Dear Carl,
Thanks for your reply. It was fun to recall all that and to know that
I never have to do any of it anymore. à propos your comment about
"sticky [Ampex] 456 goo", I think it was 1975 when I was first handed
a reel of Ampex 406 and asked to evaluate it. Minnesota Public Radio
used 3M tape stock exclusively. 206 and 207 for mastering and 175 and
177 for newsroom ops and reference copies. When I recorded program on
the Ampex 406, I noticed a larger number of dropouts than we
experienced with 3M 206. Therefore, I advised against buying any
despite the inducement of a heavily discounted price. Although binder
hydrolysis eventually affected 3M tape as well, it was much later and
did not affect any of my recording and production work, Gott sei dank.
DDR
On 1/12/12, Carl Pultz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I guess DBX was the system recommended to US public radio stations back in
> the 70s as stations were equipping themselves for music recording. This was
> a little bit before I got into that business. There were certain practices
> that became dogma through the NPR recording workshops and sop at the station
> (WXXI) I worked for - particularly Mid/Side micing, as they were all about
> mono compatibility.
>
> Noise reduction made it practical to record live classical concerts. You had
> to use 7.5 ips to get a whole concert half without interruption. DBX was
> very effective at ridding hiss, but whether you could hear it working
> depended greatly on the source. IIRC, sound with a lot of high frequency
> info or hall ambience suffered. Simpler sounds could go through pretty
> convincingly. After a while, we lived with the hiss and ignored the DBX. One
> fellow used enough compression before tape to make dynamic range irrelevant,
> as he figured it was only going to get squashed at the transmitter anyway.
> Sony PCM adaptors soon came to the rescue.
>
> I think they still have a couple channels of DBX for the occasional archive
> tape. But there isn't much archive, as it all turned into big piles of
> sticky 456 goo, and much just got landfilled. Pity. There is an incredible
> collection of live jazz and blues sessions sitting there, but no one seems
> interested, and there's no money to deal with it.
>
> Anybody here with public radio on their résumés? So wish I had attended that
> training - what a great boost for a journeyman recordist.
>
> Carl
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Shai Drori
> Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2012 4:40 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Dolby Plugin
>
> We didn't hear it working, at least not on the talent that came to THAT
> studio (LOL), but when used with good tapes it worked. It just added a
> certain something to rock that I doubt I would want on classical.
> Hmmm... gotta dig those old tapes and see if I still like them after all
> these years. I'm probably in for a surprise.
> Shai
>
> On 12/01/12 11:16, Ted Kendall wrote:
>>>
>> I'll say dbx sounded different! You could hear it working, for one
>> thing...
>
--
Dennis D. Rooney
303 W. 66th Street, 9HE
New York, NY 10023
212.874.9626
|