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Post by andersmv on Apr 14, 2024 13:37:29 GMT -6
 Has anyone heard of Dolby HX Pro? I knew you could do Dolby NR with these machines, but had to add it on as a card or something. I popped open one of the card slots and was surprised to see a Dolby HX Pro chip in there. It's apparently just a high frequency thing that doesn't need to be decoded, but I've never heard it mentioned with the MTR machines before. I'm thinking there might be something different about mine, any Otari experts out there? |
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Post by jmoose on Apr 14, 2024 13:38:02 GMT -6
I’ve already spent about 20 minutes slowly cleaning the first head, and everything’s gone! It looks brand new. I’m going to keep going slowly here, but I’m hoping that this is just an extreme case of a really bad/old tape doing all of this. I still can’t believe a single run on a tape could do this, but I’m definitely learning new stuff every day 😂. I totally believe it because I've witnessed, and cleaned up the mess at least a dozen times myself. Bad tape will shed flakes the size of cookie crumbs as soon as its threaded. If & when it gets bad enough the whole transport can grind to a halt. Enough that you'd think the machine just up & died completely. I'm about the only guy left in my regional circle of friends who knows anything about tape machines, let alone owned any so I get all kinds of calls and seen all kinds of stuff over the years... From the good to the really ugly. Anyone here ever work on a 2" 8 track? Or 1" 2 track? Check & check. Agree with drbill - Its impossible to assess head condition by the naked eye alone. Unless they're super destroyed because the azimuth / physical alignment was out of whack and run for I dunno... a couple thousand hours? Where it looks like bad tire wear on a car? Otherwise you just can't tell anything. Generally speaking Otari machine are fairly bullet proof and will nearly run forever with little in maintenance. Not the best sounding vibiest machines... but they run forever. If you aren't familiar with things like torque board alignments then you need to get up to speed... right quickly. And add a fish scale to your toolbox! Keep it next to the multi-meter. FWIW - I've been though all the stuff you laid out in the first post... dumping off repro head, figuring offsets for digital transfers & whatnot. For any & all of that to work the way we'd hope then you need a synchronizer box like an Adams Smith Zeta III. One thing you don't want to do is slave the DAW to tape... have the DAW chase the tape machine. That IS the easiest path but also introduces a ton of clocking jitter and can sound really shit. Problem is that tape speed, while extremely consistent isn't consistent enough or as accurate as digital systems. There's just enough variation that you can't really 'free wheel' things like dumping a 40 track DAW master over 4 or 8 tracks at a time without creating a mess. Think little slices where you need to add/subtract fractions of a second, otherwise all tracks at the top of a 3 minute song? Well they're gonna start together but not end together. Think of a band that can't agree on the tempo of a song. Kinda close. But not. With a synch box the DAW is master and the tape machine follows... that's the best method to lock the analog & digital worlds. Not the easiest but now all the editing is 99% sample accurate and will stay that way over the life of a production. That's more or less the principle behind CLASP which, though they're out of business there are still people committed to the platform and invested in keeping development up. One of my good friends is deep into that... if anyone needs a hand on that message me and I'll get 'ya pointed to them. They're not the kind to show up on a message board. |
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Post by veggieryan on Apr 14, 2024 14:05:34 GMT -6
Dolby HX... kind of a wonky noise reduction system that is said to produce a "phasey" sound if conditions are less than ideal? I dunno, I always turn it off, tape hiss is part of the charm for me.
Now we are going to need to hear some sound clips. Personally I am curious how that machine sounds at 7.5 ips and another clip at 7.5 ips with the varispeed turned all the way down...
For a good time record at different speeds and then utilize the "reverse play mode" on the Otari by simultaneously pressing play and rewind.... now you can change the tape speed and varispeed for sonic mayhem.
Can't do that on your crappy little DAW now can ya?
Mac Demarco further explains the virtues of "pitch control" at the end of this clip:
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Post by veggieryan on Apr 14, 2024 14:11:18 GMT -6
Jonathan Wilson describes being disappointed "every time" he compared digital audio to his tape machine. I guess that's one reason why his albums sound better than most...
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Post by damoongo on Apr 14, 2024 18:39:44 GMT -6
Yeah, the Ampex mm1200 is THE mojo machine (and the MCI JH was a direct clone) My old studio partner has an mm1200 for sale, actually. You should buy it. Especially if it's a 16 track headstack. |
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Post by notneeson on Apr 14, 2024 19:07:50 GMT -6
My old studio partner has an mm1200 for sale, actually. You should buy it. Especially if it's a 16 track headstack. He has one of each. I can book Hyde Street C (aka Wally’s Hydeout) and use the 16 any time, but it’s been many years since a client has asked. The 24 is the one for sale (or it was, haven’t talked about it in a few weeks). |
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Post by andersmv on Apr 15, 2024 7:51:32 GMT -6
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Post by andersmv on Apr 15, 2024 8:58:02 GMT -6
Here's the heads before and after I cleaned them up, they look great now. Waiting for my tape order to be delivered...   |
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Post by veggieryan on Apr 15, 2024 9:18:05 GMT -6
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Post by svart on Apr 15, 2024 9:41:49 GMT -6
Wow. My atr-80 weighs like 500lbs. I had to rent a truck with a ramp and winch it up and down.
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Post by andersmv on Apr 15, 2024 9:58:13 GMT -6
Wow. My atr-80 weighs like 500lbs. I had to rent a truck with a ramp and winch it up and down. Thankfully, the 2 track Otaris are only around 200 lbs. It still took a little bit of muscle, but was totally doable. I grabbed one of my thicker memory foam toppers so I could slide it into the back without messing anything up. It also rode really nice and smooth and never budged the whole trip. |
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Post by drbill on Apr 15, 2024 10:00:59 GMT -6
I must not have been paying attention. I thought you were getting a multitrack. LOL.  |
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Post by FM77 on Apr 15, 2024 10:21:08 GMT -6
First thing I'm curious about it doing a full song front to back and splitting out each and every thing to tape and digital along the way. Have a clean feed from the preamp going right to the converters, and splitting it off to the tape machine and recording the repro head back in real time. I must not have been paying attention. I thought you were getting a multitrack. LOL. Me as well. I thought this was the 4 track headstack and it makes sense. I think reading the intent of doing full songs, splitting everything out to tape and digital on a 4-track is challenging enough, but sounds like alot of slow work on 2-track. Having to dump tape after every 2 track pass. |
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Post by andersmv on Apr 15, 2024 10:24:05 GMT -6
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Post by christopher on Apr 15, 2024 10:44:45 GMT -6
One song at a time is ok. The time suck is recovered by only having to gain stage /calibrate and monitor 2 channels. He’ll want to bounce live off the repro head, so just like through any other gear. Most songs it’s about an hour (12passes x 5min= 60min) . The only thing is drums, have to run pairs and be mindful it’s gonna be a little imperfect. LR Overheads, KIck Snare, Tom’s LR, Rooms LR has surprisingly worked great for me.
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Post by FM77 on Apr 15, 2024 11:07:20 GMT -6
There is no way around the tape length other than overdub/erase. The MTR runs at 7.5/15/30 ips. At 15 ips you can get about 40 minutes of tape out a standard 10.5" 2500 ft.
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Post by jmoose on Apr 15, 2024 12:43:52 GMT -6
There is no way around the tape length other than overdub/erase. The MTR runs at 7.5/15/30 ips. At 15 ips you can get about 40 minutes of tape out a standard 10.5" 2500 ft.
15ips = 33 minutes 30ips = 16.5 minutes Don't forget to leader between songs... or at least leave some blank space..! You might thank yourself later. Plus leave a few minutes for alignment tones & record pad... boy these reels get short! I also thought this was a multitrack? One buddy has an MTR 1/2" 4 track w/ center time code he keeps trying to pawn off to me... He's overloaded with tape machines and never uses it aside from slap echo. Thought that's what we were talking about? Wouldn't much mind having a really nice 2-track deck to mix to myself... but that's all I'd use it for. Mix to analog & capture at 96kHz. Nobody takes reels for mastering anymore. |
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Post by drbill on Apr 15, 2024 14:01:50 GMT -6
First thing I'm curious about it doing a full song front to back and splitting out each and every thing to tape and digital along the way. Have a clean feed from the preamp going right to the converters, and splitting it off to the tape machine and recording the repro head back in real time. I must not have been paying attention. I thought you were getting a multitrack. LOL. Me as well. I thought this was the 4 track headstack and it makes sense. I think reading the intent of doing full songs, splitting everything out to tape and digital on a 4-track is challenging enough, but sounds like alot of slow work on 2-track. Having to dump tape after every 2 track pass.IME, going to digital FIRST and then dumping to tape doesn't get "the tape thing". Gotta go to tape FIRST, then transfer to dig and stay there - at least until final master. Tracking to dig, dumping to tape and back to digital doesn't really get the thang. |
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Post by andersmv on Apr 15, 2024 14:16:23 GMT -6
Part of the reason I'm going to do a big video project on all of this is because I've heard people talk about and argue all of this for years now. I'm going to actually do all of these things and see what the results are. Record a whole song with the preamp outputs split out to DAW/Digital and the tape machine at the same time, recording the tape off the repro head at the same time as digital (I'll figure out what the total delay is between the heads and line everything up after the fact as I record 1 to 2 tracks at a time. Recording off repro head in real time with digital will ensure everything lines up correctly after adjusting for the offset of the record/playback heads). I'll have a whole song recorded digital and tape for every track and listen to that difference. Then I'll take those digital tracks and send them to tape after the fact, again recording right off the repro head and aligning everything back up after. Then we can listen to the "strait to tape" takes and the digital ones sent to tape after the fact and hear that difference on a whole song (as well as individual tracks). At that point, I'll do a basic mix of the song and apply the same settings over all of those and listen to a full mix. I'll probably take the full digital mix and send that as a stereo bus out to the tape machine and see the difference between tracking a whole song to tape on each track vs just mixing it to tape after the fact. I'm not trying to prove a point with any of this, I really am just curious to see how it all comes out. Should be fun. Also, my apologies for not specifying that this was "only" a 2 track machine . I want to make it clear that I'm not going into this as a business move. The only "frivolous" spending I have in my life is all music/studio stuff, I wanted a tape machine and I wanted to have some fun. I have a lot of friends that are professional musicians/engineers where we might end up doing some fun side projects with this. If someone reaches out and really wants to do it, I'm open to it. I do think I'll end up doing a few special projects where we end up going two tracks at a time off the repro head into the DAW and aligning as we go on each overdub. If for some crazy reason it ends up being a "thing" here and I have a lot of people wanting to do more of that, I'll spend the money on nice 4 or 8 track machine. Aside from that, quite honestly, this is just me having fun. All my experience on tape in the past has been very hectic on big sessions in nicer places. I've gotten to do some fun shootouts and comparisons, but nothing in depth like this. Purely as a fan of recording history and "getting back to the roots" kind of thing, this is just for me and probably a handful of fun sessions each year. We'll see how it goes, but I could care less about trying to turn this into a marketable option at the studio. |
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Post by FM77 on Apr 15, 2024 14:52:15 GMT -6
Me as well. I thought this was the 4 track headstack and it makes sense. I think reading the intent of doing full songs, splitting everything out to tape and digital on a 4-track is challenging enough, but sounds like alot of slow work on 2-track. Having to dump tape after every 2 track pass.IME, going to digital FIRST and then dumping to tape doesn't get "the tape thing". Gotta go to tape FIRST, then transfer to dig and stay there - at least until final master. Tracking to dig, dumping to tape and back to digital doesn't really get the thang. I agree with this. I think this is Matt's intention, it's certainly more laborious than I would be willing to give my time to, but sounds like he is just on an adventure for fun and learning. I can apprecite that. |
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Post by andersmv on Apr 15, 2024 14:56:09 GMT -6
IME, going to digital FIRST and then dumping to tape doesn't get "the tape thing". Gotta go to tape FIRST, then transfer to dig and stay there - at least until final master. Tracking to dig, dumping to tape and back to digital doesn't really get the thang. I agree with this. I think this is Matt's intention, it's certainly more laborious than I would be willing to give my time to, but sounds like he is just on an adventure for fun and learning. I can apprecite that.  |
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Post by chessparov on Apr 15, 2024 15:52:21 GMT -6
Me as well. I thought this was the 4 track headstack and it makes sense. I think reading the intent of doing full songs, splitting everything out to tape and digital on a 4-track is challenging enough, but sounds like alot of slow work on 2-track. Having to dump tape after every 2 track pass.IME, going to digital FIRST and then dumping to tape doesn't get "the tape thing". Gotta go to tape FIRST, then transfer to dig and stay there - at least until final master. Tracking to dig, dumping to tape and back to digital doesn't really get the thang. I just want to be Centenarian. So I'll disagree. Chris |
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Post by andersmv on Apr 16, 2024 9:55:37 GMT -6
Been going back and forth on a bunch of stuff as I mess with calibration. I've got it dialed in pretty nicely at 15 IPS, I'm really happy with everything! There's a google drive link below, I'm splitting the signal out of my API Console to go to Digital and the Tape Machine at the same time. I tweaked to level match (but coming out of the machine, they were matching within about 1dB between digital and tape) and also adjusted for the timing offset, so the files are lined up with each other, same take. I wish the Otari had a bit more control over tweaking the EQ, as I would like it to be a "hair" brighter. I threw on a UAD Chandler Curve Bender and did a wide boost at 20K about 2 dB and was really happy (The files below are flat/raw). However, I wanted "tape" and that's exactly what I'm hearing. I couldn't be any happier with the results! Still don't have a test tape. I think I'll need to make some adjustments on Azimuth as there's a little bit of funkyness going on phase wise on the high end. I'm getting close though, at least I know now the machine's in great shape and working the way it should! drive.google.com/drive/folders/1stBLnGTZtCkJ-H1mubtPe7zLXzwiWgzx?usp=sharing |
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Post by christopher on Apr 16, 2024 11:58:40 GMT -6
Sounds right. If it’s me I’d hear the difference then I go to mix and forget I have the digital version. All that pick scrape, ear-next-to-the-bridge tone doesn’t exist, it’s more like a guy a playing a guitar now. Needs some highs.. or not.
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Post by chessparov on Apr 16, 2024 14:05:39 GMT -6
How about recording to Tape first. Then transferring to Digital? (Even just one or two Key Tracks ala Vocal/Drum/Bass  ) Voila! Mojo City.  |
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