Date:Sat, 23 Feb 2008 12:49:39 -0500
Reply-To:Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
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From:David Lennick <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:Tape problems, was Re: [ARSCLIST] Collection for sale
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But London allowed itself to get into 4-track tape because they were impressed
by the operations at United Stereo Tapes (Ampex's duping division). It says so
right on the back ad in a 1959 High Fidelity issue (I've been going through a
ton of these lately). It's in print, it must be true..heh heh.
Duped tape disasters weren't limited to 4-track consumer product. I remember
the Cleveland Orchestra coming in on ten-inch reels with horrible sound and on
more than one occasion, an entire channel missing. This was in the early 90s.
dl
carlstephen koto wrote:
> Tom, I agree completely regarding the dismal sound found on most factory
> produced r2r tapes. It's a real shame since the few that were produced
> following the items you've listed, reveal a texture (particularly with
> orchestral recording) to the sound that's absent on most lp's. I've got
> a number of Mercury 1/2 tracks and a few RCAs that are spectacular. Some
> of the Verve 1/4 track jazz titles are really something to hear also.
> BTW I almost never buy tapes from online auctions. That's a sure formula
> for disappointment!
> Steve
> On Feb 23, 2008, at 3:43 AM, Tom Fine wrote:
>
>> The craziest thing in all of this is, mass-duped tapes generally are
>> TERRIBLE, I mean awful. If you understand anything about how they were
>> made, you'd understand why they generally sound terrible. A few
>> specifics:
>>
>> 1. 4x to 8x and later 16x duplication speeds. Generally on Ampex
>> 3200-type transports, which were hardly stable at 60IPS or later 120IPS.
>>
>> 2. duper masters generally made by low-skill personnel from
>> many-generations-removed copies sent to the duper plants. The duper
>> plants would get a 15IPS safety (second generation from master, which
>> could be a generation or more from the session tapes, particularly in
>> the multi-track era), it would be a safety that close to the master if
>> they were lucky because one common practice was the keep the safety at
>> a studio and run series of duper masters from it for popular titles.
>> Then this 15IPS tape would be reduced and combined to make a 4-track
>> usually 7.5IPS dupe master. If someone decided to make a 15IPS dupe
>> master that meant the duper's playback transport would be running
>> twice as fast as the record transports, adding still more variables to
>> the system. This all got even worse with 8-track carts and 3.75IPS
>> duped reels. Those formats are such dog-doo, I won't even discuss them.
>>
>> 3. the tape stock used by dupers varied and was usually lousy. By the
>> mid to late 60's, Ampex in Illinois was the biggest duper. I think
>> even then RCA and CBS did their own duping (generally with better
>> results). Ampex used their own tape, which is notoriously bad. They
>> never perfected slitting so the tape "country lanes" and at high speed
>> duping that leads to severe azimuth instability. Plus, the Ampex tape
>> is notorious for warping, so most of those 40+ year-old tapes on eBay
>> are badly curled or warped and full of left-channel dropouts. Any
>> acetate tape will warp with the way most of these were stored by
>> consumers, so I probably shouldn't single out Ampex.
>>
>> 4. Azimuth varies widely from tape to tape and even on parts of the
>> same reel (and sometimes different sides of the same reel since some
>> dupers used different record heads for each side of a quarter-track
>> reel -- the heads were offset and would run at the same time but early
>> 3200 systems didn't accomodate 4 tracks on one record head). Unless
>> you check azimuth with a scope for each side of each tape (sometimes
>> difficult since of course there are no alignment tones on these
>> tapes), you're only somewhere in the neighborhood (and often outside
>> the ballpark).
>>
>> 5. maintenance of the duper equipment varied from day to day, line to
>> line and worker to worker. Sometimes there's hum in a channel.
>> Sometimes level is all wrong. Sometimes channels are reversed. And
>> remember that this junk sold at a premium to LPs.
>>
>> 6. finally, the hiss and wow/flutter level on most duped tapes I've
>> heard is unacceptable. Unless you like digital artifacts better than
>> hiss, there is no digifilter that satisfactorally cleans this up. I
>> don't even think something like Plangent that locks to bias would help
>> since the wow and flutter could date back any generation between the
>> studio tapes and the duped tape and the bias recovered would only be
>> the duper bias on the final duped tape.
>>
>> Meanwhile, in contrast, a properly done LP was mastered right from the
>> master tape and if it was mastered and pressed properly, it is much
>> closer to the source than a duped reel. Also, I should mention that
>> some dupers were better than others. Ampex was particularly bad in my
>> experience. So was Bel-Canto. And early 2-track duped tapes are a
>> whole other matter and often sound better than the early stereo LPs,
>> if you can find one that's not completely worn out from age nowadays.
>>
>> -- Tom Fine
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "carlstephen koto"
>> <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2008 1:11 AM
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Collection for sale
>>
>>
>>> Speaking of crazy,.. I collect reel to reel tapes (in a minor way)
>>> and an auction of one came to my attention a couple of weeks ago. It
>>> was a Japanese 7" 7.5 ips 1/4 track issue of Pink Floyd's "Adam
>>> Heart Mother". The reason this auction attracted the interest of
>>> several tape collectors was that it had already reached a bid of
>>> over $400 with two days left. By the next day, it was over $700. At
>>> that point, I speculated that it would go for over $1k. I guess
>>> that's why I usually lose bidding wars. The final price was over
>>> $1800! We were flabbergasted. Luckily, I suggested some reasons why
>>> a single 7" tape could be worth that much to someone when one of the
>>> regular posters let us know that he'd bid $1600 on the tape.
>>> BTW reel to reel tapes have had a dramatic upswing in prices the
>>> last year or so. But nothing like that!
>>> Steve Koto
>>> On Feb 22, 2008, at 7:55 PM, Roger and Allison Kulp wrote:
>>>
>
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