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Messages - U47

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31
I once owned the original 30 ips 1/2 inch masters from the old Sonar label. They produced real time dubbed tapes out in 7.5 ips two track and quarter track formats in the 70s on mastering tape in both stereo and quad formats.I vaguely remember some 15 ips tapes, but am not quite sure if they made any.  The 'Quad' tapes were really just stereo tracks with ambiance in the rear channels, so they were much less gimmicky sounding than quad tapes from the major labels. The 1/2 inch tapes had the stereo tracks in the middle and the ambiance channels on the outer tracks, a somewhat unique layout. The recordings were very closely mic'ed. Lots of detail, both extraneous and otherwise. Mostly classical music on this label, solo piano, guitar with Michael Newman(age 13?!), chamber music and orchestral. There are some very impressive organ recordings that have content to 16 cycles that were recorded on a huge organ in Hartford, if my memory serves me. The masters were recorded on Scotch 250 and by the time I played them, the oxide layers were peeling off in huge patches. Luckily, they made back up copies in stereo at 15 and 30 ips. Mitch Cotter was a consultant on Sonar. Not quite sure exactly what he did there.
Speaking of predecessors of Tape Project, one should not forget Sound Ideas. I have a wonderful David Grisman Quintet recording at 15 ips/2 track that is packaged with a copy of the LP on Kalidoscope. Wonderful music and sonics. I think they had other titles as well.


Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, Oregon

32
Prerecorded Tapes / Re: Bel Canto
« on: March 15, 2009, 05:24:23 PM »
Bel Canto was a duplicating house that made tapes for many labels. Many prefer the Bel Canto duped tapes to the Ampex(Mercury for example). Here is a rare jazz title(bel canto 16) two track. Bel Canto was associated with mood music for the most part.


Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, Oregon

33
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Re: New Toy from Denmark- Lyrec Frida
« on: February 27, 2009, 04:21:52 PM »
When I visited 'Lyrec Canada' last month, I noticed that the Mark II machine had a scrape flutter roller/filter attached.

Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, Oregon

34
Thanks to Doc and Eileen for hosting a nice event in their home. The system was indeed sounding very sweet. The bass extension and hall sound on the Hindemeth tape was truly astounding to me. The Nagra T/repro combination was a match made in heaven- worlds better than my stock T ever sounded.
The Basie tape I brought was a Kansas City Seven session from 1963- studio session, as opposed to the live New Years concert recording from 61. That one has a 'Jazz at the Pawnshop' feel to it.

Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts

35
I was thinking about going up sunday morning to check out the new tapes from season two. I've got a recording saturday evening, but hope to be up early for the 3 hour drive north. I could take one or two passengers.
I'll bring up a little Nagra deck and a few jazz reels.

Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts

36
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Re: New Toy from Denmark- Lyrec Frida
« on: February 12, 2009, 06:15:43 PM »
I am planning on using two independent mic rigs- one for analog and one for digital. I'll likely use spaced omni mics with the analog and an ORTF setup with one spot mic for the soloist in the concerto. The Ampex is a 4 in/2 out device. I almost never use more than two or three microphones. For a large orchestra in a good hall, I prefer to use three spaced omni microphones, but generally I use ORTF(two cardioids at 110 degrees with a 6 inch spacing). Pic is of my Sound Devices 722 digital recorder. It records on compact flash and hard drive at up to 24 bit 192K.

37
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Re: New Toy from Denmark- Lyrec Frida
« on: February 12, 2009, 03:37:55 PM »
Forgot to add that the two Lyrecs I recently picked up are Mark I versions from 1989/1990. Lyrec produced a Mark II version in 1991/1992. One interesting upgrade was a scrape flutter filter. I find it surprising that they did not include it in the original model. One of my decks is ex-Suisse Radio and the other is ex-BBC. Suisse Radio sold many of  their Nagra decks when the Lyrec was introduced- that is saying something! I would love to find a small Studer mixer from the 70s to use with the Lyrec.

Lyrec Fridas are fully Tape Project compatible, as they are 15 ips/2 track with IEC eq..

Lyrec made some incredible disc cutting equipment. The one Lyrec piece that I knew from the 70s was the Lyrec tape counter, which could be attached to some large studio reel decks. It measured in minutes and seconds at 15 ips and was a thing of great build quality. Lyrec was not well known at all in the US, compared to Europe.

Rich

38
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Re: New Toy from Denmark- Lyrec Frida
« on: February 12, 2009, 03:27:21 PM »
Hi Guys
I used Grado and Sennheiser phones to test the headphone section. It could be that they did not like the impedance of the Grados.

The website is http://www.lyrec.dk . They should have some machines for sale shortly.

Regarding mic preamps, I am going to use the slightly massaged Ampex MX-10 tube mixer on my next orchestral recording next week. I'm looking for an assistant to man the Lyrec/Ampex rig, as I'll also be recording to Digital with my Sound Devices 722 recorder. The Ampex/Lyrec will have to be in another room, as they are too noisy mechanically to be in the hall.

Rich

39
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Re: New Toy from Denmark- Lyrec Frida
« on: February 11, 2009, 10:38:29 PM »
Hi Ben
A friend of mine is just starting out with Lyrec and has supplied me with two Frida PTR-1 decks. Two things I don't like about them are the lousy headphone amps and the lack of microphone preamps. Also forgot to mention that they are balanced input/output.

Rich

40
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / New Toy from Denmark- Lyrec Frida
« on: February 11, 2009, 09:56:14 PM »
Just got my second Lyrec PTR-1 from Lyrec of Canada last weekend. Fully sorted out and tasty sounding. 27 pounds and handles 12 inch reels with switchable NAB/IEC eq at 3 3/4 to 15 ips. Perhaps the last designed analog tape recorder- was introduced in 1989.

Rich

41
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Re: Interesting new toy on the way
« on: November 11, 2008, 09:21:28 AM »
The Nagra T-Audio and Ti recorders are two recorders that got me worked up about 10 years ago. I purchased my first T-Audio in Simsbury, CT about 9 years ago. Charlie(Stellavox) and I went to see the deck, which only had 56 hours<!> on it. The owner collected high end cameras and other tasty items, but only owned one<!> tape. He also had a 1/2 inch Studer A-80 2 track, which I also purchased. It had less than 20 hours on it! When Charlie first gazed upon the T-Audio, I was sure he would have given his left testicle for this ultra tasty deck. We got the deck home and tried it against his little Stellavox. We were both totally deflated after the toy stella ate up the Nagra. The transport and feel of ulta luxury is undeniable on the T. I quickly sold the T, but found another a few years later. This also did not last. IT should make a great semi-portable deck with other electronics and heads. I have a friend who took a Ti(instrumentation recorder) and stripped the plug in electronics out and installed tube electronics with fullly adjustable eq. It is a total gem. I'll try and post some pics later.

Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, Oregon

42
Prerecorded Tapes / Re: sticky shed on prerecorded tapes ?
« on: October 04, 2008, 05:36:08 PM »
HI Steve
I doubt it is sticky shed on this tape. I've dealt with hundreds, if not thousands of sticky shed Ampex 456 and Scotch 250 tapes. They have ALL been black backcoated tapes. Sticky shed tapes will stop your machine dead in it's tracks by depositing a black goo on the heads, guides and even the capstan.
Baking/drying is a good fix for sticky shed tapes. I would not recommend doing that for the tape you mentioned.

Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, Oregon


43
General Discussion / Re: Subscribers, speak your peace
« on: September 24, 2008, 11:11:23 AM »
I respectfully disagree with you about a system being 'voiced' for either vinyl or tape. I've heard many systems that can play CD, Tape and Vinyl sound very musical and satisfying. I've heard two Cello systems that used Studer and Stellavox decks with Cello play electronics playing 1/2 inch 2 track 30 ips masters that were the most astounding orchestral sound I've ever heard. One was in Chicago and the other in Connecticut at Levinson's home in the mid 90's. They also played DAT, vinyl and CD to great effect,very musical, just nowhere near the tape sound.If I had not heard the tape, I could have lived happily ever after with the sound of the other sources.  Another friend in Vermont has an astounding system and we play tape that knocks us out(otari 5050 with Progressive preamp). Then we start sampling some of his  Blue Note 10 inch LPs on his VPI TNT with mono Dynavector. I saw 'screw stereo and tape' when I hear these old 50 and 60 year old LPs. There should be no need to make any excuses for vinyl or tape. That said, at least half of the demos I've set up with known good tapes and decks have been screw ups. System compatibility while introducing new gear is a great unknown.

Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, OR

44
Tape Tech / Re: Dolby A Decoders
« on: August 28, 2008, 06:50:49 PM »
Dolby Labs were the only makers of the A type noise reduction. They came out with it in 1965 and Decca was one of their first customers. The first model produced was the A-301, which is an all discrete 2 channel encode/decode transformer coupled device. It is as large as a medium sized Rowland Stereo amp! Great sound, which the later 360 and 361 could not compete with for sonics. They were 1/10th the size of the 301. I've used the 301 for years and gave it back to Charlie(Stellavox) a few years ago- it is sorely missed. Dolby A was used on all<?> the Lyrita recordings and all the Decca classical LP recordings since 1966. Dolby B units made by Dolby Labs(London) were the 330 and 334. One was for Dolby FM and the other for cassette. Their appearance is almost identical to the 360- slimline 1 rack unit pieces.

Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, Oregon

45
Tape Tech / Looking for Nagra 4.2 or IV-S schematic or service manual
« on: August 21, 2008, 10:07:27 PM »
Reprint or scan of schematic would be fine also.

Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, Oregon

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