Tape Recording: Taking the Electromagnet to a Whole New Level

Rather than use electromagnets to cut a groove, why not use them with other magnets? By using materials that could be magnetized, the electromagnets used in the phonograph cartridge could be adapted into a magnetic recorder. This technology is still very much in use today, but in this episode of Technology Connections, we're exploring the two earliest forms of audio reproduction done with magnets: the wire recorder, and the magnetic tape recorder.
Music credit:
Old Bossa by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Artist: www.twinmusicom.org/

[@bobothn]

This really shows how far he has come. The content was always interesting but his presentation has gotten so much better since these videos. No more bad green screen no more speed reading an essay now its shot well and has much more of a conversational tone.

[@cat-.-]

I think the opposite. The green screen is a small detail, and I think the scripts + delivery back in the day is actually comparable to his recent videos (in a good way). Newer videos are clearly better, but this is still very good.

[@ambiguoustv7403]

@@cat-.- idk his newer videos flow easier and his jokes are really good

[@epitomepb3363]

True but the opening is a banger

[@morphman86]

Fun fact: The wire recording was used for almost 2 decades, in a very niche area: US government agencies. Due to bureaucracy, when magnetic tapes came around, the government decided to keep with the wire. They were early adopters of the wire, and sank a lot of money into it. It was decided that the tape would be unnecessary and too expensive, and probably would be just the latest craze, so they might as well wait for the next big thing. Unfortunately, it took about a decade and a half before they finally gave in and realized the wire was the craze, and started retrofitting for tape... and it took so long to transfer the archives from wire to tape, that digital recording had come before they were done, and they had to start all over again.

[@StrangerHappened]

Nuclear forces still use 13.3 cm and even 20.3 cm floppy disks in some places. This is finally undergoing a major upgrade though.

[@StrokeMahEgo]

Wire was probably easier to conceal for field agents also. Put it on a different spool that looks like it would fit with whatever cover story they had.

[@hairyairey]

and this is also why when they spy on someone they need authorisation for a "wiretap"

[@rationalmartian]

Didn't the Germans also use a wire recorder/player too? I seem to remember seeing an old German one somewhere.

[@MasticinaAkicta]

@@rationalmartian They moved to tape earlier on. The allies were asking themselves how the speeches could be of such quality and at such times, knowing all to well that WIRE couldn't really offer such quality. And after winning the war they took the tape technology that was pretty good at that time in germany to the USA. And the music industry was quite interested in tape... Now during the second world war the allies used wire. The ghost army had captures sounds of moving trucks, tanks, people talking and so on and blasted it out so German military and scouts would hear an army coming up... and it was fake. But yeah the germans used tape much earlier and had better quality machines ready to use in the second world war. Hitlers speeches that could last for hours were on tapes.

[@raydunakin]

When I was 13 or 14, my dad won a really good quality TEAC reel-to-reel recorder in a raffle. A few years later I started using it to record music off the radio. I was able to create mix tapes by copying the songs I wanted from the reel-to-reel onto a cassette recorder, in whatever order I wanted. Fun stuff!

[@danielsanchez4881]

Nice quick Airplane reference! "There is no stopping in the red zone."

[@jonoghue]

and he doesn't skip a beat, he just casually continues xD

[@lumabi25]

Daniel Sanchez "Listen, Betty. Don't start with your white zone shit again".

[@dylanhuculak8458]

No, the red zone is for the immediate unloading of passengers. There is no stopping in the _white_ zone.

[@dylanhuculak8458]

(would've worked better if I got my comment out before Luke's :D )

[@SeanReigle]

10:51

[@anonymous.youtuber]

When you played the low speed tape, I found myself back in the JC Penney store in the sixties...

[@MmeHyraelle]

Still better than wait music of many corporations. Most often it just pops and cracks.

[@adamhosein6681]

Noooo

[@SuperFlashDriver]

@@MmeHyraelle Or it sounds like Elevator music just waiting to be picked up and it would drop in and out depending on if you breathed into the micr by mistake or if you lost cell signal for a bit. This is why I prefer much faster and straight to the point customer service rather than automation....Just saying.

[@lethalantidote]

This intro needs to make a come back. I do appreciate the straight-to-the-point approach of the newer videos. But this intro was wonderful.

[@randyharrigan4790]

my dad (who fixed electronics for years) made one of his reel to reel players into a 8 track player to save old tapes that were wound to tight by soldering a 8 track head on a screw and a frame so it can be adjusted for each track of the 8 track tape and then soldered the head to the machines head wires. Since 8 track tape plays at 3 and 1/4 speed and the tape is the same size as reel tape this idea worked perfectly for salvaging old tapes that were ready for the garbage and with the head being adjustable, you could achieve a great quality recording and finely tune each channel of the 8 track tape all you have to do is wind your 8 track takes off their proprietary plastic wheel onto a reel (this is easy because the plastic wheel 8 track tapes are on fit onto a reel to reel capstan perfectly). Just thought you or anyone reading this might find this interesting :)

[@stevearmstrong4561]

I did the same thing by placing eight track heads in old reel to reel recorders to recover the audio and rerecorded them onto cassette.

[@Zawmbbeh]

i love to hear about audio preservation, tell your dad that he's a value to audio history!

[@jamesslick4790]

@@leetucker9938 But, you DID read it.

[@jamesslick4790]

@@leetucker9938 If you didn't read it, you are in no position to judge the relative excitement level of the story. My daughter teaches third grade and would be very disappointed with you for rendering an opinion of a text without reading said text.

[@MomMom4Cubs]

I did find this interesting. Thanx!!

[@connierule3902]

5:14 ah. You mean dark orange.

[@macstevins]

nice

[@Appleboy78165]

Contextual Orange.

[@adenarrington7607]

Orange, WITH CONTEXT

[@dannybrennan31]

Brown is a shade of orange

[@beepster8802]

Brown

[@Capturing-Memories]

Having a separate recording head is not for monitoring purposes only, It provides better recording by having a record head with slightly larger head gap than playback head, Single playback/record head is a compromise of both.

[@typograf62]

It also gave you the ability to fake an echo. It is not of much use but I've heard it used as "stadium echo" in an act where a junta had taken over Thisted (northen Jutland).

[@daveb5041]

What the hell are you talking about? Jutland?

[@raffriff42]

@@typograf62 I dunno about juntas in Thisted (yes I did google it) but tape echo, also called "slap-back," was used heavily in popular music, from the 50's, 60's and (for retro effect) long after... Also, having a separate play head made alignment MUCH easier as you could see the effect of adjusting bias (for example) in real time, rather then having to record, rewind and play back.

[@StephenGillie]

My mother remembers recording a reel tape, and sending it across the country to her friend, who would send another tape back as a reply. It was cheaper than long distance calling at the time - they could talk for hours to each other for less than a dollar - just not in real time - while long distance was a few dollars an hour.

[@HermelJaworski]

wow, that's amazing! it's like the ancestor to voice message on smartphones !

[@BlahBleeBlahBlah]

Great video, my dad and I just got his TC 366 out of storage and we're working at getting it back to working order, it's a lovely unit. I'm impressed at how good even the 3.75 ips recording was, let alone at 7.5!

[@Klarpimier]

I love how the tape hiss is now an aesthetic and we add it back into tracks

[@SuperFlashDriver]

Same with my other favorite, vinyl crackling...Both Tape hiss & white noise, as well as vinyl crackling, are things you can't really get with digital noise. And digital noise would be more, wavy and akin to that of lava bubbling compared to hissing.

[@taiwanluthiers]

Correction: Rust is iron oxide, but it isn't ONLY iron oxide. It is a mixture of chemicals that includes various oxidation states of iron oxide (red, black, yellow) as well as iron hydroxide. It is literally a dirty chemical soup of rather useless iron compounds. To obtain useful iron compound recording, you need black iron oxide. Keep this in mind whenever you want to just take a nail and try to rust it in water to obtain iron oxide. Though one way to get black iron oxide for sure is to fume the iron with acid (hydrochloric acid works well, bleach will too), wait for the redness to appear, then boil it in water. This turns the mostly red iron oxide into black iron oxide. But it's pointless to do this as you can just buy the stuff at ceramic stores. They are used as pigment. Then you can have fun with it by mixing it with aluminum and lighting it with a sparkler...

[@Myrtone]

Actually, there is more to magnetic recording than mentioned. It was soon discovered that recording a linear signal directly onto the tape, it would be highly distorted due to a property called hysteresis. This is overcome by adding an A.C signal called bias, which is at a higher frequency than what can be recorded by the head gap. And when played back, the playback output, if amplitude of magnetisation is equal, scales linearly with the frequency. For example, the playback output doubles with each octave up. The pre-amp needs a higher gain at lower frequencies than at higher ones and is thus called and equaliser. Once again; If DC is recorded onto the tape, there will be no playback output at all.

[@stevesstuff1450]

I think the video was purely trying to illustrate the basic concepts of tape recording, rather than going into the nitty-gritty complexities of it; in fact he (Alec), mentioned a couple of times that there were concepts involved that he would cover in later videos.......

[@hakonsoreide]

He specifically said bias would be covered in a later video.

[@artshifrin3053]

THE IRONY ABOUT A.C. BIAS WAS THAT A U.S. PATENT WAS ISSUED (TO CARLSEN & CARPENTER) APPLIED FOR IN 1921 & GRANTED IN 1927 (NOT A TYPO). IMAGINE NOT MERELY SEPARATE AUDIO RECORDINGS. WITH NOT YET SOLVED IN MICROPHONE & RECORDING GEAR NOT YET SUFFICIENTLY REFINED. BUT WHEN EMBEDDED IN FILM STOCK, ASSUREDLY SYNCHRONOUS SOUND FILM WITH WIRE EMBEDDED IN EDITABLE IN FILM STOCK. THE MORE HISTORICAL IRONIES IS THAT THEY WERE CONCEPTUALIZED BY OTHERS TOO. HERE IN THE U.S.A., THE ARMOUR PATENT WAS SO LOCKED UP THAT AMPEX HAD TO PAY ROYALTIES TO IT ARMOUR UP TO & PAST, IT'S FIRST PRODUCT, MODEL 200 (.25" TAPE 30 IPS 14" REEL / SPOOL / PANCAKE ) WHATEVER. EVER READ ABOUT THE CROSS FIELD HEAD? I HAD AN A ROBERTS OPEN REEL MODEL. WOW: WHAT A SLOW SPEED INSTRUMENT.

[@moldyoldie7888]

@@artshifrin3053 I used Akai cross-field recorders long ago. The tapes had comparatively "loud" high frequency content. In the late 1930s the Germans stumbled onto the benefits of high frequency bias and ran with it. Did they care about US patents? For several post-war years, Sony collected royalties on any recorder sold in Japan that used HF bias recording, according to Akio Morita's book. Did Ranger or Brush have to pay royalties too?

[@robbruens]

@@artshifrin3053 try not to scream next time

[@levelrod]

Always enjoy your show. I learn so much! Years ago I used reel to reel and carts to multitrack record and edit commercials for radio. Hours and hours of splice editing with a razor blade and scotch tape. Always marveled and wondered about the mysterious technology allowing me to be able to record and play back in the first place. Now I know. Thanks and keep going. So appreciated. The time you give providing this living history will be increasingly appreciated even more with in the future as those generations reach out to search for the roots that preceded digital. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I think that What you are doing is invaluable for posterity’s sake. Thank you!

[@RetroAndMore89]

The recording tape based on paper was invented by Fritz Pfleumer in 1982, his tape used a width of 16 mm. The first plastic foil tape was developed by BASF in 1935/36 with 6,5 mm width. The first full working recording devices with 77 cm/s and high frequency erasing were shown in 1935 by AEG. After WW2 these devices were moved to the USA where thy cut the tape to 6,35 mm. In my opinion magnetic tape is the most important invention of the 20th century. No other recording media is so versatile and can take audio, video and computer data. The hardware is comparable simple and the medium is able to store information for a long time. I have Sony Elcaset Ferrochrom cassettes with 40 year old tape and it still sound excellent. Around the 2000's the manufacturing quality of common magnetic storage was absolutely worse, bad cassettes, faulty 3,5" disks. The 5,25" disks of the 80's for my Commodore 64 are still working fine.

[@StrangerHappened]

I do not know what they have done wrong with 3.5" disks but they are indeed turned out, in general, way sh!ttier than 5.25" even though the latter do not provide hardware protection.

[@prep74]

"In my opinion magnetic tape is the most important invention of the 20th century. No other recording media is so versatile and can take audio, video and computer data." Well while it was the first media of the 20th century that take audio, video and computer data, digital media could do all three and surpassed magnetic media in terms of versatility by the end of last century.

[@bedel00]

1928 not 1982 ;-)

[@RetroAndMore89]

@@bedel00 Sorry, I ment 1298!

[@jeremyclayton-travis1991]

I enjoyed that. I ran managed and brought a company called Teletape at Marble arch London. We specialised in reel to reel. I was told when I took over the management and buying for the company that Ringo Starr had an issue with the company back in the early days. His Sony TC366 broke down and it tool a long time to get spares and fix it. Not these days you press a button and it arrives in the next few days if you want. Jeremy Travis

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

14:50 It’s not two “sides”: the tracks are still on the same side of the tape. They are simply positioned in-between the tracks recorded in the other direction. So you have four tracks along the length of the tape - two stereo pairs, recorded in opposite directions.

[@jamesslick4790]

The "sides" are metaphoric. Stereo Open reel and Cassettes, Yes have 4 tracks. However stereo (or 2 track mono)Open reel and Cassettes (unless played on a deck with auto reverse) are physically removed and flipped 🙃 over, in an action like flipping a record (witch actually does have 2 sides of audio). Since this action on the part of the end user is so similar, It's been traditional to label the physical reels or cassette cartridges with an "A side" and a "B side". The same tapes used in a 4 track open reel deck (or, even cassettes in the case of something like a Tascam Ministudio) only have one metaphoric "side" corresponding to the physical one. For 99.8665309% of consumer use, The concept of an A side and a B side is fine.

[@wmjowls]

These older videos are hitting my feed. Keep up the good work !

[@aipsong]

Excellent video!! I bought my first tape recorder in 1965, and have been recording (on many different types of machines) since then. Sound manipulation is a fabulous adventure.

[@WarrenGarabrandt]

10k changes per second is not the same thing as 10khz. The Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem tells us that if you sample at a frequency 'x', the maximum frequency of sound you could reproduce is 1/2 of x. This is because your samples, at best, would capture alternating troughs and peaks in pressure, which means for the highest possible frequency alternate samples would be max high and max low value.

[@FranklinLaserBlog]

Warren Garabrandt This is analog. There is no sampling.

[@WarrenGarabrandt]

@@FranklinLaserBlog Changes per second is basically the same thing as samples per second. Each change can be the signal going up, or down (or staying the same I guess, but that breaks the semantic meaning of the word change). You need an up and a down to make a cycle. So if you have alternating up and down, you create a sine wave of exactly 1/2 the frequency of the rate of your changes. This is just a messier way of saying what I already said in my original comment. Except I avoided the word sample. But it's the same meaning. You see what I mean?

[@FranklinLaserBlog]

Warren Garabrandt Yes. I understand. Raising edge + falling edge = 1 cycle, but 2 changes.

[@abdulmasaiev9024]

>source "Okay, I see" >switch to tape "Wow, it still sounds pretty good and pretty much the same!" >switch to recording too hot, "this sounds terrible" "I suppose........? I think I can hear that... maybe? I think? Yes I think there's something" >switch to super slow tape, "this sounds like garbage" "D-does it? Garbage? Yes? itsoundsokaytome YES GARBAGE TOTALLY" I think maybe I'm not, like, a "music" person

[@treyspiller3931]

I think it might be because of KZbin compression and stuff, if you were physically there you’d probably hear a difference.

[@barkingdoggo3331]

maybe you're not using great headphones or maybe your hearing isn't that great! there's a lot of variables so dw about it

[@ojaslandge515]

Anybody notice greenscreen?

[@ccf_1004]

Fairly obvious... It bothered me the entire video...

[@BetamaxFlippy]

I mean how much can people be lazy not to tweak the edges?

[@ColHogan-le5yk]

By the ears

[@ColHogan-le5yk]

M. P. What? 😂

[@BetamaxFlippy]

M. P. the King of Salt (?)

[@ds99]

Thank you. This brought back so many memories I have from the 60s and 70s. In the 60s I had a reel to reel tape recorder but it wasn’t very expensive and no matter what I recorded, or at what volume, it sounded awful. I still have some tapes but no more machine. In the late 70s I had a cassette deck. Much better sound. It had Dolby circuitry that got rid of the hiss but I also found the Dolby from the late 70s also muffled the sound so in many cases I left it off and ignored the slight hiss. It still amazes me that sound can be stored on a piece of magnetized tape. The person’s voice and music. It’s amazing that any sound at all could be captured on a piece of tape. I don’t believe I’ll ever understand how it really works. Or records for that matter. Even without amplification if you took a sewing machine needle and held your ear down close to the needle while you applied it lightly to the record, you can hear the music. What in tarnation?! I’m not sure how sound right down to the tambourine can be captured on a piece of plastic and all it needed was amplification to be heard. To me it is an incredible phenomenon that we’ve kind of taken for granted. How did they even figure out that this would work?

[@lansleyONE]

Great video - all I would challenge is that I think the wire's maximum frequency would be half the magnetic changes since the frequency would need to be represented by a full wave that consists of a magnetised bit followed by an unmagnetised bit. So with 10000 changes per 24 inches of wire would give a maximum frequency possible of half that: 5000 or 5 KHz (AM radio quality). 10 KHz sound would actually be pretty good but 5 KHz is only suitable for voice, thus the dictaphone focus of such equipment. Happy to be proved wrong :-)

[@UXXV]

Nick Lansley nyquist rate is similar for modern recording / sampling?

[@buddyclem7328]

Yes, and 5khz is also telephone quality.

[@HaraldSangvik]

But it's analog and not digital.

[@SuperCookieGaming_]

it depends what you define as a change. if you are saying a change is from max positive amplitude to max negative amplitude then you are right. But if a change is from max positive to max positive then 10000Hz would be correct.

[@Anvilshock]

@@SuperCookieGaming_ You can only magnetise in one direction, not in two, at least not in this early application. Simply put, you can make a "dent" in the magnetisation of the wire only in one direction. However, a full cycle has two "dents", in opposite directions no less, therefore cutting the effectively achievable frequency (full cycles per time unit, seconds in this case) in half.

[@jerrylive365]

Love your descriptive episodes of older technology. Thanks so much for teaching these things!

[@ericsbuds]

It amazes me that magnetic tape can have different, distinct information on opposite sides of the same, very thin, piece of tape.

[@CassetteMaster]

All in the tracks.

[@fredbear3915]

Its not opposite sides, its the same side, (same FACE, i suppose you could say better..) of the tape ribbon. When you turn the tape "over" you are actually turning the SPOOLS over, and using a different track on what is really the same face of the plastic ribbon. Only one face of the tape ribbon is magnetic, the other side is the back of the plastic strip. The tape is made by coating one face of a plastic ribbon with magnetic coating. So it is not the "other side" of the tape that you record on, its a different section of the same side (face) . So there is nothing amazing about the two recordings being so thinly separated. in fact they are separated by a "guard band" a kind of "magnetic DMZ" between the tracks which are of the order of about a millimeter distance. In magnetic particle terms thats miles apart!

[@QuantumRift]

because the recording heat was very very small. DUH

[@tripjet999]

You can only record/playback on ONE side of a tape.

[@stevesstuff1450]

@@fredbear3915 : I think he realises that; but still finds it amazing that such very thin slivers on the tape surface can hold a clean stereo signal running both ways.... and if you stop to think about it - especially with a cassette tape, then it really is a pretty impressive 'magic' performed that allows a good cassette in a good deck to be almost indistinguishable from the original source....!

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

5:14 Rust (FeO, Fe₂O₃) is not magnetic (much). The iron oxide used in magnetic tape is magnetite, Fe₃O₄. Oh, and it also appears they use the γ-form of Fe₂O₃ (maghemite).

[@PhoenixNL72-DEGA-]

Thanks for clearing that up, his statement that tapes were brown due to rust, and being highly magnetic confused me cause I knew rust was hardly magnetic at all.

[@TheMrKeksLp]

@@leetucker9938 You do know what channel you're watching?

[@StefanReich]

@@leetucker9938 lol

[@MadScientist267]

LMAO I'm glad someone else recognizes how far off he always is. And damn man *clean that pinch roller* (and the heads while you're at it)... That's if you actually know how... 🙄

[@beepster8802]

Well at least it was a professional presentation rather than a crappy one so you can be a little bit more respectfully rather than butting in like that.

[@clydesight]

Excellent video and information. Thanks for posting it!

[@theblowupdollsmusic]

What a great and informative video! Thank you so much for taking the time to make this. Excellent work.

[@elimalinsky7069]

Since the late 1950s record masters were done on magnetic tape, which had phenomenal quality even back then, and as a matter of fact, a better sound quality than either vinyl or CD (it had to be, since it was the source medium until digital took over in the mid 1990s). Tape masters are what is called "studio quality" and it has been unsurpassed for 60 years. Professional level tapes used crazy ass speeds for ultimate quality, while the extra wide surface and noise cancellation techniques ensured there was no magnetic noise present.

[@martinhughes2549]

Eli Malinsky I've also read that in the 1950s they used optical recorders ( similar to movie audio)

[@therm0tt0]

Yes, those old recordings contain a phenomenal level of clarity and depth. If you have the ability to play SACD, seek out the RCA Living Stereo rereleases. Many of those old classical recordings were done with three mics each recorded to separate tape tracks. The old record releases were mixed down versions, but the new SACD versions preserved the multichannel recordings with minimal processing. The soundstaging is incredible for such old recordings. Granted the microphones back then were the limiting factor, but it's still amazing how much detail was there in the original recordings. The same can be said for film. Camera negatives are now being used to remaster movies for Blu-ray and UHD releases that rival or exceed the original theatrical releases in detail and dynamic range. Pro tape decks generally use higher tape speeds and wider track widths than consumer decks. Typical consumer decks maxed out at 7.5 ips with four tracks on 1/4" tape (two in each direction), but pro stereo decks could do 15 or 30 ips on 1/2" or even 1". The difference in dynamic range and high frequency extension is very apparent. Of course better tape formulations helped considerably. Modern digital recording equipment for both audio and video have seriously challenged the old analog methods, but the amazing improvements in reproduction at the consumer end has allowed these old recordings to be available to consumers in a whole new level that was impossible before.

[@5cyndi]

Amazingly clear explanation of how this works. Also, having watched your videos for some years I appreciate the consistency in your delivery of the content. You seem the same now as you were when this was made; only the background has changed.

[@Tunkkis]

Most of my understanding in this area actually comes from my guitar hobby. Guitar pickups are essentially reverse tape heads, guitar amplifiers are a mess of vaccine tubes, resistors, capacitors, and transformers, and my guitar idol Ritchie Blackmore used an Aiwa TP-1011 tape deck as a combined boost and echo effect unit. Real interesting stuff. Edit: _vacuum_ tube, not vaccine tube.

[@natelax1367]

Those damn vaccine tubes causing autism

[@Tunkkis]

@@natelax1367 Oops, good catch.

[@PhilippeCarphin]

Sometimes you get a recommended video from one of your favorite channel, and you go "Oh cool I haven't seen this one before" only to see that it's a video from 4 years ago before your favorite yourtuber was good at making videos. This is definitely not the case here! Sure the quality has improved over the years and you have a better hairstyle now but this is still very good.

[@stamasd8500]

I still have 2 reel-to-reel tape recorders from my youth. One was in fact originally my parents' and it's a vacuum tube one (I've already replaced the preamp pentodes twice due to the increasing noise that they pick over several years of use as the tubes age). It's mono, and only takes small reels. Also it's portable despite having solid metal body (packs up like a small suitcase or a carry-on piece of luggage). The second one is a transistor-based one that was originally mine, larger, non-portable and takes the usual big reels, stereo etc. The first one is 1960s technology, the second one 1980s.

[@killmore75]

Pinch roller and heads may needs a little cleaning?

[@artshifrin3053]

PINCH ROLLERS HARDEN & IN THAT STATE, CAUSE SPEED FLUCTUATIONS

[@clarinetJWD]

I went to recording school in the early 2000s. Mostly digital, but there was also plenty of tape around. I was surprised when you said the speeds your machine could do! 7.5ips was the bare minimum for studio work, and our machines also had 15 and 30ips settings. At Peabody, our standard was 7.5 for recitals (we recorded hundreds every year), 15 for concert band, orchestra, and opera, and 30 for studio work.

[@Lensman864]

Loving your output Alec. I'm working my way through all of it; very informative, interesting and well presented.

[@MadScientist267]

Too bad so much of it is incorrect

[@rahb1]

"There is no stopping in the red zone." Dammit! I snorted coffee out my nose! Now all I can think of is that hilarious film!

[@bob4analog]

Thanks, this is an excellent explanation and demonstration of audio tape and how good it can sound.

[@mescko]

The reel-to-reel decks used by the studios for mastering albums used up to 2-inch wide tape running as fast as 30 inches a second!

[@WiggyWamWam]

I love the sound of tape saturation, especially on vocals

[@joshreynolds5311]

Great work. Was trying to explain this to someone and found it easier to just send your video.

[@johnkim4686]

Dude you helped me understand ALOT of daily tech from the past. Thank you. Really.

[@AlanCanon2222]

Even though much of the details are already known to me, it's always a pleasure to watch a well trod subject presented so completely.

[@maxxsmaxx1901]

That was a wonderful lecture and demo ! Thank you !

[@user-cx2bk6pm2f]

Wonderful content. Absolute great job Alec!

[@CassetteMaster]

I recommend the book "History of Magnetic Recording" by Semi J. Begun. Excellent read.

[@mikestech1119]

I've got quite a few reel to reel units, including a Sony TC-353d, with an almost identical transport mechanism to your Sony recorder. Nice video!

[@iconoclad]

At 16:40 you discuss editing and splicing. Such editing in the 1970's is apparent in the Crosby Stills & Nash song "Love the one you're with" where the ending tag "Do, do, do, do doot doot doodit" was spliced into the middle of the recording at 1:34 ahead of organ solo which was pushed back to 1:43. The cut-in at 1:34 is very obvious and the transition back to the solo is also obvious in the sense that something doesn't sound quite right. There's another pop song from that era with an obvious splice but I can't recall just now what it was. If I remember I'll come back and edit it here.

[@bobbova8708]

Great video!! Another benefit of having separate record and play heads besides being able to monitor the actual recording a second or so later was that each head could have head gaps optimized for the playback or the recording function.also it is interesting that the audio cassette format actually was able to flourish using the one and seven eighths inch per second speed.😀

[@Milkman-bu9es]

I study audio engineering and I know a lot about electromagnets and but I never knew how it would actually make the patterns on the tape/wire, this is a cool video :)

[@glennk.7348]

This is soooo much better than “TV”. Thanks! 😃

[@timothystockman7533]

The story of magnetic tape recording gets even more interesting when some of the people who brought it to commercial use are mentioned: Jack Mullen, Bing Crosby, Alexander M Poniatoff, and Les Paul.

[@timothystockman7533]

Jack Mullen brought Magnetophon tape machines from Germany after WW2. He eventually found a US company willing to manufacture them: Poniatoff and his small company which heretofore made fractional horsepower motors, Ampex. Bing Crosby was to fund early efforts at Ampex. Bing gave one of the Ampex machines to his friend Les Paul, who commissioned Ampex to build him an 8-track tape recorder, and he went on to develop multi-track recording which is still used to this day.

[@andrewgillis3073]

@@timothystockman7533 Les Paul’s first attempts to do multi-track recordings was using phonograph records. He’s record one track, play it on a speaker while he recorded the next track. If it was a bad take, they still had the one before it. The eight track recorder made all of this much simpler and more reliable. There many innovations Les Paul that improved the world. More than just a solid body electric guitar.

[@timothystockman7533]

@@andrewgillis3073 I did a crude multitrack in the 1970s when I recorded piano on one Ampex 350, then played that as the vocal was sung, recording the mix onto a second 350. The result got aired on NPR.

[@roggeralves94]

I love cassette tapes and now I finally understand how they work! Really cool video!

[@ramblerandy2397]

Although I am a turntable and vinyl addict I have always realised that the very finest analogue quality is obtained from the highest quality tape recorder and tape. Although if you are a tape recording addict, after the very finest recordings and pre-recordings, you are into a lot of money. Hence I became a turntable and vinyl addict. One can get very close with the LP record, in fact almost indistinguishable, but the tape recorder will still be measurably better.

[@maxxsmaxx1901]

Excellent lecture and demo !

[@almostfm]

Since you mentioned multitrack recording, I wanted to mention that in the 80s there were prosumer 4-track cassette decks for music recording. 4 tracks doesn't sound like a lot, but most of Sgt. Pepper was recorded on 4 tracks. The tape ran at double speed (so 3 1/4 ips) and mine had dbx noise reduction to get over the problem of tape noise. With my Midi recorder, I could do drums, keyboard, any other sound I needed (like horns or strings), play bass along with it to lay down two tracks, then add guitar and voice on the remaining two. It worked pretty well, but now I've got a computer where I can lay down as many tracks as I want, have some of them be midi and some audio, automate the mixdown, and end up with as good a quality as my hardware can deliver. But there was just something fun about working to tape.

[@donabaypro6782]

Great history into tech I fondly remember. I love the part about it being rust. An fun trivia question could be “ why were people from the 70’s through the 90’s putting rust in their cars? The thing I really like is your t-shirt. I was at the opening day of EPCOT, it opened on my birthday. I remember that symbol well.

[@JohnBassarcticsoundstudios]

Love your shows. Thanks

[@turbodrawspeed]

Outstanding video. I learned a ton. Thanks for sharing.

[@stevenA44]

I wasn't aware there were wire recorders but when I was a kid, I got interested in tape recorders and started reading books on how they worked. Was fascinating at the time.

[@Jimorian]

Probably the primary exposure to wire recorders in popular media was their use in Hogan's Heroes.

[@berlewi]

Many thanks for posting such an excellent and well explained video!! 🙏

[@haramaschabrasir8662]

Audio producer here; The distortion is not garbage, that is nice harmonic distortion. We love to blend it in in music production, to make sound appear fatter.

[@lost4468yt]

That's only if you're looking for that effect. If you're not (most recordings) it's absolutely garbage. Just as any effect is, e.g. I'm sure you would consider a record looping or a CD stuttering absolute garbage if you were trying to listen to an album or audio book? But plenty of songs have created synthetic looping or stuttering as part of the song, and in those it's not garbage because it's intentional. Context is key

[@CassetteMaster]

Very nice presentation! Snapping wire can be quite annoying... I have several wire recorders in my collection.

[@topilinkala1594]

One of my father's friends used tape to record vinyls he bought. First listening was recorded on the tape. Then the tape was cut so that it was the lenght of the vinyl. The next listening of the vinyl was recorded on the other side of the tape and the take up reel was small so that it took less space when stored. The reel then was stored in the bookcase with handwritten notes from the vinyl and the vinyl was stored on attic. When the listening tape's quality run low, the procedure was renewed. He did this to save the vinyls.

[@organfairy]

There were some budget auto reverse machines available - AKAI made a lot of those. What they usually did was to only have it reverse in playback mode. During recording you still had to flip the reels. But then they only needed to put in an extra playback head - and some models had a single moveable playback head like the later auto reversing casette machines.

[@BennyM_]

I had so much fun with my reel-to-reel as a kid in the '70s. We used to record our prank calls on them. We could also play music backwards to look for hidden messages. We also used it like karaoke today. It was so versatile!

[@craftman9935]

B Mandel honestly older technologi is so much more fun to use and experiment with. Modern tech is just so boring to use. No soul!

[@uelssom]

Wow. Im watching your videos as they are suggested by youtube in a random order. I watch your stuff for almost 2 years now. I just now discovered you used to record on a green screen, had an intro AND YOUR NAME IS ALEC Seriously, i never asked myself: "does this guy have a name?"

[@ergosteur]

wow algorithm feeding me vintage Technology Connections today

[@tapeexperiments]

Great job explaining this-thanks!

[@hakonsoreide]

Even though I already knew everything said, I quite enjoyed watching this video.

[@patrickpuhak9516]

There were tape recorders that came from Germany during WWII that came from American GIs. Bing Crosby saw how tape recording could improve on his radio show because of tape could be edited. He was an early investor of Ampex who built the first tape recorders and later the Video Tape Recorders.

[@allentraylor5659]

THIS GUY IS AMAZING.... I'VE ALWAYS WANTED A REEL TO REEL, FINALLY AT 58YRS OLD, I FINALLY HAVE ONE AND HE'S BEEN A HUGE HELP..... I WAS SO FRUSTRATED WITH THIS VERY SAME MODEL HE'S DEMONSTRATING ..... NOW, I GET IT ......

[@icisne7315]

Alec pls bring back the intro jingle. It was so professional and so amazing! Ugh I miss it on your new videos

[@lost4468yt]

No way! More no effort November please

[@matthnbllester]

I just found ya... thanks for giving the Layman man a stand... keep it up sir, and thanks for the education!

[@jhsteddy]

Just noticed this is the same model Sony that was playing "Just the Way You Are" in the Blues Brothers. Til then, don't you go changin'.

[@SSgtLeroy]

Love your channel. Also, gotta admit that your old intro has some real charm

[@winstonsmith84]

My dad had the same tape machine. I learned how to use it when I was a kid.

[@xaenon]

I had a Sony TC-280 that I loved. Very similar in most respects, although it only had two heads.

[@tsrocks48]

Duuuuuuude, you gotta start using that intro again!! That’s awesome!!

[@0ThrowawayAccount0]

man. this channel has come so far.

[@NavJack27gaming]

i'd love to know about manufacturing accidents with recording wire. for some reason i'm imagining that there had to be some.

[@MokokerMovies]

I love reel to reel machines alot, I still have to fix my Revox A77....transport deck module defects seem to be very common, still didn't ordered the parts I needed. Jeeez!

[@markvanslooten5311]

Damn, I love these video's.

[@5thcomm]

Very nice production

[@mfaizsyahmi]

Sorry Alec, it takes two changes to make one sound wave. One to flip the peak to a trough, the other to flip it back. Frequency is measured from two places in a wave that has the same phase, for example, peak to peak. Hence 5000 changes on a wire means just 2500Hz audio frequency.

[@no_one_from_nowhere]

I love these videos!!!!

[@MacroAggressor]

Lol, I was gonna troll on the green screen, but you beat me to the punch Alec xD

[@Mrs_Heyman]

Excellent, thanks.

[@882952]

Star Wars soundtrack on 8-track, holy crap!!!!!! =) Love the background - I have to believe you have some background in art because it's very appealing to look at. Almost distracts me from your commentary, haha. Your channel is great, thanks for all the great content!

[@josephcope7637]

When I was in high school my dad bought a Webcor 4 track that used an electronic eye instead of meters. It was a sweet machine that produced and played back stereo recordings of such high fidelity I haven't heard any as good since. I still have it but I suppose that by this time its vacuum tubes are so gassy it's unusable. My hearing has undoubtedly deteriorated as well so I probably couldn't hear the full range of sound it originally was capable of reproducing anyway.

[@kunaikai]

I gotta say the grit of the slow recording mode is amazing

[@GardettoJones]

What's fascinating to me is the period when the perceived intrinsic defect of tape saturation became a desired production effect. The prime example I can think of is the sound John Bonham's drums on the early Led Zeppelin albums. You can tell the drums, while different types of distant-micing techniques were implemented, hit the tape hard! Same with goes with some of the guitar sounds. When using the right amount of 'too much' is just enough to add another dimension of color. This is something that still cannot be reproduced in the modern digital realm.

[@unitrader403]

i dont think its an issue of "can not", but rather a "want not" Also CDs (a digital Medium!) have the same/a very similar "issue" that you can drive the volume up so much that the loudest parts are just cut short, and since "louder is better" this lead to the believe that vinyl is better quality-wise.. you cannot push it as hard or you will risk that the needle jumps to the neighbour track.No such issue with CDs, and practically they have a far better range (but sometimes/often not utilized in favour of more "loudness")

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

It seems to happen with just about every audio-visual technology: after it becomes obsolete, some artist rediscovers the artifacts, that were deplored at the time, now seemingly add an endearing “retro” effect which becomes highly desirable.

[@teagancombest6049]

Ehh, you're wrong about that last sentence. You can simulate all that and more with a DAW and some VSTs. And then add millions of sound algorithms that can produce sounds you couldn't make on any analog equipment.

[@bozimmerman]

Great video. As an aside, the older I've gotten, the more I've come to the conclusion that basically all the music I listen to is Mixed Wrong. I wish we could purchase those multi-track recordings he mentioned, so I could fix all my albums.

[@bradwilcox97]

"recording too hot sounds bad" yeah, but not on tape. Tape sat until my VU doesn't move anymore.

[@dylanotto1675]

thank you

[@jackx4311]

Alec - these videos of yours could be put together and made into a course on the principles of science in schools, and would grab childrens' attention in a way that they wouldn't just gain in knowledge, but - vastly more important - they'd understand the point you made right at the end. That, again and again, scientific and engineering breakthroughs come from taking a 'known and understood' principle or mechanism, and applying it to a different task. A classic example is, of course, George Stephenson realising that the motion of the piston in a stationary engine (used to pump water from mines) could, if applied to a crankshaft, turn a set of wheels on a vehicle. The result? A self-propelling steam engine which could haul cargo faster and more efficiently than could be done with horse-drawn wagons.

[@jeylful]

Great video! Happy to have subscribed...

[@jdrissel]

I had a Sony reel to reel of about that age that had a slight modification. The interlock had been reshaped so that you could "punch in record". A separate playback amp hooked up to the record head (only while in playback) was used and you could get the input you wanted to "punch in" playing and the tape playing and listen to both. Assuming you had the timing right you could press down the record buttons while playing and switch from playback to record without stopping the tape. If the timing was off, just rewind and try again. It worked ok, but a real professional deck would have had the erase head closer to the record head, and would have been able to punch out (stop recording and start playing without stopping the tape). The punch-in allowed some awesome sounding beat sync in mix tapes. I did it that way until I got a tascam 4 track cassette deck, which was a lot more convenient, and when live allowed you to pull down the two channels not in use to mix in a song from the turntable and you could go back to the pre-mix, but mostly I just copied the mixes down to regular cassettes.

[@jkeelsnc]

This proves just how good reel to reel tape can sound. Excellent (assuming good tape and nice deck that is working properly).

[@saricubra2867]

They have by far the best analog sound quality. Obviously can't beat digital, but a tape machine is a Holy Grail machine for mixing, tape compression reduces the transients but without killing the dynamic range unlike a normal compressor or limiter. It has an unique non-linear behavior on dynamics.

[@saricubra2867]

It's crazy that a high quality Studer machine with Dolby noise reduction is close to CD audio quality. Almost twice the dynamic range or signal to noise ratio for reel-to-reel tape vs vinyl record and smoother frequency response and phase.

[@przefermentujto]

Oh my! you've made such a progress since 2016 :D this is still helpful and interesting video though :)