Evolution of Analog Machines

Victory Pete

Victory Pete

Banned
I have the new Tascam book, 30 years of recording. In it it states that the first cassette portastudio had better specs and sound than the machine the Beatles used on Seargent Pepper. Could this be true? This had made me wonder then, Could my TSR-8, MSR-24 and MS-16 be far more better sounding than that same machine used on Pepper. If that is so then these last generation Tascams could be better than all the machines that recorded all my favorite bands form the late 60's and early 70's. There seems to be a lot of people who critisize these "narrow format" Tascams. I am sure they cant compete with the latest high end 2" machines, but if my studio is better or at least comparable to the gear they had way back when Floyd recorded "Dark Side Of The Moon", Then I am all set. I believe they used a 1" 16 track.
VP:D
 
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I bought that book when it first came out. A very interesting read. I guess that means some of my equipment might be better than what was available in the 60's, but I sure as hell can't play as good!:D
 
Victory Pete said:
I am sure they cant compete with the latest high end 2" machines, but if my studio is better or at least comparable to the gear they had way back when Floyd recorded "Dark Side Of The Moon", Then I am all set. I believe thay used a 1" 16 track.
VP:D
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More likely 2", I think you'll find. 1" came later and was considered a budget format.
 
Victory Pete said:
I have the new Tascam book, 30 years of recording. In it it states that the first cassette portastudio had better specs and sound than the machine the Beatles used on Seargent Pepper. Could this be true?
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No

I am sure they cant compete with the latest high end 2" machines, but if my studio is better or at least comparable to the gear they had way back when Floyd recorded "Dark Side Of The Moon", Then I am all set. I believe they used a 1" 16 track.
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It was a Studer A80 . It was originally a 1" 8 track later updated to a 2" 16 track. So it could have been the 16 track.
 
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Well I think the sonic quality might have improved over the years but I'm not sure of the durability. Your decks might be better then when they did Pepper, but the outboard gear and the knowledge and raw talent of the boys could never be outdone. Cool thread. I just hope all people can stay on the topic at hand.
 
VP, where is that statement at in the Tascam book? I've read it cover-to-cover butits been awhile and I don't recall that...I'd like to see the context.

When was Dark Side of the Moon recorded? Tascam is credited with putting the first 1 inch 16 track to market, the 90-16 and I believe it was in '79. It was indeed considered a budget format and I can't imagine Roger and the boys were on that kind of a budget...

Dodge, we should be alright staying on topic since this is an analog vs. analog discussion, not analog vs. digital. :D

Here's my 2p: my understanding is that Pepper was done (in part) using a 1 inch 4 track Ampex MR-70. I may be wrong, but of course there are people that swear there has never been a better sounding recorder. I must say I'm very fond of them. And there are others that will fall down laughing at the notion of even comparing the MR-70 with a cassette 4 track. head manufacturing technology and electronics have improved and improved, but there are laws of physics to overcome. It is also very flawed IMHO to compare spec sheet to spec sheet. Standards changed and sometimes the rating system changed so two specs can't be directly compared...audio energy is a 4 dimensional animal and thinking we can get the whole picture on a spec sheet is short-sighted. The cassette 4 track surely has better signal to noise specs particulary if you look at the spec with noise reduction...60's decks didn't show specs with noise reduction. Sure, the crosstalk, signal to noise and frequency range are similar between my Ampex MM-1000 and my Tascam 388 which has a similar track width to 4 rack cassette, but I don't think they will sound the same...NOTHING against the 388...I'm not bashing it tall and thos of you that know me here know I am a huge proponent of Tascam products particularly from the 80's, but the amplifier electronics in the MM-1000 are a totally different beast and 1 inch 8 track at 15ips has a better potential at capturing that.

EDIT--

I've been informed that it was not an Ampex MR-70 but Studer J37 1 inch 4 track throughout. Thankful to be corrected before I can't edit the post anymore...:o :)
 
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sweetbeats said:
When was Dark Side of the Moon recorded? Tascam is credited with putting the first 1 inch 16 track to market, the 90-16 and I believe it was in '79. It was indeed considered a budget format and I can't imagine Roger and the boys were on that kind of a budget...
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1972, I think. Maybe early '73. To my shame I don't have a copy of it so I can't check the liner...

EDIT:
It first charted in late March 1973.
 
MR-70 brochure here. Steve Puntilillo of Sonicraft, Inc. has a really nice refurbished/upgraded MR-70

I've heard amazing sounds come off a cassette 4-track. I really love that format. Biggest difference I hear with wide format high-speed stuff is the (get ready for the subjective touchy-feely word) air. The stereo separation and aliveness of the recording.

EDIT--

BUT, and I may get kicked for this, that "air" is not always necessary/important for all types of program material...I just know that I was really impressed after downloading the Sgt. Pepper files off the sticky on this forum...they've been copied/converted/compressed/expanded/blahblahblah and they sound like NO other digitizedmessedwith audio I've ever heard...they still sound alive and airy. You can hear the digital artifacts too...don't get me wrong, but there is IMHSO (in my humble subjective opinion) something else there.
 
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sweetbeats said:
Tascam is credited with putting the first 1 inch 16 track to market, the 90-16 and I believe it was in '79.
Click to expand...

i remember having a tascam brochure (wish book!) in march '79 and it featured the 85-16B.
whether or not it was actually available at that time, don't know.
 
Yeah, that sounds about right for the 85-16...contrary to logic the 85-16 followed the 90-16 which was short-lived.
 
Sergeant Pepper recorded using Studer not Ampex

Just correcting myself here after being graciously notified by another member...Studer J37 1 inch 4 tracks were used to track Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, not Ampex MR-70 as I supposed above. Happy to be corrected and hopefully my edit above as well as this post avoids me starting any kind of path of misinformation small or big.

I still dig the MR-70...:D
 
I bought the tascam book too and loved it. The other book i think you guys would love if you don't already have it was the massive Recording the Beatles that went through all the equipment and recorders and mixers the Beatles used.

I think you can get decent sounds on some of the tascam recorders, but it all depends in the signal chain. The Beatles had amazing preamps, compressors like the Fairchild and U-47 Neumann tube mics and consoles, and amazing talent. All that affects the final sound on tape also. But i think with the exception on Noise reduction the Studer had a luxurious 1/4 inch per track on the 1 inch, and the cassette portastudio has a tiny amount per track.
 
The technology that we possess in our Tascam machines is definitely more advanced than what the Beatles used, if only because it was designed and manufactured at a later date.

Whether our equipment is "Better" is debatable, and I think that it's strictly a matter of taste at that point.
 
sweetbeats said:
VP, where is that statement at in the Tascam book? I've read it cover-to-cover butits been awhile and I don't recall that...I'd like to see the context.

When was Dark Side of the Moon recorded? Tascam is credited with putting the first 1 inch 16 track to market, the 90-16 and I believe it was in '79. It was indeed considered a budget format and I can't imagine Roger and the boys were on that kind of a budget...

Dodge, we should be alright staying on topic since this is an analog vs. analog discussion, not analog vs. digital. :D

Here's my 2p: my understanding is that Pepper was done (in part) using a 1 inch 4 track Ampex MR-70. I may be wrong, but of course there are people that swear there has never been a better sounding recorder. I must say I'm very fond of them. And there are others that will fall down laughing at the notion of even comparing the MR-70 with a cassette 4 track. head manufacturing technology and electronics have improved and improved, but there are laws of physics to overcome. It is also very flawed IMHO to compare spec sheet to spec sheet. Standards changed and sometimes the rating system changed so two specs can't be directly compared...audio energy is a 4 dimensional animal and thinking we can get the whole picture on a spec sheet is short-sighted. The cassette 4 track surely has better signal to noise specs particulary if you look at the spec with noise reduction...60's decks didn't show specs with noise reduction. Sure, the crosstalk, signal to noise and frequency range are similar between my Ampex MM-1000 and my Tascam 388 which has a similar track width to 4 rack cassette, but I don't think they will sound the same...NOTHING against the 388...I'm not bashing it tall and thos of you that know me here know I am a huge proponent of Tascam products particularly from the 80's, but the amplifier electronics in the MM-1000 are a totally different beast and 1 inch 8 track at 15ips has a better potential at capturing that.

EDIT--

I've been informed that it was not an Ampex MR-70 but Studer J37 1 inch 4 track throughout. Thankful to be corrected before I can't edit the post anymore...:o :)
Click to expand...

I just looked through it also, cant find that quote. I know I read that somewhere. It was somebody from Tascam who made the comparison. I googled it to no avail. I remember printing up a Tascam timeline story, I bet it was in that. I will have to find it.
VP
 
Maybe it's about as sophisticated as what Moby Grape, or the Blues Project recorded on as opposed to the Beatles or Jefferson Airplane. :-) But then again, they also had all those less *sophisticated* but at this point in time excrutiatingly expensive outboard gear like the aforementioned Fairchild. However, get yerself over to prodigy-pro DIY, and there are all sorts of projects like that for a lot less (but still a lot) of money.
 
sweetbeats said:
Just correcting myself here after being graciously notified by another member...Studer J37 1 inch 4 tracks were used to track Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, not Ampex MR-70 as I supposed above. Happy to be corrected and hopefully my edit above as well as this post avoids me starting any kind of path of misinformation small or big.

I still dig the MR-70...:D
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Yeah... at least they had VU meters! I'd probably still rather have a Stephens 8 or 16 track. In fact I know I would, having owned a J37 and having entirely failed to get it to pull tape properly. At least I know that Fred Hill is also having some challenges with fixing up that same machine.

Cheers,

Otto
 
lo.fi.love said:
The technology that we possess in our Tascam machines is definitely more advanced than what the Beatles used, if only because it was designed and manufactured at a later date.

Whether our equipment is "Better" is debatable, and I think that it's strictly a matter of taste at that point.
Click to expand...

I would say it's more than a matter of taste, it's a matter of the purposes and applications for which the units were designed, which are quite different.

Admittedly, the Tascam equipment is later in time and has some newer features, but in general it was also designed for different purposes and is not designed to the same specifications, such as field serviceability (audio cards just slide in and out, separate functions on separate cards, etc.) and pro studio input and output signal levels and they generally can't support the same record levels on the tape. They also don't provide the same signal to noise performance as the J37's wide tracks.

I don't recall the flutter spec on the J37, but I believe the flutter spec on my 3M M-23 from around 1965 is actually better than any Teac or Tascam recorder ever made. It is slightly better than the spec for my Otari 8 track (made at least 20 years later) and even the MX-70.

Cheers,

Otto
 
Good points Otto.

The Studer J37 was apparently used externsively in Europe for recording, including much classical recording.

Speaking of serviceability, any good pro machine was easy to align on a daily basis. The Portastudios were admittedly made down to a price for a different application.

You could get a good result with a Portastudio if everything was set up right but they werent designed to make setting up easy.

Just to adjust for flat record/play response (which became critical if you also used Dolby or dbx) you had to disassemble the machine into top and bottom halves and then try and tweak the trim pots which were really inaccessible because there sometimes wasnt enough spare cabling to properly separate the top and bottom halves from each other.
On top of that they were only 2 head machines which made it agonisingly slow. You had to make little test recordings and then go back and replay them again and again, all by trial and error. And with up to 8 tracks to do, a nightmare. In fact any 2 head machine was much harder to align for that reason.
I saw many Portastudios on my bench, many of them quite old, and clearly most had never had an alignment since new. No wonder the owners switched off the powerful NR and learned to live with the hiss. With NR switched in, in that state, they sounded like crap.

I think some of the earlier advertising which said cassettes could now rival or equal reel to reel for sound quality were at best misleading. They werent comparing apples with apples. Of course a cassette with Noise Reduction could rival the s/n of a reel to reel without Noise Reduction but Noise reduction was available on reel to reel too and so the reel to reel's faster tape speeds and wider tracks would always be ahead of cassette on a level playing field.

BTW I think Sgt Pepper was an early recording to use the then new Dolby A. So on top of 1/4" wide tape for each track segment, you had another 10db noise reduction (full frequency) on top of that. No wonder that album and many other commercial recordings of that time sounded pretty quiet.

For all the great convenience of cassette, which meant countless recordings were made on them (and as a bonus, cassette tape generally seems to have come through with a lot less sticky shed problems than reel to reel) they often required almost an obsessive (professional?) level of attention to servicing detail to get them to sound their best.

Cheers Tim
 
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