From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad


Hi Mike,

obviously you are right, ½ inch master!s Lyrec also made equipment for 1" 
masters. The old Lyrec website has been frozen as a time capsule and is 
available at:

http://klopetiklop.dk/Lyrec/about.htm

Kind regards,


George

---------------------------------------------


> On 1/13/2011 8:51 PM, George Brock-Nannestad wrote:
> > From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad
> >
> >
> > Hello Michael [Shoshani],
> >
> > you never understood high speed commercial dubbing. Well, it was a high
> speed
> > reproduction of the master 1/4 inch tape and dubbing it onto high speed
> > recording cassette tape,
> 
> The duplicators I saw here in the U.S. often used a 1/2 inch master 
> because it was four track -- both sets of stereo tracks were recorded at 
> the same time.  The master was in a bin-loop which played over and over 
> and over and over.
> >   collecting the recorded cassette tape in a cassette,
> > putting in an empty cassette and recycling the master. The cassette tape
> came
> > from a pancake and was cut.
> 
> They usually recorded the entire pancake from the continually repeating 
> bin-loop master.  The recorded pancake was placed on the cassette 
> loading machine, and a cue tone told the machine where to cut.  The fun 
> part is watching the automatic splicing block splice the tape onto the 
> middle of the C-0's leader.  Then the tape is wound into the cassette 
> until the tone stops it, and then the automatic splicer tacks the other 
> half of the leader onto the tape and is wound back into the cassette and 
> it drops down a chute to the pile of cassettes.  I videotaped one of 
> these machines and ought to put it on YouTube -- but I bet there already 
> is one.
> 
> 
> >   It was very quick, but there was no loss of high
> > frequencies, because that is all dependent on the gap length, and that
> stayed
> > the same. It was a fully automated process, and LYREC of Denmark made
> very
> > good duplicating equipment. The electronic difficulty was in the bias
> > frequency, which was in the Megahertz range, and you had to be very
> careful
> > with your stray capacities.
> 
> 
> The interconnect cables were video cables because the frequencies were 
> up in the video range.
> 
> > Mechanically it was a challenge, but LYREC did
> > solve that. LYREC machines are still in operation, I think, and their
> last
> > markets were in India and Russia.  Kind regards, George
> 
> I think there still might be some going here in the U.S.
> 
> 
> Mike Biel   [log in to unmask]
> > ---------------------------------------
> >
> >
> >> On Thu, 2011-01-13 at 19:21 -0500, Tom Fine wrote:
> >>
> >>> But, none of this warm and fuzzy nostalgia will make those piece of
> >> garbage pre-duped tapes sold to
> >>> the Walkman Generation sound any better. They were disposable junk,
> and
> >> almost all of them ended up
> >>> in landfills in the 90's, replaced by much better sounding CD's. I
> never
> >> fell for the trap since I
> >>> could dub my own tapes.
> >> Same here. I never understood how high speed commercial dubbing worked
> >> in the first place; it seems that all the high frequencies would be
> well
> >> out of the reproduction and recording range of the equipment involved.
> >> I made my own LP to cassette dubs, carefully setting the recording
> level
> >> to kick just below -0 db on the loudest passages so as not to ride gain
> >> constantly.
> >>
> >> My children will never know such geeky joys. :)
> >>
> >> Michael Shoshani
> >> Chicago
> >