All language subtitles for [English] Analog The Art & History of Reel-to-Reel Recordings [DownSub.com]

(calm instrumental music)

- [Myles] Reel-to-reel or open reel audio tape recording

is a form of magnetic tape audio recording,

and which the recording medium is held on a reel

rather than being securely contained

within a cassette housing.

The supply reel or feed reel containing the tape

is mounted on a spindle.

The end of the tape is manually pulled out of the reel,

read it through mechanical guides and tape heads

and attached by friction to the hub of a second empty reel.

Reel-to-reel systems use tape that is a quarter inch,

half inch, one inch or two inches wide.

The greater the width of the tape, the greater the fidelity.

The speed that the tape is moving also affects fidelity,

reel-to-reels normally move at one seven eight,

three and three quarters

or seven and a half inches per second.

This compares to the narrower

and slower compact cassette tape,

which is 0.15 inches wide and moves

at one seven eight inches per second.

By putting the same audio signals on much wider tape

than a cassette tape the reel-to-reel systems

offer much higher fidelity than a standard cassette tape.

In spite of the larger tapes, less convenient use,

and generally higher tape costs,

reel-to-reel systems remain popular in professional

and home use applications well into the 1980s,

even after the advent of digital recording,

as well as today,

you will still find a dependable reel-to-reel recorder

in many professional studios.

The reel recorder became an important part of Americana

in the late 1950s,

bringing the ability to record sound quickly

and clearly as possible.

The handiness and portability of use gave every family,

the ability to not only listen to good prerecorded music

from their favorite pop stars,

but gave them the ability to record family memories,

such as vacations, birthdays, Christmas time,

and many other cherished memories can now be recorded

in a quality audio format.

As well as being one of the highest quality

audio recording formats that exist

in modern recording history of either

analog or digital sound recording,

reel-to-reel audio tape was also used

in early computer tape drives for data storage,

including images and video.

The introduction of the reel-to-reel tape recording

has had a tumultuous beginning.

The format have been an existence from the early 1940s,

but gained widespread usage in the 1950s

up until present time,

but seen a vast drop off of usage since the early 1990s

ever since the advent of digital recording.

Companies like Studer and Stella Vox

still produced reel-to-reel recorders well into the 1990s,

but as of 2019, only one company continues to manufacture

analog reel-to-reel recorders.

The reel-to-reel recorder was critical

to the widespread surge in global music consumption

in the 1950s and beyond.

Even sound engineers of today will tell you

that the reel-to-reel format is extremely high in fidelity

and with the correct tape,

the correct usage and right machine

wonders can still be recorded in the recording studio

using magnetic reel-to-reel recorders.

The biggest pop hits of the 1980s from Bruce Springsteen

to Madonna, Michael Jackson and Cindy Lauper,

Bon Jovi and more all recorded these masterful masterpieces

on reel-to-reel tape recorder.

The speediness of recording,

the ability to edit and splice material quickly,

and the warm and magical sound of quality of analog

made the reel-to-reel recorded format

a very special recording instrument of yesteryear

and still today.

The tape on a spool format was used

in the earliest tape recorders,

including the innovative German British tape recorder

known as the Blattnerphone.

Developed in the 1920s, which used a steel tape

and the German magnetophone recording machines

of the 1930s,

which used the first iron oxide coated plastic tapes

we see today.

Even though the commercial reel-to-reel recorder

was introduced in the 1940s,

the development of the reel-to-reel recorder

goes further back than that.

In the year 1898, a man by the name Valdemar Paulsen

did a demonstration of the first magnetic wire recorder,

which he called the telegrafon.

This magnetic wire recorder involve the use

of a highly flexible metallic medium, such as a wire,

similar to a wired coat hanger, but a little thinner

in Mr. Paulsen's case.

This wire when coiled up and attached to motors

that spin it across the recording head

into another open spool.

When the wire moves across this recording head,

the head generates a magnetic signal

producing a pattern of magnetization on the wire.

Thus magnetic tape recording was born.

Paulsen obtain the telegrafon pattern in 1898,

recording technology continued and there was improvements

that were done with magnetic wire and magnetic tape formats.

In the late 1920s, a man by the name of Fritz Fluemer

developed a magnetic paper tape,

which was much lighter and flexible than wire.

He coated the tape with iron oxide

to create the very first magnetic oxide

coated paper tape recorder

suitable for a decent quality recording.

But even though it was good,

the wire recording wasn't the best

because the width of the wire was so thin.

It would have been impossible

to get the high dynamic ranges

needed for professional studio quality recording.

Practical magnetic recording devices

using better quality magnetizes coatings,

like plastic substrates and magnetic particles,

including higher quality a metal oxide was soon created.

And soon in 1935,

they introduced a product called the magnetophone

which was actually produced and sold commercially

by the ATG company.

Most of these early magnetic tape,

reel-to-reel products were exclusively manufactured

and sold in Germany.

They were even special versions of reel tapes

that were exclusively designed for German radio station.

These special tapes,

which had better sound quality than the normal tapes

allowed for special secret recordings,

like the recording of Hitler's speeches

and other experimental wartime applications.

One of the most intriguing usages of this technology

was what it was used for the playback of Hitler speeches

to the residents of Germany prior to World War II.

Originally this scientifically engineered magnetic oxide

coated plastic tape was exclusively a German technology

that was in widespread use by the Nazi government

for communication purposes.

In fact,

many of German inventors responsible for the introduction

of recording technology in the late 1930s and forties

were associated with the Nazi party

and celebrated by Hitler as national symbols

of German innovation in the sciences.

It's true, the German government had already developed

a successful magnetic tape recorder,

which was in full use in radio stations

and for military purposes in Germany,

brought the Nazi propaganda to a whole new level.

The magnetic tape reel-to-reel tape recorder

was almost alien technology at the time of its introduction

in the 1930s as the sound quality was so real and lifelike

without any pops, crackles or distortion

normally associated with vinyl record reporting.

By placing different magnetophones in different cities

and attached to loud loudspeakers for broadcast

to the public.

The allied forces couldn't tell where Hitler was

or what city he was in exactly.

Because they couldn't find out where Hitler was

because the recording sounded so real.

They didn't know where to strike.

The US didn't have the communications ability

to understand this totally awesome,

new audio recording technology that was already developed

and in use by the German government.

These technologies enabled Hitler to further prosper

on his mission to conquer Poland and France and soon Britain

and onto Russia and possibly the world.

But Hitler's force was soon met with strong resistance.

Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy in 1945.

Hitler had already pummeled and destroyed Poland and France,

and on his excursion into Britain,

the British put up a strong resistance

going below the below with Hitler's Renegade soldier,

when Hitler decided to wage two wars at the same time,

one with Britain and one with Russia,

the war started to take a different turn.

Now with US and allied forces now landing in France

and Russia putting up strong defenses

as well as Britain still packing in the punches,

Hitler and his propaganda machine was soon defeated.

German technology was soon looted tooken apart

and repurpose into new products for the United States

and the world.

From aeronautics technology and propulsion, rockets,

innovative motor technology, electrical equipment,

and devices like the magnetophone,

all were now in the hands of the allies

and the United States to squander and loot

like the German forces did to Poland and France.

Now in US hands,

even though the magnetophone recorded at high quality

enough to deter us military reconnaissance at the time,

it was found that the earliest German magnetophones

still produced a lot of noise

like distortion during the recording process.

On later and more complex magnetophones,

the German engineers significantly reduced

a lot of this noise by applying something

known as a bias signal to the tape.

In 1939 one magnetophone was found

to make consistently better recordings than other models.

And when it was taken apart in the US

a new feature was noticed,

the machine was applying an A.C. bias signal to the tape,

and this was quickly adapted to new reel-to-reel models

using an even higher frequency A.C. Bias.

The high frequency A.C. Bias has remained an integral part

of audio tape recording to this day,

the quality of the tape recording

was so dramatically improved that the fidelity surpassed

the quality of most radio transmitters.

And this is why these machines were used by Adolf Hitler

to make broadcasts that appear to be live

while he was safely away in another city.

American audio engineer, Jack Mullen,

was a member of the US Army signal Corps

during world war II.

His unit was assigned to investigate German radio

and electronics activities, and in the course of his duties,

a British army counterpart mentioned the magnetophones

being used in a German radio station, near Frankfurt.

He acquired two magnetophone recorders

and 50 reels of recording tape.

The tapes were manufactured by a company named IG Farben

and ship them home, over the next two years,

Jack Mullen worked to develop the machines

for commercial use,

hoping to gain interest from Hollywood movie studios

and using magnetic tape

for their movie soundtrack recordings.

In 1947, Mullen gave a demonstration

of these new recording machines at MGM studios in Hollywood,

which led to a meeting with Bing Crosby

who immediately saw the potential of Mullins recorders

to prerecord his radio shows.

Crosby hired Jack Mullen as a sound engineer

and invested $50,000 in a local electronics company, Ampex,

to enable Mullen to develop a commercial production model

of the reel-to-reel tape recorder.

Using Mullins confiscated German tape recorders,

Crosby became the first American performer

to master commercial recordings on tape.

And the first to regularly pre-record has radio programs

on magnetic tape.

Ampex and Jack Mullen started developing commercial stereo

and multi-track reel-to-reel recorders

based on an even newer

and improved system of tape recording.

Famous early rock and roll pioneer, Les Paul,

had been given one of the first Ampex Model 200 tape debts

by Bing Crosby in 1948,

and went on to use an Ampex eight track reel-to-reel machine

for multi-track.

To this day,

Les Paul is known as the father of multi-track recording,

a recording technique that is used

in almost all of today's commercial recordings.

In multi-track recording,

one musician can lay out different trucks together

so that they don't have to play everything at the same time.

One musician can make a recording,

that sounds like he was an entire orchestra

by using the multi-track system.

The seven inch reel, usually 1200 to 800 feet long,

and a quarter inches wide recording tape.

The typical recording format for non-professional use

in the 1950s through 1970.

There were also other sizes.

There were three inch reels, five inch reels,

and even 10 inch reels.

The 10 inch reels were usually reserved

for professional studio recordings,

because of its longer length

meant the recording could record at a higher speed

resulting in higher quality recording.

Inexpensive reel-to-reel tape recorders for home use produce

strong sales for the home market.

They were widely used for voice recording in the home

and in school and became essential

to the modern upwardly mobile family

who wanted to preserve their family memories

for the future, or even store them for generations to come.

Starting with Bing Crosby,

high quality reel-to-reel tape recorders

quickly became the main recording format

used by audio files and professional reporting studios

everywhere until the late 1980s,

when digital audio reporting techniques

began to allow the use of other types of media.

to set the stage.

New innovative such as digital audio tape,

better known as dat tape, the well-used workhorse,

of professional studio recordings of the 1990s

and digital modular multi-tracks like the ADA

first released by Alesis in the early nineties

and followed by the DA-88 multi-track digital

recorder also released by Tascam in the early 1990s.

These new digital recorders recorded extremely high quality

digital audio on a much more compact audio tape format

and introduce new digital output capabilities

like SPDIF and light pipe that could be used

to easily transfer recordings into a computer system

without any of the signal loss

associated with analog tape transfers.

All these technologies were a predecessor

to what we now have today in digital recording.

Some will argue that the benefits of tape

is the fact that not only does it sound amazing,

it can be stored for countless years if wrapped in plastic,

stored in a good container

and possibly stored in another plastic.

What's the say these recordings on tapes can't last 50,

a hundred, maybe even 200 years,

and perhaps maybe even longer if stored

in perfect environmental conditions.

Would your hard drive last that long?

Possibly not, the data on your hard drive

is stored on a series of very fragile plastic disc

stacked on top of one another enclosed in a hard metal case.

Reel-to-reel information can easily be retrieved,

and with such high fidelity audio recording

and even usage for image and computer data storage.

We hope the reel-to-reel format sticks around

a little longer.

A reel-to-reel playing back or recording a tape

is also very cool to look at.

As the reel spins,

what creative and magical thoughts can happen,

hypnotized by its clockwork movement,

mesmerized by its sound, Mr. Reel-to-reel recorder,

Can you please stick around?

Even today,

some artists of all genres prefer analog tape recording

over digital, claiming it is magical or warm sounding.

Magical and warm cannot be expressed in phonetic detail.

They are interpretations of the abstract,

a feeling that cannot be described.

It's the feeling you know when something is true,

a feeling you get when listening to a good recording

on the magnetic reel-to-reel tape recorder,

despite the magnetic reel-to-reel tape recorder

producing high quality sound,

at a close critical inspection,

it still produces a small amount of unwanted noise

during the recording process.

If you listen closely to the recording,

there's a small sound emanating from the tape,

and it sounds like this.

(tape hissing)

This noise is known as a tape hiss,

and it arises from the friction of the tape

rubbing against the recording head.

This hiss sound is a by-product of all tape formats,

after all, it never claimed to be digital,

and it is still a tape and tapes are not perfect,

but still very lovable indeed.

As opposed to digital recording,

there are also many other downsides to tape recording,

due to something known as harmonic distortion

bass can increase creating a much bassier sounding recording

than originally recorded.

This is not the case in digital recording,

but this a downside is also one of the reasons

some people still like the tape format.

Another downside is high end frequencies

can be compressed due to something called tape compression,

which some musicians say they actually like

and claim that this tape compression is more natural

to their sound.

As digital recordings can clip and distortions

and digital glitches can appear when the recording goes

over the input limit and gets too loud.

It is not uncommon for artists to record to digital

and rerecord the tracks to analog reels

for this tape compression effect, especially,

especially if there were lots of high frequencies involved

like loud sneers, high hats, and vocals within the music.

In addition, the tape compression effect

was also noted as being extremely good

for usage on movie soundtracks as sometimes

the improvised dialogue from the actors were unpredictable

and would get loud at times.

The reel-to-reel tape formats,

tape compression reduced any recording accidents

as a result of frequencies suddenly rising

above the recording level during the film production.

A specially designed film production recorder

known as the Nagra

was an innovative reel-to-reel tape recorder,

specifically designed for use on movies.

The Nagra was the audio workhorse of the movie industry

from the 1960s, seventies, eighties, nineties,

and even in use today.

In addition to all of these so-called downsides of tape,

another quality known as tape saturation

is a unique form of distortion that many rock, blues, funk,

and RNB artists still use today.

However, with modern computer based recording technology

tape distortion can now be recorded digitally

with a wide variety of possibilities.

(upbeat music)

The great advantage of reel-to-reel tape

was that it allowed a performance to be recorded

without the 30-minute time limitation

of the photograph disc.

And it permitted a recorded performance

to be edited for the first time.

Audio could now be manipulated as a physical entity

and cut and spliced like motion picture film by hand.

Tape editing is performed by cutting the tape

at the required point and rejoining it

to another section of tape using adhesive tape,

or sometimes glue.

This is called splicing.

The use of reel spools to supply and collect the tape

also made it very easy for editors to manually move the tape

back and forth across the heads by hand

to find the exact point they wish to edit.

Tape to be spliced was clamped in a special splicing block

with a guided markings and cut with a razor blade.

A skilled editor could make these edits quickly

and accurately, splicing became an art into itself.

Long angled splices can be used to create a slow fade

or dissolve from one sound to the next.

Obsessive splicers can even splice

different individual notes from different recordings

together to create a new musical sound unto itself.

Even modern performers are using reel-to-reel tapes

for new musical performances

by reconfiguring several recorders together

and or stretching or pulling the tape by hand

across the heads to create musical notes.

(upbeat instrumental music)

(sharp string music)

(high-pitched music)

The performance of tape recording

is greatly affected by the width of the tape used

to record a signal and the speed of the tape

also affects the quality of the recording.

The wider and faster the tape is spinning

the better the sound, but of course, this uses more tape.

These factors led directly to improve recordings

containing better frequency response,

signal to noise ratio and better high frequency distortion.

Quarter inch or higher analog audio tape

can accommodate multiple parallel tracks,

allowing not just stereo recordings,

but also multi-track recordings.

This gives the recording engineer

much greater flexibility in recording,

allowing a musical performance to be remixed

long after the performance was recorded.

This multi-tracking recording innovation

was a leading factor in the explosion of popular music

in the late 1950s and 1960s.

The first multi-tracking recorders had four tracks,

then eight, then 16, 24, and soon even more.

It is discovered that new effects were possible

using multi-tracking recorders,

such as phasing and flanging, delays and echo.

So these innovations appeared on commercial recording

shortly after multi-track recorders were introduced.

(metal dings)

A typical home reel-to-reel tape recorder

could play stereo quarter inch tapes,

but record only in mono.

Some pricier home recording units

featured stereo recording.

Home equipment with these kinds of limited features

were marketed to the public and popularized in the 1950s

and 1960s for home use.

Tape speeds were soon standardized to permit compatibility

from one manufacturer to the next.

And thus a uniformity was born

on this new world changing media.

The first prerecorded reel-to-reel tapes

were introduced in the United States in 1949.

In 1952, EMI started selling prerecorded reel-to-reel albums

in great Britain.

The RCA Victor Corporation

joined the reel-to-reel business in 1954.

In 1955, EMI released a two-track,

Stereo sonic reel-to-reel tape, which enhances stereo sound,

but in the mid 1950s initial reel-to-reel sales were poor.

But as of the mid 1960s with the rise of rock and roll

and amplified music,

reel-to-reel sales, a popular music outfit began to surge

and the format seen unprecedented growth,

artists like the Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, The Who,

and many others all released albums on reel-to-reel.

After the introduction of eight track tapes

and cassette tapes,

the number of albums released on reel-to-reel tape

began to drop significantly,

despite its higher sound quality.

The introduction of the Dolby noise reduction system

narrowed the performance gap between cassette tapes

and open reel.

By 1973,

commercially released music on the open reel format,

had almost completely disappeared

with the introduction of the more smaller, easier to operate

tape reel enclosed in a singular plastic mechanism,

also known as the cassette tape.

With the popularity of the cassette tape during the 1980s,

reel-to-reel sales were very low

and the only people that seem still interested

in reel-to-reel recordings were collectors

and reel-to-reel enthusiasts.

By the 1990s, the format practically died

and was almost completely gone by the early two thousands.

But ironically, in recent times,

novelty and exclusive limited edition,

pre recorded reel-to-reel tapes are making a comeback

once again,

albeit probably more expensive than they used to be,

possibly due to the higher cost of producing

a modern reel-to-reel recording.

As all professional reel-to-reel recorders are discontinued

and there are no longer no more companies

specializing in reel-to-reel manufacturing.

So there are no authorized technicians around

that can service the machines,

companies like US-based 360 sound envision,

and the German label analog audio association

have been experimenting with the release of new recordings

on the open reel-to-reel tape format.

When the leading reel-to-reel manufacturer Ampex

broke apart in the 1990, Quantegy Inc was formed,

later becoming Quantegy Recording Solutions in 2004.

Quantegy then started leading the field

and reel-to-reel recording technology.

Also Quantegy was the only company left

making reel-to-reel tapes in the world

for a period of two years.

In 2007, Reel Deal pro audio purchased the majority

of Quantegys' reel-to-reel audio tape assets,

and began to sell the products on their website.

In 2006, Recorded Media Group International or RMGI

in the Netherlands began manufacturing reel-to-reel tapes.

At that time, it was the only company still manufacturing

reel-to-reel tapes in the world.

As of 2011,

a company by the name of Pyral in France

started making reel-to-reel audio tapes

for use in the motion picture industry.

In 2015, a company named Milan acquired Pyral

and is now offering a complete range

of reel-to-reel audio tapes under the new brand,

Recording the Masters.

ATR Magnetics began manufacturing analog open reel tape

in 2006 and is now offering a full line of all sizes

of professional open reel recording tape.

The faster the tape speed will equal to better

the reproduction quality.

The faster the reel spins, the higher quality the audio.

The high recording speed,

spread the audio signal over more of the tape area,

reducing the effects of dropouts that can appear on the tape

due to mechanical imperfections.

At a slower tape speed, the conservation of tape

can be beneficial and enables the recorders

to record for longer periods of time

as a seven inch 1800 foot long tape

recorded at the speed of seven and a half IPS

can be up to 96 minutes in length.

The same tape recorded at a slower speed

of three and three quarters IPS

can be up to 192 minutes or about twice as long.

The slower speed can be useful for recording purposes

where sound quality is not critical.

Speed units of inches per second, or In/s,

are also abbreviated IPS.

Three and three quarter inches per second

and seven and a half inches per second

are the speeds that we'll use for the vast majority

of consumer market releases of commercial recordings

on reel-to-reel tape.

Three and three quarter inches per second

is also the speed used in A-track cartridges.

178 inches per second is also the speed used

in compact cassettes.

Another quality aspect not related to audio quality

is the backing material.

Typically acetate was used for cheaper tape

and miler for more expensive tape.

Acetate would tend to break under conditions

that miler would survive, they'll possibly stretch.

The quality of the oxides binder was also important,

but it was common for the old tape for the backing

to wind on the reel while the oxides were known to fall off.

Electronic noise reduction techniques were also developed

to increase the signal to noise ratio

and dynamic range of analog sound recordings,

Dolby noise reduction includes a suite of standards

designated A, B, C, S and SR

for both professional and consumer recording.

Initially Dolby was offered via a standalone box

that would go between recorder and amplifier,

later audio devices often included Dolby

within their devices.

DBX is another noise reduction system

that uses a more aggressive compounding technique

to improve both dynamic range and noise level.

However DBX recordings do not sound acceptable

when played on non DBX equipment.

In the late 1970s,

a German company by the name of Telefunken

made high calm noise reduction systems,

a broadband compounder, which was technically very advanced.

That was a gain in dynamics of roughly 25 decibels

that outperformed a well-known Dolby B by far.

High Com was included

in more sophisticated cassette recorders,

mostly alongside the various Dolby systems.

Even though the supply to the consumer market,

there was no tape hiss at all that an ear could realize.

Another advantage was that recorded tapes

could be exchanged amongst High Com recorders

without any loss of quality and sound.

It did not penetrate the market

possibly due to the less aggressive marketing strategies,

typical for German companies at that time,

compared to the widely known Dolby systems.

Dolby B eventually became the most popular system

for compact cassette noise reduction.

Today Dolby S R is in widespread use

for professional analog tape recording.

(rock music)

As studio audio production progressed

and became more and more advanced.

It became desirable to record the individual instruments

and human voices separately and mix them down to one,

two or more speaker channels later,

rather than in real time in the studio before recording.

In addition to allowing recording engineers and producers

to experiment with different mixing arrangements,

effects, et cetera, on the same performance

and to produce multiple versions of a recording

without having multiple duplicates

of all the studio control room equipment used for mixing,

multi-tracking enables the use of non-real-time effects

or effects that cannot be produced in the same studio

where the musicians perform.

Reel-to-reel recorders with eight, 16, 24 and even 32 tracks

were eventually built with as many heads recording

synchronized parallel linear tracks.

(instrumental music)

Some of these machines were larger

than a laundry washing machine and used a tape

as wide as two inches, 51 millimeters.

a single new reel of one inch or wider tape

could easily cost a hundred to $200.

Still in professional studios,

most tapes were recorded only once

and all recording was on new tape

to ensure the maximum quality, as studio time,

and the time of skilled musicians

was much higher than the cost of tape

making it not worth the risk of a recording being lost

or degraded due to using media

that had been previously recorded upon.

If more than 24 tracks of recording were required,

it was possible in the 1980s and onwards

with advanced machines to synchronize two or more,

24-track recorders to such precision

that they behaved as a single 48-track recorder.

Such a precise synchronization was achieved

by recording a time code on one of the tracks

on each reel of tape.

A computer system will keep the two time codes

perfectly synchronized and transparently

as seen by the machine operator.

Digital reel-to-reel.

As professional audio evolved from analog magnetic tape

to digital media engineers adapted magnetic tape technology

to digital recording,

producing digital reel-to-reel magnetic tape machines.

Before large hard disk became economical enough

to make hard disks recorders viable,

studio digital recording meant recording on digital tape.

Mitsubishi's Pro Digi

and Sony's Digital Audio Stationary head, DASH,

were the primary digital reel-to-reel formats in use

in recording studios from the early 1980s

through the mid 1990s.

Nagra introduced digital reel-to-reel tape recorders

for use in film recording.

Digital reel-to-reel tape

unlimited all the traditional quality limitations

of analog tape including background noise, hiss,

high frequency roll-off, wow and flutter,

pitch error, non-linearity, print through,

and degeneration with copying.

But the tape media was even more expensive

than professional analog open reel tape

and the linear nature of tapes

still placed restrictions on access and winding time.

To find a particular spot was still a significant drawback.

Also, while the quality of digital tape

did not progressively degrade with the use of the tape,

the physical sliding of the tape over their heads and guides

meant that the tape still did wear and eventually

that wear would lead to digital errors

and permanent loss of quality of the tape.

If the tape was not copied before reaching that point,

still digital reel-to-reel tape represented

a significant advance in audio recording technology,

and most who could afford to record using digital tape

generally did.

Three M's 32 track recorder was priced at $115,000 in 1978.

Best known for its lines of tape media

and professional analog recorders

with its M series of multi-track and two track machines.

The Min Com division of 3M spent several years

developing a digital recording system,

including two years of joint research with the BBC.

The result was the 3M digital audio mastering system,

which consisted of a 32 Trent depth,

16 bit 50 kilo Hertz audio running one inch tape

and a four track half inch mastering recorder.

The extremely short wavelengths recorded

by a digital tape recorder meant that tape

and tape transport cleanliness was an important issue.

Specks of dust or dirt were large enough

in relation to the signal wavelengths

that the contamination by such dirt

could render a recording unplayable.

Advanced digital error correction systems,

without which the system would have been unworkable

still failed to cope with poorly maintained tape

or recorders.

And for this reason,

a number of tapes made in the early years

of digital reel-to-reel recorders are now useless.

Early reel-to-reel users realize that segments of tape

could be spliced together and otherwise manipulated

by adjusting playback speed or direction

of a given recording.

In the same way as modern keyboards allow sampling

and playback at different speeds,

a reel-to-reel could accomplish similar feats

in the hands of a talented user.

The Mellotron is an electrical mechanical

Holly phonic tape replay keyboard that use the bank

of parallel linear magnetic audio tape strips.

Playback heads underneath each key

enable the plane of prerecorded sound.

Each of the tape strips has a playing time

of approximately eight seconds after which

the tape comes to a dead stop

and rewinds the start position.

The title track of Jimmy Hendrix's album,

"Are You Experienced" on which the guitar solo

and much of the drum track was recorded,

then played backwards on a reel-to-reel.

The Beatles recorded many songs using reel-to-reel tape

as part of the creative process.

Examples include, "Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite"

and "yellow Submarine".

The BBC Radiophonic workshop,

notably Deliah Derby Shire,

who created the original theme tune to the BBC series,

"Doctor Who", by recording various sounds,

including oscillators,

and then manually cutting together each individual note

on a group of reel-to-reels.

Relic of the past or instrument of the future?

Today, the reel-to-reel is now an instrument of its own

with new musicians creating new possibilities

of the reel-to-reel in new ways.

And there are also many people who still enjoy

listening to the analog tape recorder in its old ways.

(upbeat music)

- [Announcer] And this swinger is dancing to the music

of the new Wollensak 5150 tape recorder,

once an array of musical talent that sold lower price

like solid state transistors for instant warmup

and smooth contemporary design.

The Wollensak 5150 available in mono or stereo models,

see them new sleek looking superb sound at your dealers now.

When it comes to recordings,

what you want is a Wollensak.

3M company,

What won't they think of next?

- Analog, and the history of reel-to-reel tape recording

written and directed by Dwayne Buckle,

narrated by Myles Wright.

Presented by Vision Laboratories,

distributed by 360 Sound and Vision LTD.

(rising instrumental music)