'new' teac a2340R

[MCI2424]

Nop.
Here is why:
1. I have no clue which analog tape deck you are asking about.
2. I have no clue what info you are asking for about an analog tape deck you are not naming.
3. I don't share. I do give away though.

/later
***************

Posted on Friday, August 23, 2002 - 12:52 am:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sam, i can't get anywhere with the link you've posted, it maybe tempor.server out or wrong link????
But I think I know the machine you are talking about, I don't mean I had it or ever worked with, just from other people experience and reviews. The machine is ok (I mean was ).
When shoppin' for reel2reel tape muti-track you can generally think this way - from bottom to top:
fostex > tascam > otari > studer.
at least half-inch (1/2") tape... it's like wider tape-better.
I think the most popular and most relyable machine and not crazy expansive for home-studio is Tascam-TSR-8 (it's 8 track) - a nice machine.
Those dish-washer size studio-recorders are great sure, but man, they are no cheap, plus you may have to do work to keep it running, you even may end-up fixing things and ordering expansive parts in addition to regular maintains (which isn't that easy by your-self, or if you do it in pro-shop it'll cost you again - ), and tape isn't cheap.... really allots of things to think twice here.
In my mind if you are planing to do your own dubs - get yourself either digital multi-track stand-alone type of machine or put together computer-based multy-track recording (you bassically need a large hard-drive, fair amount of RAM (even 32MB of ram will do , if just for recording/playback without real time dsp effects, for example I can record and play back with no problem on my old old old computer, with W95, CakwalkProAudio-Version6.0 (old), 120-pentium-processor (heh heh heh - laughable for nowdays) and guuess what? - only 16MB of RAM!!!! - record and playback 8-tracks - no problem, I think I can do even more tracks if I needed, I just happend to get myself two AKAI-DR4s digital recorders for multitrack recordings, even before I've got computer for music-production)
And you need to get yourself a multy analog in/out sound-card with in/out box .. they are not expansive nowdays, allots to choose from.
And then later if you really wish to spend more money and get some vintage recorders - then go for it, and add it to your studio.
Well, this is just my thoughts,

keep posting, how is going,

later,
respects,
/Mike Zee

Good you like those digital machines!

I see you like the pro tape machines too. I agree, they are great and tape is expensive!

 

[Dr ZEE]

Good you like those digital machines!

"those"? what "those"? Akai dr4s?
I liked them ten or so years ago and still do. They are cool as hell. They also suck in many respects. So?

I see you like the pro tape machines too.

Yes I do.

I agree, they are great

OK.

tape is expensive!

yes it is.
************
Now, MCI, I have a question for you:
So, after you successfully bypass all the channel line input amplifiers on your good mixer so to avoid coloration and get that pure "sound" of your great preamps on 2" tape, then how do you mixdown? Do you use your good mixer to do so? Do you bypass again all the line input amplifiers of your good mixer to avoid that nasty coloration? Do you use chanel inserts again instead of channel line inputs?
Or do you mixdown at all? If you don't, then how all the other pros in the all the studios that you've visited do this?

/later

 

[_DK]

from bottom to top:
fostex > tascam > otari > studer.

I wouldn't say that Tascam is better than Fostex.

 

[MCI2424]

"those"? what "those"? Akai dr4s?
I liked them ten or so years ago and still do. They are cool as hell. They also suck in many respects. So?

Yes I do.

OK.

yes it is.
************
Now, MCI, I have a question for you:
So, after you successfully bypass all the channel line input amplifiers on your good mixer so to avoid coloration and get that pure "sound" of your great preamps on 2" tape, then how do you mixdown? Do you use your good mixer to do so? Do you bypass again all the line input amplifiers of your good mixer to avoid that nasty coloration? Do you use chanel inserts again instead of channel line inputs?
Or do you mixdown at all? If you don't, then how all the other pros in the all the studios that you've visited do this?

/later

I mix like everyone else on planet earth. I use a mixing console.

I use channel inserts if I have to record live, for instance. My studio has balanced patchbays that I plug my Avalons, Great Rivers, Joe Meek and other pre-amps directly into the recorder. Compression and other effects come in the mixing stage where I have four racks of various devices. Some balanced, others not.

Did you know that some of the most sought after vintage equipment was never balanced?

In mixdown. I might use stem mixes as they can be useful sometimes as well as parallel compression. Hell. sometimes I compress the 2 buss. Depends on what I am looking for.

Sometimes I record to my 24 track Fostex D2424LV or my MCI 2" 24track balanced input/output machine (if people want to shell out the $$$ for tape).

Sometimes my 2 Fostex E-16s linked for 30 tracks does the trick.

Depends on the moment.

Of coarse, all recordings use my neumanns, coles, royers and other tube mics for a great sound.
Anything else you want to know?

 

[Dr ZEE]

Anything else you want to know?

Nothing of what you've just spewed out I wanted to know. What I wanted to know I've asked about, which would clear up "confusions" that you've spread around by posting the folowing:

Unless you can bypass the mic pre/line pre then any external pre-amp will be useless as the stock pre-amp will always be in line. All good mixing boards have the channel inserts for this reason (as well as effects send/return)


Connecting a good mic-pre-amp to a line/mic pre-amp channel is the #1 reason people end up thinking that an expensive pre-amp sound like the channel pre-amp.

Well, if you don't have a insert then they will sound the same.

Line inputs have pre-amps because they are amplifiers before the output (boost the signal as any amplifier does)....
...All op amps and transitors are amplifiers...
...Passing a signal through an amplifier will amplify (add gain)....

Good mixers have un-balanced inserts for effects send/returns and are totally convienent for bypassing the stock pre-amps. For many tracks, this is a viable alternative.

Every studio I have ever been in uses a patchbay directly to the recorder or insert return for external pre-amps.

OK, so, I'll try again:
"...after you successfully bypass (or say, avoid one way or the other) all the channel line input amplifiers on your good mixer so to avoid coloration and get that pure "sound" of your great preamps on 2" tape, then how do you mixdown? Do you use your good mixer to do so? Do you bypass again all the line input amplifiers of your good mixer to avoid that nasty coloration? Do you use chanel inserts again instead of channel line inputs?
....how all the other pros in the all the studios that you've visited do this?"
***********

 

[MCI2424]

Nothing of what you've just spewed out I wanted to know. What I wanted to know I've asked about, which would clear up "confusions" that you've spread around by posting the folowing:





OK, so, I'll try again:
"...after you successfully bypass (or say, avoid one way or the other) all the channel line input amplifiers on your good mixer so to avoid coloration and get that pure "sound" of your great preamps on 2" tape, then how do you mixdown? Do you use your good mixer to do so? Do you bypass again all the line input amplifiers of your good mixer to avoid that nasty coloration? Do you use chanel inserts again instead of channel line inputs?
....how all the other pros in the all the studios that you've visited do this?"
***********

I mix like everyone else in any studio. The tape deck goes to the mixing board and you mix the tracks down to a 2 track bus.

What is it you are trying to say?

I really can't understand your "colorful" language here.

What does mixing down have anything to do with connecting a great pre-amp into a recorder's inputs?
The two are totally different processes.

Perhaps you should mosey on over to the mixing forum where the good people can give you good advice?

You can just click that mouse and go there!

Good luck and let us know if YOU can bypass the mixing console on mixdown.

I for ONE would LOVE to sell my console and use the money for other things.

Please provide some advice for us here.

Thanks
Bye.

 

[Dr ZEE]

What does mixing down have anything to do with connecting a great pre-amp into a recorder's inputs.

Nothing. (that would be the answer, if the question was: "What does mixing down have to do with connecting a great pre-amp into a recorder's inputs ?"
No. (that would be the answer if the question was: "Does mixing down have anything to do with connecting a great pre-amp into a recorder's inputs?")
(and it's "with", - "not "into")

I mix like everyone else in any studio. The tape deck goes to the mixing board and you mix the tracks down to a 2 track bus.

Which jacks specifically? Line inputs or inserts?
I would imagine you use inserts. Because if you use line input jacks of the channels of your good mixer, then, according to your "understanding" (and "understanding of other pros, the studios of whose you've ever been in),
here's what happens:
So if the signal output from a "great preamp" passes through the line input amp of the mixer's channel it becomes the same (say, the same bad, or colorized by mixer's line input amp), so it becomes "the same bad". Right? OK.
BUT! if you bypass that "bad line input amp" (using inserts) or simply record directly from "great preamp's" oututs to recorder's inputs then you get your great and pure signal from your great preamp recorded to your great recorder. So then you've got it right, - No mixer's line input amp coloration was "applied" that is. Right? OK.
So then you mix down. So you take the signal from your great recorder that greatly captured the great and pure signal from you great preamp and pass it through line input amp of your mixer, and thus the signal gets the coloration of the line input amp. So it is now the "same bad". Right?
So to avoid such disaster, I'd imagine you would use insert jacks instead of line input jacks of your good mixer. Right? Or wrong? Or what?

/later
**********
p.s. 1.

I really can't understand...

Stick around. Understanding takes time and persistence. Or have I said it already?
**********
p.s. 2.

...Passing a signal through an amplifier will amplify (add gain)....

"Amplifying" and "adding gain" are not synonymous words.
Amplifying means to make "it" stronger, or simply more of "something" (of what ever is being amplified)
Adding gain means increasing amplification, which is a form of changing an amplifier's performance, which technically means changing the amplifier's circuit configuration, or changing (adjusting) value(s) of componetnt(s) of an amplifier's circuit or both.

Gain can not be "added" as a consequence of the amplification.
Gain is a property of an amplifier which charaterizes the amplification of that specific amplifier.

When a user adjusts "gain knob" of an amplifier, the user does not add/deduct gain to/from the signal, but he/she adjusts amplifier's component's values and consequentially changes the gain of the amplifier which changes the amplification level of the signal that "passes through" the amplifier.

Gain of 1, practically means "no amplification", ...
and IDEALLY (but, of course) the signals at the input and at the output of that amplifier would be the same, and practically would be just as the same as are the signals at the input of that amplifier and at the other end of a "bypass jumper", that is connected to the input of that amplifier.

p.s. 3.
I am NOT being unfairly picky. I am working on making the facts straight here.

 

[MCI2424]

Nothing. (that would be the answer, if the question was: "What does mixing down have to do with connecting a great pre-amp into a recorder's inputs ?"
No. (that would be the answer if the question was: "Does mixing down have anything to do with connecting a great pre-amp into a recorder's inputs?")
(and it's "with", - "not "into")

Which jacks specifically? Line inputs or inserts?
I would imagine you use inserts. Because if you use line input jacks of the channels of your good mixer, then, according to your "understanding" (and "understanding of other pros, the studios of whose you've ever been in),
here's what happens:
So if the signal output from a "great preamp" passes through the line input amp of the mixer's channel it becomes the same (say, the same bad, or colorized by mixer's line input amp), so it becomes "the same bad". Right? OK.
BUT! if you bypass that "bad line input amp" (using inserts) or simply record directly from "great preamp's" oututs to recorder's inputs then you get your great and pure signal from your great preamp recorded to your great recorder. So then you've got it right, - No mixer's line input amp coloration was "applied" that is. Right? OK.
So then you mix down. So you take the signal from your great recorder that greatly captured the great and pure signal from you great preamp and pass it through line input amp of your mixer, and thus the signal gets the coloration of the line input amp. So it is now the "same bad". Right?
So to avoid such disaster, I'd imagine you would use insert jacks instead of line input jacks of your good mixer. Right? Or wrong? Or what?

/later
**********
p.s. 1.

Stick around. Understanding takes time and persistence. Or have I said it already?
**********
p.s. 2.

"Amplifying" and "adding gain" are not synonymous words.
Amplifying means to make "it" stronger, or simply more of "something" (of what ever is being amplified)
Adding gain means increasing amplification, which is a form of changing an amplifier's performance, which technically means changing the amplifier's circuit configuration, or changing (adjusting) value(s) of componetnt(s) of an amplifier's circuit or both.

Gain can not be "added" as a consequence of the amplification.
Gain is a property of an amplifier which charaterizes the amplification of that specific amplifier.

When a user adjusts "gain knob" of an amplifier, the user does not add/deduct gain to/from the signal, but he/she adjusts amplifier's component's values and consequentially changes the gain of the amplifier which changes the amplification level of the signal that "passes through" the amplifier.

Gain of 1, practically means "no amplification", ...
and IDEALLY (but, of course) the signals at the input and at the output of that amplifier would be the same, and practically would be just as the same as are the signals at the input of that amplifier and at the other end of a "bypass jumper", that is connected to the input of that amplifier.

p.s. 3.
I am NOT being unfairly picky. I am working on making the facts straight here.

Holy Shit. Thanks for the reply! I shall alter my understanding accordingly.

Great Post!

I FINALLY see what you are saying.

 

[Dr ZEE]

I FINALLY see what you are saying.

So which jacks of your good mixer (the manual of which you've recently looked into), do you use when mixing down? Channels' Line Inputs or Channels' Inserts or what?
I wonder if "The Manual", that you've recently looked into, has also references to using the insert return(s) for mixing down to keep purity and integrity of the recorded material intact, especially in the cases if great 'external' pre-amps were used during the recording.
Of course, if the great recorder that was used for recordign is stuffed with Whapping 24 balanced outputs (and that is what great recorders are stuffed with), then you'd have to deal with that "ugly" situation again, but, hell, this is no big deal: for a Real Pro!? - it's a piece of cake

 

[MCI2424]

So which jacks of your good mixer (the manual of which you've recently looked into), do you use when mixing down? Channels' Line Inputs or Channels' Inserts or what?
I wonder if "The Manual", that you've recently looked into, has also references to using the insert return(s) for mixing down to keep purity and integrity of the recorded material intact, especially in the cases if great 'external' pre-amps were used during the recording.
Of course, if the great recorder that was used for recordign is stuffed with Whapping 24 balanced outputs (and that is what great recorders are stuffed with), then you'd have to deal with that "ugly" situation again, but, hell, this is no big deal: for a Real Pro!? - it's a piece of cake

Iuse tape returns which have the "good" balanced inputs from my balanced outputs on my MCI and D2424LV. My Fostex E-16s have the "bad" unbalanced ins and outs. I had to design and build an unbalaced to balanced in/out interface to couteract that "bad" unbalanced condition.

(Even though virtually *ALL* equipment is unbalanced internally).

It is so sad I had to buy good equipment, I will try in the future to buy the cheap crap that you use so we can be on the same page.

Great post BTW. I learned alot!

 

[Dr ZEE]

Iuse tape returns which have the "good" balanced inputs

two questions:
1.What exactly is your good mixer? I'd like to check what exactly tape returns' "good balanced inputs" of your good mixer are made of.
2. Do you ever use chanel's line inputs of your good mixer. If so, then what for? Couple examples?
***************
P.S.

I will try in the future to buy the cheap crap that you use so we can be on the same page.

Sorry, buddy, It ain't gonna work. You can't buy your way to the same page as I am on.

 

[MCI2424]

two questions:
1.What exactly is your good mixer? I'd like to check what exactly tape returns' "good balanced inputs" of your good mixer are made of.
2. Do you ever use chanel's line inputs of your good mixer. If so, then what for? Couple examples?
***************
P.S.

Sorry, buddy, It ain't gonna work. You can't buy your way to the same page as I am on.

You seem to have no understanding of mic pre-amps vs. line pre-amps.

Do some research to understand why tape returns/line inputs add very little "coloration" compared to mic pre-amps.

You might want to mosey on over to the mic Forum and Rack Forum to find out the correct answers to your questions.

And, BTW ,I have an A&H ML4000 desk. They are good, but not a Neve by any stretch.

I said time again. I go from my outstanding pre-amps to my deck directly. In some applications I use the inserts (on my board, they are balanced, but most are unbalanced). You seem to be a broken record.

The MAIN point here is there is no way on porta-studio type gear to use an external pre-amp other than the insert point. You cannot disconnect the tape recorder from the mixer.

Why is this so hard for you to understand?

Read up WHY mic pre-amps are drastcally different from line pre-amps and you WILL get it.

 

[Dr ZEE]

I have an A&H ML4000 desk.

That was the answer to the question #1. cool.
No answer to the question #2. not cool.
**********

You seem ...

"Everything was flattened like a cartoon, but extremely sharp the way things seem to people before they faint or when oxygen deprived..."
(here is the source of the quote above)

 

[Dr ZEE]

Iuse tape returns which have the "good" balanced inputs from my balanced outputs on my MCI and D2424LV.

I have an A&H ML4000 desk.

Is that it? - ALLEN & HEATH - WORLD CLASS MIXERS - ML4000
I went through tech info provided there and see no "tape returns".
What am I missing? I must be missing something.
************

The MAIN point here is ...

The main point here is - to get the facts stright.

 

[Dr ZEE]

Iuse tape returns..

or did you mean to say "I use inserts' returns..."?

 

[Whoopysnorp]

just fyi you guys' little slap fight is gay as hell

 

[Dr ZEE]

little slap fight is gay...

Was it the reason why you've just jammed in it? Let me tell you somethin', Whoop, you ain't gonna have much fun.

/later

 

[MCI2424]

or did you mean to say "I use inserts' returns..."?

Look at the manual. you should be able to figure it out.

 

[Dr ZEE]

Look at the manual. you should be able to figure it out.

Are you saying that the manual contains pages that describe how to locate the invisible "tape returns" on the desk?
Are those pages visible for anyone or only can be seen by a real Pro?

 

[MCI2424]

Are you saying that the manual contains pages that describe how to locate the invisible "tape returns" on the desk?
Are those pages visible for anyone or only can be seen by a real Pro?

Look at the block diagram, know why line and mic pre-amps are different, and you should be able to answer immediately which ones you would use.

It ain't rocket science for someone with your technical understanding.

This is a simple test to see if you can actually find a solution to a certain audio problem

What would YOU do and why?