Taperssection.com
Gear / Technical Help => Recording Gear => Topic started by: ellaguru on June 09, 2005, 02:30:31 PM
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hey kids...helping a taper back up some of his old school analog masters. im finding that alot of them seem to be kinda 'phase-y' after a tape flip. was this a prob with these sony analog decks? ive even found a couple that side 'a' is phasey and side 'b' is nice. i never owned either of those decks, so i cant speak from experience. i did take into fact that perhaps after a tape flip the deck is now in a new position, along with the mic perhaps. also, on the analog tip, does anyone have any photos of the mics that came with these decks?
thanks folks!
chris
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where is that evil moderator when you need him? paging Mok3!!
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I used to have both a D3 and D6. Never had your problem, but I do know that most people who did use these always liked to transfer the tapes with the same deck that they made the tapes with. The mic that came with the deck was a tiny stereo mic. I'll see if I still have a picture of it.
colin
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the d6 didn't come with a microphone. I know this one was
a popular low cost mic a lot of folks used with the d6
sony ecm-909
I'm also not sure if an alignment / azimuth problem wouldn't
sound the same on both sides of a cassette...
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I have heard about many people with Sony D6/D3 recorders which suffered from azimuth drift which could be some of the cause of your phasey sounding masters. In fact, I retired my old D6 which needs a new azimuth tension bar and spring mechanism. I recently met an old school analog taper who only records on one side of his masters in order to avoid running a recorded portion of tape across the tape heads a second time. Unfortunately, I can't say that I know of any corrected action that could be taken with masters already induced with phase.
+T for the old school ecm909 pic. I have one gathering dust in my closet as well...
dB-
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I highly doubt that this was an azimuth drift problem. I used to have the same thing happen on my old Marantz PMD-430. It would do that ONLY at the beginning of a tape for ussually the first 10-30 seconds. BUT it would not always do it. I'd say maybe 1 out of every 10-15 times I'd record on a new side A or B it didn't matter.
I took it into several places to get it checked out and they couldn't tell me anything about it (well they claimed not to be able to reproduce the problem). I almost always used the same tapes (XL-llS) except for a few occasions, XL-ll, High end Sonys, ect. I had all the places I took it into check the azimuth setting for use with the XL-llS tapes specifically as well and they all said it was ok.
Other then the problem of tape flips this was the only other thing that drove me away from analog and finally to DAT-side.
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My old Marantz deck did that too (as did a friend's). I personally thought it had to do with the small motors pulling long (90-100min) tapes, but nobody was ever able to confirm that.
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My old Marantz deck did that too (as did a friend's). I personally thought it had to do with the small motors pulling long (90-100min) tapes, but nobody was ever able to confirm that.
I almost always did use the 100min tapes just to make sure I didn't need to flip during a song. I guess it could have been that.
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Maybe a simple head cleaning would do the trick? I also used to notice the phasing problem the few times I hi-speed dubbed.
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Maybe a simple head cleaning would do the trick? I also used to notice the phasing problem the few times I hi-speed dubbed.
I used to religously clean and demagnitize my heads with seperate cassette cleaners, so no that was not the cause.
I have no idea what kind of problems hi-speed dubbing would cause (except for crappier sound quality) since I never tried it.
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I used the original master deck to play back the masters.
If you dont have to original deck, use this deck to play 'em back:
http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:DFwh1P4wNLQJ:http://www.hayseed-dixie.com/twomics.jpg
;D
Z
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I used a D5 & D6.
Improper tape storage? On old tape especially?
I have noticed if tapes are not stored properly (Tailed Out)
the outer layers of tape on the spool can suffer from a number
of physical deformities like, scalloped edges, cupping, warping
and streaching. These tapes will sound phasey or warbley
in the high end. These effects usually end in 60-90 seconds
as the spool feeds the lower concentric layers of tape (which are stored flat)
There is now way I have discoverd to fix this damage.
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I used a D5 & D6.
Improper tape storage? On old tape especially?
I have noticed if tapes are not stored properly (Tailed Out)
the outer layers of tape on the spool can suffer from a number
of physical deformities like, scalloped edges, cupping, warping
and streaching. These tapes will sound phasey or warbley
in the high end. These effects usually end in 60-90 seconds
as the spool feeds the lower concentric layers of tape (which are stored flat)
There is now way I have discoverd to fix this damage.
These problems I noticed right after I taped shows and would make copies for friends and people at the shows. I haven't listened to any since I started using DAT so not sure if anything has gotten worse but in my case improper storage was not the original cause.
I inspected the first couple of tapes that this happened to to see if the tape itself was streched/crinkled/etc. and never noticed anything out of the ordinary.
I do agree that it could be a contributing factor after years off storage if your masters were in flawless condition in the beginning though. One of these days I'll find out when I start to transfer all my analog masters to disc.
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i spoke to my taper friend and he said the prob would be there the day the tape was made. remember those old metal tapes, yes, the ones with the metal shell? theres even a few of them ive stumbled upon. dont worry about any gems being lost. most of the transfers are from his old bands' practices, and this band only played the local bar a couple times.
chris
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GOD I would love that Sony ECM-909. that mic is killer!
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I've had the same problem on and off for years with my D6, which I actually used as a back up to my D8 this past weekend, with no problem at all, but I tend to expect it... I found that if I did a quick fast forward/rewind for a few seconds of side B it seemed to tighten the tape back up, and solve the problem. I never had a problem with side A.
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sounds like a head adjustment, azimuth, issue.
You nailed it, that is more than likely what the problem is.........