taperocket said:
Hi,
I just got a good deal on a TSR-8 and the seller threw in 2 Reels of AFGA (468 and 469) and one reel of Quantegy GP9 Grand Master Platinum. Is this GP9 good for multitracking? I've never heard of it before, I plan on getting a few reels of 456 cuz its familiar and has always worked well for me.
Congrats on snagging a super nice machine!
468 is good stuff and was preferred by many back when tape was readily available in several brands. First sold as AGFA, then BASF, then EMTEC, it has a reputation of retaining the highs long after recording, even 20 years.
468 is more or less bias compatible with Ampex 456. It's not right on, but people have always used them interchangeably. 469 was actually released as AGFA's bias compatible offering, but most people liked 468 better. Steve Perry and Journey tracked a lot of their material on 468, as did a whole slew of country artists. 469 often suffers from sticky shed syndrome, but 468 does not, regardless of its age.
GP9 is a different animal altogether. It's a +9 (520 nW/m) tape, while 456 is a +6 (370 nW/m) and the bias is not the same. Your machine has to have bias and levels adjusted to use it effectively.
There's a better alternative for the TSR-8 and MSR-16 machines if 456 is in short supply. When those machines came out a lot of people found they liked the sound of 406/407 over that of the factory recommended 456. And here's a little secret -- the TSR is only set at +3 (250 nW/m) because of the dbx. 406/407 are bias compatible but are +3 tapes. The effects and warmth of tape compression are more apparent with 406/407 on the TSR using factory settings.
To use 456 to it's full potential you would switch off dbx and record hot, +3 vu or better. If you record too hot with dbx on it can miss-track (sound funky).
For GP9, even pinning the meters with all you've got isn't enough and some machines aren't even capable of biasing or leveling up to match it.
The TSR-8 is just barely capable, but once you are setup for GP9 you're stuck with using hotter tapes like GP9, 499, and if you can find it, EMTEC 900 and 3M 996 -- all more expensive than standard 456.
At one time I had my TSR-8 setup for GP9. It's an outstanding tape -- dare I say... almost digital in the way it treats music. However, I ended up ramping things back down to 456. I use that and 406 mostly, but also use 3M 226, EMTEC 468 and 911 depending on what I'm recording.
I use 407 or 468 for mastering to my Tascam 22-2.
-Tim