Hi Lou:
That's awesome! Great stories.
We still had Muntz carts in my house when I was growing up, going back to before I was born
(pre-1966). My father's duplicating operations was one of the first (and few) on the east coast to
handle Muntz carts. We had some "Flintstones" carts and also Jose Jimenez "the cowardly astronaut."
The player was kinda luxe, built into a wooden cabinet with matching stereo speakers, not bad sound
quality at all.
Lear carts took hold soon after Muntz came out and 8-tracks became dominant. We had original Lear
tube playback decks, 8-tracks were still a mass medium when I was a kid but as soon as car cassette
decks took hold in the late70's, they were dead. Most of the 8-tracks we had from the 60's and 70's
became unplayable (not that you'd want to anyway) because the built-in pinchrollers melted or
crackled.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lou Houck" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 6:03 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Unidentified track format
> The Studebaker was a 1962 Lark (family hand-me-down)...the station was KUHF---15KW erp mono,
> licensed to the University of Houston, the year was 1970 / '71, so stereo records were not an
> issue...though at the time, all of the equipment was past its prime jetsam mono from the
> commercial broadcast stations. I believe the recorder was a Magnecord 1021 F/T, 3 3/4 - 7 1/2 ips.
> Turntables (Gates) all bridged mono, cart decks all mono. The Muntz 4 Track carts came from a
> fire sale / closeout store in downtown Houston. Four for a dollar...loaded with some ribald night
> club comic, or second tier vocalists tapes. The 4 Track cart deck in the Stude was branded
> Sears...hung under the dash. Manual lever action to engage the pinch roller and switch tracks.
> Bought it for $5.00 at a moonlight madness sale at the Sears auto center, where I pumped gas,
> checked oil, and inflated tires "28 pounds all around, Sir?, and you're about a half quart low."
> At home, stereo Roberts X Field (Akai) recorder with a Rheem Logo on the sticker on the back.
> Imagine how proud I was to own a stereo recorder made by a firm who's parent company also made hot
> water heaters! The turntable was a BSR (Shure M-44 Cartridge), Sterling Electronics Receiver, and
> Sterling Electronics 3 way speaker cabinets with 15" bass speaker...no foam, corrugated
> surround...and I still use them! YES! Gad, I haven't thought of this stuff in years! Thanks for
> asking.
>
> Lou Houck
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Tom Fine
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 3:44 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Unidentified track format
>
>
> That's actually quite ingenius! Thanks for sharing. You're at a radio station in the era of Muntz
> carts and Studebakers. How many tunes you're taping at that radio station are from stereo sources
> anyway? My bet is few if any. So it totally works! Question -- what deck at a radio station would
> record FT at 3.75IPS?
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lou Houck" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 4:28 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Unidentified track format
>
>
>> Back in my mis-spent youth, I made mix tapes for the 4-Track cart deck in my Studebaker. Don't
>> snicker, the best is yet to come. I recorded the lubed tape on full track recorders (Maggies)
>> at the radio station where I worked ...access to lots of records. Then, I brought the tape home
>> and recorded over that full track tape, on my home stereo r/r recorder. Tracks 1&3 stereo, the
>> remaining tracks 2&4 in mono. Then I wound the tape on to the endless loop reel, spliced it
>> together and had the most unique music to be heard on 4 track in a Studebaker Lark. If you
>> stumble on one of those old Muntz Carts, that's the format. Let the snickering begin!
>>
>> Lou Houck
>> Rollin' Recording
>> Boerne, TX
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Mark Donahue
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 1:57 PM
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Unidentified track format
>>
>>
>> This may be a strange question, but could this be a case of recycled tape
>> used on a machine with a different track format? I've run into this before
>> that a 1/4 track tape was re-recorded on a 1/2 track NAB format machine or
>> vice versa. These turn out to be some of the most confusing transfers
>> imaginable because things show up on weird tracks in strange directions.
>>
>> All the best,
>> -mark
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 9:19 AM, Richard L. Hess
>> <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>>
>>> Gregorio,
>>>
>>> This is why I'm such a fanatic about developing tapes and looking at them.
>>> The fact that track 3 has B NOT backwards confuses me.
>>>
>>> Also, I'm surprised you are writing 1/3/2/4 because visually on the tape
>>> you'd see 1/2/3/4 and that helps understanding.
>>>
>>> You could use 1 + 4 to capture, but I'd rather fully understand why as the
>>> narrow tracks, especially at the edge, are not the most desirable unless
>>> that's all you have.
>>>
>>> With track 3 B NOT backwards, I'm at a loss to explain.
>>>
>>> http://richardhess.com/notes/**category/audio/magnetic-tape-**developing/<http://richardhess.com/notes/category/audio/magnetic-tape-developing/>
>>>
>>> Develop the tape and post a photo and link to it from the reply message to
>>> the list.
>>>
>>> Do not rule out misaligned heads. Also, some machines used 1/2 and 4/3 as
>>> stereo recording and they might have been UK machines instead of the more
>>> common US practice of 1/3 4/2 (in all instances L/R and SideA SideB).
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Richard
>>>
>>>
>>> On 2012-02-27 5:39 AM, Gregorio Garcia Karman wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dear List,
>>>>
>>>> looking forward to the beginning of a new digitization week: everything
>>>> is going well in Cambridge thanks in great extent to the support of the
>>>> members of the list. Huge thanks!
>>>>
>>>> Now, I have a small group of 1/4 inch tapes in the collection on which I
>>>> am working (ca 1950s-70s, recorded mainly on Ferrographs) which seems to
>>>> have a track format, which I haven't met before. On those tapes standard
>>>> half-track and half-track butterfly Studer blocks consistently produce a
>>>> dual mono signal with unacceptable crosstalk on both channels (bleeding of
>>>> about -20 dB referring to the signal on the other channel).
>>>>
>>>> On the other hand, the output of a quarter-track headblock is as follows:
>>>>
>>>> track 1: Signal A
>>>> track 3: Signal A + B
>>>> track 2: Signal A + B backwards
>>>> track 4: Signal B backwards
>>>>
>>>> It would seem that this very small group of tapes would have been
>>>> recorded on a machine with a very narrow guard-band in comparison to the
>>>> rest of the tapes I have. What is your opinion about transferring those
>>>> tapes on a quarter track headblock and keeping tracks 1 and 4?
>>>>
>>>> I would also be curious about which machine could have had a track format
>>>> that would agree with the former observations.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for your comments!
>>>>
>>>> Gregorio Garcia Karman
>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>>
>>>>
>>> --
>>> Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask]
>>> Aurora, Ontario, Canada (905) 713 6733 1-877-TAPE-FIX
>>> http://www.richardhess.com/**tape/contact.htm<http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm>
>>> Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> -----
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