TP-028, Nat Adderley's Work Song is now available

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - dwilawyer

Pages: [1] 2 3
1
Raw Tape / Re: SM911 or SM468 for tracking?
« on: May 27, 2011, 04:31:01 PM »
Sorry I just saw this, here is a link to a review of the RMGI 468 tape


http://www.rmgi-usa.com/resources/Analog-Media/rmgi_dorsey_468review.pdf



Take some of that article with a bit of a grain of salt, like 456 losing HF response within a week.  But for live jazz I would think you would want RMGI SM900 for the increased dynamic range and headroom.

Hope this helps, and again sorry I didn't see this sooner.

Travis

2
Raw Tape / Re: Shedding RMG. Is this excessive?
« on: August 02, 2009, 08:33:28 PM »
This is what I'm getting from Waltz and Mose.  I will explain what is in the photo:

Starting at the top upper left and moving from left to right, the first 2 swabs are from when I did an initial cleaning of the deck before playing a TP tape.  Prior to cleaning it had more than 10 passes of NOS Ampex 456 through it and the swab on the far left is what I cleaned the heads with and it essentially had no dirt, debris or discoloration of any sort. The one immediately to the right is what I used to clean the tape path, including the tape guides between the heads. There was some gray gook you can see on the end of the swab. This is what I would expect to find after 10 passes of tape, a pretty clean swab from the heads and some dirt in the path, sometimes a bit more sometimes a bit less.

The next three swabs are what I ended up with after 1 pass of the new Mose Allison tape, so to be clear, the third swab from the left is at the top of the photo was from cleaning the tape guides after one pass of Mose, there was little or no residue on the heads. The other two swabs were from cleaning the rest of the tape path and this was more grey in color.

The two swabs on the far right, and this is GOOD NEWS, are from the second pass of the new Mose Allison tape, the basically white swab with NO DIRT OR RESIDUE is from the heads. the brownish one to the right of that is from cleaning the tapes guides and the rest of the tape path. Obviously it is way less then the first pass, and it appears non-existent by the third pass. We will keep monitoring that situation and hopefully we will still keep getting clear passes.

Now kind of the bad news, going to the bottom of the photo, starting on the left again. This is the Waltz for Debbie tape that caused me some concern. This would be the 5th, maybe the 6th pass of this tape.

On the far left is are two swabs I used after I rewound the tape in order to get it ready to play. Swab on far left is nice and clean, as would be expected because in rewind mode the non-moving tape guides are holding the tape away from the heads. On the right is the swab I used to clean the tape guides, note the all brown color, but not too bad really, but way more than I'm used to with 456. The next two swabs are from cleaning after I played both Tape A and Tape B of Waltz. As you can see this is brown in color, the same color as the recording side of the tape The swab on the left is from the heads, the swab on the right is from the tape guides and the rest of the tape path.

I am going to take Paul up on his kind offer and send him the Waltz tape to see if the same thing happens for him, and whether it is even an issue or not.

It may not be, again I don't know. What started this whole thing off is that I'm used to NOS Ampex, and seeing very little in the way of dirt or residue after 10, 15 even 20 passes of tapes as reflected in the two swabs in the upper left hand portion of the photo. Any of other swabs in the photo, as compared to those two look bad, at least to me, but it doesn't mean there is a problem, but there could be. 

Paul posted in the Tape Trail forum that they were getting zero residue after each recording at the tape recordinng facility which really got me thinking because, as you can obviously see from the photos, there is obviously more than zero residue after 4 or 5 passes. By the way, I cleaned the heads and tapes path to the point where I was getting perfectly clean cotton swabs before moving on to the next test. I just photographed the first two or three swabs to reflect what residue I was getting.

As far as the Mose, I don't think it is going to really be an issue, just a bit more initial residue than I am used to, but it looks like that is disappearing fast.

Hope this helps anyone out there that might run into a issue similar as this.

Travis



3
Raw Tape / Re: Shedding RMG. Is this excessive?
« on: August 02, 2009, 08:15:00 PM »
Do you know the age of the tape?  Phil Paske of RMGI has confirmed that there had been problems with curing on some early batches of tape after the move to the factory's present location in the Netherlands...different climate.

If you have a batch number you could contact Phil Paske through the RMGI website.  He was really helpful and informative.

What you are seeing on your white area I refer to as flakeing, and I have not really had any issue of flakeing with TP tape.  After an initial rewind I might git a little, very little, but nothing like what you are seeing there.  One of my TP tapes (Waltz) is putting out a lot of brown residue.  I'm sending it to Paul to take a look at to determine what the cause may be, so we are still in the process of figuring that out.

Travis

4
 habit I tape my on the inside, this is because I have always wanted to avoid taping anything to a prerecorded tape label.  I'm left handed and I think taping on the inside a more natural motion if you are left handed.   I hold some tension on the tape with my right thumb and apply the tape with my left.   

As already stated, I don't think it is a big deal either way, but by any chance is the tech who tapes the tape, is she left-handed?



Travis

5
Saxophone Colossus / Re: Mono playback
« on: July 15, 2009, 03:53:45 PM »
I guess even more good news, just heard that a whole bunch, if not all, of TP10's were being shipped today.

Travis

6
Creek Bank / Re: Any more Creek Banks Going Out
« on: July 15, 2009, 03:11:54 PM »
Hey, what a deal, my Creek Bank arrived today!  I posted this original thread before reading about the move of part of the operation to one location and the recent shipement of a bunch of tapes.  Then when I walked in the office a nice plesant sight was waiting for me from Washington State.  I didn't get a UPS alert by email like I normally do so it was even more of a surprise.  Maybe I just missed seeing it, or spam blocker ate it. 

Can't wait to give it a spin tonight, I hope.

Travis

7
Saxophone Colossus / Re: Mono playback
« on: July 14, 2009, 06:31:31 PM »
TP-010 is on hold for a bit while we wait for a new shipment of album boxes to arrive by slow boat.

Any word on those boxes?  Still waiting for Creek Bank and this one.  You can send the me the reels now and the boxes when ever they come in.

Travis

8
Creek Bank / Any more Creek Banks Going Out
« on: July 14, 2009, 06:28:30 PM »
Any more Mose in the  pipeline?  Still waiting on mine.

Travis

9
Not sure what this means yet.  I have not had any dealings with AheadTek and so don't know anything about them but they are in the Bay Area so some folks on here may know of them. 

Travis

From the Otari Site:

New Appointment of Sales Agency for North, Central and South Americas
 

2009-6-1
 

Otari, Inc. appoints AheadTeK as its sales agency for the North, Central and South American countries on June 1, 2009.

From June, please contact directly AheadTeK regarding Otari products, spare parts and servicing.

 

AheadTeK

6410 Via Del Oro, San Jose, CA 95119, USA

Phone: 408-226-9800, Fax: 408-226-9195

website: www.aheadtek.com

E-mail: [email protected]

Mr. Patrick Johnston (Vice President - Sales)
 

10
General Discussion / Re: ANYONE MADE 15 ips 2 TRACK COPIES OF LPs?
« on: February 04, 2009, 12:54:49 PM »
Hi Larry, I'm not familiar with the ATR700 but you might want to check and see if it can be biased to take advantage of the higher output of the ATR Magnetics tape. Some prosumer machines can't and that would pretty much decide things right there.

That ATR 700 is a great professional deck, designed by Ampex and made to their specifications by Teac/Tascam in Japan.  Not quite up to the ATR 100 series, but it should serve you well, and for a long time.  It can be biased to any professional tape equiv. including 456, GP9/996.  The ATR in ATR Magnetics comes from the ATR in Ampex so you shouldn't have any trouble biasing it  to any tape they make.

Interested to hear how it  sounds.

Travis

11
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Re: Otari MX 5050BIII questions
« on: January 07, 2009, 01:23:00 AM »
you need to ask JoelJoel he just recently ordered some.

Travis

12
Waltz for Debby / Re: Waltz for Debby TP 008
« on: December 31, 2008, 03:10:10 PM »
I was hoping to get Steve Hoffman's thoughts on TP-008 as compared to the master tape since he is so familar that recording.  I had thought he was going to take me up on my offer to send him the tape for a listen, however, I just got this response (in blue):

Travis,

Don't send it to me (although I appreciate the idea), YOU tell us what you're hearing. Don't forget to use the proper playback curve (I was told it's the European IEC/CCIR curve)..

It's not fair for me to compare a third gen. tape dub to the memory of the master tape that is in my mind. To much bias there (no pun intended).

You tell us how it compares to the 45 RPM version we cut, etc. and the CD versions or OJC LP. Better yet, have someone who didn't pay $400.00 (or however much the tape cost) do the test. Much More Better. Don't forget to do it blind!
 

In response I just pasted a copy of Mike's excellent review and a link to this thread. 

I sure hope I get my copy soon, I am really looking forward to being able to do the comparison myself.

Travis

13
Prerecorded Tapes / Hi-Fi Espanola Tape Value
« on: July 26, 2008, 01:22:07 PM »
I[m bidding on a RTR tape on ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&item=260265626156, Hi-Fi Espanola.  I know what the LP is worth, but what do you think the RTR version is worth, will go for?

Thanks,

Travis

14
Raw Tape / Re: What brand/type of tape are the TP releases on???
« on: July 10, 2008, 07:16:56 PM »
This was the original response to this inquiry:

Craig,

We will be duplicating on RMGI 468, at least to start.

It would be prohibitively expensive to make a subscriber's tapes on any tape stock other than the one we're set up for. But we aim to please. If someone prefers a different stock and is willing to pay the premium...

15
That place is a horn lover's dream, and I really liked this part:

We were also treated to a few loops from one of Charlie King's refurbished Stellavox open reel decks. I've also had the pleasure of hearing one of Charlie's Stellavox decks at Robin Wyatt's and it is truly an amazing musical source. Combined with the few decks I heard at CES and the wonderful one-off material that's floating around which I learned about during a conversation with Walter Clay, the call of the tape is getting harder to resist. Two side notes: I wish I had half the energy Charlie King has; and if we could bottle Robin Wyatt's audio enthusiasm and filter it into the air at audio dealers, the entire industry would turn around by lunchtime.

Pages: [1] 2 3