Anyone making NEW analog multitrack recorders?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by 12" 45rpm, Jan 15, 2018.

  1. Dubmart

    Dubmart Senior Member

    Location:
    Bristol, England
    I think there are now standalone players that will handle various flavours of DSD burned to DVD and DSD capable DACs are very common so it's actually quite easy to integrate DSD playback into a consumer system these days though even a few years ago that wasn't the case, native DSD recordings/transfers are still somewhat in short supply.

    I'm not sure what you mean by detail, for me DSD 2 which I use to record is pretty much a transparent format, generally the DSD recorder can outperform or even out resolve the rest of the recording chain without the added noise or other artifacts you get with tape and with a sound that I personally prefer to high res PCM though I'm happy to admit there's very little in it if both use an identical source and recording chain. I've never had the chance to do a direct comparison between a 30 ips tape master, a high res PCM transfer and a DSD transfer, unfortunately the people we use are locked into a PCM environment and even though I've discussed taking a DSD recorder along to run side by side it would be using a different ADC, but it's an experiment I may still do one day, with properly recorded material all three can sound superb so other than having an establsihed preference for DSD over PCM in a direct comparison I may prefer tape, I guess it's more about getting the signal that goes in right to begin with.

    Meanwhile in the real world I continue to pick up reels of tape and machines I need to restore, unlike a 50 year old Tandberg you can't really rescue and restore a digital recorder, they are no fun in that sense.:righton:
     
  2. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    O.k, very upset! No more talk about recording in DSD128, DSD256 or PCM 24/192 when I have to do all my analog cassette/AFM transfers to 24/48.

    HAVE YOU NO FEELING!?
    I don't even have a damn RMS meter. (Breaks down crying. Wet tears everywhere. :mudscrying:


    Seriously though. Very impressed with many of your commitments to sound quality. Even down to the smallest degree. Good thing about DSD - You can't find a badly designed DSD converter unless you make it yourself. All DSD ADCs are audiophile. Can't do wrong there. The preamps are way better as well. :edthumbs:
     
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  3. Dubmart

    Dubmart Senior Member

    Location:
    Bristol, England
    I have two entire runs of radio shows, one pirate and one legit, several hundred cassettes which I have been putting off transferring for years, (going back to real time tape transfers isn't fun is it), I started transferring them to CD-R nearly twenty years ago, but got sidelined by life after only a few dozen, now I need to decide whether to use DSD or 24/96, after all there's only so much information on a cassette and 24/96 is more than capable of getting it all or do you think that's overkill, on a positive I still have several fully working and up to spec decks including Sony Dolby S decks very similar to what one batch was recorded on so at least playback isn't an issue. If I ever do finish all the transfers I may just keep one or two cassette decks and will make a killing on the others considering what they are fetching now compared to when I bought most of them when cassette was at it's lowest, £10 or £15 for mint Yamaha KX-580SEs, I left Tascam 122s behind for £30, hate to think what they fetch now.
     
  4. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Oh no argument there. But a good modern 24/352.8 recorder will do the same and you won't have limited editing options because of the signal being in DSD.

    Yes, to me DSD sound like the source. I have taken 2 inch 16 tracks, transferred them to 24/176.4 and DSD256. From here I mixed using the DSD tracks using a DSD mixer (ITB). Sounded just the analog tape. But that was 8 years ago.

    I meant DSD512 will not give more detail than DSD256. Very transparent yes, but if you need to mix in pure DSD things will get expensive and sticky. But yes, DSD will not let you down!

    CLA has his 31 year old Sony DASH 3348 recorder working great. Just last year an engineer friend of mine restored a Sony DASH 3324 24 track DASH recorder. That is 40 years old. Uncle Jack had an old Sony 3302 from 1983 that he restored at great expense 2 years ago. Lots of masters on 3302 DASH tapes. Although considering how crap they are you might as well copy the 80's CD and use that. (I didn't say that.)
    We also have an Sony PCM 1600 and two 3/4 video units in working condition. Sort of....Lots of old digital gear to work on. Not fun but ahhhh.......interesting!

    You can get a DSD recorder/converter at 512 but the disks are stuck at DSD64. Or was it 128? Anyway the problem with DSD was with the players. DSD128 is fine. My point is there is no advantage to a DAD512 file. It is marketing.

    Who here has USB ADC that can play back 24/352.8 files? We have loads to release but most we have to knock 'em down to 176.4 khz for consumers. These higher sampling rates are good if they are down properly.

    Good. Keep recording DSD.
     
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  5. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Ohhh 24/96 or DSD? Easy.....DSD DSD DSD DSD!
    If you had a modern studio 24/196 converter but 24/96., oh well that is different. Not that 24/96 is bad but it doesn't hold a candle to DSD.
     
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  6. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    A quality 4 track machine uses 1/2" tape which costs double or a bit more than 1/4" tape. A quality proper 8 track machine uses 1" tape which costs even more money. Narrow gauge demo studio formats are not as good sounding, and usually wind up with the headaches of Dolby NR units and their attendant set up and alignments. Again, not cheap nor ever was cheap. DBX NR I despise.
     
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  7. hvbias

    hvbias Midrange magic

    Location:
    Northeast
    :faint:

    [​IMG]
     
  8. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Dolby A units were expensive.
    DBX is great.....when it works. We have gotten a few DBX Type 1 encoded 2 inch 24 tracks from the 1973 - 1980 period. Assuming the machine was properly aligned and calibrated when it was used to encode there shouldn't be any problems. But unfortunately that doesn't seem to happen to often.. And if there is a drop out the compander magnifies the error x 2. So a 2 db drop out now is a 4 db drop out. And then when there is pumping I have to go into Pro Tools HD 12 and NR out the pumping around bass and kick. Not fun. But when the machine is aligned and calibrated properly there is no problem with DBX. But I wished they had used Dolby A or Telecom 4 for the few years it was around.

    Hundreds of televsion shows only exist as 3/4 tapes. Many DVD were made form those 3/4 videos and they use HI-FI sound which used DBX. I have never heard any pumping or artifacts on a DVD made from a 3/4 inch tape. My cousin who works in the video restoration industry says different.

    "...Sometiems we get 2 inch Quad, or Type B 1 inch video, D1, S-VHS, BETA CAM or 3/4 inch. By the mid 1990's they were so many pro video formats it got crazy. I can't even remember them all. But we have to be able to play they back.

    The AFM tracks on a 33 year old 3/4 inch video tape don't always track and play perfectly. It depends on how the tape was stored. This is when the DBX compander encoding can cause real trouble. Occasionally with old 3/4 inch tapes some post audio work needs to be done. we go to a lot of trouble so the consumer doesn't hear pumping or switching noise or whatever else might be lurking in the soundtracks...."


    Daniel Lamb Morris audio post restoration.
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2020
  9. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    There can be a lot of information on a cassette. Did you know they are CD releases that due to company screwups the "masters" exist only on cassette tape?

    There was a case back in the 1990's where they were finally going to put this artist out on CD. Problem was the masters were destroyed in a flood. And the analog copies had been copied to DAT and then destroyed. The only analog copies left were the cassette Type 4 Dolby C encoded cassette copies of the master. The engineer that mixed the band always made a copy to cassette to listen on his way home. So he had the whole artist's 1975 - 1983 catalog on cassette. The whole CD 1975-1983 catalog was made from these copy cassettes. I do know which artist it is was but I can't say. And on the back it says TAKEN FROM THE MASTER. The cassettes became the new master. I little lie. If you have a good 3 head cassette deck with good analog preamps why should there be limited information?. A good Nak MR-1 can pull off 20 - 22 000 hz +1/ -2db. The engineer used a Nak Dragon.

    Those late 70's MFSL tapes kick but over many CDs today. Analog can have a lot of detail. Weather: Cassette, RTR or AFM.
     
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  10. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Always keep one. You never know when you will need to do a cassette transfer. Of maybe you buy an album off the web that is only available on cassette. Or run into a MFSL 1:1 tape. Or you get your hands on one of those Jazz Type 4 Dolby C 1:1 tapes from the 1990's. I have two cassette machines. A Denon 3 head Dolby B/C unit from 1983 that only plays. And a 2003 Sony with Dolby B/C. Nowhere near as good as the Denon but I can play back any tape with B or C in good quality. And it can records pretty good. Not great but good enough if the need arises.
     
  11. The FRiNgE

    The FRiNgE Forum Resident

    Even if I exaggerated, a 3:1 rejection isn't good either, buy four used tapes to get one good one? Among the castaways was a NM bluebox, Abbey Road that I paid $50.00 back around 2002. The box and reel appeared as if they were purchased brand new, and so I marveled at my first reel purchase online, happy as a lark to be getting back into pre-recorded reel to reels again. Well, it sounded awful. I could have cried, but was too angry for that. The seller got away with it because it was "untested", so I got burned. It gets worse.

    I never give up without a fight.. haha! My next was Jeff Beck, "Truth" Epic 7.5 ips. This replaced my worn out copy that I played a thousand times. Well... this one also sounded inferior, no wonder.. I now see scribbled on the inside of the box, "retaped"... rejection #2. Three Dog Night, "One" aha! great fidelity.. oops a crinkled section with associated garbled sound... rejection #3. Some others had imposed 60 cycle hum, high frequency squeals, channel imbalance (muddy channel) stretched, curled tape, drop outs, Led Zeppelin IV with only half the album (tape snapped) the same on a Sonny and Cher tape. Ya think records carry a high probability of wear or groove damage? try pre-recorded reel to reels!

    I finally purchased smarter. There was this eBay seller, "Reel Lady". She tested the tapes, but her prices were above competitive. I do not know where she sourced her inventory, but she sold literally thousands of tapes.. tens of thousands! I don't know if she's still selling.

    Oh, and I did find a "Truth" reel that sounds magnificent, just as my original copy once did! So, counting the rejected "retaped" copy that I paid $50.00 (round-about) plus the good tape... I paid a total of $100.00 for something I can truly enjoy.
     
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  12. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    I wasn't implying that you were exaggerating. I was shocked at the 5:1 ratio. Very scary!
    Thanks for the story. Very interesting.

    Yes, Uncle Jack has the largest selection of RTR tapes that I know of. He has 2 copies of the Japanese limited number edition of OUT OF THE BLUE @ 7.5 ips RTR. Forget the vinyl or CD!
     
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  13. Dubmart

    Dubmart Senior Member

    Location:
    Bristol, England
    I think I will always have a working cassette deck, lots of nostalgia for the eighties, back in the nineties even though I had DAT machines and R2R decks, tapes cost too much compared to a good chrome cassette for under £1 and for me Dolby S made a difference, funnily enough some things I recorded on DAT were then archived to cassette and the DAT reused. We have taken a couple of tracks off cassette for release, as well as getting the best transfer the mastering is key, you want all the tracks to have a similar sound even if the masters sound entirely different from each other and cassette transfers can stand out like a sore thumb if not mastered well and sympathetically.
     
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  14. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Until I zoomed in on the picture I thought you had a 3 inch floppy for your avatar. But it is an album. All those 1986 - 1990 SSL 4000 Class G boards needed floppy disks to store automation data. Imagine paying $250 000 USD for your used SSL 4098 G / G+ board and finding out you need 3 inch floppies to store the automation data. Not cool!

    Do those 20 year old home burnt disks still work?
     
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  15. Dubmart

    Dubmart Senior Member

    Location:
    Bristol, England
    We've reissued some things from the 1990s, sometimes from reels, but usually from from DAT tapes, sometimes the artist has preserved every single part of the track, but unfortunately they were using Cubase and an Atari and everything is stored on 25 year old floppy discs, I'm not saying it's impossible to put the gear together and reconstruct those tracks, but I've never felt anything we didn't have was worth the headache. When I remember all the gear people used in the 1990s; DAT, ADAT, floppy discs, Zip Drives, etc. there is going to be a big hole in the archives and all we will have is the finished tracks that were released, properly backed up or recorded on tape, ironically the odd things I messed about with, none of which are worthy of release were recorded to quarter inch as I had picked up hundreds of reels that were getting tossed by a production house and it was free while DAT cassettes cost £6+.
     
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  16. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Agreed. Unfortunately if you want to use those classic SLL boards from the 1985 - 1990 period it is floppy drives. So we our stuck using them. And trying to get new floppy disks in 2020 is not fun. I once found 200 new disks at a garage sale 3 years ago. Only cost me $10.

    We have a (I think we still have one) SSL 4064 G / G + board. Sometimes we are asked to remix some old album. Occassionally the album was actually mixed on a SSL 4064 board. One client brought us several 3 1/2 floppy disks that had the automation data on them from the 1988 mix. The idea was with the disks we could recall all the fader /pan / Aux sends moves. And then we could recreate the original mix and make changes from there. The 28 year old floppy disks were useless! Did they really expect the data to be retrieved off these formats almost 30 years later? Sometimes they work but it is crap shoot to he honest. We have specialized software that will 30% of the time reconstruct the data but it is a pain in the rear. It can take as long as 6 hours to reconstruct the data off one floppy disk. 10 songs means 10 floppy disks. Usually more though. One album from 1987 had the mix board automation data stores on 48 floppy disks. Fun!
     
  17. Dubmart

    Dubmart Senior Member

    Location:
    Bristol, England
    I have no idea what the intended or quoted lifespan of floppies was, but just looking at them you know it's not a durable format, trouble is nobody was thinking ten years ahead let alone 30+, I knew engineers 25 or 30 years ago and they were well aware that DAT was unreliable, not just because those tiny cassettes could have issues, but because the digital information could randomly be lost, likewise nobody expected to be using the same computers and floppy powered outboard gear in the twenty first century yet I don't recall anybody being in a hurry to preserve or transfer the music, the mixes, the samples, the sequencing information nothing and now it's too late, yet you can pull a well stored fifty year old reel and there's every chance it will transfer perfectly, regardless of any digital vs. analogue debate tapes and records are the only formats so far proven to last.
     
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  18. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

    Regarding: “records are the only format so far proven to last.” I have plenty of old Beatles cassettes that have lasted and still sound great. Yes, I did need to transplant some into new shells with new felt pads. But that has been a minority.
     
  19. Dubmart

    Dubmart Senior Member

    Location:
    Bristol, England
    I deliberately used records rather than vinyl as they've been around for 130 years and the music can be retrieved better than ever, not sure there will be anything left to retrieve when your cassettes are 130 years old as they will have lost their magnetic charge long before then.
     
  20. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

    Of course, sometimes old records that have been played fairly regularly, even if well cared for, have issues. But that is true, records have been around longer than cassettes. Even as I think some would be amazed that cassette tapes 40 to 45 years old could still sound very good. I could make a very good dub copy today of some of my oldest prerecorded Beatles cassettes and that would extend for an additional 40 plus years the recording. Even though I realize that would be a copy of the original cassette.
    Who actually has a record from 130 years ago? Maybe I just haven’t heard of that. A record that old that is preserved and never played? Similar to a museum artifact? I’m not ruling that out. I think “needles” were harsher on records decades and decades ago. But I do understand your point.
     
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2020
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  21. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    HORROR MASTERING STORIES FROM THE CRYPT.....

    7 - 10 years ago we had a well know Rock artist bring us a demo tape that was on 8 track cartridge. No joke!

    Back in the 1970's this band played live at bars and even high schools. They had their own 16 channel stage mixer, microphones, etc. Back in 1979 they planned to record their first 4 song demo on tape. No one in the band had a cassette or RTR recorder. The bass player and singer lived with his parents. His father had a pick up truck with an 8 track cartridge player. And unfortunately the only recorder his dad had was a 8 track cartridge recorder.

    The unit had 2 VU meters with gain for the left and right channel. No fast forward or rewind button. It had 4 buttons to choose when you wanted each of the 4 program selections to start. A record, playback, pause and stop buttons.

    They did their 4 song demo live through the 16 channel mixer into the Realistic 8 track cartridge recorder.

    Luckily Unlce Jack is good at fixing old electronics. He did an audiophile mod on an old Sony 8 track recorder he picked up on Ebay for $40. Replaced the worn out belts and put in new motors. What does a stereo 8 track cartridge sound like that was recorder on a home 8 track cartridge recorder? 45 - 15 000 hz +1.5 / - 2 db at best.

    I felt silly hooking this contraption up to the Burr-Brown 24/192 converter. After some intensive Poor Tools cleanup it was alright. Wow and flutter measured 0.08 % RMS on this unit. Oouch!
     
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  22. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    One day they will lose their magnetic charge but the 130 years is just an estimate. Look at those Bing Crosby tapes from 1947. 73 years old and still playing as of they were made yesterday. Last year a client brought in quarter inch full track tape from 1950. Played perfectly. That is a 70 year old tape.

    And it is too early to be saying how long a CD will last. I have friends with CDs from 1982 that are still playing. 38 years and showing no sign of wear. The CD (properly manufactured) might last 300 years. We really don't know. The so called infamous Nibus CD test said 8 - 10 years.

    I assume you mean vinyl rather than tape.
     
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  23. The FRiNgE

    The FRiNgE Forum Resident

    I know my 3.5 inch floppys are corrupted. I saved my Marist papers on them, easy text files. (they had a computer kiosk in 1990 for writing term papers, with noisy IBM dot matrix printers) The last time they were read, about 2012, only some of the files opened, so at that time the discs were 22 years old. At an earlier date, they were copied successfully on my new 2002 Compaq, one of their better models with a 1.45g AMD processor, and huge (at that time) 80 gig HDD. I still have the Compaq with its 3.5 floppy drive (and still working CD and DVD drives) It was upgraded soon after purchase with an N-Vida video card, and Creative sound card. I seem to recall the sound card is 24/96, and has a very good sounding headphone amp. My Sennheisers sound much better on the Compaq vs my hp laptop by a large margin.

    But I think vinyl will become the archival source of the future. Vinyl is immune to magnetic fields, more tolerant of less than ideal storage conditions, temperature, humidity, etc. Some of the better mastered first pressings were sourced from fresh masters "recorded yesterday". At some point in the not too distant future, certain matrix numbers will become extremely valuable, but only in NM condition, adding to their rarity.

    Likewise I am fortunate to have a few inline pre-recorded tapes. They play flawlessly, and produce amazing fidelity. These tapes are 70 + years, and I have no idea how they were stored before I purchased them. My original band tapes from 1970 still play. They do not seem to have lost any of their dynamics and sound. (possible they have but not anything so significant that I have noticed) My other band tapes recorded in 1992 on Ampex 456 have sticky-shed, and do not play.

    But it's not (proper) storage that destroys tapes; It is frequent play. The tape hits a tipping point that the top coating/ lubricant has worn down, and you get tons of oxide shed. This occurred on my original Jeff Beck tape that I played to death... and it suffered fidelity loss. Tapes are subject to wear and fidelity loss (per my own observation) as records are... I have seen CD rot, but only very few. They could last 300+ years... certainly safe to say a lifetime.

    some interesting info:
    2.2.1.1.1 Components of magnetic tapes and their stability | International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives
     
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2020
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  24. Dubmart

    Dubmart Senior Member

    Location:
    Bristol, England
    Yes, I was referring to vinyl, if you look after it then it should last 100s of years and even the playback systems are relatively simple to make, never say never, but I doubt anyone will be playing a twentieth century tape or cassette in 2120, I think CDs could go either way, if people can read them I suspect plenty will still work, it depends on whether it's worthwhile keeping 1980s tech alive just to read 100 year old discs.
     
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  25. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Yep, Vinyl should last forever.
     

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