Tape Project Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Phoenixmusicllc on November 27, 2009, 12:07:21 AM
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Last year, I acquired a completely refurbished Otari MX-5050 Model 2HD. It has all XLR Inputs (both microphone and line) and Outputs. Unfortunately, my Air Tight ATC-3 Line Stage only has RCA inputs and outputs: same for my Air Tight ATE-2 Phono Stage. I'm hoping to transfer records to tape, in addition to making live recordings from my Earthworks Microphones. My first question is, am I safe in buying interconnect cables that have XLR (male and female) connections on one end and RCA (male and female) connections on the other? My second question is, which equalization should I use, IEC or NAB? The model 2HD has a switch on the top of the transport mechanism that allows you to choose between two track and four track (it can only record in two track mode but, with the flip of that switch, can play back four track tapes). So, I guess that second question is a bit loaded since I'll obviously be playing back two track as well as four track tapes. I can tell you that I will always record at 15 ips (which means, obviously, that the playback speed is the same). But my four track tapes are all recorded at 7 and 1/2 ips. Perhaps this boils down to when I should use NAB and when I should IEC Equalization, admittedly knowing absolutely nothing about the difference between the two. My goal is to make the best recordings I can and, of course, play them back in such a way that they sound their best as well. And I'd like to hear my four track tapes sound great as well. Any advice and/or information anyone would be willing to share with me will be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Steve Welch
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HI Steve,
Welcome to the forum.
Regarding the cable connections, the XLR connections on the Otari are different from the standard XLR. If you download a service/owners manual, there's a diagram of the pin assignments. If you can solder, it probably wouldn't be that tough to switch pin 2 with pin 3 on the XLR (of course in that case, it would be easy enough for you to make your own cables). How much this difference will effect your system and even if you'll be able to hear it at all, I can't say. It's an absolute phase issue.
As far as the NAB or IEC issue goes, IEC would probably be a better choice. Back when there was a lot of tape swapping between recordists, NAB would have been the clear choice. But today, you're most likely to be the only one who'll ever play these tapes and IEC should produce better fidelity.
Here's a place you can download a manual for free;
http://www.analogrules.com/
And here's a site where the differences in eq are explained at length;
http://home.comcast.net/~mrltapes/
If you look above this forum, there's also a sticky,"Beginners Guide" that should help also.