Total Bullsh*t eBay Item: Beware

B

Beck

Guest
One of the most misleading and inaccurate loads of crap I've ever seen. Clearly an opportunist hoping to take advantage of the many newcomers to analog, or a noob himself.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280322938802

Seller ID: jmerghart

From the listing:

Ampex, Studer, 3M, Tascam, Fostex, MCI, Quantegy
Alignment Tones on CD

All essential alignment tones conveniently on CD. Use this instead of expensive alignment tape! This auction is for an alternative to expensive and less than accurate alignment tape. The CD includes 5 minutes of each of the following tones: Just run these tones directly from your CD player at line level into your machine, monitor repro, and adjust your machine accordingly. The idea here is that you want your machine to conform to "reality standards" so that what's coming into the machine is coming out when you record and playback.

This method is a bit unconventional but it works as well as traditional old expensive alignment tape! Also included are specific instructions for the newcomer to the world of tape. 1khz at 0vu or -16 db 10khz at 0vu or -16 db 100hz at 0vu or -16 db These tones are a good alternative to the NAB EQ standard because we are now in the digital age, and you are BETTER OFF tuning your machine so that the frequency response is as FLAT as possible! Record these on the beginning of every session and master you send out so your mixing or mastering engineer can calibrate their machine to your specs. Tones are tones so don't believe the hype!
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He's actually sold a few of these... very sad for the buyers trying to figure all this out.

I see more and more of this nonsense on eBay. Be careful out there. ;)
 
Beck said:
One of the most misleading and inaccurate loads of crap I've ever seen. Clearly an opportunist hoping to take advantage of the many newcomers to analog, or a noob himself.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280322938802

Seller ID: jmerghart

From the listing:



He's actually sold a few of these... very sad for the buyers trying to figure all this out.

I see more and more of this nonsense on eBay. Be careful out there. ;)
Click to expand...

I'm one of the R2R noobs that could be fooled with something like this, so would you mind explaining why he's full of it? Thanks! :)
 
Beck said:
One of the most misleading and inaccurate loads of crap I've ever seen. Clearly an opportunist hoping to take advantage of the many newcomers to analog, or a noob himself.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280322938802

Seller ID: jmerghart

From the listing:



He's actually sold a few of these... very sad for the buyers trying to figure all this out.

I see more and more of this nonsense on eBay. Be careful out there. ;)
Click to expand...

So, now how to get it on tape. :D:rolleyes:


On another note , have you seen the price of MRL tapes lately? They've gone through the roof.

Or were they always that much? I don't remember paying that much. :confused:
 
I am out of my element, here, too.

Am I to understand that alignment tones are only useful if they are recorded on an "alignment tape" that one runs through the R2R, for the purpose of aligning the components of the R2R?
 
stevieb said:
I am out of my element, here, too.

Am I to understand that alignment tones are only useful if they are recorded on an "alignment tape" that one runs through the R2R, for the purpose of aligning the components of the R2R?
Click to expand...

Yes, to align the deck you need to start from the inside out. The tape needs to be made first on a deck that is up to spec for the specified configurations.
 
Right.

There's kind of two main chunks to aligning the electronics on an r2r...three actually:

  1. input electronics
  2. repro electronics
  3. bias

What the maddening fool is selling on eBay will actually work for #1; making sure that what goes into the deck is what comes out of the deck when monitoring the input. This step has nothing to do with the record electronics or in other words its got nothing to do with printing to tape at all. You would be using the CD in place of a software-based tone generator or a hardware tone generator, also called an oscillator. In the case of the CD you would put it in your CD player, reproduce the tone you want, set the level of the CD player output with a suitable test meter, then plug that CD player output into the input(s) on your deck and then set the meters and input levels for each channel of your deck with your test meter connected to the respective output(s) of the deck, again with the deck set to monitor the input. The transport isn't moving for this part. You're just making sure that '0' going in is '0' going out and the meters on the deck reflect that same reference.

So once you are done with that you know that what comes out of your mixer is basically what will hit the tape level-wise; a known reference level that is consistent across all tracks, and that the meters on your mixer will match up with the meters on the deck.

Now for step #2, you can't cram that CD onto the the reel table of your r2r or try to thread it through the tape path in order to reproduce those test tones on your r2r to align the reproduce amps and such. Try it. I dare ya...and video it and put it up on youtube while yer at it.

And not only that, but we don't even know what the reference level for those tones are on the CD! You might be trying to calibrate to '0', and the tones on the CD might have been recorded at -10 or whatever...so not only can you not reproduce the @*%*! CD on your r2r, but even if you could, unless you absolutely know the reference level of the tones it tells you nothing about where to set the reproduce levels on your r2r...at least they would all be consistently off.

Am I making sense? In order to get the reproduce amplifiers dialed in to the reference level you want the deck to reproduce (which should be the same reference you used to calibrate the input side), you have to have a source that can be reproduced on the deck and that was recorded at a known reference level so that if you are trying to align the deck to '0' you know how to read the level of tones reproduced on the test tape and relate it to the level to which you are aligning the deck.

I hope that makes sense.

Kudos to Beck for flagging this.

There ought to be a sticky at the top of the forum about pitfalls for newbies to avoid. Put demag units that are billed as being for open-reel decks but can barely degauss a cassette deck in there too and a big link to Beck's sticky tape "sticky" in with it.

This is a huge misrepresentation and extremely unethical of that eBay seller. :mad:
 
Sweet! You are wasting your time, man.
The whole thing is an ugly joke.
Get - :D or get :mad: ...
 

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famous beagle said:
...why he's full of it?
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Without even going into explanations about what Tape Recorders aligment procedure(s) are and what Test/Aligment tapes are and what they are for, here's why he's full of it:
Sipmly put he misrepresents a "product". No more no less.
His "product" is a collection of audio files of sine waves of certain frequencies in CD-Audio format. That's all it is.
Mentioning of The "level" there is irrelevant, as the actuall level of the output will be actually "specified" by the CD-Playback Device's output.
This "product" has no relationship of any kind with Analog Tape Recorder Test/Aligment Tape. Non what so ever.

Also, If you need such CD for what ever reason, you can create one yourself with a simple audio editing software with a few clicks of a mouse.
 
Hey ZEE, I only mentioned the level because yes you can attenuate or boost the tones when playing them back from your CD player, but (and I know you are well aware of this...it wasn't for you...no offense...hehe) it needs to be at a known level for the test tape...kind of a joke.

Beagle, nWb/m stands for nanowebers per meter. It is a relative measure of magnetic flux or energy.
 
sweetbeats said:
Hey ZEE, I only mentioned the level because ....
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When I said "Mentioning of The "level" there is irrelevant" I was refering to "product" description: "1khz at 0vu or -16 db ...etc".
It's irrelevant, and that's just the way it is ..heh heh,
and here's how it was done (see pic):
:p :D :p
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To me the question is: "Is the seller aware of the fact that he misrepresents his "product"? Chances are he has no idea.
Also, looks like the "items" are gone. Did someone kindly informed him about "reality standrads" or something? :D
Or maybe feedback "Tones are well-recorded..." triggered a sense of shame in his poor soul? :D
 
Dr ZEE said:
This "product" has no relationship of any kind with Analog Tape Recorder Test/Aligment Tape. Non what so ever.
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Thus the virtual tape deck.:p

!BOu!R7QBGk~$(KGrHgoH-EEEjlLlyOEvBJwDucwlDw~~_1.JPG
 
SteveM said:
Thus the virtual tape deck.:p

!BOu!R7QBGk~$(KGrHgoH-EEEjlLlyOEvBJwDucwlDw~~_1.JPG
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heh heh
But you may consider this "product" if you are an owner and a "power-user" of Reel Tape Suite :p
uh, too bad, that The "product" is no longer available.
************

Damn, I just can't get enough of reading this over and over again: "Digidesign brings the unmistakable warmth and punch of analog tape into the digital domain..." :rolleyes:
 
Dr ZEE said:
heh heh
But you may consider this "product" if you are an owner and a "power-user" of Reel Tape Suite :p
uh, too bad, that The "product" is no longer available.
************

Damn, I just can't get enough of reading this over and over again: "Digidesign brings the unmistakable warmth and punch of analog tape into the digital domain..." :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

And there is basically no ethical difference between the eBay seller of the CD's and Digidesign with their tape tricks. Niether can be done... both are a lie. So Digidesign says to themsleves, "we can’t fix digital with digital. We can’t hold a candle to the sound of real tape... but... we can tell people we can and most will believe it." ;)
 
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