I had a comedy show I was attempting to syndicate in the early 90s. The
distributor I had came back to me and said the stations he dealt with wanted it
on CASSETTE. Guess what I told them to do.
I have a batch of 1976 vintage Canadian-duped Dr. Demento tapes, which were
sent out 4 reels to a program, 1-mil tape (Ampex 641 which is actually a good
product..I've never turned up a bad reel of the stuff), half-hour (less
commercials) per reel. I thought I'd assemble them onto ten-inch reels but gave
up once I realized that each one was duped on a different slave and all the
levels were all over the place.
dl
Tom Fine wrote:
> For-broadcast duping was a little bit less slipshod than mass-market
> duping but problems like you describe were still common. Acquire a few
> copies of a King Biscuit Flower Hour program from different places
> around the country and see how different the same program can sound. All
> the variables of multiple duper slaves, multiple record heads, multiple
> production cycles, etc. Plus again, duped radio stuff could be 4 or 5
> generations removed from the master. Radio guys I knew in the early 90's
> were thrilled with CD-based syndication because the quality was so much
> better and more consistent vs. the duped tapes. Now I think everything
> is distributed by satellite or internet and it sounds like most of it is
> distributed in lossy-compressed formats to boot.
>
> And radio stations were classic abusers of tape technology. Usually,
> especially by the 70's, the "tech" was a substance-addled hack and the
> tape machines were over-used and ill-maintained (the magnetic equivilent
> of a rented mule). Over the years, I've collected dozens of
> produced-on-site radio programs and the quality varies all over the map.
> The best stuff is amazing because it was produced under typically pretty
> primative conditions and worst stuff is awful.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Lennick" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2008 12:49 PM
> Subject: [ARSCLIST] Tape problems, was Re: [ARSCLIST] Collection for sale
>
>
>> 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
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