help with reel to reel - teac 80-8 or tascam 38?

  • Thread starter Thread starter James John
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Getting a 60s sound is mostly about the instruments, the room and the mics. I used to have an 80-8 and got a very modern sound out of it even without noise reduction (which I used only maybe 10% of the time).

Don't ever use Dolby A. It was a bad system even when it was invented which is why most studios that bought them threw them in the trash after a few months. I'm willing to bet most mid-60s tape recorders had less noise than a mid 70s recorder anyways, particularly comparing a 1" or 1/2" 4-track to a 1/2" 8-track. But if you want to hush the noise a bit, DBX is about all I'd be willing to use next to Dolby SR (good luck finding a set cheap enough though). Anyways, when I used DBX, I regularly saturated the tape, especially on drums. You'd find that when you saturate the tape a little with DBX, it won't fully decode the signal so you get a little bit of compression from it which can be nice in moderation.

Regardless, the 60s recordings sound the way they do because they used huge, very nice sounding rooms filled with 60s instruments and amps. And think again about grabing a DI or even turning on the EQ. They had EQ but it was pretty limited. They used VERY expensive microphones and vacuum tube preamps (real tube preamps, not like ART or Behringer) which yielded extremely clean sound. They also hand a tendancy to use what EQ they had to boost the high end a little as a form of emphasis which helped hide noise. The mastering engineer of course would correct this emphasis on his end. Consequently, the high end would have a tendancy to saturate. They had really really crappy monitors in those days and didn't know much about setting up said monitors so in the words of Pete Townshend, you had to get the sound right in the room and just trust the equipment not to ruin the sound. I'll repeat that, get the sound you want before you even think about putting up mics. Then use the absolute best mics you can find to try and capture that sound to tape without degrading it.

You'd have no idea how clean most of those recordings from the 60s were before they went through all the bouncing etc. An aquaintance of mine who was a mastering engineer in Mowtown said most projects were on their 8th generation before he got them. This means the end user had an 11th GENERATION COPY!!! That much bouncing & copying by nature limits the dynamic range. By the early 70s, 16-tracks were pretty well standard so you didn't have nearly as much bouncing and the sound got much cleaner even though they still weren't using noise reduction and the tracks tended to be much narrower. Actually, what was left of Mowtown usually had a PAIR of 16-tracks, one for the instruments and one for the vocals. They were synchronised manually by a deticated tape operater. This way, the end user had a mere 5th generation. Regardless, the dirty old 60s sound happened largely as a side effect of ping-ponging tracks to get more layers of instruments/vocals. There was also a tendancy for a while to keep the levels pegged at the top which was largely started by Joe Meek and Phil Spectre in order to get a "bigger" sound.

Long story short, don't worry too much about what type of tape machine you use. 1/2" 8-tracks with the exception of the 70-8 and the TSR-8 are all pretty good sounding machines. I think the 80-8 is more rugged and reliable. I was the 3rd owner of mine and it served me very well until I sold it and UPS destroyed it. As for being AC, all 1/2" 8-tracks are AC. If you're referring to the capstan motor, that's AC too. I've never had pitch problems in the 6 years I had my 80-8. If the motor is in good shape, it will be dead locked to the 60Hz comming from the outlet in your house. The power company is required to be phase locked down to .1 degrees so the source of electricity won't cause pitch problems either unless you're running on an external generator. Now if you're using crappy tape from the late 70s-mid 80s, the tape can stick to guides and slow things that way. But use new tape, for a machine that old, use RMGI 911 and you'll be fine. But stay analogue as long as you can. Track analogue, mix analogue, master analogue if you can. Stay away from digital reverbs. I built a 3'x5' plate out of crap I found on construction sites, a speaker a friend gave me and a couple of contact mics. If you're not that adventurous, use your record room for reverb. Don't rely on technology to get your sound, rather, use intuition and ingenuity and you'll get a more classic sound.

As for alignment tapes, RMGI has nothing to do with them. Get them directly from the manufacturer at http://home.flash.net/~mrltapes/
Proper alginment tapes are literally made one at a time by a team of human beings. They use custom built tape machines that are cleaned, degaussed and aligned before each use. The engineer speaks to you live from a booth with a high quality analogue tone generator sitting right next to him. Consequently, they are very expensive. I bought a 1/4" IEC tape from MRL recently. It's 6 minutes long and cost something like $120.
 
The 80-8 has AC motors, while the 38 has DC for the reel motors and capstan motor. Speed deviation is generally better with servo DC motors. That’s probably what the OP is talking about.

I can agree with much of what wado1942 had to say except concerning the TSR-8. I highly recommend the TSR/MSR machines. The TSR-8 is one the better ½” 8-tracks in sound and stability. Perhaps he got a dud. It’s the successor to the 38 with many design improvements, and in my experience is quieter without noise reduction than either the 38 or 48. It benefits from the very latest developments (at the time) in transport control. The microcomputer controlled transport is very gentle on tape and the machine itself, which results in less maintenance. It has very low, consistent tape tension throughout the tape path that rivals professional machines many times its price.

I chose the TSR-8 over several other contenders when looking for a ½” 8-track, and can report in retrospect I’m glad I did. It’s been very reliable and sounds about as good as the 8 on ½” species can deliver. Mine has been meticulously maintained by yours truly, and is in virtually new condition. However it’s not made for roading… definitely a delicate instrument that should be left in the studio.

If choosing between the 80-8 and 38 I would probably go with the 38, but that’s only all things being equal as far as condition. I would choose the machine in the best condition if one or the other were old and tired with a lot of wear.

The 38 was probably the most prolific 1/2'” 8-track in history, and it shares many parts with the 32 and 34, so finding spare parts is a lot easier. Thanks to eBay and UPS many machines have been trashed leaving behind parts with a lot of life left in them. So there’s a silver lining for people looking for parts, but I really wish UPS (and Canada Post) would cut it out. :mad: The heads for the 80-8 and 38 are still available new from Tascam, but the 80-8 heads are much more expensive.

:)
 
I too would choose the machine which is in better condition and local, rather than being hanged up on one model over the other, no matter the superiority or inferiority of a said machine. For instance, if there was a local 80-8, 15 minutes away from me, in used but lower use, well maintained condition and another 38 that needed to be shipped but in unused, virtually new condition, I'd get the 80-8 or the other way around. Whether the 80-8, 38, 48, 58, TSR-8, I'd buy solely on best overall condition and local availability, where you can actually test drive the recorder and pick it up. IMHO, any other variable is unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

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i've never had any pitch issues with the 80-8.

i do not like noise reduction and have not had problems with hiss without it, in fact i like a bit of hiss

if you are going for a 60s sound, keep in mind "high output" (which is low by today's standards) tape didn't really come around until the mid-70s. Scotch 206, which was still pretty low output, came out in '68 or so.

essentially, 60s decks had a lot of noise and the tape did too, being low output. it was a constant battle in those days between signal and noise. the tape also shed oxide faster, so highs were lost more quickly. this really is part of the 60s sound

the most important part of the sound was the people playing it though, that's really the hardest part

i am 29 and i was not there but it is a holy grail to get that sound for me as well

essentially, if you use an 80-8 (which is WAY more "vintage" sounding than the 38) with "modern" (456 or beyond) tape without noise reduction, it will still not be as noisy as many 60s recordings.

in my opinion, the sound breathes a lot more without noise reduction, but i'm sure others would disagree ... only way to know is to try it with and without and then decide
 
also, the 80-8 is only 15 ips

15 ips was standard in the 60s as well, i don't think 30 ips became common until 16 track 2" tape etc in the later 60s/early 70s
 
if you are going for a 60s sound, keep in mind "high output" (which is low by today's standards) tape didn't really come around until the mid-70s. Scotch 206, which was still pretty low output, came out in '68 or so.

Ah, good point... I was going to mention using Scotch 206 or the more easy to find (in half-inch anyway) Ampex/Quantegy 406 to get a little closer to the kind of tape they had available... had it floating around in my head with other thoughts but forgot to mention it.

:)
 
Getting a 60s sound is mostly about the instruments, the room and the mics. I used to have an 80-8 and got a very modern sound out of it even without noise reduction

That's actually a very good point 'cause while a tape deck will add to the end product, it is in fact the other stuff you mention which makes a bigger impact, on the sonic signature of the final mix.

Choice of mics, room, instruments and outboard gear, by far, are indeed the most important when trying to recreate a sound, as is, of course the musician and ability to use the tools in one's arsenal and methods used to capture sound.

As not to be misunderstood, I'd like to underline that the tape deck [and choice of oxide] does add to the end product's 'sound' but not as much as the other stuff, already mentioned.

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Scotch 206 or Ampex/Quantegy 406.

Check and check!:D

BTW, Tim, that 206 1/2" tape is clean running now. No probs whatsoever! :)

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I should mention again, don't use old tape. While tape has the longest shelf life of all recordable audio media, you have no idea how a particular tape has been handled, how many times it's been used, whether or not it has a predisposition for hydrolysis. Although I should also mention that 206 has LESS noise than today's high output tapes. 226 and 456 became more popular in the 70s not because it had less noise but because it had more headroom. The opamp based outputs on the decks were so noisy, you had to use hot tape to be able to keep the amps turned low. The way you make tape more sensitive is similar to how you get high speed film. Larger particles means greater sensitivity and higher density but the cost is larger grains are easier to see/hear. Well designed (and very expensive) machines from the 60s perform better with 200nW/M tape than 320. When you run those decks too hot, they don't have sufficient headroom and distort. Needless to say, the 80-8 and 38 are MADE for 456 which is not available new anymore. So I'd suggest RMGIs 911 which is the closest equivelant. To use an older style tape like 206, you will have to crank the output amps and get too much noise, but also, that tape has been out of production for quite some time and you'd really be limiting yourself trying to find stock that's not used to death and doesn't have hydrolysis.
 
i guess my point was that noise and (unwanted) tape compression is common on 60s recordings. based on my limited knowledge (again, I was not there ... and would love to learn more from those that were) it seems that some of the sound comes from bouncing from machine to machine and using low-output tape. anything prior to the 206/406 formula would probably be pushing it though. i do have some scotch 111 tape from the 60s (NOS) that actually runs okay, but i don't care for the sound all that much (a bit too bassy and yes ... too noisy for me). i actually really like the sound of ampex 631 (voice grade) tape as well ... has a very 60s sound, but the examples i have don't run very smoothly on my machines and are in poor shape (not sticky-shed but seem to be too dried out and sluggish)

i have always used 456 on my 80-8 and that's what i am used to. i reckon you could get saturation and more noise faster with 206/406

you can't go wrong with 456 ... or i guess 911, but i have some issues with the RMGI tape. i ordered 2 reels and they sound great, so i ordered 3 more and they are shedding oxide and have severe dropouts, i contacted RMGI and i think they are replacing them, so we'll see. i am apparently not the only one (steve albini refuses to use RMGI because of similar issues). ATR is not really the right formula so it's a bit distrestting. the RMGI sounds REALLY good though, possibly better than 456. its really crisp and rich.
 
you can't go wrong with 456 ... or i guess 911, but i have some issues with the RMGI tape. i ordered 2 reels and they sound great, so i ordered 3 more and they are shedding oxide and have severe dropouts, i contacted RMGI and i think they are replacing them, so we'll see.
I have five rolls of RMGI, three of which have been used. The first two - unfortunately comprising the bulk of my fifth album - shed rather badly. (In fact I have a WAV file of a session where the shedding clogged up track 8 and crashed the sequencer, with fascinating results).

The fifth one, which is the most recent and has a very different batch number, barely sheds at all. So I would say that the problem is fixed, but I/we had to chew through StudioSpares' inventory to get to the good stuff :rolleyes:

I bought the middle two last year so it may be a bit late to return them - if I can, I'll probably get some pancake, bin the unused bad tapes, and make safety copies of the album material.
 
That's really disconcerting. Man I'm glad I bought a crap-load of 499 and GP9 direct from Quantegy before they went off-line.
 
newbie question

hi all, hope you can help and thanks in advance if you can.
I am wondering if the dbx8 unit that works with the 80-8 is compatible with the 38? I am trying to play back tapes recorded on the 80-8 and dbx 8 on myt friends 38, I'm aware I will have to use the dbx unit, but not sure if it will work with the 38.
Thanks again!
 
hi all, hope you can help and thanks in advance if you can.
I am wondering if the dbx8 unit that works with the 80-8 is compatible with the 38? I am trying to play back tapes recorded on the 80-8 and dbx 8 on myt friends 38, I'm aware I will have to use the dbx unit, but not sure if it will work with the 38.
Thanks again!

Maybe - maybe not. The dx8 is a single card unit that switches between encode and decode modes depending on the control signal from the 80-8. I can't remember whether it defaults to encode or decode in the absence of any signal but it does one or the other. If decode, you're in luck. If not, you will need to trick the unit into that mode. I know it can be done but don't have any info as to how.

BTW - I have lots of standalone dbx gear and can decode anything type I or II. I do this kind of work all the time. PM me if you need this service.
 
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