Hey, I have one of those Irish strobes, too. Forgot to mention that. It doesn't work very well. The 
Dubbings disc is much better and precision-feeling. I don't think any of these things are 
instrumentation-precise but they are precise enough to get you in the ballpark with real-world audio 
tape recordings.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Biel" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 6:09 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Shrunk strobe?


> On 3/30/2011 5:41 PM, Roderic G Stephens wrote:
>> I know that Tom Fine mentioned that he had an old strobe for checking tape speed.  Does anyone 
>> know of any that are available?
>
> In the 50s OrrRadio made an Irish strobe disc on a handle which you could lightly press onto the 
> outside wrap of the tape on the reel as it moved.  Worked fairly well if you didn't press hard 
> enough to slow things down.  Robbins (I think) made a strobe tape but it was bumpy as it ran thru 
> the machine.
>>   I think I remember Ampex decks in Hollywood that had a small circular strobe that fit on the 
>> top of the capstan, but they were of bigger diameter than my Teac 2340R.
>
> That would make a very small strobe even on the larger capstans of the 30 IPS versions of the 200 
> and 300!   What I remember is a strobe that Land/Pultec had for the flywheel stabilizers of the 
> 350.  We had them on some of the machines at a studio I worked for in the 60s, but they were 
> useless because some of the stabilizers were so used that a groove had been worn into the shaft by 
> the tape.  (These machines were used for editing with much shuttling.)
>
> Mike Biel  [log in to unmask]
>