The only reason I could think of to let a pro do it is that there are lots of rubber parts in this machine. I don't know how they'll react to the proshot or any other mix of lube/solvent. |
Listen to Orpheus10. Akai made some nice decks, but the parts are notoriously difficult to source and Akai's don't compare too favorably in both the sound and maintenance departments to Revox, Teac, Pioneer, Tandbergs, etc.
It's awesome to have a cool, gifted heirloom, but resale & if it will see serious use are always considerations when thinking of refirbing and esp. spending to refirb vintage gear.
If you just want to have a lark, why don't you just hit it hard with the contact cleaner and see what you have on your hands first? |
That's pretty much where I'm at with it, Marchameslice. I'll post my results on this thread when I get to the project, since this thread is truly one of the few sources for kind of info. Many thanks again.
Michael |
Cool man, let us know how it goes with it. I have a Revox A77 & a Technics 1506 and I really enjoy messing around with tape.. so what if it's a bit anochronistic :)
There are a few other boards you can check out for some RTR info. A dedicated one called Tapeheads.net comes to mind, also the Tape Trail forum at the AA (doesn't get a lot of action these days, but there are some very experienced folks who lurk over there). Also, places like the Bottlehead/Tape Project board and the stevehoffman.tv boards have some really nice and informative RTR minded people on them as well.
Good luck with it! M |
@Poprhetor,
I know of an Akai R2R for sale right now at a vintage shop...i don't think it's too expensive actually i don't think he knew what it was worth at all. The unit works through and through, if you need parts or want to replace let me know and i'll msg you the details. |
If you want to lubricate any bearing set in most tape machines, an excellent lubricant for the job is Dextron-style automatic transmission fluid. Usually only a few drops are required.
A common problem in many Japanese tape machines is the pinch roller arm that activates the pinch roller. It can get gummed up by the grease that was used when the machine was built. Quite often by now such greases have turned to a pretty effective glue! Another area where this is a problem is the reel brakes which are often activated by a common lever. |
Well, it works. A local record shop had a box of free reel tapes (home recorded). Turns out, many of them were actually sealed blank tapes. Nice windfall. I'm looking forward to checking this guy's Ink Spots recording against my cd. Unfortunately, the left channel is practically inaudible. I may take it into the shop for that. The right channel sounded fine. I can hear the record scratches from the home recording, but they were free, so . . .
Thanks again for the helpful responses.
I'll check that stuff out, Atma. :)
M. |
I took the Akai beast to Fred at Classic Audio Repair in San Diego. He confirmed what several have said (parts, etc.). He recommended I ditch it and get Teac, unless I wanted to make it a personal project. I may Craigslist for a low amount as "parts or repair." The take-up reel alone is pretty cool. |
I'll just give my two cents here.
I have been an artist and producer for a good quality artistic label, but have been recording in the digital world since the early 90's.
Mistake
I have personally been a vinyl junkie as long as I have been old enough to listen to music and still am to this day. I always tried to get a warmer thicker richer sound on my recordings than my digital peers, often to either the praise or harsh criticism from the press. A couple years ago I upgraded my entire personal system with a decent Music Hall deck, restored vintage Scott Tube amp and a set of basically modified Forte II's. It was certainly enough to get me to open my eyes and face a new reality.
The label was kind enough to now supply me with a 16 track Tascam tape machine which I have been laying demos on for the last few months.
Wow, is all I can say.
Demos already sound 10 times better than finished digital mixes of the past.
Anyone that suggests that digital recording or playback is superior simply is speaking from a platform of ignorance, and I say this with all due respect. You have to be able to hear a recording played back properly on a quality analog set up to make an educated statement. As a recording artist, you have to have had your work recorded properly AND have heard it played back PROPERLY to make an educated assessment.
If you have been presented with the two mediums properly, you will of course understand the superiority of an unadulterated analog stream.
Now, not to get off topic here.. but unless an artist has been recorded direct to vinyl, tape machines are the best vehicle to record music... period.
So I would argue that a recording that was recorded onto tape, mixed, pressed onto vinyl, them sent back out to a tape machine is not going to improve the sound. It may add a certain tape compression of the signal that may sound pleasing to some, but it is not better in a technical sense. Not possible.
One of the problems facing listeners today is that they are so used to music that is over processed in the digital world, that a proper recording might sound too raw or human.
There are so many options for digital recording artists in the way of processors, plugins, simulators, filters and so on, and young artists seem almost brainwashed to use them.
I would counter and say that if you have a properly tuned instrument, a good quality instrument, play your part well, and have it miked properly direct to a tape machine, you really don't have to do ANYTHING to it. If you are tracking, your mixing board really only has to be used to set volume levels, and a pan fader to place the sound where you want it in a stereo mix. You really shouldn't have to even use EQ.....IF you have recorded the track properly.
The only thing you might want to compress a little bit might be an electric bass guitar a kick drum and some vocalists.
HOWEVER,
If you mic things properly, and you are recording to tape, you have access to such a full dynamic range that you really don't need to compress at all if you don't want to.
It's a subjective thing.. but if there are any recording artists here reading.. you shouldn't HAVE to...
Drummers recording to click tracks in my opinion is still controversial. There is no reason to take a GOOD drummer out of his groove. Humans are not machines.. some ebb and flow is OK.
The digital world is so in love with quantitizing the drum tracks to the nearest 8th note editing them on a computer screen, and usually pulling out and replacing the drummers actual kick and snare drums with stock samples that the producer THINKS sound better. So what we get is a sterile, lifeless over processed homogenized sound that has been spoon fed to the public since the early 80's.
The temptation to FIX everything in the pre mix down production room is just too damn tempting and it ends up getting hacked up with 400 edits and we get what we get.
The great thing about a reel to reel is that it's actually it's LIMITATIONS that open the possibilities to a better record. I say this because in the old days, musicians had to PRACTICE to lay tracks because punching is not as easy on a tape machine, especially with drummers. You try to punch on the cymbal crashes, and if you miss just a bit it doesn't sound good. Sure tape loops have been used and other studio trickery but nothing like what goes on now.
Tape is expensive, and you feel a bit of pressure when those reels are spinning, much more than endless digital takes. Analog tape can only take so many runs across the recording heads before they have to be cleaned or the tape starts losing fidelity.
It asks more of you.
So the best way to both record and playback music is going to be tape machines.
You simply cannot take a dynamic tape recorded performance and dither it down to 16 or 24 bit transferring analog to digital and back through analog converters working full steam and expect a proper playback on CD.
NO
If you love digital music, then good for you, but you won't win any "quality" arguments with someone that knows better.
|
Astralography, thanks for your spot-on observations. |
Astralography,
Very well written & I couldn't agree more.
Thanks for the great explanation. |
I'll just toss in one other thing here I have recently found out in the last few weeks. In the recording world today, most of the analog "purists" are still missing the point because "most" of them are using tape machines only for tracking and not mix down. They are tracking on a tape machine, but then dumping those tracks into a computer software program such as "Pro Tools" and then continue to hack up and edit the mixes to death.
A "true purist" would mix onto another tape machine.. preferably a high quality two track (half track) open reel, then use that tape to make any cuts or splices with the good old fashion razor blade on the splicing block. That tape would act as a master and a couple clones would be made from that such as one for a safely backup and one to be sent off to the vinyl cutting lathe. The bigger pro studios would use 2" tape usually Studer machines and smaller studios could still release excellent quality product mixing down onto 1/2 tape or even 1/4 inch tape stereo masters.
I don't know how many artists are doing it the right way anymore, I would guesstimate very very few.
People seem to think that they are saving their music by safely dumping it into a computer.. and that their will be no generation loss..
However..
What people forget is that the initial analog to digital conversion is very destructive and remember, it must be converted AGAIN back out of digital format to be understood by our very human ANALOG ears. So it gets hit twice.
I would not fear two generations of analog tape conversions to get something pressed on vinyl which is now "ironically" being hailed actually as the best possible format for archiving music (about 100 years)
CD life span is suggested at about 30 years max. |
True that about vinyl. Think about it as a long term archive only vinyl discs will stand the test of time. Sure they must be properly stored but they will be playable at any time in the future with a simple turntable and playback stylus.
Analogue tape is a convenient archive of analogue but it will degrade worse as time passes compared to vinyl. Yes, if you use a good tape medium and proper storage you will get good long term storage with analogue tape.
Digital storage be it on an optical disc, hard disc or flash card will likely not be playable unless you routinely recopy it as time passes. Not only is there fear of a hard disc failure but if your playback machine lacks the ability to read and play what would inevitably be obsolete storage medium you could wind up having a properly stored digital medium setup that just wont be able to be read by any future computer play back set up. |
Astralography,
Three letters: AAA
From T.H.E. Show, Newport Beach (where the best sonics where evident in rooms featuring RTR and vinyl and where RTR, vinyl, and digital formats were front-end options).
|
Astralography, I agree on the need to use analog from one end to the other in the recording process.
When my band has released its LPs, although they had set up the studio before I joined the group, none of them had experience editing a master with a razor blade so I wound up with that task. Fortunately there was not a lot of that to do- we did our recordings 'live' which is to say while we did use a multi-track recorder, we did not do any over-dubs.
We kept 24-bit backup digital files too, scanned at double the redbook frequency to avoid the use of a brickwall filter. Compared to the 2-channel analog tape, the digital files essentially fall flat on their respective faces. |
I never play my most valuable records after I made a recording. I don't use RTR yet, I use Nakamichi deck. If I ruin those records by accident they will be almost impossible or very expensive to replace, or both. Good for me that I don't have many of those. |
If the best sound quality is the primary objective, then I agree you should keep the recording purely analog throughout the recording/manufacturing process. It will sound better. However, if the objective is best quality music, then keeping it pure can actually limit the artistic flexibility of the musician/engineer/producer. I think most people favor flexibility over purity and are only trying to achieve good to very good, not great, quality sound. |
However, if the objective is best quality music, then keeping it pure can actually limit the artistic flexibility of the musician/engineer/producer. I would only suggest that what would appear obvious about digital editing and endless effects and plugins.. this can and actually in most cases takes the music away from the musician themselves and puts it into the digital plethora of endless possibilities which can ultimately hinder the music. Brian Eno once said "it is not about having more options, it is about having more USEFUL options" The temptation to over produce is VERY REAL.. and in my opinion hinders the process of creating truly great music which is really best when it is actually being performed by the artists. Dylan didn't need a lot of studio trickery, and if you love more complex music.. bands like YES and early Genesis just simply had great musicians that where also very creative in the studio environment. But sometimes less is more.. and striving for a better take can actually produce a more heartfelt track than using pitch shifters, and quantizing drum tracks, fixing the mix in protools and so forth. I suggest that the pressure of having to perform on your instrument properly can lead to better recordings or even great ones. For us that know... most records these days are created in a very dishonest way. Before the digital age.. I think recordings were much more honest.. and that ultimately transmits to the listener whether they consciously know the recording process or not. Digital effects can't help but sound digital. Samples sound like samples and plugins sound like plugins. |
Otari two track. Great pro deck easy to find used and, I believe, they still make it. Yes Ebay is a great start, but consider antique stores and estate sales. The rca stereo classical tapes are amazing. That would be where I would put my money. Liberty records put out some killer music by Martin Denny and Arthur Lymann. You might get lucky and find some Julie London. Happyhunting! |
I have a dream, it's called EE tape. I still have some, but it's mixed in with the rest of the reels, and I have a bunch. There's no way to tell EE tape by looking at it, I can only tell it's EE when I hear it. Dummy that I am, I forget to put a big EE sign on the box.
I wonder if all the reel owners requested EE tape, would they make us a batch. You ain't heard nothing, until you hear a recording made on EE tape. Cheapskate that I was, I bought it to record at a slower speed, and get the same results as a higher speed with regular tape. |
