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

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Messages - steveidosound

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46
Prerecorded Tapes / Re: 8 Tracks on eBay
« on: August 16, 2012, 09:51:28 PM »
You mean :-)  LIKE CHI-CLUNK !  :-)
Oh, I can assure you as the chief junk collector on this forum (anyone want to challenge me for more junk / less value?),
I have PLENTY of 8 track, quadraphonic 8 track & 4 track tapes,  and PLENTY of their associated players and even recorders in some cases as well.
When I recorded them back in the day, I would let it record through the track change which seemed a less obtrusive and obnoxious compromise than the fade down - click - fade up of the commercial tapes that couldn't seem to get the breaks arraigned so as not to interrupt the songs.
Quote from the Wikipedia article on 8 tracks -
"Among audio service technicians, there used to be a joke that "the eight-track is the only audio device which knocks itself out of alignment four times during each album.""
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-track_tape

47
Prerecorded Tapes / Re: 8 Tracks on eBay
« on: August 15, 2012, 07:07:35 PM »
She loves you CHI-CLUNK yah! yah! yah! .... Just shaking my head.

:-)   LIKE !  :-)

48
Events / Re: California Audio Show 2012
« on: July 29, 2012, 11:02:18 PM »
Looks as if I will be going Saturday as well.

49
General Discussion / Re: New Elvis Recording?
« on: July 19, 2012, 11:46:40 PM »
Hey, thanks for the link. It's always fun when someone captures something off of a live "stream" to use that modern term, that might turn out to be the only actual capture. TV was more live than anything else back then. Ampex had not quite put video tape on the market. You could show actual movie film on TV or record film off of a TV monitor of a live broadcast, but this was not always done.
You are right about the quality. While certainly not Hi Fi in any sense, considering what could (and often did) go wrong between a live broadcast audio mix, TV reception in 1955,  probably recorded with the microphone  that came with the wire recorder off of the TV speaker, to a medium with no capstan speed regulation and a propensity for kinking, snarling and breaking. Then played back on an almost  60 year old machine and once again picked up acoustically off of the old machine's speaker for the video, then digitally compressed as a file to post it... Considering all that, it is about as good of a live Elvis as you might hear. There are certainly many many much worse sounding clips made by "professionals" in that era.
As the owner of much fine old junk (including a couple of wire recorders, one with a very similar mechanism) I can say it is rare to have a piece of consumer audio equipment of that era, operating that well without considerable restoration effort !

50
General Discussion / Re: Ampex MR 70 for sale
« on: July 18, 2012, 06:34:35 PM »
My "one that got away" MR 70 story is the one I missed from an old "Ampexer" by  a bit less than 1 hour via a classified ad in the San Jose newspaper sometime in the early to mid 90s.  It was cheap too ! When my friend and I got there he still had what we came to refer to as "THE LARGEST TAPE RECORDER IN THE WORLD", which was his completely home-brew ongoing project. We got the deck and some monitor electronics, but no record electronics IIRC. Pieces of the hardware are still in my friends garage somewhere. The actual deck plate was enormous. Perhaps 36" X 24" or even a bit bigger than that. It had all kind of little breadboarded circuits with tubes and transistors, some for logic control, some for audio. I think it was supposed to take 14" reels.

51
Prerecorded Tapes / Re: The Shins revisited
« on: June 16, 2012, 02:29:25 PM »
Hi, while I mostly agree with what you are saying Steve, it does make me cringe when people use what can be such a wonderful media as reel to reel or vinyl for it's "sound" in a sort of nostalgic or bad way, ( I  _LIKE_ those clicks and pops and static and distortion) when it has potential to be very good. Similarly, though I have engaged in "digital-bashing" along with many die-hard analog fans, I know, at it's high bit rate best, it can probably exceed the sound quality of the best analog.
Tied to that fact is that if open reel is to be any kind of niche format, we DON'T need a poorly executed example by a semi-major band "defining the sound"of reel to reel at it's worst for novices.
Again, since your best efforts to find out how they did this have been ignored, we can only speculate that someone who didn't understand how best to duplicate or master to reel to reel did this. That is why I am glad there are people like Paul and Keith (and many others) that DO understand the technicalities and respect  the music as well.
Anyone can turn up the volume. It takes a real pro to turn out a musical gem.

52
Prerecorded Tapes / Re: The Shins revisited / mastering practices
« on: June 15, 2012, 01:23:16 PM »
DISCLAIMER!
I still have to actually listen to mine. I have heard the CD and the digital download (and the CD I burned from that) and my vinyl copy.
The album does suffer a bit from the "loudness wars" that we have all discussed here and elsewhere, which are an artifact of modern mastering practices, which are, I guess a matter of taste to some degree. But this sounds like way over and above from the reviews I have read on other groups.
(side note - I found I have not posted on the Yahoo reel to reel group since 2007!)
This begs the question, who did the duplication or mastering for the R2R version?  Does anyone actually know what digital and or analog processes were used to create the album anyway?
Where is there a R2R dupe line running anywhere in the world beside the Tape Project and the other even smaller audiophile efforts in this field?
Perhaps someone just got overly ambitious with compression and pushing the levels on the dupes.
Mastering for digital and for analog are two different animals, and within analog, 1/4 track 7 1/2 ips reel is not the same as 15 ips 2 track (or cassette for that matter), and all of the above different than the characteristics of vinyl. You can slam digital right to the limit and keep it there avoiding all the dynamic range that digital can afford if used correctly, and this seems to be the case with a lot of music today.
With any analog it is a balancing act of effectively utilizing the dynamic range available for the "best" result, which is subjective and media-dependent.  Some compromise between noise and distortion. Sounds as if the person doing this for the band chose to error on the side of  loud, no tape hiss, and  forget about the saturation effects that come from pushing the levels in this media. It would not be the first time this has happened in reel to reel duplication. The bigger question for anyone who has any pretense to liking quality music reproduction is, are  people now only using analog media for the  "caricature" of it's "sound" or as a effort to use the recorded media to the best of it's ability to capture sound in a faithful and musical way?

To the forum moderator - sorry about using other peoples 2nd hand opinions of the tape's sound.

53
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Re: Tascam 42B reel to reel
« on: June 02, 2012, 11:31:13 PM »
By the way, most pre-recorded tapes are NAB. The Tape Project ones are IEC /CCIR.
I found the thread here I was thinking of. Apparently there is a version of the 32 with internal jumpers instead of a switch like yours. Perhaps your 42B is similar. -
http://www.tapeproject.com/smf/index.php/topic,20.msg9558.html#msg9558
 BTW,  If you play a tape with the wrong eq, it will just sound a bit too bright or dull depending .

 Because it is 2 track machine, you can't play the  7 1/2 ips pre-recorded tapes that are "4 track" (1/4 track). You will hear backwards and forwards sound together if you try it. You can play old, pre 1960 or so 2 track commercial pre-recorded tapes that say "for inline heads". They are NAB eq as well. Even  really old mono ones from this  50s era will play, but you will hear the side 1 program in the left channel and the side 2 program backward in the right channel. You would turn the tape  reels over to hear side 2 of a mono tape forwards on the left channel.
Probably too much info. Sorry.

54
Tape Tech / Re: Tascam 42B Spooling Option For Tape Storage
« on: June 01, 2012, 09:52:10 PM »
Thank you "Listens2Tubes. That (tails out) being the case what was the purpose of "Library Wind/Spooling"?

bob w.

I think there are other threads on here that might have a better explanation, but the purpose of the two is different.
Tails out has to do with print-through on 2 track tapes (or any tape that has tracks recorded in one direction only). It theoretically makes any transfer of audio between layers of tape occur after the main sound as a light post echo rather than a "pre-echo" so it should be masked by the main sound.
The library wind is for getting a smooth, even, tight tape pack to protect the tape mechanically from curling at the edges from uneven winding at fast speeds. It also is for more delicate tape handling without having to go through the whole reel at a normal playback speed. If you wind your tapes tails out and rewind normally to the reel you will be playing from, on a reasonably well adjusted machine,  then play at normal speed back onto  the storage reel  you would not need the library wind slow spooling speed. I guess if you wanted to be extra careful with an old fragile acetate tape you might use the slower spooling to transfer to the reel you are going to play from.
 Tails out and  getting a tight uniform tape pack go hand in hand as good practice for studio master tapes, so that is where the concepts come from.

55
General Discussion / Re: Google's Moog tribute
« on: May 23, 2012, 10:09:33 PM »
Gone from their main page as of about 9PM but still here -
http://www.google.com/doodles/robert-moogs-78th-birthday

57
General Discussion / Google's Moog tribute
« on: May 23, 2012, 09:06:34 PM »
Quick before it goes away.
The Google logo for Robert Moog's birthday  works !
It is an adjustable monophonic synthesizer, coupled with a "4 track reel to reel" that will record you keyboard doodles !

58
General Discussion / Re: A Project of a Different Speed
« on: May 22, 2012, 07:30:07 AM »
Hi,
Didn't mean to come off negative or too critical.
Yes, I'm glad they are doing this. I am glad of the preservation of all old technology and art forms, flawed or not.
I think it somehow touches a lot of people including the artists in their heart as well as their head. It certainly does that for me in a way modern stuff seldom does.
Old analog has "mystique", where as the new digital stuff is sort of "inscrutable" by comparison.

59
General Discussion / Re: A Project of a Different Speed
« on: May 21, 2012, 11:32:55 PM »
Thanks so much for the link Steve ! I did not know.
Well,
This is right up my alley of "cool".
A few observations. The artists seem to dig this. It is sad that it seems nobody has been willing to pony up on eBay for one of the discs.
 I am amazed that they didn't use a better mic although the one shown more "period" but still not as early or potentially as good as the cutter. I believe it is a Shure 51.
http://www.shure.com/idc/groups/public/documents/webcontent/us_pro_51_ug.pdf
 The little modern Chinese player they played it back on, while probably not going to destroy the lacquer in one play, owing to the much lighter arm, is awful sounding in every other way. (been there / owned one) By contrast the Presto uses the same push pull 45 triode  output amp for playback as it does for recording. Also, it sounds when you listen to the samples on the web page like they didn't do much to restore the motor isolation. Lots of turntable mechanical hum recorded on the discs. Again, the machine is capable of better. I have heard a restored one and it sounds about as good as a mono tape machine of the late 40s era. They made a lot of these models for many years.
A couple of other related links. -
http://www.televar.com/grshome/Presto2.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uul9lwloeZQ&feature=related
(this last is my friend's Presto recorder in the LA area)
And yes, I own an un-restored one, and a newer K-11 and a Rek-O-Kut.
I dream of doing something with a purpose built  one off stereo portable lathe, microgroove, @ 45 RPM, with a Blumlein pair of ribbons after the fashion of "No Better Than This" that John Mellencamp did with an RCA ribbon and an Ampex 600 field recorder.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Better_Than_This
(THERE, tape content at last !)

60
Suggestion Box / Re: Some "later" rock - The Cars 1st ?
« on: May 07, 2012, 10:47:07 PM »
Steve, even on you Bose system The Cars sound good? Or did you mean in your car? LOL!

ok ON A SERIOUS NOTE:  Joe Jackson - Look Sharp (1979) and Dire Straits - self titled (1978) Both great to let spin all the way through.

Even I have some principles and limits. If you dig far enough back on this forum, I stated once what at least some of my equipment was :-)
 Definitely  _NOT_  (no highs, no lows - it must be) Bose, even in my car, where the CD made from vinyl sounds...OK
I transferred the entire 1st album + the greatest hits album, less the 3 songs on it from the 1st album.

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