I had a 400 in my studio ...and an RCA BC-2B audio board. Didn't need a
heater in the studio with all those tubes! Yep, the design was poor, but
I did some of my best production on that machine...in the late 70s...
yikes! Best complement I got was "You couldn't have done that on a
1 track machine." Mother of invention, or something like that. (Not Zappa)
Lou Houck
Rollin' Recording
208 River Ranch Rd.
Boerne, TX 78006
(830) 537-5494
(830) 537-5495 [ fax ]
[log in to unmask]
www.rollinrecording.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Hodge" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 9:52 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] OK - Does Anyone Know More About This?
> Believe me, the Ampex's of that era were much easier on the fingers than
> the Maggies were in the brake department ! The PT- 6 series had one
> motor for the rewind. The other takeup side was driven by the capstan
> motor, so there was no feathering of that system.
> Ampex did make one horrible semi pro machine- the 400 series - which
> also used 2 motors- 1 capstan, and 1 motor which flopped back and forth
> between the supply and takeup spindles which couldn't be feathered
> either. Crummy mechanical brakes !! Friction back tension control. No
> solenoids and bands on a drum as the 300 and 350, 440 uses. The capstan
> motor and shaft was on the LEFT side of the head nest. I hated those !!
>
>
> Can you say slice and dice?
>
> BH
>
>>>> [log in to unmask] 6/15/2007 9:28 AM >>>
> Sheesh, you old-school fellas must have fingers of steel. I'd never
> think of grabbing hold of a
> spinning reel on my Ampex 300's. One method I've seen with the VPI NAB
> hubs (the ones that
> click-lock) is to put pressure with the palm on the top of the VPI to
> retard winding speed. I was
> taught the shuttle method, which takes some practice on a 300 (my fater
> had several reels of junk
> tape on hand the day he taught us kids how to do this, and I'm not sure
> any of them survived the day
> unscathed), although a 300 has a better fail-safe mechanism than a 350
> or AG-440/440B (the 440C
> includes a fail-safe motion sensor system). If one is shuttling between
> FF and REW on a 300 and
> accidently trips the lever switch into PLAY, the machine breaks circuit
> and stops, brakes engaged.
> If one is shuttling with the pushbuttons on a 350 or AG-440/440B, and
> one hits the PLAY button by
> accident, the machine goes into death-tape-spill mode. If one then
> reacts by hitting FF or REW, the
> machine goes into death-tape-shred mode. This was not a problem until
> you got into the studio drug
> haze of the late 60's and early 70's when less-than-professional types
> were operating the machines
> and couldn't coordinate shuttling correctly while high or tripping. The
> same less-than-professionals
> started populating radio production rooms, and thus Ampex got demand to
> come up with a fail-safe
> when they were updating the 440B to the 440C. They used a light-pulse
> system to prevent the machine
> from going into play until tape motion stopped. AutoTec had a similar
> system using feedback from a
> magnetic head and a spinning circular magnet mounted to the bottom of
> the brake drum. The tape
> machine would not go into play until pulsing stopped from the magnetic
> head. I'm sure Scully and 3M
> also had motion-sensing systems but I don't know any details. I believe
> that once logic controls
> came along, this problem went away.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Steven Smolian" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 8:54 AM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] OK - Does Anyone Know More About This?
>
>
>> This modification was famous to those of us who grew up on Ampex 350s
> and 300 who were used to
>> breaking the speeding reels with our fingers. The Maggies would
> slice into a finger pretty
>> quickly.
>>
>> Steve Smolian
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Robert Hodge" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 8:40 AM
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] OK - Does Anyone Know More About This?
>>
>>
>>> FWIW,
>>>
>>> Magnecorder had a modification kit which allowed 10.5 inch reels to
>>> run
>>> on the Pt 6. I have one of these machines with the kit..
>>>
>>> Bob H.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Robert Hodge,
>>> Senior Engineer
>>> Belfer Audio Archive
>>> Syracuse University
>>> 222 Waverly Ave .
>>> Syracuse N.Y. 13244-2010
>>>
>>> 315-443- 7971
>>> FAX-315-443-4866
>>>
>>>>>> [log in to unmask] 6/14/2007 8:40 PM >>>
>>> Hi David:
>>>
>>> Of course I can't put my hand on any of Bert's articles about those
>>> days right now (I believe he
>>> wrote about it some for Radio & TV News in the 50's and then later
> at
>>> greater length in Audio
>>> magazine in the 70's), but I think he was running snippets of the
>>> sessions onto tapes, experimenting
>>> with mic placement and maybe levels or the like. The Magnecorder, I
>>> think, used 7" reels, so if he
>>> was going at 15IPS he'd have to be changing tapes frequently. He
> may
>>> have been told to only record X
>>> minutes of any session but I'm not sure about that because I was
> under
>>> the impression that he was
>>> pretty much given carte blanche. I imagine it was a trip working
> with
>>> Stokowski in what was by far
>>> the highest-fidelity stereo medium yet at that point. Stokowski was
>>> veteran of Bell Labs stereo disk
>>> recordings in the 30's and Fantasound optical recordings, so I
> imagine
>>> he was tough customer about
>>> what sounded right from tape. And he and Bert worked together again
>>> when Stokowski recorded for
>>> Everest.
>>>
>>> Speaking of Bert Whyte, he wrote a really nice column after he was
>>> introduced to Mercury 3-channel
>>> stereo:
>>> http://www.wendycarlos.com/surround/surround6.html#column2
>>> Fact correction: the listening venue was actually Fine Sound Studio
> C
>>> at 711 5th Ave. (today it's
>>> the Coke building, owned by Coca-Cola Co.). I agree with Bert --
> there
>>> should have been a 3-channel
>>> consumer medium but it was thought just too complex and expensive
> at
>>> the time (and, based on how
>>> well quad and later SACD did in the marketplace, perhaps the
> thinking
>>> was right -- plus no one had
>>> any ideas about a 3-channel disk medium). One other interesting
> thing
>>> -- Ampex was able to build
>>> 3-channel tape machines as early as 9/53 (Ross Snyder of Ampex wrote
> an
>>> article for International
>>> Sound Technician magazine that showed pictures of a 3-track
> headstack
>>> and described 3-track magnetic
>>> recording on 1/2" tape), but no one started recording music in
> 3-tracks
>>> until 1955.
>>>
>>> -- Tom Fine
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "David Lewis" <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 7:08 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] OK - Does Anyone Know More About This?
>>>
>>>
>>> Tom,
>>>
>>> Thanks for this very helpful answer. That basically answers my
>>> question,
>>> although in this case:
>>>
>>> I'm not sure how much tape Bert ran that day but one would think
> that
>>> if a
>>> tape of the piece you cite existed it would have been issued on
> that
>>> CD.
>>>
>>> There may be hope. "Tabor" is tagged on to the end of a disc that
>>> otherwise
>>> consists of a Stokowski concert in stereo from Detroit, 11/20/1952,
>>> consisting of Jacob Avshalomov's The Taking of T'ung Kuan with the
>>> Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5. It was included, in part, as the
> recording
>>> was
>>> at one time mis-marked as being by Stokowski, but was matched to
> the
>>> Kubelik
>>> performance through comparison. Certainly if there are other bits
> and
>>> pieces
>>> of Ma vlast in stereo, they would not have fit on the 65 minute CD.
>>>
>>> Not that I would throw away my Mercury of "From Bohemia's Woods and
>>> Fields;"
>>> it's still great. But it would be interesting to hear Whyte's
> recording
>>> if
>>> anything survives of it.
>>>
>>> David N. Lewis
>>> Assistant Classical Editor, All Music Guide
>>>
>>> "To collect [folksongs] without a phonograph - until there's
> something
>>> better - is mad and criminal." - Percy Grainger, 1907
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
>>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tom Fine
>>> Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 6:07 PM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] OK - Does Anyone Know More About This?
>>>
>>> Hi David:
>>>
>>> As widely written about through the years by Bert Whyte, my father
> took
>>> him
>>> along on some of the
>>> early Mercury single-mic sessions and Bert was allowed and indeed
>>> encouraged
>>> by those present to
>>> make experimental binaural (what 2-mic recordings were called back
>>> then
>>> although the definition of
>>> binaural has been refined to mean something else now) recordings on
>>> his
>>> Magnacorder staggered-head
>>> machine. I think Bert used a pair of U-47's but I might be wrong.
>>> Apparently
>>> the copyright owner of
>>> these sessions, Universal and/or the CSO, is OK with the CD release
> of
>>> some
>>> of Bert's tapes (at
>>> least I haven't read about any copyright-infringement actions). The
>>> Stokowski recordings are the
>>> Bell Labs disk recordings from the 1930's, which I believe are PD
> but
>>> might
>>> not be because an
>>> elaborate agreement was made between Bell Labs and the Stokowski
> family
>>> and
>>> the Philadephia
>>> Orchestra when Bell Labs issued their LPs in the late 70's (this
>>> according
>>> to the original mastering
>>> engineer; I did some investigating about reissuing a CD from those
>>> master
>>> tapes under AES auspices
>>> but too many rights issues involved). Again, I would assume the
> issuer
>>> of
>>> the current CD cleared all
>>> these rights or they would have been sued.
>>>
>>> I'm not sure how much tape Bert ran that day but one would think
> that
>>> if a
>>> tape of the piece you
>>> cite existed it would have been issued on that CD.
>>>
>>> -- Tom Fine
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "David Lewis" <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 5:00 PM
>>> Subject: [ARSCLIST] OK - Does Anyone Know More About This?
>>>
>>>
>>>> According to Music & Arts' "Stokowski and Kubelik conduct
>>> Experimental
>>>> Stereo Recordings from 1952" (MUA 1190) contains an experimental
>>> stereo
>>>> recording, made by Bert Whyte, during the sessions for Rafael
>>> Kubelik's
>>>> Mercury recording of Ma vlast. The piece is "Tabor," and annotator
>>> Edward
>>>> Johnson writes "Other such experiments from THAT and later
>>> Kubelik/CSO
>>>> sessions are known to exist but this is the first to be
> released..."
>>>>
>>>> What "other such experiments" from this session "[is] known to
>>> exist?" I'm
>>>> particularly - strongly, in fact - interested in any stereo takes
> of
>>> the
>>>> movement "From Bohemia's Woods and Fields" from this December 1952
>>> session.
>>>> Even in mono, this performance is positively electrifying.
>>>>
>>>> David N. Lewis
>>>> Assistant Classical Editor, All Music Guide
>>>>
>>>> "To collect [folksongs] without a phonograph - until there's
>>> something
>>>> better - is mad and criminal." - Percy Grainger, 1907
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> No virus found in this incoming message.
>>> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
>>> Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.8.16/849 - Release Date:
> 6/14/2007 12:44 PM
>>>
>>
>
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