2 Track (stereo) reel to reel machine! Help me decide!!

[cjacek]

Hello,

I mainly record "live" from my mackie 1202 vlz pro to my cassette deck. Non of that multitrack stuff for me . Anyway, can anyone please suggest a stereo reel to reel recorder for recording direct to and that has a real "analog" sound ? I have this guy who has "connections" and who can hook me up with a reel to reel. Prob is I'm no expert when it comes to the r2r. Which brand and model should I be looking at, taking into consideration quality, parts, reels, support etc .. ? Is 1/4 inch enough or would 1/2" be better ? Does the unit needs to have other ins and outs in addition to RCA's like xlrs etc ? What are the pluses or minuses ? Also, cost is an issue. I don't wanna spend many hundreds of dollars or have an "over-kill" machine. I just want a significant step up from my cassette deck. Thanks very much in advance for your help. (It would also be a nice bonus if it had a voltage switch for around the world operation - not essential though ).

Daniel

PS: Just a quick additional question .. For that pure "analog" sound, is it perfectly acceptable to not use any noise reducing while recording to reel to reel ?

 

[regebro]

I mainly record "live" from my mackie 1202 vlz pro to my cassette deck. Non of that multitrack stuff for me . Anyway, can anyone please suggest a stereo reel to reel recorder for recording direct to and that has a real "analog" sound ?

You won't get more "real analog" than that casette, my friend.

The higher up in quality you go with tape decks, the less "analog" they will sound.

A nice half-inch 2-track professional reel to reel will have an almost totally flat frequency response, with a rolloff around 40hz, and maybe a rolloff at 20kHz too (but sometime actually a small increase around there).

Can you hear the difference between that and a good 24/96kHz converter? Well, maybe. But the better the recorders get, the smaller the difference is.

However, you can get some nice tape compression with them if that's what you want.

I have this guy who has "connections" and who can hook me up with a reel to reel.

Well, too bad you missed that Otari MX-5050 1/4" two-track that went for under $70 on ebay yesterday. Assuming it's in working condition, that is some good value for your lire.

The big thing to watch out for is head wear. If it has a lot of head wear, relapping them or replacing them can be quite expensive. Other than that, I'd say almost any 1/4" reel to reel made during the 80's will make you happy.

Is 1/4 inch enough or would 1/2" be better ? ... I just want a significant step up from my cassette deck.

1/4 is enough, AND 1/2" is better.

Just a quick additional question .. For that pure "analog" sound, is it perfectly acceptable to not use any noise reducing while recording to reel to reel ?

Yup.

 

[cjacek]

Re: Re: 2 Track (stereo) reel to reel machine! Help me decide!!

You won't get more "real analog" than that casette, my friend.

The higher up in quality you go with tape decks, the less "analog" they will sound.

A nice half-inch 2-track professional reel to reel will have an almost totally flat frequency response, with a rolloff around 40hz, and maybe a rolloff at 20kHz too (but sometime actually a small increase around there).

Can you hear the difference between that and a good 24/96kHz converter? Well, maybe. But the better the recorders get, the smaller the difference is.

However, you can get some nice tape compression with them if that's what you want.



Well, too bad you missed that Otari MX-5050 1/4" two-track that went for under $70 on ebay yesterday. Assuming it's in working condition, that is some good value for your lire.

The big thing to watch out for is head wear. If it has a lot of head wear, relapping them or replacing them can be quite expensive. Other than that, I'd say almost any 1/4" reel to reel made during the 80's will make you happy.



1/4 is enough, AND 1/2" is better.



Yup.

Hey! Thanks for the quick response!! I'm just a bit confused on one point though .. What did you mean by: "You won't get more "real analog" than that casette" and "The higher up in quality you go with tape decks, the less "analog" they will sound". Are you suggesting that "real analog" sound is better on cassette ? I know it's not what you meant but it sure sound like it Please explain.

Thanks again,

Daniel

 

[DigitalDon]

The Otari 5050 went for about $98 yesterday on eBay. I think someone got a bargain. Still, I'd like to get an Otari MX5050 BIII 1/2" 8 track one day to play with. Record from a board into the deck and dump to my Aardvark Q10. Just curious how good a sound I would get. You know - the "fatten it up" thing. I'm not an analog guy but I'd really like to play around with a decent R/R deck.

DD

 

[regebro]

Re: Re: Re: 2 Track (stereo) reel to reel machine! Help me decide!!

Are you suggesting that "real analog" sound is better on cassette ?

Not better: More analog.

I know many will try to get you to think that that 'analog' and 'good' are equivalent, but they are not. They are not mutually exclusive either, as some digital fanatics will claim. What is 'good' depends on what you like and what you want.

The artifacts and coloring of sound that analog will give you is more prevalent and easier to find on cassette than on R2R. Hence cassette has a "more analog" sound than R2R. Again, that does not automatically make it *better*.

So if what you desire is an analog, and a *clearly* analog sound, you may not be interested in a Otari MX5050, because it will sound quite clear, transparent and noise-free, and not much different from a high-end digital system.

If however, you want something that is clear, transparent and noise-free, then you will be very happy with an Otari. Or a Sony. Or a Revox. Or well, any of the top machines.

 

[regebro]

You don't need an 8-track for that. Get a 2-track and dump your mixes on it, and you will get much of the same effect. Some tape compression (but on the total mix instead, of course) a bit if that low-end bump (although it usually gets more of it with narrower tracks, if I understand correctly).

Cheaper way of getting almost the same effect.

 

[cjacek]

Re: Re: Re: Re: 2 Track (stereo) reel to reel machine! Help me decide!!

Not better: More analog.

I know many will try to get you to think that that 'analog' and 'good' are equivalent, but they are not. They are not mutually exclusive either, as some digital fanatics will claim. What is 'good' depends on what you like and what you want.

The artifacts and coloring of sound that analog will give you is more prevalent and easier to find on cassette than on R2R. Hence cassette has a "more analog" sound than R2R. Again, that does not automatically make it *better*.

So if what you desire is an analog, and a *clearly* analog sound, you may not be interested in a Otari MX5050, because it will sound quite clear, transparent and noise-free, and not much different from a high-end digital system.

If however, you want something that is clear, transparent and noise-free, then you will be very happy with an Otari. Or a Sony. Or a Revox. Or well, any of the top machines.

Ok, I understand your point. How about that tape, whether it be cassette or r2r provides a frequency bump in the mid-high frequencies and that the sound is "different" altogether from any digital machine ? What are your thoughts on that ? I did some A/B comparisons between my cassette deck and my cd recorder and recorded direct to these, and found that although the cd result is clearer, the cassette gave my demo more "shine" in the mid-high frequencies and better overall "warmth" ? I've also heard examples of sounds from r2r, like the tascam 388, machines from other people and found the sound "different", and better to my ears than digital. So how can you say that some R2R machines are similar to top end digital machines ? The're different mediums altogether. Also, what would you call "any of the top machines" ?

Thanks,

Daniel

 

[Han]

A cassette sounds more analog than a R2R? Mmmmmm...

I have a review about the Nakamichi 582 cassette deck. It was compared with a number of consumer R to R machines like the Revox and the Tandberg TD20A, which is the best sounding consumer tapemachine.

The Nakamichi sounded as good as the Tandberg, it had only a tad more tapehiss.

Beware for machines with worn heads, don't buy them.
A 1/2" machine is still very expensive today.

Get yourself a decent Studer, Otari, Ampex or whatever, it will sound better than any consumer machine.

Quote:
"Can you hear the difference between that and a good 24/96kHz converter? Well, maybe. But the better the recorders get, the smaller the difference is."

Even a 1/4" R to R at 15 ips will have more "punch" and a nicer, more "silky" hi end, which gets better on 30 ips.

For rock you better use 15 ips

 

[cjacek]

A cassette sounds more analog than a R2R? Mmmmmm...

I have a review about the Nakamichi 582 cassette deck. It was compared with a number of consumer R to R machines like the Revox and the Tandberg TD20A, which is the best sounding consumer tapemachine.

The Nakamichi sounded as good as the Tandberg, it had only a tad more tapehiss.

Beware for machines with worn heads, don't buy them.
A 1/2" machine is still very expensive today.

Get yourself a decent Studer, Otari, Ampex or whatever, it will sound better than any consumer machine.

Quote:
"Can you hear the difference between that and a good 24/96kHz converter? Well, maybe. But the better the recorders get, the smaller the difference is."

Even a 1/4" R to R at 15 ips will have more "punch" and a nicer, more "silky" hi end, which gets better on 30 ips.

For rock you better use 15 ips

Thanks Han. What are some other names for 2 track r2r machines, that you can list, that you recommend, besides the ones above ? Also, I noticed that many r2r machines have RCA, XLR and 1/4 inch inputs ... What should I be looking for re inputs ? Also, how do I tell if heads are worn out ? Are there any photo examples of good condition heads that I can compare ?

Thanks,

Daniel

 

[Han]

Daniel

What connections a machine has is not very important. A 24 track Tascam MSR has 48 RCA in/outs because of the limited space.

More important is the condition of the machine, particularly the heads. You can find images of worn heads on Eddie Cilettie's site.
On the bottom of the page here:

http://www.tangible-technology.com/tape/baking1.html

You can find tons of info on the many forums like prosoundweb, musicplayer.com, recording.org and many more. Just do a search for analog 2 track. You can find a discussion on Fletchers board:

http://recpit.prosoundweb.com/viewtopic.php?t=5842

There's also much info at: http://www.jrfmagnetics.com/

An analog 2 track can sound wonderful, but if your budget is limited it might not be the best option, especially a good 1/2 machine in good condition is quite expensive. Tape is expensive too.

I have a Studer B67 which I've got for free from a film studio. I only had to renew the bearings and the machine sounds pretty good and is built like a tank.

As for consumer machines you could try a Revox A or B, or a PR77.
The best sounding consumer machine IMHO is the Tandberg TD20A (high speed version), but it suffers from dropouts.

Some Teac machines are pretty good too.

If you can spend some money, go for a Studer.

The best sounding machine is probably an Ampex ATR102, but that's the most expensive machine also.

Peace, Han

 

[regebro]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 2 Track (stereo) reel to reel machine! Help me decide!!

Ok, I understand your point. How about that tape, whether it be cassette or r2r provides a frequency bump in the mid-high frequencies

No such bump. There is usually one in the lower frequencies though. No, wait, thats R2R, casette typically runs at 3 3/4 ips, while R2R runs on 15 or 30 ips. That will put that bump far below anything audible for casette, maybe other bumps will appear instead, I don't know.

and that the sound is "different" altogether from any digital machine ? What are your thoughts on that ?

Well, digital sound artefacts are different from analog one. Analog tape mangles the frequency curve, compresses the sound, has noise, cross-over, wow and flutter (and in extreme situations, soft clipping)

Digital generally has none of these, but instead have non-linearity, clipping, jitter and phase problems due to the anti-alias filters and quantisation noise.

So the artifacts are different, and therefore, the sound is different. But the better the quality of the equipment you have, the less of these artifacts you'll get!

Therefore, the sound of high-quality analog will be little different from the sound of high-quality digital, since with top-of the line 24/96 converters you will have very little quantization errors, you won't have a steep filter that cuts and causes phase error, and there will be no noticeable jitter.

And the top of the line 2tr 1/2" reel to reel will have only a small bass bump, the wow and flutter will be nearly unmeasurable, the noise is well below any level you can hear when you record it at levels where you will have no tape compression, and so on.

And you will have a definite problem hearing the difference.

So how can you say that some R2R machines are similar to top end digital machines ? The're different mediums altogether.

Yes, but since 'top end' is all about removing the errors and artifacts, and getting a sound that is an exact reproduction of what you put in, the differences are smaller in the top end.

I did some A/B comparisons between my cassette deck and my cd recorder and recorded direct to these, and found that although the cd result is clearer, the cassette gave my demo more "shine" in the mid-high frequencies and better overall "warmth" ?

Yes. The warmth typically comes from bumps in the frequency spectrum, and when it comes to casette, it also simply comes from a lack of high-end. Your digital recorder might also introduce some quantizing noise, which is usually viewed as 'harsh', since it's very high-frequency and also contains overtones that will sound metallic and unnatural.

 

[Herm]

Try this.

If you have a descent Vhs Hi fi video recorder give that a shot it might be just what you are looking for and they are cheap as
heck brand new.
The tape is cheap and the quality is exellant

 

[Han]

Try this.

If you have a descent Vhs Hi fi video recorder give that a shot it might be just what you are looking for and they are cheap as
heck brand new.
The tape is cheap and the quality is exellant

How right you are! But most decks have an onboard compressor/limiter and editing is almost impossible.

Editing with analog tape is a piece of cake.

 

[cavedog101]

This is for Digital Don....sometimes for a 'project' i will record the drums on my Tascam 38...theres nothing quite like 'hitting' the tape real hard for that compression and hugeness of sound...then i'll dump it onto my harddisk and away we go...no loss of signal....try it you'll love it....
And Han, I owned a Nak 582...wonderful sounding...the only problem was recording onto it meant that the 'nak' sound was being imprinted onto your cassette...and they did not sound the same on other players.....

 

[A Reel Person]

I'd say pick up a 22-2 if you want portability,...

or a 32 if you want 10.5" long-play capability. Both of these units are half-track 2-tracks/stereo reel recorders, @7.5 & 15ips, and both will mate with a DX-2D dbx unit, but will record just fine without dbx. Both units can be found at reasonable prices.

 

[cjacek]

How right you are! But most decks have an onboard compressor/limiter and editing is almost impossible.

Editing with analog tape is a piece of cake.

Plus the highs on the vhs deck can sound like a bunch of knives! It's definitely not real analog sound.

Daniel

 

[cjacek]

Thanks very much guys for the great replies!

Daniel

 

[samuelwaylen]

width of reel to reel tape

As far as I am aware when the whole thing about tape width developed it went along the lines of the greater the width of tape,the more of the signal could be transferred via the record head.
This meant that 1/2 " was better than 1/4 " and 1" better than both.
But then the multi -track thing came in and you got all sorts of crossovers like say,1/2 " 8 - track being supplanted by 1/4" 8 track.
What guys would do would be to rig up multi jack inputs so that the one signal went into two tracks.
Presumably if you were fortunate enough to get the kind of 2" 16 track that was used in Gooseberry Studios where they had more hits than anyone else,you could simply use a battery of " Y " shaped connectors to plug in a single mike to the whole lot of them and get 16 track mono
rock and roll
sam

 

[A Reel Person]

I think we had a debate on that subject, already, over at Tascambbs,...

where the question was posed, that if you record the same signal on to all tracks of a multitrack recorder [424mkIII in this case], then would you be improving the S/N ratio of that one source [having been recorded in mono across all four tracks], over recording the one source onto only one track?

I weighed in with a "yes, because you're utilizizing the full width of the tape, less track-head-gaps, for the one recorded signal".

Other Tascambbs members said "no", with their own reasoning, [but I disagree].

CJ must remember that topic. It wasn't that long ago, and it was a topic he started. The topic also branched into a discussion of "double tracking" technique and "wall-of-sound" scenarios, which IMO were a bit off the original question, but still a worthy discussion.

Here, just above, you've witnesses an HRcom member use an example of recording one mono signal onto a 1"-16-track, [all 16-tracks recording the same mono signal simultaneously], and by this explanation, you would boost S/N ratio, over what you'd have by recording the signal onto one single track. I agree with this analysis.

On my own, I've contemplated doing a pseudo-1"-8-track recording, through the "link" function on the MSR24, which links the three banks of 8-inputs/outputs together, in threes. F/I, in this scenario, I'd record one track onto the MSR24 tracks 1, 9 & 17, simultaneously utilizing 3-tracks of the MSR24 for each recorded input, to a total of 8-source-tracks recorded onto 24-tape-tracks on 1", [in banks of 3's]. This, IMO, would end up as a pseudo-1"-8-track recording, and therefore getting a boost in S/N ratio [over a single source recorded onto a single track], having each single input source recorded onto three tape tracks.

To clarify the point, the original question [at Tascambbs] was about using the whole width of tape for one mono signal, over using just one tape track, and the question of relative boost of S/N ratio you'd get of the full-width track, as opposed to one single track. Nowhere did anyone say that you could boost the OVERALL S/N ratio of the 424mkIII by recording one mono track to 4-tape-tracks simultaneously. It's understood & agreed that the FULL S/N ratio of a 424mkIII using all 4-tracks is FIXED. The central question was about the relative S/N boost you'd get by going from ONE source recorded onto ONE tape track, vs ONE source recorded across ALL available tape tracks. In this scenario, IMO, the S/N boost would be there, given the specific framework of the question.

I've heard other members disagree with this analysis, but it seems a logical conclusion to me, although I have yet to try this out in the "lab".

 

[regebro]

You are right, you would get a slightly better S/N ratio, because if you double a signal you will get double the amplitude, but if you add two real noise sources, they will not get double the amplitude, for the simple reason that they will partly cancel themselves out.

People who are good at maths and statistics could probably figure out how much louder the noise would be, but it would surely not be twice as much.

As an example: If you start out with two white noise sources, the chance for each of the sources at one specific point in time to be above 50% of the top amplitude is 50%. When adding these together, the top amplitude will be twice as high, of course (we'll call that 200%). But the chance of the signal being over 100% will reduce to 25% (because only one quarter of the time will both sources be above 50% of their top level). This probably means (my math gets a bit shaky here) that the average noise amplitude would increase with 75% (or possibly only 50%), while the signal would increase with 100%, which would give you 1-2 db better noise per doubling of the number of tracks, which in turn means that using twelve tracks would give you some 4 to 10 db better S/N ratio than what you get from a single track on that 24 track.

And since you'll get about 6 to 8 dB better S/N ratio by using a 1/2" 2-track instead 2" 24-track, it's a much cheaper way of doing the same thing.

However, if you have too much money, check this out:
http://www.jrfmagnetics.com/index.html?JRF_mainframe=/JRF_oneinch2T.html

If you do it this way, you don't double the noise per doubled tape area, since you don't double the circuitry. You only increase the tape areas and nothing else. This will probably give you a tape area that is at least 8 times what you have per track on that 24 track, which will give you some at least 9 dBs better S/N ratio.

Now, on the other hand, if you are that anal about S/N ratio that a really good 1/4" reel to reel isn't good enough, then you either is not doing home recording, or you have mental problems.