glance.
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Offline ironbut

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Re: Tape Catalogs and Production Thread
« Reply #8 on: May 11, 2009, 04:10:27 PM »
Finding first hand accounts of tape duplication has been pretty slow so far. Here is an account of what was called a common mandrel duplication system which I'd love to find a picture of (I mentioned this a bit in another thread ). This comes from a post by Cary Cornett on the Ampex List.

"When I worked at United Sound Systems in Detroit, I was told that they had built the very first "common mandrel" tape duplicators (they had their own machine shop).  When I saw them they had not been in use for a long time, and I wish now that I had taken some pix of them.  There was one full-track and one two-track duplicator.  Other than track format, they were pretty much identical.

Imagine a 16mm movie projector.  Now take the reel arms from 6 of these and mount them side by side, spaced about every 6 inches, to a common metal panel.  The panel is attached to a steel frame that has a couple of internal shelves for the electronics.  The first 5 sets have a common takeup motor and no supply motor (finished dupes were not rewound afterwards).  The last set, which carries the master, has its own takeup and rewind motors.  There is one long capstan shaft all the way across (the "common mandrel") with a grooved flywheel at one end, which is belt-driven from the capstan motor.  The diameter for the master tape is double that for the slaves.  The pinch rollers are all mounted to a common assembly that is engaged by hand.  There is a playback head for the master, and a record head for each slave (all made by Lipps).  There are no erase heads.  In the mono unit, there is one bias oscillator and one playback/record amplifier.  These feed a passive splitter to drive all of the record heads.  In the stereo unit, there are two R/P amps, but still only one bias oscillator.  Except for the bias oscillator and power supply, all the tubes were miniature types.  The bias oscillator used that odd 815 tube (dual unit, 2 plate caps).  This combination suggests to me that these were built in the late 1950's.

I was told that United never applied for a patent for this design.

I was also told that these were used for mostly for duplication of radio spots for distribution (United did a lot of that work back then).

From what I found, the only documentation for these duplicators was a set of hand-drawn schematics bound in a small folder."

Cary B. Cornett
Cornett Technical Services
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Offline ironbut

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Re: Tape Catalogs and Production Thread
« Reply #9 on: May 13, 2009, 11:17:13 AM »
Here's a correspondence from George Schowerer. This is also quoted form the Ampex list.

"Dubbings were a very well known duplicator on Long Island, NY.  I should
note here, that Alexander Magocsi of Audio Labs in Englewood, N.J. also
built a common mandrel duplicator using Ampex heads. His master playback electronics were designed by a gentleman named Bob Burnett. Audio Labs
was the duplicating facility used by Westminster-Sonotape, Vanguard, Vox,
Manhattan Videotapes, and others. The date of his common mandrel unit
was in 57-58. The unit was never used on-line before he went belly-up. The
standard Ampex setup he used for those companies was a standard 3200, which
I used and also did the mastering for the unit. We also had a setup for
recording double-sided tape used in backgraound music systems operated by
a Mr Edelman, who lived and had an office at the Hotel New Yorker. that tape was very dark in color, supplied by Edelman...I don't know who the manufacturer was. I still have the drawings for the common mandrel duplicator which had a shaft diameter of about 2 inches and stood about
6 feet tall, with three slaves on each horizontal level...and with 8 levels, it made for a rather comp[act footprint. The unit had been completed and worked well but never installed on-line. shame! It was a very exciting time for the reel to reel era.
Regards, George S.  "
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Offline ironbut

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BC Tape duplication
« Reply #10 on: October 07, 2010, 04:14:05 PM »
It's been a while since I added anything to this thread and I'd all but forgotten about it until a discussion on the ASRC list renewed my interest.
There have been other postings regarding Barclay-Crockers duplication practices so I'll cut and paste some of it now to keep this info in one spot.

From a posting by David (aka Alchemist)

"As you may know, the way the process worked was that the master tapes were 1/4" encoded Dolby A. They were decoded, and then transferred to  1/2" Dolby B, which was the production master. That was the tape used for duplication. The production masters sound remarkably good when played back on the original machine that recorded them, through the original Dolby units that encoded them."
http://www.tapeproject.com/smf/index.php/topic,738.15.html
This information was confirmed via email from Alex Abrash who was the last engineer who worked for BC.

"OK I worked for BC from 1984-87? this is how I remember it going....
We would get a copy of the original stereo master tape from tape from the record label, this was a safety copy of the often encoded with Dolby "A"
I would play this tape on the Ampex 440C decode it with Dolby "A" then encode it with dbx type ll as I would make the production
master tape a 1/2" 4 track made on a second Ampex 440C, this tape was used on the Ampex high speed dupicator 8x? I think.
Anyway hope that answers your questions!"
Alex Abrash

This is obviously regarding the DBX encoded releases but I'm sure we can insert "Dolby B" into Alex's statement too.
I hope to get some pictures of the duplication line which is still intact (the last time I heard).

Of course, the question still remains regarding the generation of the Dolby A masters that were sent to BC by the individual record companies.

BTW I'm still in search of information regarding "in house" tape duplication by RCA and Columbia. Any of you guys who have clues regarding folks who I can contact regarding these two companies can reply or PM me with that info.
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