8-track cassette-based recorders

[Mark7]

Thanks.

It also inspired this line from Terry Pratchett's "The Colour Of Magic"

"It is forbidden to fight on the Killing Ground," he said, and paused while he considered the sense of this.

Lol

 

[Mark7]

Actually, I double checked and the actual line is

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room"

But, you get the point

 

[acorec]

That means "approximately", dumbass.

I've not heard any gems of wisdom from you, trollboy, other than 2" is all there is to analog recording, which is sadly lacking in any scope or real perspective.

No, Dave, you are wrong and stupid. They can't be approximately the same unless you think that 1/8" is approximately 2" (which I think is how you think). Each track must sound approximately the same for the whole 8-traacks to sound approximately the same. You cannot have less on a single track and be the same when you combine them. You forgot the width of the guard tracks which is a mistake usually made by idiots that don't know what they are talking about.

 

[Mark7]

Ah! But on the Tascam cassette 8 tracks the tracks are staggered like so

1-
-2
3-
-4
5-
-6
7-
-8
Where - = a guard band and 1 - 8 represents a rec/pb head

 

[acorec]

Ah! But on the Tascam cassette 8 tracks the tracks are staggered like so

1-
-2
3-
-4
5-
-6
7-
-8
Where - = a guard band and 1 - 8 represents a rec/pb head

Makes no diff how they are staggered, the space is still the same. Some heads have very thin guard bands and although they can electrically and physically support a hotter signal, they also have more crosstalk. Some older machines were impossible to bounce down on because any track side by side would feedback. The increase in guard band width took care of this, but then the actual recording track width suffered. You can't have it all!

 

[A Reel Person]

God bless you, & have a nice day!

......................

 

[Mark7]

No, you misunderstand. Tracks and guard bands share the same physical space.

Track1/Guard band
Guard band/Track 2
Track 3/Guard band
Guard band/Track 4
Track 5/Guard band
Guard band/Track 6
Track 7/Guard band
Guard band/Track 8

So, the heads would be thinner. But not as thin as they would be if you were trying to squeeze 8 plus 8 guard bands into 1/8 of an inch of space.

 

[acorec]

No, you misunderstand. Tracks and guard bands share the same physical space.

Track1/Guard band
Guard band/Track 2
Track 3/Guard band
Guard band/Track 4
Track 5/Guard band
Guard band/Track 6
Track 7/Guard band
Guard band/Track 8

So, the heads would be thinner. But not as thin as they would be if you were trying to squeeze 8 plus 8 guard bands into 1/8 of an inch of space.

My mistake. I was trying to talk about the ceramic spacers (shields) that determine the overall width of a track. The shields are usually wider in less expensive heads and reduce track width. More expensive heads have very thin ceramic shields and maximize track width, but cost a fotrune because it is much harder to register the two head halves to within an acceptable tolerance (also a major problem with cheap heads). It is no surprise that the heads are the cost of any tape recorder and when you have a recorder model "A" going for $200 and model "B" going for $2000, both 4-track machines looking similar, the heads are a major source of cost for the manufacturer. The cheaper heads are not perfectly aligned when the two head halves are mated and this mis-alignment reduces track width sometimes 20% or more. Now, if you use an alignment tape where they record the test tones across the whole tape playback head (not multi-track) you can easily measure the energy level output of the whol 4, 8, 16 etc. track head. This energy is less, or more dependong on how thick the ceramic shields are and how aligned the head is from the mating of the two head halves during the manufacturing process. So, a single track cannot have less energy than a single track of another head and have the same total energy than another head.

The "sound" that one head has and the "energy level" that the same head has are two different things altogether and better off in another topic.