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Post by noah shain on Jan 11, 2017 18:34:07 GMT -6
personally I wouldn't get anything less than 16 tracks. 16 track mara is on my dream list. 2 track are limited in use. the idea is to be able to record through the deck to your daw. to be able to do a full band 16 channels is good. For the most part I agree with you but I wouldn't disregard the massive affect mixing to a 440 will have on your audio and your process. Maybe not so much with a mic ATR or Studer but a 440...massive. Also a good way to get a feel for using tape with minimal financial commitment.
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Post by Quint on Jan 11, 2017 19:05:34 GMT -6
svart AMPEX man!!! Start with an ag440b 2 track as a mix down deck. It's a Stone Age simple transport. All Springs and pulleys and levers. It's the sound of decades of recorded music. They run stereo/4 track/8 track (different machines...not all on 1 machine). Reasonable prices. Check Audio Village on eBay. KILLER sound. Same electronics as MM1000, MM1200 and actually some MCI machines. Get your feet wet with that!!! I just did a record at Welcome to 1979 (studio owned by Chris Mara of Marachines) and it sounds great. Chris is super nice. The lead tech at maramachines was my assistant. GREAT bunch of people. Happy to introduce you if you want. An Ampex MM1200 16 track is THE machine I would want. All I've got at the moment is a Revox PR-99 2 track for mixdown or through it into digital. At the very least, I'd love to have an AG440b 8 track for tracking drums through into digital.
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Post by noah shain on Jan 11, 2017 19:24:56 GMT -6
I'd like to end up with 2 more 440s...an 8 track and a 4 track
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Post by illacov on Jan 11, 2017 19:39:56 GMT -6
Is this the part where I say that we are releasing a multitrack version of Zulu, my passive analog tape simulator? Is this the part where I say that if you really like the sound of tape, the working principles of driving signal to tape and hearing things change as you gain into it, saturation and fast tape compression, the ability to tone sculpt a sound in a ton of easy to access and real ways, then you should buy a Zulu (stereo/multitrack). Is this the part where I say, I love the sound of analog tape. It's a sound that works for many genres and production styles. Is this the part where I say, Zulu is quieter than using tape, far more flexible than a tape machine and aside from the tape opamp, is a completely solid repairablle platform in design. All components are through hole. All controls are stepped, using 1% military film resistors, quality capacitors, Neutrik connectors and custom Altran transformers? Is this the part where I tell Svart, hey bro I respect your work as a designer, the Svart box is dope and maybe we should talk because Handsome Audio needs some bad ass converters? And it sounds like you need some Zulus? Svart holla at me Thanks -L.
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Post by noah shain on Jan 11, 2017 19:47:47 GMT -6
That's how it looks when the internet is working perfectly☝🏽
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Post by Johnkenn on Jan 11, 2017 20:29:59 GMT -6
Is this the part where I say that we are releasing a multitrack version of Zulu, my passive analog tape simulator? Is this the part where I say that if you really like the sound of tape, the working principles of driving signal to tape and hearing things change as you gain into it, saturation and fast tape compression, the ability to tone sculpt a sound in a ton of easy to access and real ways, then you should buy a Zulu (stereo/multitrack). Is this the part where I say, I love the sound of analog tape. It's a sound that works for many genres and production styles. Is this the part where I say, Zulu is quieter than using tape, far more flexible than a tape machine and aside from the tape opamp, is a completely solid repairablle platform in design. All components are through hole. All controls are stepped, using 1% military film resistors, quality capacitors, Neutrik connectors and custom Altran transformers? Is this the part where I tell Svart, hey bro I respect your work as a designer, the Svart box is dope and maybe we should talk because Handsome Audio needs some bad ass converters? And it sounds like you need some Zulus? Svart holla at me Thanks -L. Wait...I brokered the deal...
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Post by gouge on Jan 11, 2017 20:35:17 GMT -6
You need to introduce a dad tax john.
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Post by Quint on Jan 11, 2017 20:43:00 GMT -6
Is this the part where I say that we are releasing a multitrack version of Zulu, my passive analog tape simulator? Is this the part where I say that if you really like the sound of tape, the working principles of driving signal to tape and hearing things change as you gain into it, saturation and fast tape compression, the ability to tone sculpt a sound in a ton of easy to access and real ways, then you should buy a Zulu (stereo/multitrack). Is this the part where I say, I love the sound of analog tape. It's a sound that works for many genres and production styles. Is this the part where I say, Zulu is quieter than using tape, far more flexible than a tape machine and aside from the tape opamp, is a completely solid repairablle platform in design. All components are through hole. All controls are stepped, using 1% military film resistors, quality capacitors, Neutrik connectors and custom Altran transformers? Is this the part where I tell Svart, hey bro I respect your work as a designer, the Svart box is dope and maybe we should talk because Handsome Audio needs some bad ass converters? And it sounds like you need some Zulus? Svart holla at me Thanks -L. How close can the Zulu emulate the old Ampex sound and how much will the 8 track version be? A big part of the old Ampex sound is in the transformers. The Ampex MM1200 is the holy grail tape sound in my opinion. Is it possible to recreate that sound with the Zulu? Just curious. I'd love something in a rack form that could provide THAT sound but I'm wondering if it's possible with the Zulu?
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Post by illacov on Jan 11, 2017 21:54:25 GMT -6
How close can the Zulu emulate the old Ampex sound and how much will the 8 track version be? A big part of the old Ampex sound is in the transformers. The Ampex MM1200 is the holy grail tape sound in my opinion. Is it possible to recreate that sound with the Zulu? Just curious. I'd love something in a rack form that could provide THAT sound but I'm wondering if it's possible with the Zulu? Zulu's modeling ciruitry is pretty flexible to be honest. Our transformers are actually in the size category where you can hear them more than less actually. Usually the deal with low ratio larger core transformers is you tend to hear them saturate less than a large ratio smaller transformer. In the middle ground you can hear your iron a bit but it requires some aggressive voltage levels or DC current to induce core saturation (depends on the trafo). I dont know exactly what transformers are in an MM1200 but I have seen the canned octal plugin units as well as mention of transformers akin to the Ampex "peanuts," being employed. Smaller iron would spell more iron tone since you're talking post gain to tape, signal could get hot enough to make those tiny pebbles saturate. However if the opposite were true, a larger core would indicate a far more sublime sound. Id love to know more. In Zulu's case depending on how you access the core windings exhibits varying degrees of harmonic interaction along with hysteris, which in turn interacts with our tape modeling circuitry. Between the different Calibration characteristics, Enhance control, Bias settings and Headroom settings, far more machines tones are waiting in Zulu. If you gave me a dry example and the post MM1200 result I'd be glad to work on finding that sound within Zulu's settings and share the preset. I am totally down to do that. If you have a mix, maybe Wiz's original mix from Lay Down? Pass it thru an MM1200 and I'll see what I can do to match it. I honestly feel like the most under rated machines in terms of tone were the Teac and Tascam multitracks. If you really want to "hear," your deck then one of these is what I think of. Thats why I modeled a Teac/Tascam for our ProFi deck. Cassette 4 track was a given and my partner Tod is a huge Studer fan. He owns a A810, we had it fully refurbished and it was glorious. I mean its a magical machine for mixdowns and mastering. The Teac platform is far more heavy handed and prone to saturation far sooner. We have a gang of those here along with a cassette unit. Anybody got a MM1200 they could run Wiz' mix through? Btw Ive shot out Zulu against an MTR90 as well to match it up and it took some tweaks to Enhance, Bias and Headroom. After smacking Zulu just right, the owner of the deck was extremely pleased with how close Zulu was to his machine and far cheaper to run and utilize. So Im curious to see how close we can get to the Ampex. Thanks -L.
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Post by noah shain on Jan 12, 2017 0:38:15 GMT -6
illacov and wiz I can bounce something off the 440b, the mm1000 and the mm1200 if you send it to me. I'm totally down
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Post by ChaseUTB on Jan 12, 2017 1:16:59 GMT -6
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Post by noah shain on Jan 12, 2017 1:18:42 GMT -6
Should probably be hi-Rez files yeah?
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Post by ChaseUTB on Jan 12, 2017 1:22:08 GMT -6
Should probably be hi-Rez files yeah? They should all be 24-441/ or 24/48 wav's in the first post - I know most used Dropbox or we transfer so we could share the full fidelity files
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Post by wiz on Jan 12, 2017 1:36:45 GMT -6
illacov and wiz I can bounce something off the 440b, the mm1000 and the mm1200 if you send it to me. I'm totally down Hi Noah... wow!! thats really cool of you..I will definitely send you something... great stuff cheers Wiz
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Post by wiz on Jan 12, 2017 1:37:13 GMT -6
Let me upload something new...
cheers
Wiz
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Post by wiz on Jan 12, 2017 1:39:36 GMT -6
illacov and wiz I can bounce something off the 440b, the mm1000 and the mm1200 if you send it to me. I'm totally down Hey Noah here ya go... (you got me researching old 440s now... 8) ) The Blue Green Ball - Wiz
cheers Wiz
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 12, 2017 13:25:29 GMT -6
I am the loving owner of a 2" Studer A800 MKIII. Owning it is something like owning an expensive but aging Italian racing sports car - when it's working well there's nothing like it, but when it isn't, well, there's nothing like it. I initially paid $5000 for it, with a good JRF head report. My original intent was to rent time out to people who wanted to do multitrack analog tape recording. Supposedly it had been gone over by a well known SF tape recorder guru named Michael and was told that it came with one free service visit to deal with any residual problems, but it quickly became obvious that that wasn't happening and that the "going over" might have been something along the lines of a light application of a feather duster - I ended up having to completely recap all the audio cards, which I did myself. I'd been trying to find a Studer tech and James Lugo gave me the number of Charlie Bolois in LA, who was very helpful over the phone. However Charlie is in LA and I didn't have the cash to pay for him to come up to SF for a few days to work on the machine himself. Charlie gave me the number of Kreig Wunderlich in the Petaluma area, who turned out to be great. He paid a couple of visits and showed me around the basic inner workings of the machine. After I got it recapped it was mostly working except for a few of the audio cards. Turns out that A800s have an appetite for ICs, so I started keeping a couple dozen 5534s and 5532s on hand to service cards. I also picked up a couple of spare card sets off eBay. Somewhere around this time the machine started making a weird vibration in the transport, which quickly turned into a grinding noise in one of the takeup reels, which stopped working. Turns out that one of the rubber coupling disks in the reel motor assembly had disintegrated. Guess what? Studer no longer stocks parts. After some internet detective work I was able to locate a source in Switzerland that still had a couple of them in stock and in about a month I had a brand new disk in hand. It wasn't cheap and import duties and shipping cost even more than the disk. A few months later a couple of disks came up for sale on Ebay and I bought them, for safeties, which turned out to be good because the disk in the other reel motor assembly failed shortly afterwards. (Recently a US source has started making new coupling disks available at a reasonable cost.) Since then I've had problems with some of the power supplies (it has 5 of them) and recurring problems with connectors. All in all I've spent AT LEAST as much on servicing the machine (not even considering time) as I did on my initial investment.
By this time it was becoming clear that the idea of renting time on the machine commercially was something of a questionable proposition for two reasons - potential downtime on a machine that generally works perfectly EXCEPT when we had a session scheduled, and the fact that nearly all our potential customers had not the foggiest idea of the cost of recording on 2" tape these days. A fair number of artists and acts had expressed interest in recording to analog tape, but universally responded with an "Uh, we'll get back to you in a few days" when it was explained to them that the entry cost of recording on 2" was around $300-$350 for one 10 inch reel of tape with a run time of 1/2 hour at 15 ips or 15 minutes at 30ips, and that the money did not go to me, it was the cost of tape from one of the two or three pro audio dealers in the Bay Area that still sell the stuff and that paying for studio time would be in addition to that - tape cost has nothing to do with me.
It turns out that the cost of tape is an easy and polite way to discourage any acts that want to use my studio who I really don't want to work with.
(I don't tell them that I purchase used one-pass tape for my own recording from a broker in LA who gets his stuff from the big movie studios. Over the past few years his prices have more than doubled and I don't know what I'll do if/when he finally runs out, as he's the only reliable vendor of one-pass tape I've been able to find. I do not, however, think I'df want to risk a client's session on one-pass.)
Anyway, I love my Studer - nothing else sounds like it. I use it for all my own stuff except for stuff like casual song demos, etc. However, as far as using it for clients, it doesn't seem like a viable proposition; to feel at all secure booking sessions commercially I'd need to have at least TWO fully functional machines.
I also have an MCI JH110 mixdown deck but I'm not even going to get into that now...
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ericn
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Balance Engineer
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Post by ericn on Jan 12, 2017 13:34:24 GMT -6
I am the loving owner of a 2" Studer A800 MKIII. Owning it is something like owning an expensive but aging Italian racing sports car - when it's working well there's nothing like it, but when it isn't, well, there's nothing like it. I initially paid $5000 for it, with a good JRF head report. My original intent was to rent time out to people who wanted to do multitrack analog tape recording. Supposedly it had been gone over by a well known SF tape recorder guru named Michael and was told that it came with one free service visit to deal with any residual problems, but it quickly became obvious that thatr wasn't happening and that the "going over" might have been something along the lines of a light application of a feather duster - I ended up having to completely recap all the audio cards, which I did myself. I'd been trying to findf a Studer tech and James Lugo gave me the number of Charlie Bolois in LA, who was very helpful over the phone. However Charlie is in LA and I didn't have the cash to pay for him to come up to SF for a few days to work on the machine himself. Charlie gave me the number of Kreig Wunderlich in the Petaluma area, who turned out to be great. He paid a couple of visits and showed me around the basic inner workings of the machione After I got it recapped it was mostly working except for a few of the audio cards. Turns out that A800s have an appetite for ICs, so I started keeping a couple dozen 5534s and 5532s on hand to service cards. I also picked up a couple of spare card sets off eBay. Somewhere around this time the machine startedf making a weird vibration in the transport, which quickly turned into a grinding noise in one of the takeup reels, which stopped working. Turns out that one of the rubber coupling disks in the reel motor assembly had disintegrated. Guess what? Studer no longer stocks parts. After some internet detectivbe work I was able to locate a source in Switzerland that still had a couple of them in stock and in about a month I had a brand new disk in hand. It wasn't cheap and import duties and shipping cost even more than the disk. A few months later a couple of disks came up for sale on Ebay and I bought them, for safeties, which turned out to be good because the disk in the other reel motor assembly failed shortly afterwards. (Recently a US source has styarted making n ew coupling disks available at a reasonable cost.) Since then I've had problems with some of the power supplies (it has 5 of them) and recurring problems with connectors By this time it was becoming clear that the idea of renting time on the machine commercially was something of a questionable proposition for two reasons - potential downtime on a machine that generally worked perfectgly EXCEPT when we had a session scheduled, and the fact that nedarly all our potential customers had not the foggiest idea of the cost of recording on 2" tape these days. A fair number of artists and acts had expressed interest in recording to anaolg tape, but universally responded with an "Uh, we'll get back to you in a few days" when it was explained to them that the entry cost of recording on 2" was aqround $300-$350 for one 10 inch reel of tape with a run time of 1/2 hour at 15 ips or 15 minutes at 30ips, and that the money did not go to me, it was the cost of tape from one of ther two or three pro audio dealers in the Bay Area that still sell the stuff and that paying for studio time would be in addition to that - tape cost has nothing to do with me. It turns out that the cost of tape is an easy and polite way to discourage any acts that want to use my studio who I really don't want to work with. (I don't tell them that I purchase used one-pass tape for my own recording from a broker in LA who gets his stuff from the big movie studios. Over the past few years his prices have more than doubled and I don't know what I'll do if/when he finally runs out, as he's the only reliable vendor of one-pass tape I've been able to find.) Anyway, I love my Studer - nothing else sounds like it. I use it for all my own stuff except for stuff like casual song demos, etc. However, as far as using it for clients, it doesn't seem like a viable proposition; to feel at all secure booking sessions commercially I'd need to have at least TWO fully functional machines. I also have an MCI JH110 mixdown deck but I'm not even going to get into that now... Tape you got to love it and live with the ulser that comes with it!
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Post by svart on Jan 12, 2017 13:41:05 GMT -6
While Bob from RTZ damn near had me talked into an Ampex MM1200 like his, a lot of reading has me thinking that Otari seems to have much more reliable machines overall.. Or at least folks don't complain about them breaking as much..
As you guys know, I'm NOT adverse to working on/repairing anything.. In fact I like doing it. Recapping, machining, and redesigning parts is fine by me. I see it as a challenge, and the cost savings is a huge plus..
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Post by jeremygillespie on Jan 12, 2017 13:45:15 GMT -6
All I can say - which was told to me by the studio's tech when I was looking into getting a machine for myself - if you're going to buy a tape machine, only do it if you can afford a second "spare parts" machine.
Also, if you're not interested in learning the ins and outs of the particular machine you're looking at, you will spend a ton of money on a maintenance person...if you can find one in your area.
The ATR102 gets used on every mix for me. I'll sometimes use it as a slap.
I've used the 827's for a full project once in the past 2 years.
Its almost become a hobby to have and use these things. I love it, but we also have a tech that deals with all the problems that arise. Not sure I'd go in on one anymore other than a mix down deck.
As I always do when buying gear, I think - Is this piece going to improve my work in such a way that it will help me get more clients and make more money? Is there going to be a return in profit if I buy this gear.
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Post by drbill on Jan 12, 2017 14:17:43 GMT -6
What Johneppstein says is 110% true. Although I have a hard time believing that any movie studio's are still running tape. IME that was over close to 20 years ago. PTHDX everywhere now..... I can commiserate with John. MCI took at least 5 good years off my life. Having a spare machine (or two) for spare parts and session backups is essential these days. Even then, no thanks.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 15,011
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Post by ericn on Jan 12, 2017 14:18:25 GMT -6
Studer always considered most reliable but spares are hard to score Ampex, a good compromise of reliability and parts avaliblity MCI copied Ampex but at times went cheap Otari, was built to a price parts can be hard to find , but most I see have seen better days Sony APR work of art almost as well designed as Studer but sounds blah and Ampex ,MCI have better support and availability!
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 12, 2017 14:31:20 GMT -6
While Bob from RTZ damn near had me talked into an Ampex MM1200 like his, a lot of reading has me thinking that Otari seems to have much more reliable machines overall.. Or at least folks don't complain about them breaking as much.. As you guys know, I'm NOT adverse to working on/repairing anything.. In fact I like doing it. Recapping, machining, and redesigning parts is fine by me. I see it as a challenge, and the cost savings is a huge plus.. The reputation of Otaris is that they're generally very reliable (there may be exceptions, I don't know), but the sonics on most of them are a bit "meh".
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 12, 2017 14:43:28 GMT -6
BTW, anybody who has an interest in professional tape machines needs to know about this place, if you don't already. Their head cleaner is amazing - much better than alcohol. They also rebuild motors and carry a lot of hard to find parts. www.precisionmotorworks.com/
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Post by illacov on Jan 12, 2017 15:46:38 GMT -6
All of these reasons and many more, motivated me to create a solution to wanting what tape offers in sonics, but without the medium cost and the maintenance cost.
Zulu was originally for me and me alone! I was like Daffy Duck, mine mine all mine!
However I was convinced, both arms twisted behind my back, that this should be something I shared with the world. Once I finally cracked the code to what tape is perceived as by the human ear, I felt confident enough to really put time and money into developing it.
So while the reality is, if tape was still obtainable without the severe economic impact it can offer a client very quickly, if the machines were still serviceable and stable with solid parts supply available, if the common consensus was that tape is great, then I'd be on a deck still.
But the reality is people have to change the way they work when you record to tape. Its not an unobtrusive piece of gear, its like two worlds colliding. And mixed in with that is the attitude of people who simply want what they want when they want it. We already know the issue of turnaround time with clients. Anything that increases that time, impacts the perception of worth. Coupled into that is the innate desire for some people, not all but some, who insist on being involved in every little tick of the dial. Whether or not that impacts your ability to make money is unique to you, but it definitely impacts the creative process.
Me personally, I activate my hardware inserts, Zulu works. Case closed, nothing to load, no reels to wind, no PSU to hope that it clicks into play. Its passive, it works, the end. I hear tape when I listen to Zulu, so do my clients, they appreciate that immediate and real benefit this device is offering them and its without any hangups, save for the real time mixdown. And while I miss just the beauty and allure of having big giant tape machines nearby (they make great light up furniture!) at the very minimum, it sounds like they are still here. So I get to have my cake and eat it too. I don't win more clients BECAUSE of Zulu, but I don't lose any because of it either. I just use it, don't make a big deal about it, the recordings sound fab and everybody wins.
Thanks -L.
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