Hi there,
I'd like to start this by saying thank you in advance for reading this post and any advice you can give. The knowledge everybody shares on this forum helps a lot of people figure these things out. For my part, much of what little I know about analogue recording has come from reading these threads.
Actually the questions below come from an email I recently sent to MRL tapes. I just had the afterthought though that it's a big chunk of text and that they are probably pretty busy over there, and also there are a few questions in here that go a bit outside the scope of appropriate calibration tape selection. Anyway any advice anyone could offer me would be much appreciated, as I'm in spite of my reading having a hard time understanding some of these calibration issues.
Recently I bit the bullet and purchased a Fostex G16s 1/2" open reel tape recorder. I am trying to embark on my first ever attempts to align this tape recorder, as well as an old TEAC 3440s which I acquired some time ago but which I think has not been aligned for many years. Realizing also as I have been reading about magnetic tape recording over the past few months that I will need to also bite the bullet and purchase test tapes to do this.
For the Fostex G16s I recently received some old AGFA PEM-468 tape in good condition. Actually I also acquired two reels of Scotch 206 tape, but as I understand it these tapes have a different bias and so would require a different calibration for the tape recorder. I would like to calibrate the G16s for the AGFA 468 tape, but I'd be happy if I'd be able to use the same MRL tape to calibrate the machine for either tape (AGFA or Scotch 206). Not entirely sure if this is possible but perhaps? The other issue I am trying to understand is that, when I first got the G16s, I tested it with some Ampex 456 tape and that recorded nicely at a high signal-to-noise level. However, when I tried with either the Scotch 206, or the AGFA PEM-468, I found that the tape hardly recorded at all, except very quietly with the AGFA tape when I sent in a very loud peaking signal from my mixer. I was not so surprised for the Scotch tape, but with the AGFA tape I was surprised because I had understood the 468 formulation is roughly bias equivalent to ampex456/RMG911. I am supposing this is a calibration issue of some kind, but would anyone be able to confirm that this makes sense, and that proper playback/record calibration for the 468 tape should optimize the machine for recording on this tape? Any explanations of the quiet recording phenomenon would help me a lot as well.
The second thing is, I would like to try to calibrate my 1/4" TEAC 3440s recorder for 15 ips recording. I am not as sure about which tape I'd like to use the most for this recorder, although I do have a number of old, apparently unused reels of Ampex 641 tape that I got inexpensively before I understood anything much about open reel recording and tape formulations. I now know that this is lower-grade tape, but I'd still be happy if I could figure how to calibrate my machine for it to get an optimal signal/noise ratio. Principally though I guess I'd like to calibrate the 3440s for newer tape, ampex 456/468/rmg911/468 or whatever might be a good formulation for this machine. I was hoping for some help selecting an appropriate MRL tape for this recorder as well, and that it might be possible to use one test tape to calibrate both for the older 641 tape and newer tape as well.
OK those are my main questions, and any advice anyone could give would be much appreciated. I guess when it comes to purchasing test tapes, I would be happy to be spend as little as possible, but obviously it makes sense to get versatile and reliable tapes, so for sure I understand there's a cost to match that.
Finally I had one last not directly related issue which I thought it might be worth asking here. The Fostex machine (which is 16-track), has three tracks which constantly read peak level readings on the LED level meters from the time the machine is powered on. When I was using the Ampex 456 tape to test recording, it was possible to record on these tracks, but the signal was very quiet and there was a lot of noise, in comparison to the other 13 tracks. Also, the tracks immediately adjacent to these three tracks seemed to be recording/playing back more quietly than the more distant tracks. I'm wondering if it might be possible to fix/improve this problem with calibration, or if this is more likely to be an underlying issue of electronics that would require replacement parts rather than adjustment of potentiometers. Anyway, any insights you have here would also be appreciated.
OK I think that's it for now. Thanks in advance for your help and for reading this long email.
All the best from Canada,
Nigel
I'd like to start this by saying thank you in advance for reading this post and any advice you can give. The knowledge everybody shares on this forum helps a lot of people figure these things out. For my part, much of what little I know about analogue recording has come from reading these threads.
Actually the questions below come from an email I recently sent to MRL tapes. I just had the afterthought though that it's a big chunk of text and that they are probably pretty busy over there, and also there are a few questions in here that go a bit outside the scope of appropriate calibration tape selection. Anyway any advice anyone could offer me would be much appreciated, as I'm in spite of my reading having a hard time understanding some of these calibration issues.
Recently I bit the bullet and purchased a Fostex G16s 1/2" open reel tape recorder. I am trying to embark on my first ever attempts to align this tape recorder, as well as an old TEAC 3440s which I acquired some time ago but which I think has not been aligned for many years. Realizing also as I have been reading about magnetic tape recording over the past few months that I will need to also bite the bullet and purchase test tapes to do this.
For the Fostex G16s I recently received some old AGFA PEM-468 tape in good condition. Actually I also acquired two reels of Scotch 206 tape, but as I understand it these tapes have a different bias and so would require a different calibration for the tape recorder. I would like to calibrate the G16s for the AGFA 468 tape, but I'd be happy if I'd be able to use the same MRL tape to calibrate the machine for either tape (AGFA or Scotch 206). Not entirely sure if this is possible but perhaps? The other issue I am trying to understand is that, when I first got the G16s, I tested it with some Ampex 456 tape and that recorded nicely at a high signal-to-noise level. However, when I tried with either the Scotch 206, or the AGFA PEM-468, I found that the tape hardly recorded at all, except very quietly with the AGFA tape when I sent in a very loud peaking signal from my mixer. I was not so surprised for the Scotch tape, but with the AGFA tape I was surprised because I had understood the 468 formulation is roughly bias equivalent to ampex456/RMG911. I am supposing this is a calibration issue of some kind, but would anyone be able to confirm that this makes sense, and that proper playback/record calibration for the 468 tape should optimize the machine for recording on this tape? Any explanations of the quiet recording phenomenon would help me a lot as well.
The second thing is, I would like to try to calibrate my 1/4" TEAC 3440s recorder for 15 ips recording. I am not as sure about which tape I'd like to use the most for this recorder, although I do have a number of old, apparently unused reels of Ampex 641 tape that I got inexpensively before I understood anything much about open reel recording and tape formulations. I now know that this is lower-grade tape, but I'd still be happy if I could figure how to calibrate my machine for it to get an optimal signal/noise ratio. Principally though I guess I'd like to calibrate the 3440s for newer tape, ampex 456/468/rmg911/468 or whatever might be a good formulation for this machine. I was hoping for some help selecting an appropriate MRL tape for this recorder as well, and that it might be possible to use one test tape to calibrate both for the older 641 tape and newer tape as well.
OK those are my main questions, and any advice anyone could give would be much appreciated. I guess when it comes to purchasing test tapes, I would be happy to be spend as little as possible, but obviously it makes sense to get versatile and reliable tapes, so for sure I understand there's a cost to match that.
Finally I had one last not directly related issue which I thought it might be worth asking here. The Fostex machine (which is 16-track), has three tracks which constantly read peak level readings on the LED level meters from the time the machine is powered on. When I was using the Ampex 456 tape to test recording, it was possible to record on these tracks, but the signal was very quiet and there was a lot of noise, in comparison to the other 13 tracks. Also, the tracks immediately adjacent to these three tracks seemed to be recording/playing back more quietly than the more distant tracks. I'm wondering if it might be possible to fix/improve this problem with calibration, or if this is more likely to be an underlying issue of electronics that would require replacement parts rather than adjustment of potentiometers. Anyway, any insights you have here would also be appreciated.
OK I think that's it for now. Thanks in advance for your help and for reading this long email.
All the best from Canada,
Nigel
