100% analog mastering engineers?

[Third]

Hey, Emtec was sold to Rmgi, in Holland
This the webiste: www.rmgi.nl

RMG bought the manufacturing equipment from Emtec - not the business.

"When EMTEC closed down, RMG International acquired the EMTEC manufacturing and quality assurance equipment necessary to convert and complete the tape production lines to the EMTEC standards for audio tape manufacturing."

This is hardly surprising as MPO, being a large optical disc manufacturer, would have no interest in magnetic tape.

So its good to see that not only has Quantegy resurrected the 456 (yes, there is a God!!) but there is another supplier of magnetic tape, using Emtec's machines. http://www.rmgi.eu/overview.asp?Id=5

We should give this EMTEC thing a rest because there is an American compnay claiming to now own the name : http://www.digitalstorage.com/about/history.cfm

One thing's for sure, we wil never see a BASF or EMTEC analogue tape on the market again.

RMG tape is ok, but in my experience its prone to shedding...for new tape thats a bad thing...seems its batch dependant...so sometimes it does sometimes it doesnt....its nice sounding stuff, but not a "rock n roll" as 456

[mossboss]

Well Pyral still makes computer tape as well, which was allways at a higher spec than any audio tape ever made and quite a lot was used for audio work
I can see no reason if the demand is there that they will not pursue the market
Computer tape when used for audio in the past sounded a bit sharper as the method of coating was slightly different
If memory is still ok talking to the chief engineer ex BASF some years ago he described the method of manufacture to me and he said that they used a magnet behind the film as it went through the coating system
That had the effect of lining up all the ferrite particles in the coating mix in a north south orientation instead of being matted That resulted in the tape to stop it "bleeding" on the magnetized spots once you wrote on it Good for computer tape plenty of 1 and 0's packed together Much sharper for audio due to lack of bleeding but it still had the tape warmth coming through
Cheers

[Maistrow]

That is great news about Quantegy tape. I use a lot of GP9 and 499 for mastering. There is tape made here in the USA by ATR magnetics. I haven't used any but I am told from many engineers that it is very very good. Also check out this Ampex ATR recorder ebay. Item 130319852604. Or just search under Ampex ATR. Hurry it will close in about a day.

[gearheadgirl]

Mike Spitz of Ampex now manufacturing tape in PA at ATR Magnetics after many years of research, setting up, testing, and making tape for us all.
He can also fix any part of your Ampex machines. See him at AES in NY this October. He had a 2" machine on the floor last year.

http://www.atrtape.com

[jtransition]

we also cut from digital sources without delay line. it's not quite advanced head cutting, but negates the use of the crappy a-d-a portion of even modern delay lines...

two stereo channels out of sadie, one delayed, ie offset rather than delayed.
the first is the control, the second is the program,...ok its digital, but this way the d-a is now our choice rather than tc electronic's (most crucial part of any digital system is the d-a).

i find it works nicely and the cuts have more miles clarity.

I have found that this does work well but we cut a lot of one off dubplates and mainly process with hardware so a delay is quicker,Have you tried using the digi input and output on the delay thus negating the need for aditional convertion?
Jason

[Cutterwoller]

Sorry to come in a bit late on this but just to get it straight, are Quantegy going to start making analogue audio tape again?

Lewis

[Matt Colton]

[quote="mr_scratchy_esq"]Does anyone out there have a list of people who cut stereo acetates without using a digital delay?

We run a Studer A80 1/2" and 1/4" with preview head and custom ultra low noise DAV Electronics, cutting on a VMS 80.

Like most we cut variable pitch from digital source without a delay line using the DAW for the offsets.

Also to follow up a point someone else made the offset times for the Neumann Varigroove pitch control - the times are different for the VMS 70 and VMS 80.
The VMS80 times are listed by someone else here, for a VMS 70 I seem to remember it being 1080 ms for 33 and 800 for 45

[vinylivo]

at vinylium we can also do full analog transfer and analog signal processing. but only 1/2" master tapes on our Studer A80 with preview head.

unfortunaltely we don't have the Dolby SR cards, so only Dolby A or unencoded tapes possible.

we also cut from digital sources without delay line. it's not quite advanced head cutting, but negates the use of the crappy a-d-a portion of even modern delay lines...

two stereo channels out of sadie, one delayed, ie offset rather than delayed.
the first is the control, the second is the program,...ok its digital, but this way the d-a is now our choice rather than tc electronic's (most crucial part of any digital system is the d-a).

i find it works nicely and the cuts have more miles clarity.

sorry about the little off topic digital delay thingy here, but
I always recommend cutting mastering studios to use the digital delay only in digital domain and use a high-end DA converter after the digital delay for the cutting modulation signal. for the preview signal (to the lathe pitch computer) a 'cheap' converter will do the job.
modern mastering consoles like ours (see www.vinylium.ch), maselec and of course the neumann series all use full 4 channel signal processing (preview and modulation). with this setup only one DA conversion for the cutting signal is necessary which of course improves the sound a lot.

as a cheaper solution we also provide a simple 4-channel level controller with preview offset selection.

[vinylivo]

Also to follow up a point someone else made the offset times for the Neumann Varigroove pitch control - the times are different for the VMS 70 and VMS 80.
The VMS80 times are listed by someone else here, for a VMS 70 I seem to remember it being 1080 ms for 33 and 800 for 45

This was for the Polygram Pitch System. I don't know how many of them are still out there in operation, but I know of at least 2 studios which use them. As for the Zuma system, I think this uses the standard half revolution (33rpm 900ms, 45rpm 666.6ms) delay like the CD-80 Compudisk system.
Our PitchBox lathe computer system can work with different delay times from 1/4 to 1 turntable revolution. Or even without delay with a special prediction algorithm, of course it will never be as efficient in this mode compared to the delayed modes. but then you can cut from stereo source without delay and still get improved space performance compared to fixed or manual pitch.

[Matt Colton]

Is that the system that was standard on the VMS70? I assumed that was a Neumann design.
Those were the times we used at Optimum which was a standard 70 pitch control system.
Also at Porky's the VMS70 used those delay times, although I believe Sean Davis had modded the pitch control.
I also worked on another VMS70 at a place called Kinetec that used those times.