Just picked up my first analog deck

  • Thread starter Thread starter pappy999
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give it a REALLY good cleaning first and see if that helps with the muffled sounding recording. I had the same problem with mine and I just cleaned it really well with 91% alchohol. I tested mine out using the wrong kind of tape (sm900 on trs8 setup for 456) it sounded good enough that I could tell it was working right.
 
I bought some new tape and the tsr8 works better. It still is noisy. The DBX helps but takes away a lot of good sound too. What solution is best to clean these? Rubbing alcohol?

I recorded about a minute of acoustic guitar today and it felt great to be on analog again (even with the machine not performing top notch).

The motors seem to stick a little. Is there a way to oil them? Do I have to take the machine apart?
 
That's good...what kind of tape did you end up with?

With a properly aligned TSR-8 with the heads in decent shape you shouldn’t loose anything with dbx engaged. I can’t say this about dbx in general with all machines but I can give a witness for the TSR-8 in particular.

The dbx system like everything else needs to be in proper calibration. If the machine has been setup different than factory spec for a hotter tape or something like that, the dbx has to be tweaked as well. Sometimes you will see a calibration only half done when tweaking for a hotter tape.

But it makes perfect sense for them to leave the dbx alone, because calibrating for 996 or GP9 indicates it was to be used without dbx. There is no advantage to a +9 tape if you are going to use dbx anyway. Using 456 @ 250 nWb/m with dbx engaged the TSR-8 has a signal-to noise ratio of 108 dB. That’s a better noise spec than CD and many digital formats.

It’s crucial that you ascertain where the machine is in relation to factory spec, either by having it checked out or learning to do it yourself. If the flux level and bias have been altered the dbx will not function properly. However, if you are going to continue to use +9 tape like 499, etc, you can just pretend the dbx isn’t there and work without it.

If it were me I would get it back to factory spec if it's not there and use either 456 or 406... or RMGI 911, or 468.

:)
 
Unless you calibrate your deck very well,dbx will exaggerate all of it's bad qualities, kind of like me and alcohol. Speaking of which, don't use rubbing alcohol on your deck, it's got a goodly amount of water in it. I use 91% from the drugstore on mine, and haven't had problems yet.

My method of adjusting decks may well be wrong, although it seems to work ok, so I won't give advice here, but I will say that you can get oscilliscopes and tone generators on ebay for absurdly low prices if you look for them. The fine folks on this forum have gone into great depth about how to properly calibrate your deck, easily found with the search function.

Oiling motors can do more harm than good..some have internal lubrication that will be dried up by the wrong lubes, especially WD-40. Best to use a lithium grease VERY sparingly if you are bound and determined to go this route, I use an insulin syringe with the needle broken off myself, and no more than 2 units according to it's measurement...I may be doing bad things here, but it has worked for me.

Hope this is of service to ya!
 
Thanks for the replies.

I was just messing around with some recording tests. I have the tsr fed by a mixer's direct outs. I ran a line out from the mixer into a DAW to monitor what was going into the tsr. I recorded the audio to the DAW and tsr at the same time. I then fed the tsr into the DAW and tried to line up the audio. The audio from the tsr is slightly faster than the "real" audio from my mixer into the DAW. I could audibly notice a difference about 1:45 into the recorded sequence. First slight phasing then delay. What can I do to fix this? I will do some searches and try to learn how to calibrate these machines.
 
You will have to get a synchronizer to keep any two devices in sync, whether analog or digital. Machines will eventually drift apart unless following the same clock.

The TSR-8 can be either master or slave, but it’s easier and less complicated to use it as the master. You give up one of the 8 tracks for timecode. There are various devices out there that you can use to keep any slave devices in time.

Here are a few links for more info:

http://www.alesis.com/support/cc/sync.html

http://www.danphillips.com/articles/features/get_in_sync.htm

http://emusician.com/tutorials/emusic_timing_everything/

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_articles/jul94/synchronisation.html

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1995_articles/may95/homestudio3.html

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1996_articles/jun96/miditimecode.html
 
It's likely to always be a problem when you record on a tape machine and a DAW at the same time and want them to line up exactly. No matter how well your tape transport works, there will be a certain amount of slippage that will ultimately result in exactly the kind of results you are experiencing. To minimize this, I would make sure that every belt and rubber part in the transport is in as close to perfect shape as possible, and also try to get the power supply as stable as can be. There are many "rubber renewal" products available, I personally use Fantastik on mine, which may or may not be a good idea. Every part where rubber meets metal should be cleaned with 91% alcohol until it is spotless under the scrutiny of a jeweler's loupe. Friction against the heads may also be a culprit, necessitating the same treatment to eliminate any trace of oxide or other gunk. After all this work, you probably will still not be happy with this recording method, because even inaudible delay will result in all kinds of artifacts, mostly marked by a loss of high frequency signal.
Good luck, and enjoy the magical headaches of tape!
 
Flangerhans said:
Good luck, and enjoy the magical headaches of tape!
Click to expand...

Any recording devices whether analog decks, ADATs, MDMs, DAWs, etc, will drift apart if not following the same clock. Two separate digital recorders would have the same problem if not synchronized to a master clock. ;)
 
Agreed. I have an arcane method that involves click tracks and an oscilliscope, along with prayers to the dark lord of oxide, but I'd recommend it to no-one.
 
The weirdest way I've heard of was how Tom Scholz would sync two analog decks. He actually did it by hand, holding a thumb on one reel of each machine. He would use a snare track recorded on one track of each machine by feeding one in the right side of a pair of headphones and the other in the left side. By keeping the two snares in phantom center (through thumb pressure) he claimed he was able to sync better by ear than any device available at the time. Knowing Scholz, that’s probably no exaggeration. :)

Brings to mind George Martin’s famous quote… “All you need is ears.”

Ain't it the truth!
 
Supercool! Thanks for the neatest bit of info I've come across all day...I'm going to try it, and if no-one hears from me for six years, you'll know what happened. My family already thinks that I am touched, watching me thumb the flanges and muttering about balance with headphones on should give them the impetus to commit me to a giggling academy permanently.
 
What brand alcohol do you guys clean your deck with? I am looking for +91% but they do not have the contents on the packages.
 

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