ATR on an 80-8

[Beck]

Those are actually my words, not ATR's... based on personal experience, using ATR on a machine aligned for SM911.

Not to be rude, but have you tried ATR tape? In the last two years? You'll be amazed. It's changed a lot and you'll discover that you've had some misconceptions about it. Being totally honest here.

ATR 1/2" is $70 per pancake...

I strongly disagree with your assessment of ATR tape, but ATR is well known for this kind of marketing. You're taking ATR sales talk. People have picked up on that before and questioned whether you work for them. But its just as likely you've been drawn in by the sales pitch and are just repeating it. I have two reels of ATR left over from last year, in 1/2" and 1/4" and I can't use it. I'm sure its fine on one of ATR's Half-track ATR-102's.

As I said before, its ATR that has created the misconceptions by recommending the tape where it doesn't belong and for being less than transparent about the evolution of the tape. If there is a story about how the tape has evolved and improved they're mum about it on their website. It's still a +9 class tape and like all +9 class tapes it will cause more wear and be difficult for many machines.

There isn't a type of mastering tape I have not used, going back to the '70s when it was mostly all Ampex, AGFA, BASF, Maxell and Scotch.

 

[lo.fi.love]

I'm pretty certain about what I'm saying and I have practical experience to back most of it up. As for the sales talk, part of it might sound like ATR talking because I'm repeating things Mike Spitz told me on the phone a couple years ago. He and I briefly discussed an overhaul of his website (I do web development consulting btw) so we mostly talked about that, however he did go into more specific detail on the specific properties of the tape.

I wish I could remember those conversations verbatim but unfortunately I'm not able to do that. I'm not sure what's going to make you happy.

But to be honest I think people (here, especially) misunderstand this product and what people post here makes it pretty evident. Think about it - this place is a backwater compared to all of the audio and tape-related websites and print publications out there. If ATR tape is as bad as you claim, don't you think you'd hear about it on other message boards, in Tape Op, or from mixing engineers and studio people? It seems like the fear, doubt, and misunderstanding regarding ATR is pretty much limited to this website.

That aside, the truth is, on a machine such as the Otari MX5050, the Tascam 30/40/50 series, the MS-16 and the ATR series, unless you're recording 8 hours a day, five days a week for five years straight, you really don't need to worry about an 'abrasive' tape such as 499/GP9/SM900/ATR wearing down your heads to the point of damage. I think some of us baby our machines when really they're just fine in most circumstances. For the most part one should be concerned about wearing out the reel motors on some of the smaller machines; ATR is too heavy for machines with weaker transport systems. You don't need an Ampex though, those things can crush diamonds and it's going a bit too far to say that only a top of the line machine is suitable for *any* brand of tape.

And for the love of Dog I don't f---ing work for ATR! I just hear misinformed / confused statements online sometimes and I think it's important to share my own first hand experience if it's to the contrary.

 

[lo.fi.love]

PS. If you'd like to see my tax returns for the past seven years to prove I'm not receiving checks from ATR, just message me

 

[rayc]

Could be an under the counter, in kind, brown paper bag, pound of flesh, black economy, Masonic or fraternal arrangement!

 

[sweetbeats]

Geez...really?

It's a public forum. People share their opinions. The ones that are important are those based on actual experience. All too often (and I'm guilty of this) the opinions shared are not based on actual experience and lore is at risk of being furthered. Here we have somebody who has opinions based on actual experience. Give it a rest. That's MY opinion.

 

[skywaveTDR]

Now for the real answer,
Yes ATR tape will work on a 80-8 if you set up for it. Yes it will erase it as well. Where do people come up with all this crap conjectures having never used the tape?
I was worried that the thicker 2.03 mil tape would give head to tape contact problems because of the thickness and this was put to rest when I did a few TSR8 with the same kind of head and the tape worked great. The one thing you can not do is make use of the high flux density as might be possible and a 1/2" 2 track deck but at 250 nWb/M flux it should have plenty of headroom and a good low noise floor.
NO it does not wear heads any faster than anything else just because the oxide is more- that is foolish thinking- the tape is calendered correctly and this should give no additional wear above SM911 or SM900.
Saying the deck can not use ATR is like saying they can not use SM900 either as they are very close tapes. The ATR is the best tape you can buy and will hold up a long time is a well maintained machine due to the oxide layer being so thick.
I have been working with decks such as 80-8, TSR8, 38,48,58 decks for over 30 years and if a tape from any company would not work on a machine or erase it I would know about it. The only tape I tell people NOT to use on their machines is made by a crook names DAK which is slit computer tape.

 

[skywaveTDR]

Of course it will work and the only colorization would be due to head wear or the lack of proper set up.
I have NOT seen any 1/2" deck that could not be used with any tape that was available. I have worked on many 80-8 and other 1/2" decks with no problems- I was a Tascam Lead Technician in Chicago.

 

[skywaveTDR]

I believe you are speaking in relative terms here, Jeff, but for what it is relative to it's own format I consider the 388 to be a robust build (i.e. compared to other 7" reel 1/4" tape machines). Just wanted to throw my 2p in there to thwart a reader from taking yor statement out of context and labeling the 388 as delicate and brittle.

The 388 pulls 1.5mil tape fine but indeed it is nor what it was designed for not is it recommended...or NECESSARY. The 388 sounds great when setup as designed...

The 388 was a disaster from the start causing many warranty service calls due to transport issues. Now days I get calls to service them and I respond that my bench is not large enough to work on them and that you can no longer get heads for them. Who in their right mind would use 8 tracks on 1/4" tape anyway? It was a gimmick item. It was designed for 457 ONLY so LPR35 is the only tape that comes close to that in current production.Maybe Russ at New Jersey Factory Service works on them and I know Bob Shuster said he did a head on one but other than the New York Area, I don't know anyone who is willing to work on them- they are best avoided. A Tascam 38 is a better choice.
This is coming from a past Teac Technician at Chicago Factory Service.

Oh, There is no power or wear issue in the 80-8's transport other than the brake pads might have to be changed due to age and wear. The transport is no reason to limit the tape you are using.

 

[Roozter]

So, to what extent can I achieve saturation with ATR? I don't exactly want the tracks to be devoid of the holy mojo, but then again, I really want some punchy and clear drum tracks.

 

[lo.fi.love]

So, to what extent can I achieve saturation with ATR? I don't exactly want the tracks to be devoid of the holy mojo, but then again, I really want some punchy and clear drum tracks.

You'll have to push your levels really hard, but it's likely you'll make the machine's amps distort before you can affect any tape compression. It's worth a try though. And again, firsthand experience always beats hearsay and rumor... the only way to find out is to buy a reel and try it yourself!

 

[lo.fi.love]

BTW, if you want 'punchy and clear' on a 80-8, you should check out SM468. It's also a great tape and it has a lower maximum operating level, thus making it easier to achieve saturation...

 

[Beck]

There is so much nonsense in this thread I scarcely know where to begin. It’s so pathetic its funny, but I will try to address a couple points.

First of all, the perception some here are trying to create that people who don’t care for ATR haven’t used it is disingenuous and patently false. To leave people with that impression only invites the reader to stay stupid. Then you’re simply trying to win an argument at any cost rather than help someone match tape to machine. The tactics resemble those of ATR.

I'm pretty certain about what I'm saying and I have practical experience to back most of it up.

Heaven help us! I'm trying to be as nice as I can, but when you were born I was a teenage apprentice in TV broadcasting. I was owner/operator of a hopping recording studio in Central Illinois at the tender age of 24, so if you want to compare resumes I don't think you're going to score many points going that route. And in those days you had to have some rudimentary understanding of physics before you could wear the bade of engineer. This is what's lacking on most recording forums today. So you have practical experience to back most of it up. Hmmm... well ok, but it takes a lot more than that.

But to be honest I think people (here, especially) misunderstand this product and what people post here makes it pretty evident. Think about it - this place is a backwater compared to all of the audio and tape-related websites and print publications out there. If ATR tape is as bad as you claim, don't you think you'd hear about it on other message boards, in Tape Op, or from mixing engineers and studio people? It seems like the fear, doubt, and misunderstanding regarding ATR is pretty much limited to this website.

Nothing could be further from the truth. This site is one of the few sites that isn’t watered down thanks to the participation of a handful of regulars who bring a great deal of background and knowledge that you don’t find on the fly-by-night forums full of self-proclaimed experts. I see so much error on sites like gearslutz and tape-op I don’t have time to participate. More importantly, I don’t care about any website. The web on any topic is fueled by misconception and down right superstition and the farther away we get from when tape was the norm in the recording world the worse its going to get.

What you’re suggesting is that we dumb ourselves down to the collective inexperience of the general public according to some average web forum user, rather than the objective expertise that this topic requires.

When Quantegy came out with GP9 in 1998 they did not discontinue 456 or even 406, and that’s because the demand for the older formulations was very high due to limitations of machines that could not bias up to or mechanically tolerate +9 tape. Same goes for BASF/EMTEC. The introduction of SM900 did not eliminate the need for SM911, SM468 or LPR35, etc. If there were ever such thing as a one-size-fits-all tape these tape manufactures could have done it with their +9 tapes. RMGI could have done it with SM900. But RMGI absorbed people with enough experience to know that offering only a +9 tape would fail to meet the needs of most of their customer base. ATR on the other hand has one tape to offer, so of course they’re going to try to tell us it will work for every application imaginable, which is simply impossible.

ATR started out with a vision of a +9 (+10 according to their literature) tape that would keep their ATR-102’s running and that’s what we’ve got. Many semi-pro machines and home hi-hi decks are pushing the edge of their capabilities with +6 class tape. They simply cannot bias up to the +9 class tapes and/or tolerate the mechanical demands of running the heavier tape in the long term. Tape acts like fine sandpaper on a tape path and that’s why tape paths wear. Thicker stiffer tape demands more tension to maintain optimal tape-to-head contact, so naturally a tape like ATR, 499 and SM900 will wear heads and guides faster. Again this is no mystery, but is Tape Recording 101 and Physics 101 level stuff. Anyway it used to be.

ATR can’t fill every need unless they offered a range of tapes like other manufacturers. Even the latest run is comparatively thick and heavy. It’s the stiffest and least supple tape I have. I not only have ATR that’s less than a year old, but I’ve also got new-old-stock Quantegy 456, 406, GP9, Scotch 206, 226 BASF/EMTEC SM911, SM468, and SM900 for comparison.

We have a choice between two evils right now… RMGI and ATR. It’s not a great choice, but when you have a machine like the 80-8 that’s living on the bleeding edge trying to accommodate 456, the last thing you want to do to the electronics and the transport is to throw something like ATR or SM900 at it. You’ve got these choices… use RMGI SM911 or SM468 while you keep up the search for NOS tapes like Quantegy 456, 406/407 and Scotch 206/207. This goes for the Tascam 30-series as well and obviously anything that specifies 1-mil tape like the 388 or 22-2 is best used with 1-mil tape. I don’t care what the uninformed consensus is on amateur forums. I see so much hogwash on other forums I can barely stand to look.

ATR obviously runs fast and loose with the spec sheets. They don’t make any sense. They have changed certain parameters and left others alone that should have changed due to changes in the aforementioned parameters. No tape with coercivity of 365 Oe and a rententivity of 1590 Gs is going to get by with a bias of 3dB down from peek (as specified for Studer and Tascam machines running at 15 ips). Those figures are more in line with the original 4 – 4.5 dB down from peek in the original ATR spec sheets. But what the true specs are we may never know unless an independent lab does a thorough evaluation. It’s pretty obvious to me that ATR changed the recommended bias to 3dB down because a lot of machines are unable to do 4dB down. The easiest thing for them to do was to list a bias level that is close enough but still not optimal. We can’t ask Spitz anymore because sadly he is no longer with us.

I have little doubt that lo.fi.love is sincere, but I also have little doubt that if he had talked to the Pope instead of Mike Spitz he’d be here espousing Catholicism. We don’t need any more true believers trying to persuade us that their church is the one true church. What’s needed is more people with discernment and the technical background to parse out spec sheets and connect the data to the real world. We’re seeing less of that all the time, as people who were analog newbies a few short years ago are now self-proclaimed experts based on little more than that they frequent web forums and are following the consensus.

You can’t vote physics out of the equation. Sure you can try, but all the while the reality is the forces that cause premature head wear leading to more frequent head relapping, and that tax the electrical and electronics are going to be there just the same whether you understand it or not. So it’s not about consensus, but rather about measurable properties whether you know how to measure them or not.

All that being said, ATR is a decent tape (albeit way too costly) but its limited to machines that can accommodate +9 tape. For the last time, there is no one-size-fits-all tape! The idea that there could be one tape that is optimal for all machines is the misconception I wish to dispel. I can’t dispel that notion unless you have some rudimentary grasp of physics and can connect in your mind the properties of tape and the theory behind tape deck setup beyond just blindly following calibration steps.

 

[lo.fi.love]

There is so much nonsense in this thread I scarcely know where to begin. It’s so pathetic its funny.

Yeah, it is pretty pathetic. A man of your age playing the character assassin game with a total stranger on the Internet.

Count me out. Bye.

 

[sweetbeats]

Bias is the real issue here, in my opinion.

Simply stated, proper bias level minimizes distortion.

If you care about minimizing distortion, then you care about properly biasing the tape.

How do you know you're properly biasing the tape?

You can assume if you are using the tape specified in the manual for your machine, and following the steps in the manual for setting bias, the tape is properly biased and distortion is minimized.

Will a different tape than the type specified in the manual be properly biased if following the procedure in the manual? That depends.

It depends on whether or not the tape is "bias compatible" with the type specified in the manual.

How do you know it is bias compatible?

Um...the manufacturer would likely tell you that. So how do you know its true? Well, you either trust the manufacturer, or test it out for yourself.

With a 3-head deck and an oscilloscope you can easily do this by monitoring the play head with the scope while recording tone as per the "overbias" method described in most manuals. You can *see* the distortion and when it is at its minimum, that's when the bias level is optimum, and then you can see how many decibels down past the peak you are on the VU meters.

Wouldn't it be nice if somebody had an 80-8, some ATR tape and an oscilloscope?

I have an anecdote regarding bias requirements of two "compatible" tape types: Ampex/Quantegy 457, and BASF/EMTEC/RMGI LPR35. Those two tapes are generally considered to be equivalents, right? That's a real question. AFAIK, the answer is "yes." They are both "1mil +6" class tapes. Now, take the Tascam 388. It was designed to use Ampex/Quantegy 457. So the instructions for setting bias in the manual are specific to that tape. For the 388 the bias procedure is a bit unnervingly simple: put the machine into record mode and measure the level of the bias to each tape channel, and set each one to 150mV. Done. So there isn't even any verification in this procedure, but that's what you do if you follow the manual. So can you just pop some LPR35 on there and go? Sure. But it won't be properly biased. Do you care? I don't know. I know I did. Jimmy at Tascam is the one who told me LPR35 had significantly different bias requirements as compared to 457. So I used the LF modulation method for setting the bias. Now go ahead and rip this to shreds if you want because, yes, the LF modulation method gets dicey on the narrow format of the 388, and furthermore it works better at 15ips or faster. But I did it and could hear the changes in the noise and distortion artifacts and found 110mV to be the ideal for LPR35 on my 388. That's greater than a 25% differential! That's significant.

YOUR

MILEAGE

MAY

VARY

My point is this...and I think Beck speaks to this: why trust the marketing department? Why accept the generally accepted opinion if it might be wrong? Seek some quantitative basis for your decisions around your setup and the tools you are using (i.e. your tape). Doing so will give you an advantage in knowing your tools better, and possibly having them setup better. AND...having the basis gives you a reference point from which to deviate if you choose! You wanna use ATR on your stock Tascam MS-16? And you *know* you can't bias it but you dig the sound? More power to ya. Its not going to damage anything running the tape underbiased, but developing your basis gives you the power of *knowing* you are underbiased and being able to harness *why* you like the sound. Is this how I'd run my machine? Nah...but that's me.

And why am I picking on the MS-16?

It is my very favorite 1" 16-track machine. Generally well regarded. I just like it. It was NOT developed for the home recordist. Tascam was targeting the budget project studio with the MS-16 as well video production facilities. Do we call it a "pro" machine then? I dunno...but I think it can be argued it is NOT a consumer machine and I also assert it can be argued it is NEITHER a "pro-sumer" machine. So then "professional", right? At least for the sake of this dissertation, okay? Would you expect a "professional" tape machine to be able to bias +9 tape? I bet if you asked a good number of people familiar with tape machines and analog tape that question, the cumulative response would a majority "yes". The MS-16 can't. evm1024 determined capacitor C42 on the amp cards needed to be changed to 180pF to bias +9 tape (in his case 499). My point: don't assume your tape machine, professional or otherwise, can properly bias +9 tape.

 

[altruistica]

All I'd like to add to this thread is my deepest thanks for all the guys who freely contribute their time, expertise and knowledge in sharing what they know about analogue recording equipment and techniques to novices like myself.

I trained in music, not electronics, not even sound production. All I've learned in the latter two, has been self learned (there's a word for self-learning....but I forget what it is) and as such has gaping holes and gaps in fundamental theories. This is where most of the time guys who contribute to this forum help by filling in these gaps.

THANK YOU ALL!

 

[lo.fi.love]

Beck, you can make your point without calling me "pathetic" as you did, insulting my intelligence, and assaulting me with other insults that had nothing to do with what we were talking about.

It's extremely discouraging to offer my own experience here and be put down for it and I have no time for it. Consider me gone again.

 

[Beck]

Yeah, it is pretty pathetic. A man of your age playing the character assassin game with a total stranger on the Internet.

Count me out. Bye.

Hmmm... A man my age? Well, my doctor says I'm 27 on the inside... A picture of health. Good genes I guess, and I workout, run and eat right.

But I think you misunderstand. No character assassination intended... but simply rousing debate based on science not emotionally charged sales speak. In fact if anyone's tone in this thread is disingenuous and condescending it is you. Using terms like "Backwater" to characterize this forum. You can run back to your comfort zone, but you're not going to swim with the big boys hanging out in the baby pools you imagine are "professional." You won't be the first one that has underestimated this forum and the collective expertise of the members and you won't be the last poor sap to do so

Now let's see, how's about this for character assassination. Getting a little testy there weren't you.

But to be honest I think people (here, especially) misunderstand this product and what people post here makes it pretty evident. Think about it - this place is a backwater compared to all of the audio and tape-related websites and print publications out there. If ATR tape is as bad as you claim, don't you think you'd hear about it on other message boards, in Tape Op, or from mixing engineers and studio people? It seems like the fear, doubt, and misunderstanding regarding ATR is pretty much limited to this website.

If you're going to cop that attitude we don't want you here. Fair thee well.

Oh, and one more thing... it's simply not true that this is the only forum that is questioning the suitability of ATR for many machines. The web is full of cries for help regarding ATR. You do know how to google don't you?