Noise reduction on +9 tape on a wide format recorder??

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sweetbeats

sweetbeats

Reel deep thoughts...
Digging deeper into cleaning house here.

How many of you would think it necessary to keep dbx noise reduction units around for a 1" 8-track machine running 15ips and calibrated to take some advantage of +9 tape (499 and machine setup at 355nWb/m)?

It'll be a bit before I can test things out with/without noise reduction on my Ampex MM-1000, and I'm anxious to simplify. I'm looking at my minty set of 4 dbx 150X's with the rare mating brackets to make two halfrack units into a 1U module with custom machined parts to strengthen the troublesome brackets. I'm thinking "hmm...do I really need those at all??"

Your opinions please...
 
sweetbeats said:
How many of you would think it necessary to keep dbx noise reduction units around for a 1" 8-track machine running 15ips and calibrated to take some advantage of +9 tape (499 and machine setup at 355nWb/m)?
Click to expand...

Not me. At least, not for noise reduction with that set up, though I did get some cool effects by processing the output of a spring reverb with the decode section of a dbx unit on a few tunes back in the day. It was a way to get a big "gated reverb" sort of a sound with what I had on hand, which did not include a gate back then.

Cheers,

Otto
 
Thanks for input, Otto...I have 5 150X units total and I'm planning on hanging on to one of them.
 
NO need for dbx

IN my mind a +9 tape running at 355 or above would not need NR with half track track widths or better. I've thought if there was any hiss one could use a noise gate to drop some of it.

--Ethan
 
I would have thought it's not an issue you can make a general rule about or decide in the abstract.

What material are you recording? What is its dynamic range?

Cheers Tim
 
Good point Tim.

Typically pop/rock/reggae etc.
 
As the boys said, I wouldn't use any noise reduction when dealing with wide tracks and modern tape, whether it's +3, +6 or +9. I wouldn't ruin the characteristics of such superior wide format machine with noise reduction units. My advice is try it, can't hurt but if the S/N ratio is as high (on your MM-1000) as is on many good half track mastering machines then I wouldn't bother with it. Some hiss is nice, kinda stationed in the background, if it's not distracting, such as is the case on many 1/8" cassette decks and even on the mighty 388. It depends of course on the material. If it's balls to the wall rock & roll then you won't hear the hiss, on those narrow formats but if it's anything less, more dynamic, soft - loud passages, stuff you really wanna record much lower, then the cassette deck track format / 388 will be audibly hissy, without NR. The wide format recorders, on the other hand, such as is your MM-1000 should be pretty quiet, around the S/N ratio of half track mastering decks. Noise reduction would spoil the sound IMHO.
 
sweetbeats said:
Digging deeper into cleaning house here.

How many of you would think it necessary to keep dbx noise reduction units around for a 1" 8-track machine running 15ips and calibrated to take some advantage of +9 tape (499 and machine setup at 355nWb/m)?

It'll be a bit before I can test things out with/without noise reduction on my Ampex MM-1000, and I'm anxious to simplify. I'm looking at my minty set of 4 dbx 150X's with the rare mating brackets to make two halfrack units into a 1U module with custom machined parts to strengthen the troublesome brackets. I'm thinking "hmm...do I really need those at all??"

Your opinions please...
Click to expand...

I'd keep 8 channels around just in case you need to decode something that comes in the door needing it. I don't think it will sound all that good if you record with dbx because the process doesn't work ideally with elevated levels.
 
I think you ought to keep at least a couple of channels of noise reduction available. If you ever have to record something with a very wide dynamic range one or two channels of noise reduction just for those tracks could be real handy.

-MD
 
Yeah, I have 5 150X's (2 channels each...used to have 9 units) and for sure I'm keeping 1.
 
You don't need 'em. Didn't you buy those from me? I sold a stack of them to someone on here. AND thanks for the take up reel!
 
i would not use NR at all unless it was something like a 388 or cassette format. then again, i don't use NR on an 80-8 and have never had a problem with hiss. not to say its not there, but i think hiss sounds better than NR until you get the the real narrow/low speed formats.
 
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