Success Story: Ampex
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- Опубликовано: 21 июн 2015
- A 1950 era promotional film about the Ampex Corporation
Originally a live remote broadcast from Redwood City CA. and sponsored by Richfield Oil.
Views of various machines, incomplete history and some interviews. Performed live to air and Kinescoped to film 
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I have been using Ampex recorders all my life since I was 23 years old, I am 76 now,
I became obsessed with reel to reel tape decks when I was about eleven or twelve. Ampex was like the "Cadillac" of tape machines. I had to settle for a Wollensak 1/4 track stereo unit but it was an over-achiever I could live with. Ampex was the best!
This must have been from early 1956. Not a peep about what they had been working on for years, and would truly stun the broadcast engineering world when unveiled on April 11th of that year. The VR-1000 video tape recorder, a true defining moment in the history of communications.
My Grandfather Charlie Andersen comes in @ 25:05 i cry everytime but thank you soo much for this footage of him i miss him soo much!!! :(
I cried too. I had the great honor to know Charley Anderson briefly. He was a great guy!
Here's a story for you. I had the chance to help repair a VTR with Charley when I first met him at the PBS station in Reno. He was finishing up the repair and had put all the screws in a small plastic bag inside the machine. When we did the final test, the bag of screws go caught up in the innards and brought the machine to an emergency stop. He looked like he could murder. I looked around like a conspirator and said quietly, "It never happened Charley and I'm your sworn witness!" We both laughed like maniacs, finished the repair and got on like long lost chums. Later, he operated camera #1 and I got to run camera #2, my first "real" video production as we shot an episode of Book Beat. What a great honor it was for me to interact with a man who I knew by reputation for several decades before actually getting to meet him in person.
He is sorely missed here. Here is my web site page devoted to Charley Anderson: www.labguysworld.com/CharleyAnderson.htm
Ampex is the KEY to the classic recording sound. I run 4 ampex machines everyday. A 1953 Model 350-2, 1961 351, 1956 350 and a 1957 Ampex 351-3. These are without a doubt the most magical tape machines ever made. More true beautiful sound than any other. I fully restore mine to be brand new again and they work so well.
No, the key for Classic Tape recording came from Telefunken!!! That ampex have Stolen, and the synch with multitrack came from les Paul!!!! Telefunken and studer have a bit better Sound, and that say i as ampex Recorder Fan!!! In my list IS Telefunken in 1th place than studer and ampex in 2th place!!! Love all 3! My dream Maschine is the Telefunken M10 4track 1" Tube Tape Recorder!!! Than studer j37 (4track) and ampex 300/350/351 3 and 4 Track Recorder ;)
Btw. first multitrack recorder in London in world bigest Studio (Abbey Road) was the Telefunken M10 4 Track (end 50s to mid 60s), than thay buy studer J37 4 Track maschines (becouse thay was Lidl and Not so big Like Telefunken) in Sound and Tape Transport, Telefunken M10 1, 2 and 4 Track was the best at thay time!!! But as i sayed, Love all 3 Brands!
Ditto! I had my 1st experience with an Ampex 351 ful track; it sounded excellent! What an awesome machine, I think they referred to it as the "washtub." Of course, Studer and Telefunken were on par as well. Wished I could've worked with those machines as well.
@@Creatormelodie you obviously dont know your history very well. Putnam was multitracking before as well as overdubbing etc.. and no thanks the classic American sound IS ampex. Literally every damn record made in america which was all the shit every other country was copying was Ampex. King, Sun, Columbia, RCA, Vee Jay, Cobra, Fire, Modern, the list goes on and on. Ampex, Ampex... period. You can have all them beatles records and shit it doesnt compare to American music done on Ampex. Period. And who needs multitracking.... mix it all live yourself. Putnam did everything from Ray Charles to Muddy Waters to Sinatra all mono live.
@@bob4analog The german stuff was great but the classic American sound is Ampex no arguments even possible. Ampex had the magic tone, the 350 and 300 models are my favorite. The washtub models were named on the Ampex 300 or the 3 track models which had the big silver metal housings. The 351 usually came in a wooden rack orportable cases
4:06 I long to return to the days when clever people pointed with sticks 😊
I'm so glad that someone had the forethought to preserve this amazing piece of history on Kinescope!
The VR1000 must have been in development by the time of this recording. Amazing that magnetic recording would come and go in such a few decades.
Fascinating. I knew Charlie Anderson, Bob Day and Alex Poniatoff, all of whom were still there in 1973 when I started my 27 year career with Ampex. Too bad the greatness of Ampex was lost to bad management...
Jill Clardy really what happened ?
Jill, what division did you work in? My father worked in engineering in Redwood City from '59 to '84. By chance, did you know Mal Boyd, Tim Collins, Hank Alvord, Jerry Kazakis or Frank Banks?
@@raymondbanks4103 AVSD. I don’t recall any of those names.
@@JillClardy sorry to belabor this but what department did you work in?
@@raymondbanks4103 I was a Product Manager, then Manager of Customer service, then IT manager…among other positions
OMG... This is a great piece of history! I've been using mostly Ampex 641 reel to reel tapes all of my life. Grew up in not far from Redwood City and use to see the Ampex company on our way to the bay. Thanks for sharing this!
I could go on and on about Ampex instrumentation. Everything, was above the competition. FR3000 - data recorder, AR 1700 airborne recorder, ATR 100 Pro audio recorder.
I recently inherited some of Ralph Conly's equipment from the recording head lab at Ampex. I have one of the microscopes shown in the video. I also own the Ampex Magnetic Head Departments sign, which was signed by everyone there when the lab closed down. I also personally knew Charley Anderson, seen near the end of the video. RIP Charley.
hey man, we met at the Ampex picnic.... good to hear from you... Stephen
videolabguy Charles is my grandpa :) I am so glad you knew him! I cry when i watch this let me know if you have any good stories to share about him with me thanks! :)
I really like the sound on the Ampex 350 tape recorders, actually all of them sound great! Thank You. By the way I still make Edison cylinders , and own some parts of the Edison recording studio.
I work for the Ampex Corporation number of years ago in Los Angeles I was the shipping receiving and I would send out ship the magnetic tapes with music on them and tape recorder systems I have one of their reel-to-reel tape recorder systems now that they gave me many many years ago when I was leaving the company moving to Colorado so they gave me a reel-to-reel recorder and some tapes with music on them I still have it to this day wonderful company to work for I loved every minute of it!!!😀😃😄
I’m extremely jealous
I still have one of those 600s that the "girls" are soldering together @26.00
BASF began manufacturing magnetic tape on an experimental basis at the end of November, 1932. The intention of the developers was to produce a voice/dictation recording machine, but as early as April 1935 they were working to record music, with examples of test recordings auditioned in May of that year. In November of 1936 BASF recorded Sir Thomas Beecham and the London Philharmonic in BASF's Concert Hall. Jack Mullin's account is incorrect about the tape he used because surface coated tape began in June of 1934. Only the first experimental tapes used iron carbonyl mixed in the cellulose acetate base. The tape Mullin showed Bing Crosby was gama ferric oxide coated on polyvinyl chloride. This was tape loaded with splices because it came from Germany and was the only tape available until 3M came up with oxide coated on paper.
yeah that paper stuff was horrible. Mullin did pretty good considering ...
Isn't it amazing how well spoken and intelligent people were back then. They never had stupid facebook and similar garbage and texting to speak to each other. They were well versed and spoke eloquently and with a high degree of dignity. We have trashed the English language so much it's not even remotely funny anymore and have become a classless bunch. Humanity is really going to shit.
I love the historical value of these videos and appreciate the efforts mankind have made to make our lives easier.
I noticed those poor ladies on the production line sucking back all those solder fumes while soldering. I hope they never got cancer as a result. I guess we never had a focus on safety as we do today otherwise they would've had extraction fans to remove those cancerous, toxic fumes.
Oppsss, my fathers name was Charles Garrett. Everyone there called him Charley. He worked I believe in the computer data division in Culver City
Stephen, thanks for posting. My father worked for Ampex and I as well. Soooo much innovation. Nothing comes close! NOTHING!
Fun to watch! First radio station I worked for (1985) had signed on the air in early 1950. Much of the equipment still in daily use was either original or from slightly later in the 1950's. We used Ampex 301's like the one shown at the end of this episode (in fact, I cringed when I saw them engage fast forward without flipping the head cover, lifting the tape away from the heads...I was always told I'd damage both the heads and the monitor speaker doing that.) We also had Gates Radio consoles and transcription tables, RCA ribbon mikes (44DX and 77DX), a few Magnecord 'portable' recorders we used for editing and at least one Ampex AG-440B (circa 1969). All of it full-track mono...this was an educational FM station which didn't broadcast in stereo. It wasn't still in use during my tenure, but in the engineer's office there remained an old Rek-O-Cut disc cutter. How many times have I wished I had backed up a truck to the rear door when they signed off and sold the license in the early 1990's, and kept some of that vintage gear that is now probably in a landfill somewhere. But I didn't. And nothing sounds like a full-track Ampex at 15 ips. Wish I'd been a better broadcaster at that time, because I still have aircheck tapes made on those machines, and while they sound great, I'm afraid I didn't. I cut a lot of tape before I started with digital editing in '96, and there are things we can do now that we couldn't do then, but every once in a while, I'd like to hear that old sound just one more time. Thanks for posting this video!
350, not 300.
I believe bing Crosby invested his money into ampex, it made him a wealthy man
That's correct 👌
I think he was at least well off before he got into Ampex. Besides all the movies he made, wasn't he a partner in Decca Records?
Don't forget He grew a lot of "Minute Made" oranges and invested even more money in Video Tape in 1953 which eventually replaced Kinescope in the late 50's.In 1938 there are some good examples of German made Magnetic tape that still exists today. eg. "The cremation of Sam Magee" read by Robert Service.
They had tape machines in 1950 that could record 28 separate tracks and never thought to make progressive rock.
PERHAPS IT WAS FOR DATA APPLICATIONS
LMAO ok this the best comment. For real lol there should've been some jazz cats smokin reefer and plottin to throw down some shit on 28 tracks.
Les Paul and the Beatles created the first Multi-track recordings!
@@artshifrin3053 Some progressive rock sounds like data.
@@jaminova_1969 The film industry was recording multi track long before the Beatles.
Mr. Barncard: Aren't you the same guy as this guy? -- David Crosby’s first solo album also boasted the specialized technical skill of Stephen Barncard. If so, you were the luckiest SOB on Earth to be able to record the song "Laughing"!!! That has been my absolute favorite song since it was first released in 1971. I have literally gone through at least 8 vinyl LPs by playing that song so many times!!! THANK GOODNESS FOR CDs!!! Now I just hope that I don't burn-out the laser in my CD player!!! You did a perfect job with recording that song with all of those incredible musicians!!!
I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to "Laughing" on a pair of JBL 4320's, which I had always imagined were used during that recording session.....until I read that they weren't. But, the sound of "Laughing" through the JBL 4320's is impeccable nonetheless. I wish that I could have been there.
Are there any insights or special recording secrets about that particular session that you could share? How were things mic'd up? How were the sessions run? How did you choose the various microphones for all of the different vocals? Did you use an EMT plate for Garcia's pedal steel? I would - LOVE - to read an entire detailed article about how that album was recorded and produced.
JBW
/
Thanks for your comment.
The secret is simplicity. And no artist "experts". They left the tech decisions to me.
Now today sessions are more about pleasing the artist rather than the audience.
I'll be doing some tech video soon about the sessions soon.
@@sbarncar WOW!!! THANKS for your reply!!! I feel so honored to receive a reply from someone of your stature!!! THANKS!!!
During the 1970s, after I got out of the Army, a friend of mine and I started a "garage" audio business where we not only were dealers for Pro-Audio equipment (AKG, Cerwin-Vega, JBL, TAPCO, Sennheiser, BOSE Professional Products, etc.), but we also designed and built touring PA systems for local and regional rock bands (REO Speedwagon being our biggest gig) and nightclubs in the Indianapolis area (one of which was voted as "The 4th Most Popular Nightclub In The World")!!! As a result of all of this combined audio design work, my life shifted from purely "audio" work to more along the lines of "design engineering" work.
(This rambling actually leads to something.....) -- In 1979, my sister decided to move out to L.A. to be with her then-boyfriend due to the fact that she was tired of -- literally -- "freezing" living in Minnesota for a job she took that she ended up not liking. She asked me to help her with the driving out to California and I agreed. In addition I thought, "HEY!!! LA!!! The "Land Of Audio Companies"!!!, so I took with me a bunch of drawings of mechanical and PCB designs that I had created for various reasons.....just in case.
As it just so happened by pure coincidence.....the AES Convention was taking place during the week that my sister and I had showed up and somehow from somewhere I had managed to finagle an "Exhibition Pass" that at least got me in the doors!!! Once I was inside, within my brain I was in "7th Heaven", walking around amongst all of those Pro-Audio equipment companies. What a "Dream-Come-True" for me. WOW!!!
I met with officials from UREI and I even met and personally spoke with Mr. Paul Buff of ALLISON Research. GET THIS!!! Paul Buff had even agreed to sell me 2 bare circuit boards of the original "Gain-Brain" for $25!!! I gave him my money there at the AES and he was to mail me the PCBs once he got back to his office after the show. Now.....> THIS < was a -- BIG DEAL -- for me because it was the first time that I had the opportunity to "Reverse-Engineer" a PCB so I could replicate it on my own for my own purposes. Once I was able to get back to Indiana, I replicated the "Gain-Brain" circuit board and I packaged it into a 1U rack-chassis, so I could have my own "Stereo Gain-Brain" unit!!! This was just the beginning of many other similar projects yet to come within my design life.
(FINALLY!!!.....) -- I bounced around out there in California for a few months before finding myself in the heart of "Silicon Valley". I amazingly also happened to find this other audio guy that I had known back in Indianapolis years earlier!!! As it had just turned out, his room-mate decided to move-out, so he and I decided to share his apartment together there in Mountain View. From somewhere I had borrowed a typewriter and I pounded out a resume and mailed it out to companies out there after buying a Sunday-edition of The San Jose "Mercury News" or something similar. And.....(FINALLY!!! TA-DA!!!) -- one of the first companies to respond back to my resume mailing was The AMPEX Corporation in Redwood City, CA!!! They were looking for a "Printed Circuit Board Designer" and my background of performing this type of work back in Indiana met their criteria and so.....THEY HIRED ME!!! YAY!!!
Now that I had a good job and an actual income, I was able to go out and buy my very first > NEW < car, so I could actually get myself to my new job. While I was there at AMPEX, I met the PCB Designer who had designed all of the circuit boards for the MM1100 24-Track recorder, which I thought was WAY COOL!!! He had told me that it took him nearly 15-months to go through the process to manually "hand-tape" each and every PCB. He showed me the MM1100 motherboard that he had designed and I was completely floored both by its complexity and its physical size, as all of the PCBs that I had designed up to that point were relatively simple and small. MAN!!! WHAT A MONSTER THAT MOTHERBOARD WAS!!! GEEZ!!!
Now.....I have designed 10-Layer PCBs for NASA, tiny 1.25" square 8-Layer PCBs for "covert" Dept. of Homeland Security projects and >> ALL > All from Mr. Paul Buff selling me a pair of bare "Gain-Brain" circuit boards so I could teach myself how to "Reverse-Engineer" them!!!
HOW CONVENIENT THAT THE FILM DOESN'T MENTION THAT THEIR AUDIO RECORDING TECHNOLOGIES AND METHODS WERE KNOCK-OFFS OF AEG (GERMAN) DESIGNS...
question? My father worked at the Culver City Ampex Corporation in the mid 60's to 1971 or 72. How can I get info or pictures of him if possible? Thank you
The military is always there to remind you of who owns your technology.
The Wright brothers went to the U.S. Army with their invention of the airplane. The military was not interested. The wire recorder was also offered to the U.S. Army. They were not interested, but DuPont and the German navy were. Robert Goddard's invention of the rocket was dismissed by the U.S. Army, too. AEG and BASF showed off the Magnetophone and magnetic tape to the public at the Berlin Fair in 1935. Very few people picked up on it. It was no secret, and it was no military project. Jack Mullin may not have stolen the Magnetophone, but Ampex's taking any claim for its invention and 3M's claim to have invented magnetic tape are false.
Um, er...this Internet thing-ee you are writing on was a commercial application of military communications technology developed by DARPA!
see 22.33 'It's Womens Work' He says, I doubt you could say that today in any workplace. Those were the days!
How interesting.....this 1950 documentary would have us believe that they invented the damn thing, rather than simply being the "spoils of war".
Ampex is spoils of war from World War II
a quarter of a million dollars.....
Jack Mullin discovered the German machines while in the signal corps and made many improvements in the original Magnetophon and set it up for American broadcast.
The Ampex machines after 1948 were vastly superior to the german ones.
Nothing was "stolen" - that's fake news, children. The original patents were honored.
read the real story - tape recorders were a culmination of many inventions, inventors and breakthroughs.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tape_recorder
Germany surrendered unconditionally, so we weren't stealing. The whole country and everything in it belonged to us.
Reading through the Wikipedia article not one mention of ac bias, the most significant development of all. Not worth the "paper" it's written on then surely?
@@factorylad5071 well this is your opportunity to update the Wiki yourself. It's crowd-sourced..
Guess what? Those components were American made, made by American hands and the technology changed the world.
Magnetic audio tape recordings came out of Germany.
Yep. "the spoils of war" after Germany's unconditional surrender. We hauled the Magnetophones home to the USA and reverse engineered them.
They brag as if they had invented taperecorders, well they didn't…
Get over it!
Ampex is Telefunken!, Thay (ampex) have Stolen the technic from Telefunken! The best Recorder builder in History!, Without les paul, ampex would not be that who thay are/was!!! The Idea from synch and multitrack came from les Paul! And the knowleg and technic for Tape Recorders came from Telefunken in Germany! ... Love ampex!!!, but thats the truth! The real First Multirecorder was Telefunken M10 4 Track!
FROM TELEFUNKEN? STOLEN? HOW MANY PATENTS, MANUFACTURING METHODS, FACILITIES, ETC WERE STOLEN DURING THE THIRD REICH? READ YOUR HISTORY, HELMUT. IN GERMANY, A.C. BIAS WAS STUMBLED UPON BY VERY OBSERVANT TECHNICIANS IN THE ENGINEERING DEPT OF THE RRG. A FEW YEARS BEFORE THAT MARVIN CAMRAS WAS GRANTED HIS PATENT IN THE US IN 1941. IN 1927 (NOT A TYPO) ONE WAS ISSUED TO CARLSEN & CARPENTER IN 1927 (NOT A TYPO). MULTI - TRACK WAS, WITH, THE PARTICIPATION OF BELL BABS - WESTERN IN AN OPTICAL FILM 35MM MEDIUM FOR THE FILM FANTASIA.
No, you are incorrect.The movie business invented multi-tracking back in the 30s, before Les Paul.
And the technology was improved by Mullin and Ampex. I don't know the patent story, but please do remember that the Germans were NAZIS and probably had as much patent protection as the current Russians. Perhaps it was the 'spoils of war' but you are not telling the whole story. Rangertone, Presto, Scully, etc.
@@sbarncar Re the movie business inventing multi-track audio, you do mean optical, not magnetic recording, right?
@@moldyoldie7888 BOTH
Les Paul did not invent sel-sync. He was an Ampex custom product customer who requested the feature.
It was an Ampex employee that came up with the tech and presented it to Les Paul.
It was more than just simple switching, and required extra coils and other components.
All the movie guys had to do was add another sound on film or magnetic recorder to the other recorders. They were already using synchronized multi “track” and editing equipment in the 30s.
Hahah its so funny to see the AMPEX machines using 3M tape. AMPEX tape was horrible
Well, Ampex machines had only had 3M in the beginning and Ampex never had a tape brand until they bought Shamrock around 1970.
Shamrock was always inferior a tape. Ampex brand tape turned out to be much worse.
@@sbarncar actually, not true. BASF was making audio tape 10 years BEFORE 3m did. Scotch (3m Brand) made the famous 111 standard play tape in 1946 BASF was making audio tape since 1934
This is very confusing