I really like Seans presenting style. It's slower, not interrupting all the time (ahem, Will) and he focuses on what's really interesting. More Sean please, he's cool.
Some crucial info is missing: "SN" stands for "Série Noire", which loosely translates to "dark thriller movie" and the name of the original 1970 model was Nagra SNN Body Recorder. The chassis is milled from a solid piece of titanium, it contains no steel besides stainless screws and the only potentially revealing ferrous material are in the motor an heads, but so little in fact that the recorder DID NOT TRIGGER METAL DETECTORS. The bias oscillator runs at a very unusual frequency for a tape recorder, 32,768 Hz (32KHz), which happens to coincide with regular quartz wrist-watch oscillator’s frequency, which is usually cut-out and ignored by bug detectors of all kinds. The high-speed, full-track SNN recording quality of 1970 rivals some studio machines of the time and will ASHAME 99% of today's portable digital recorders in faithfulness and ability to capture the true ambiance and emotion of the moment. If you play back a recording of some live event, made with a good microphone, on a high-end reproduction chain, you will fall off your chair - and begin to understand how you iPhone's compressed AAC audio and other MP3 sources you are used to truly sounds like crap ;-)
+Axel R. You are confusing the Nagra SN with the build quality of the Nagra JBR which was not out until 1984 The Nagra SN was built out of anodized aluminum and could be detected, the reason why the JBR was invented. The first original Nagra SN's were painted gray. Where the dark thriller movie came from ?? is news to me.
+Axel R. I never said it wasn't called "Série Noire" I agree with you on that part. It's the rest of it I don't agree. I know quite a bit about Nagra's
not to be a dick, I know the charm of interacting with these physical reminders of an era where fine engineering meant everything, and also, Wu, lots of Wu, but - for those dads who want to keep a wife and therefore some space in the house to breathe - use flac files with a decent DA convertor.
I have 3 of these, I've been collecting reel to reel machines since I was 10 . I use my Nagra SN (3) almost on a daily basis as my portable music player. I recently bought a tiny 3.5mm Bluetooth jack connector so I could use my Bang & Olufsen E8's with them. This thing sounds incredible, I mostly record off of my records and this is the only recorder that can capture their true audio essence. Even better than my Tascom DA-P1 DAT recorder which is definitely the second best audio recorder I've ever bought, yes, even better than the Marrantz PMD671 which I also have. I'm obsessed with these machines. I currently use the Nagra VII Explorer for all of my recording needs, including when filming. My music system is also all Nagra, I use the Classic Line.
@@saren6538 I would pull that trigger as they're not getting any cheaper. I can't believe how much they cost now, especially when I bought my third one for under $500. I got my first two from my Grandfather who introduced me to Nagra. He owned two Nagra SNST-R's, one of which was a back up he bought new and never opened, I to still haven't opened it. As I received both of them after he died, along with his insane camera collection which included rare Lieca, Rollie, Hasselblad and other models. My favorite is the Leica M7 Titanium kit, look it up an you'll understand why. Though he didn't pay that much for it, no where close, in fact I think he even traded one of his other kits for it. It is why I invested in the Leica M-P Typ 240 Titanium set and others as well, these things go up in value so quickly. They're the best investment.
"Kids don't know these days, that with cassette tapes and VHS you could record at lower qualities and get longer recordings." Um, Tested, that is still the case- Video: VGA vs. XGA vs. 720p vs. 1080p vs. 4k Audio: 32 kbps vs. 96 kbps vs. 128 kbps vs. 192 kbps vs. 320 kbps.
That's not really comparable, as you're not talking about a fixed size of media anymore. Your example simply means a variable size output file, whereas running tape at a slower speed maximises the finite storage available. In fact your example just shows how much things have actually changed, how often now do we really consider the size of our media?
engineeredlifeform That's actually not accurate, and you'd be surprised how often I have to consider the size of the output. I am talking about recording of coursee and oot sreaming and there are limitations everywhere. SD cards, internal phone storage, hard drives, etc'. If I am going abroad on vacation and want to make sure that I don't run out of space on my SD card, I might shoot only JPG. If I am out filming something, and I only have a single 32 GB SD card in my camera, I may consider filming in 720p or a different AVCHD encoding in order to maximize the amount of time I can record. iPhones never have enough space, and I wish I could change the quality of the photos and pictures. When I rip audio from CDs I consider where I am planning on playing them, and change the quality accordingly. No reason to have an uncompressed audio file if it's just going to be playing on my phone. The physical speed of recording really isn't any different than changing the resolution or bitrate. When you'd record LP you'd get a lower quality image, maybe not the same as 480p vs. 4K, but the quality was still affected. Recording in LP and 480p/32 kbps gets you the same exact result- you can now fit more information/footage/audio on your media (tape/ssd/hdd/other). Nothing has changed.
***** Dude, really, no. The limits on tape devices were severely different, we are talking about a few hours of SP on a VHS tape, 45mins per side on a Compact Cassette, and just 20mins on this small reel to reel. For compact cassettes, that meant we had to do some maths when we copied albums (and everyone taped their friends albums) Sometimes tracks had to be juggled from one side of the tape to the other. This is the other difference you haven't really considered; that the physical boundaries of the media could dictate running order, that is also not the case with mass storage, as it's random access, not sequential. I have a 1Tb external drive on my PC, I _never_ have to consider if an individual film will fit onto it, or what the quality should be, but when I was younger, single long films would fill one entire tape, and I may have to record using LP to get it to fit. Again your comparison for taking photos is wildly off, we may have taken a couple of rolls of film on holiday, maybe two rolls of 36 exposures, just 72 pictures all holiday. Quantity or quality is _never_ a consideration when taking photos or video now, I always take both at top quality,and simply take more SD cards with me, I have two 64Gb SD cards, and they were quite cheap, and I can take thousands of pictures, and many hours of video. One video is never going to max my media, that's the crucial difference, the limits we have now are not something we have to consider per instance. Sure, cumulatively they add up, but that is totally different.
"that the physical boundaries of the media could dictate running order, that is also not the case with mass storage, as it's random access, not sequential. I have a 1Tb external drive on my PC, I never have to consider if an individual film will fit onto it, or what the quality should be, but when I was younger, single long films would fill one entire tape, and I may have to record using LP to get it to fit." This recording device isn't trying to record a entire film or anything that can't be "chopped up", I also doubt Norm was referring to anything like that. You are talking about convenience, I am talking about technicalities. Just because you *can* buy more SD cards doesn't mean you *have* more of them. Also, just because you don't ever consider it, doesn't mean it isn't still relevant. I encountered while I was filming a documentary a couple of months ago. I didn't have a spare SD with me or a way to unload the footage. I had to delete some footage and use a different (lower quality) compression to get the last shots I needed. Yes, I should have remembered to bring more SD cards, but I did exactly that- made the SP to LP.
***** Right, so your failure to plan doesn't change anything. The point was that with older storage like this you had to make a decision about quality to record just one session up front, whereas you recorded multiples, and course that's just a +1 problem, you can't add +1 indefinitely. You only lessened the quality of your footage at the end, the point wrt these old devices was that you had to do the maths in advance. I guess you'd have failed at that, given you failed to take enough storage to film your documentary. Given SD cards are dirt cheap, there's really no excuse to run out of storage these days, a 64Gb microSD costs about £30 and will record about 11 hours of HighDef. I can trim and edit video on my cellphone, so I wouldn't need to keep 11hours of footage to make one documentary, I could edit on the fly, and again, this is a bonus of random, non-sequential access, space on storage cards does not have to be contiguous, like it did on tape.
I remember that from a series of unfortunate events. I also like the cut scenes with the typewriter and having the "ribbon" (it was actually the keys) jam at a suspenseful moment.
Whilst I remember the Nagra was always considered industry-standard among news crews, the company I worked for supplied and serviced Stellavox which (externally) were similarly constructed but even smaller (to the unit described at the start of this vid, not the featured device). The internal modules were all potted and pluggable so (as the electronics guy) I didn't ever do much with them.
i have a SNS and also a NAGRA IV-S repaired by NAGRA FRANCE ( both of them buy on the french "boncoin" for very good price )but you have to take your chance to be the first to contact the saler !
I've seen one of these units in the movie Con Air. One of the prison guards had one hidden. Could you use something like this to record music and play it back on a stereo?
I believe it was made for use in movies to record a character’s dialogue at a remote distance - it was small so it could be hidden on the actor .. love the hand crank rewind .. if only a spring powered reel could be run at a controlled speed !
Stop the Philosophical Zombies - ‘71 they said .. a bit hard to believe the cia could use enough of them to make their manufacture worthwhile . And why would the cia want or need such high ( movie) quality and short record time ? The first nagra was used by the the film industry in 1951 !
I noticed the "time vs speed scale" is embossed under the takeup reel for various speeds, e.g. 1 and7/8 ips, but I am on another project, didn't go back and freezeframe to verify times vs speeds.
Recording Times: SNN = red reel = 26 minutes @ 3 3/4 ips, green reel = 38 minutes @ 3 3/4 ips, blue reel = 47 minutes @ 3 3/4 ips (3 3/4 ips was its calibration standard even though it also ran 1 7/8 ips) SNS = blue reel = 3 hours 8 minutes per side @ 15/16 ips (its calibration standard), green reel = 2 hours 32 minutes per side @ 15/16 ips, red reel = 1 hour 44 minutes per side @ 15/16 ips
A cool piece of vintage tech. The hi fi stereo version would be a nice thing to have-and use. I saw 2 AA batts- maybe I could not see the other 2, BUT if it does use only 2 that's pretty slick. 3 volts......not too shabby for the day.
Stefan Kudelski - a legend for some of the film and radio people. Damn, lucky you, it is real piece of history. There is even a Polish cabaret in from 1980 and 1981, where they mention Stefan Kudelski and Stefan Banach with Stanislaw Ulam (Monte Carlo Analisys) a Polish mathematicians responsible for developing complex Axiomatic Logic from the 'Scottish Cafe' group of School of Mathematics of Lwow University. I think this is the unit that President Kennedy ordered for CIA during the Cuban Crisis. The Nagra SN was possibly also used in James Bond movies. You can get custom made high quality pinch rollers and idler wheels from Terry's Rubber Pinch Rollers and Wheels in Michigan, USA, and a few other places. Best of luck 👍
I've used a few of those for various projects. The first time I used it was on assignment from the national broadcaster in Norway. They gave me the old and heavy equipment because I was new, but then they told me: "Don't sweat it, it only cost $9000 in 1975." That would equate to over $40.000 today... The audio from that thing was still way good enough for national radio in the early 2000's tho. Plug a good microphone into it, and the recording will be _pristine._
would of loved to hear a playback from it :/ am i wrong or could you stream this into your computers audio in port and record it with audacity or other DAW?? like how you record old cassette tapes/vinyl??
i remember hearing of nagra first in the classic french movie Diva where the hero sneaks one into a concert and tapes his favourite opera diva who refuses to record. Much intrigue follows.
I think it would have been nice if you had splyed the adio into the end of the Video just so one can hear how it sounds, maybe with recorder as a microphone pluged to the camera, if that sort of compatible....
Not completely true but a good version of the story. One of the options before dependable wireless mics. This was an Altman favorite in movie double system production. This in why they are now props.
Nice, I must admit, I have a soft spot for reel to reel tape machines, probably thanks to a 'lifestyle' photo in an old Tandy (Radio Shack to you guys) catalogue from the late 70's/early 80's, a bookshelf with a reel to reel, with some nice round headphones on a curly cable plugged in. How things have changed, instead of nicely crafted single use items, we have computers that do everything. Maybe I should turn the PC case on my bookshelf sideways, and stick on a of pair reels, ... in homage :-)
Hahaaa thanks,I've tried searching for "vintage tech" and things like that with no luck. Do you know of any websites or other objects you find interesting like the ones that have been talked about.
LOL Sorry I had to. But in all seriousness, I think Sean mentions a website in the Mechanical Calculator video. I would check that out and maybe that would link you to other sites or maybe help develop a better search quarry. Hope that helps. I too have a thing for cold war vintage tech (Big Bond Fan) and even steam punk. Good Luck and let me know what you find.
Ah cheers man I'll give that a look at tomorrow :) ah James Bond stuff is awesome but yeah I agree the, mechanical element of it all just intrigues me, I bought an exploded view of the Curta Calculater because the internals of it are cool to look at haha. Automatons as well just fucj with my mind hahaa.
Jason the Cripple It most likely has more than 2 cells in it, my guess would be that it needs 4 cells to get 6 volts because good quality reliable 3 volt motors where not common in that era. Also the electronics of that time where much more suited to 6 volt operation, it is possible that it was only 3 volts but that would make it very unique for the time.
What I have never understood ("never" in this case is since 1986 where I saw it the first time) is that they didn't use standard 1/4'' tape and reels so that the recordings could be played on a ordinary reel-to-reel machine. I really do hate proprietary formats because it makes life difficult for people who wants to share recordings.
Good video. But your not saying the name correctly It's NAG (like nag sound like bag) and RA (like RA as in rat). Journalist didn't use these very much. When I was at RNTV we use to use them with our 16mm Film Unit if it was a location shoot where we needed to send a small crew. Journalists didn't use them because of the cost at the time cost us around 1000 D-Marks. The intelligence agencies did use them, but it was more widely used in film news gathering. During the Vietnam War TV crews in Vietnam had three sound recording unites. These were one made by Uher and two made by Nagra. One of them was the Nagra SN, which was easier to operate in the field.
Keith Perron No, he’s right. It’s pronounced nog (like egg nog) raa, in Polish. You were just pronouncing it wrong because that’s how you heard it pronounced.
You're wrong. Nagra's name is based on Polish verb in past tense "Nagrać" which means "to record", and it's definitely not pronounced as Nag-ra, it's na-gra.
Man. I envy this guys collection of stuff. At the same time I still feel like the inventern thing was kinda a screw up though. I think almost everyone expected you guys to pick someone without money not someone who has a full shop, years of experience, and money to spend on little knick knacks like this, but it's all good its whatever you guys wanted to do.
SN stands for "Small Nagra" your SNS is "Small Nagra Slow"! Recording time depended on speed and which tape you used ?? Three colors: Red, Green, Blue !! Your SNS at 15/16ips with Blue reel tape, over 3hours !! On the box the tape came in is a chart with time of recordings!! Obviously SNST: Small Nagra Stereo !!!
Is this the same recorder that was in the Mission Impossible TV Show? Surprised that there are still some of these around. They tended to catch on fire a lot. :)
seeing that make me want to get an 80's Gen One sony walkman and machine one out of aluminum... why you might ask... Because I want to and to me there is no better reason :)
Norm annoys the hell out of me. He's probably the worst presenter ever... He nods his head very condescendingly, his grin makes me cringe and his comments are so shallow and often sound condescending or telling exactly what we see or he's captain obvious. And his over used "WOW!" and "Awesome" arrggghhhhh.
I had the privilege of being an audio op on a film when they used a Nagra. Tremendous experience, this is a gem!
We were filming on standard 16mm through an Arriflex camera.
I really like Seans presenting style. It's slower, not interrupting all the time (ahem, Will) and he focuses on what's really interesting. More Sean please, he's cool.
Some crucial info is missing: "SN" stands for "Série Noire", which loosely translates to "dark thriller movie" and the name of the original 1970 model was Nagra SNN Body Recorder. The chassis is milled from a solid piece of titanium, it contains no steel besides stainless screws and the only potentially revealing ferrous material are in the motor an heads, but so little in fact that the recorder DID NOT TRIGGER METAL DETECTORS. The bias oscillator runs at a very unusual frequency for a tape recorder, 32,768 Hz (32KHz), which happens to coincide with regular quartz wrist-watch oscillator’s frequency, which is usually cut-out and ignored by bug detectors of all kinds. The high-speed, full-track SNN recording quality of 1970 rivals some studio machines of the time and will ASHAME 99% of today's portable digital recorders in faithfulness and ability to capture the true ambiance and emotion of the moment. If you play back a recording of some live event, made with a good microphone, on a high-end reproduction chain, you will fall off your chair - and begin to understand how you iPhone's compressed AAC audio and other MP3 sources you are used to truly sounds like crap ;-)
+Axel R. You are confusing the Nagra SN with the build quality of the Nagra JBR which was not out until 1984
The Nagra SN was built out of anodized aluminum and could be detected, the reason why the JBR was invented.
The first original Nagra SN's were painted gray. Where the dark thriller movie came from ?? is news to me.
SN means "Série Noire" - you need to learn French and it will become clearer. You know very little about Nagra. Greetings from Switzerland.
+Axel R. I never said it wasn't called "Série Noire" I agree with you on that part. It's the rest of it I don't agree. I know quite a bit about Nagra's
Milled out of aircraft aluminum not titanium !!!
The bias frequency is Not what you stated. That's the JBR
not to be a dick, I know the charm of interacting with these physical reminders of an era where fine engineering meant everything, and also, Wu, lots of Wu, but - for those dads who want to keep a wife and therefore some space in the house to breathe - use flac files with a decent DA convertor.
Mr Sean Charlesworth is awesome. Tested, please keep him. He's got bubbly features.
We have one of these in mint condition at my office. It has a live interview of Prince on it.
I hope you've digitised that already,... would be a shame to lose it.
^^^^^^^
dat
Sell it
to me.
Make me feel old, playing with my Dads wire recorded was the first time I heard my own voice.
I might have to go back to rewatch it. I spent the entire first half of the video waiting for him to turn it on! But it's so neat!
I have 3 of these, I've been collecting reel to reel machines since I was 10 . I use my Nagra SN (3) almost on a daily basis as my portable music player. I recently bought a tiny 3.5mm Bluetooth jack connector so I could use my Bang & Olufsen E8's with them. This thing sounds incredible, I mostly record off of my records and this is the only recorder that can capture their true audio essence. Even better than my Tascom DA-P1 DAT recorder which is definitely the second best audio recorder I've ever bought, yes, even better than the Marrantz PMD671 which I also have. I'm obsessed with these machines.
I currently use the Nagra VII Explorer for all of my recording needs, including when filming. My music system is also all Nagra, I use the Classic Line.
Stop it your making me want one .. I have the chance to buy a mint SN for 2k
@@saren6538 I would pull that trigger as they're not getting any cheaper. I can't believe how much they cost now, especially when I bought my third one for under $500. I got my first two from my Grandfather who introduced me to Nagra. He owned two Nagra SNST-R's, one of which was a back up he bought new and never opened, I to still haven't opened it. As I received both of them after he died, along with his insane camera collection which included rare Lieca, Rollie, Hasselblad and other models. My favorite is the Leica M7 Titanium kit, look it up an you'll understand why. Though he didn't pay that much for it, no where close, in fact I think he even traded one of his other kits for it. It is why I invested in the Leica M-P Typ 240 Titanium set and others as well, these things go up in value so quickly. They're the best investment.
"Kids don't know these days, that with cassette tapes and VHS you could record at lower qualities and get longer recordings."
Um, Tested, that is still the case-
Video: VGA vs. XGA vs. 720p vs. 1080p vs. 4k
Audio: 32 kbps vs. 96 kbps vs. 128 kbps vs. 192 kbps vs. 320 kbps.
That's not really comparable, as you're not talking about a fixed size of media anymore. Your example simply means a variable size output file, whereas running tape at a slower speed maximises the finite storage available. In fact your example just shows how much things have actually changed, how often now do we really consider the size of our media?
engineeredlifeform That's actually not accurate, and you'd be surprised how often I have to consider the size of the output. I am talking about recording of coursee and oot sreaming and there are limitations everywhere.
SD cards, internal phone storage, hard drives, etc'.
If I am going abroad on vacation and want to make sure that I don't run out of space on my SD card, I might shoot only JPG.
If I am out filming something, and I only have a single 32 GB SD card in my camera, I may consider filming in 720p or a different AVCHD encoding in order to maximize the amount of time I can record.
iPhones never have enough space, and I wish I could change the quality of the photos and pictures.
When I rip audio from CDs I consider where I am planning on playing them, and change the quality accordingly. No reason to have an uncompressed audio file if it's just going to be playing on my phone.
The physical speed of recording really isn't any different than changing the resolution or bitrate. When you'd record LP you'd get a lower quality image, maybe not the same as 480p vs. 4K, but the quality was still affected. Recording in LP and 480p/32 kbps gets you the same exact result- you can now fit more information/footage/audio on your media (tape/ssd/hdd/other).
Nothing has changed.
***** Dude, really, no. The limits on tape devices were severely different, we are talking about a few hours of SP on a VHS tape, 45mins per side on a Compact Cassette, and just 20mins on this small reel to reel. For compact cassettes, that meant we had to do some maths when we copied albums (and everyone taped their friends albums) Sometimes tracks had to be juggled from one side of the tape to the other. This is the other difference you haven't really considered; that the physical boundaries of the media could dictate running order, that is also not the case with mass storage, as it's random access, not sequential. I have a 1Tb external drive on my PC, I _never_ have to consider if an individual film will fit onto it, or what the quality should be, but when I was younger, single long films would fill one entire tape, and I may have to record using LP to get it to fit.
Again your comparison for taking photos is wildly off, we may have taken a couple of rolls of film on holiday, maybe two rolls of 36 exposures, just 72 pictures all holiday. Quantity or quality is _never_ a consideration when taking photos or video now, I always take both at top quality,and simply take more SD cards with me, I have two 64Gb SD cards, and they were quite cheap, and I can take thousands of pictures, and many hours of video. One video is never going to max my media, that's the crucial difference, the limits we have now are not something we have to consider per instance. Sure, cumulatively they add up, but that is totally different.
"that the physical boundaries of the media could dictate running order, that is also not the case with mass storage, as it's random access, not sequential. I have a 1Tb external drive on my PC, I never have to consider if an individual film will fit onto it, or what the quality should be, but when I was younger, single long films would fill one entire tape, and I may have to record using LP to get it to fit."
This recording device isn't trying to record a entire film or anything that can't be "chopped up", I also doubt Norm was referring to anything like that. You are talking about convenience, I am talking about technicalities. Just because you *can* buy more SD cards doesn't mean you *have* more of them. Also, just because you don't ever consider it, doesn't mean it isn't still relevant. I encountered while I was filming a documentary a couple of months ago. I didn't have a spare SD with me or a way to unload the footage. I had to delete some footage and use a different (lower quality) compression to get the last shots I needed. Yes, I should have remembered to bring more SD cards, but I did exactly that- made the SP to LP.
***** Right, so your failure to plan doesn't change anything. The point was that with older storage like this you had to make a decision about quality to record just one session up front, whereas you recorded multiples, and course that's just a +1 problem, you can't add +1 indefinitely. You only lessened the quality of your footage at the end, the point wrt these old devices was that you had to do the maths in advance. I guess you'd have failed at that, given you failed to take enough storage to film your documentary. Given SD cards are dirt cheap, there's really no excuse to run out of storage these days, a 64Gb microSD costs about £30 and will record about 11 hours of HighDef. I can trim and edit video on my cellphone, so I wouldn't need to keep 11hours of footage to make one documentary, I could edit on the fly, and again, this is a bonus of random, non-sequential access, space on storage cards does not have to be contiguous, like it did on tape.
Loved Nagra ever since the movie "Diva".
Oh man what a fantastic show and tell. Such a beautiful piece of gear @_@
I can't even say how fascinating this channel is!
Sean is a great addition to your weekly videos
I remember that from a series of unfortunate events. I also like the cut scenes with the typewriter and having the "ribbon" (it was actually the keys) jam at a suspenseful moment.
Whilst I remember the Nagra was always considered industry-standard among news crews, the company I worked for supplied and serviced Stellavox which (externally) were similarly constructed but even smaller (to the unit described at the start of this vid, not the featured device). The internal modules were all potted and pluggable so (as the electronics guy) I didn't ever do much with them.
I wish sean could be a part of the tested crew
you should have shown us the playback of the recording on this unit , to show how the quality was.
Nagra rocks! I have a Nagra E in mint condition, love just looking at it!
I love the Nagra SN but the Nagra 4 is the holy grail for me, I want one so bad!
i have a SNS and also a NAGRA IV-S repaired by NAGRA FRANCE ( both of them buy on the french "boncoin" for very good price )but you have to take your chance to be the first to contact the saler !
Very good old Technology. Very well made.
How refreshing. I like Will 2.0 a lot!
I'm thinking mid to late 1950's tech in all probability.. Nice, would love to sample using that lovely little machine.
I've seen one of these units in the movie Con Air. One of the prison guards had one hidden. Could you use something like this to record music and play it back on a stereo?
You need a special equiment to read the tape...
I believe it was made for use in movies to record a character’s dialogue at a remote distance - it was small so it could be hidden on the actor .. love the hand crank rewind .. if only a spring powered
reel could be run at a controlled speed !
It was originally made for clandestine use by the CIA. Media use came much later.
Stop the Philosophical Zombies - ‘71 they said .. a bit hard to believe the cia could use enough of them to make their manufacture worthwhile . And why would the cia want or need such high ( movie) quality and short record time ? The first nagra was used by the the film industry in 1951 !
@@shiitakestick They were designed on spec. for the CIA on a lucrative government contract. My dad is ex-CIA he has one from that time.
Stop the Philosophical Zombies - great ! So , what / who did he record ???
@@shiitakestick Soviet spies.
I noticed the "time vs speed scale" is embossed under the takeup reel for various speeds, e.g. 1 and7/8 ips, but I am on another project, didn't go back and freezeframe to verify times vs speeds.
I would love to hear a recording from that little thing.
Recording Times: SNN = red reel = 26 minutes @ 3 3/4 ips, green reel = 38 minutes @ 3 3/4 ips, blue reel = 47 minutes @ 3 3/4 ips (3 3/4 ips was its calibration standard even though it also ran 1 7/8 ips)
SNS = blue reel = 3 hours 8 minutes per side @ 15/16 ips (its calibration standard), green reel = 2 hours 32 minutes per side @ 15/16 ips, red reel = 1 hour 44 minutes per side @ 15/16 ips
I saw one of these in the movie Silence of the Lambs. I've never seen one of these until that movie.
A cool piece of vintage tech. The hi fi stereo version would be a nice thing to have-and use. I saw 2 AA batts- maybe I could not see the other 2, BUT if it does use only 2 that's pretty slick. 3 volts......not too shabby for the day.
pretty cool,.. i got an old reel to reel recorder from a garage sale, it still had a recording on it from like the 60s
Stefan Kudelski - a legend for some of the film and radio people. Damn, lucky you, it is real piece of history. There is even a Polish cabaret in from 1980 and 1981, where they mention Stefan Kudelski and Stefan Banach with Stanislaw Ulam (Monte Carlo Analisys) a Polish mathematicians responsible for developing complex Axiomatic Logic from the 'Scottish Cafe' group of School of Mathematics of Lwow University. I think this is the unit that President Kennedy ordered for CIA during the Cuban Crisis. The Nagra SN was possibly also used in James Bond movies. You can get custom made high quality pinch rollers and idler wheels from Terry's Rubber Pinch Rollers and Wheels in Michigan, USA, and a few other places. Best of luck 👍
I've used a few of those for various projects. The first time I used it was on assignment from the national broadcaster in Norway. They gave me the old and heavy equipment because I was new, but then they told me: "Don't sweat it, it only cost $9000 in 1975." That would equate to over $40.000 today... The audio from that thing was still way good enough for national radio in the early 2000's tho. Plug a good microphone into it, and the recording will be _pristine._
would of loved to hear a playback from it :/ am i wrong or could you stream this into your computers audio in port and record it with audacity or other DAW?? like how you record old cassette tapes/vinyl??
So did you guys decided to stop doing the maker bot series? Haven't had a new one in the past 2 fridays!
myskull Will was out on vacation, but we'll be back on track this week!
Tested Thank you
Tested why didn't you guys just print a new Will
Tested vacation? who needs a vacation when you got the oculus rift dk2 and can do a staycation
Crikey, I love it! It's like a piece of art!
Interesantní zařízení!
i remember hearing of nagra first in the classic french movie Diva where the hero sneaks one into a concert and tapes his favourite opera diva who refuses to record. Much intrigue follows.
Not this model though... a high fidelity one.
I think it would have been nice if you had splyed the adio into the end of the Video just so one can hear how it sounds, maybe with recorder as a microphone pluged to the camera, if that sort of compatible....
Miło że wspomnieliście o Kudelskim :)
Łapka w górę !
I first saw one in Thelma and Louise
You had me at Cold War....my favorite era
If Sean has same sensibilities as myself (and with Curta + Nagra it's two for two so far), next item on the list is the Tessina spy camera.
what size tape is that - too narrow to be quarter inch
3/20''
Not completely true but a good version of the story. One of the options before dependable wireless mics. This was an Altman favorite in movie double system production. This in why they are now props.
Nice, I must admit, I have a soft spot for reel to reel tape machines, probably thanks to a 'lifestyle' photo in an old Tandy (Radio Shack to you guys) catalogue from the late 70's/early 80's, a bookshelf with a reel to reel, with some nice round headphones on a curly cable plugged in. How things have changed, instead of nicely crafted single use items, we have computers that do everything. Maybe I should turn the PC case on my bookshelf sideways, and stick on a of pair reels, ... in homage :-)
That is beautiful wow haven't seen one of those for a lot years.
One of them was in Coppola's "The Conversation" film.
I love this stuff. How do you find out about tech like this and the Curta calculator for example???
The internet!
Hahaaa thanks,I've tried searching for "vintage tech" and things like that with no luck. Do you know of any websites or other objects you find interesting like the ones that have been talked about.
LOL Sorry I had to. But in all seriousness, I think Sean mentions a website in the Mechanical Calculator video. I would check that out and maybe that would link you to other sites or maybe help develop a better search quarry. Hope that helps. I too have a thing for cold war vintage tech (Big Bond Fan) and even steam punk. Good Luck and let me know what you find.
Ah cheers man I'll give that a look at tomorrow :) ah James Bond stuff is awesome but yeah I agree the, mechanical element of it all just intrigues me, I bought an exploded view of the Curta Calculater because the internals of it are cool to look at haha. Automatons as well just fucj with my mind hahaa.
I saw one of these on an episode of 21 Jump Street, and I thought it looked super-cool.
Am I too much of an auto geek that I could not stop looking at Sean's Haynes manual R2-D2 shirt?
"Kids don't know these days" makes me feel old :/
just makes him seem dumb, because we still have bitrate that limits record time.
quit teasing, what other toys did he bring to show off. loved the calculator and this recorder.
In videoclip Delerium Feat Jael - After All (Svenson And Gielen Remix) they used Nagra SN
An SNST with speaker unit and case is going for $12k right now on Ebay.
Yes, "nagra " means "will record" in Polish. Funny thing I didn't know Nagra had anything to do with Poland :)
the creator of NAGRA kudeslki came from Poland
Time for new video series - Sean and Toys
The big home-player takes 8 D-cell batteries, but what runs this? I missed it
At 3:42 you can see 2 AA batteries inside
When they showed the back cover off, you can see 2 AA batteries. There could have been more under the circuit board though.
Jason the Cripple
It most likely has more than 2 cells in it, my guess would be that it needs 4 cells to get 6 volts because good quality reliable 3 volt motors where not common in that era. Also the electronics of that time where much more suited to 6 volt operation, it is possible that it was only 3 volts but that would make it very unique for the time.
+Ian Clarke
The SN series of Nagra's run on two AA batteries !! That's it !! The Efficiency is so good it can run 8-10 hours
This guy has camera chops. Put him on more.
What I have never understood ("never" in this case is since 1986 where I saw it the first time) is that they didn't use standard 1/4'' tape and reels so that the recordings could be played on a ordinary reel-to-reel machine. I really do hate proprietary formats because it makes life difficult for people who wants to share recordings.
Nagra tape recorders awesome decks
Good video. But your not saying the name correctly It's NAG (like nag sound like bag) and RA (like RA as in rat). Journalist didn't use these very much. When I was at RNTV we use to use them with our 16mm Film Unit if it was a location shoot where we needed to send a small crew. Journalists didn't use them because of the cost at the time cost us around 1000 D-Marks. The intelligence agencies did use them, but it was more widely used in film news gathering. During the Vietnam War TV crews in Vietnam had three sound recording unites. These were one made by Uher and two made by Nagra. One of them was the Nagra SN, which was easier to operate in the field.
Keith Perron No, he’s right. It’s pronounced nog (like egg nog) raa, in Polish. You were just pronouncing it wrong because that’s how you heard it pronounced.
You're wrong. Nagra's name is based on Polish verb in past tense "Nagrać" which means "to record", and it's definitely not pronounced as Nag-ra, it's na-gra.
Can you guys please do a video on adams leather toolboxes
It also featured briefly in "Se7en".
that tape on there would record for over two hours.
Man. I envy this guys collection of stuff. At the same time I still feel like the inventern thing was kinda a screw up though. I think almost everyone expected you guys to pick someone without money not someone who has a full shop, years of experience, and money to spend on little knick knacks like this, but it's all good its whatever you guys wanted to do.
Nagra's are actually quite easy to find in good condition, because they were all made to survive a nuclear war.
Beatified design
SN stands for "Small Nagra" your SNS is "Small Nagra Slow"! Recording time depended on speed and which tape you used ?? Three colors: Red, Green, Blue !! Your SNS at 15/16ips with Blue reel tape, over 3hours !!
On the box the tape came in is a chart with time of recordings!! Obviously SNST: Small Nagra Stereo !!!
+J Bondc
Got it !! Erase everything else !! I will
Nice recorder
Well, "Nagra" is a gramar form of "to record", in a sense like: "he will record something" :)
Nagra in Polish means something like "will record"
You should've recorded this episode (or part of it) with that! =)
Great, been looking for one for a while. Now I will never be able to afford one!
It would’ve been way cooler to hear some playback
Im from Poland and I havent heard about this. Nice
every time you do one of these guys i seriously think of taking out a loan :) hahhaa great stuff !! :) thank you !!!
un telephone pour les resaux sociaux avec du partage d ecran et de clavier specialiser dans les application creative pour sound cloud et devient art
Is this the same recorder that was in the Mission Impossible TV Show?
Surprised that there are still some of these around. They tended to catch on fire a lot. :)
that was COOL
If its good enough for Klute its good enough for me.
It's Nagra, not Nogra.
"Still coldwar?" The Sony Walkman was "Cold War-era". These kids today...
Why am I just now seeing this
seeing that make me want to get an 80's Gen One sony walkman and machine one out of aluminum... why you might ask... Because I want to and to me there is no better reason :)
Saw this in covert affairs, now i know what it it.
sean i like you can you stay forever
plz?
It is Red Tape Recorder from Team Fortress 2!!
"Today" Wears the same shirt as last week.
Spy sapping my sentry
hi
"Nagra, Please"
made to last
622.000th sub
9
man, Norm is so awkward all the time.
tf2 spy?
WOW!!!!!!!that was so not cool
The snus
Norm annoys the hell out of me. He's probably the worst presenter ever...
He nods his head very condescendingly, his grin makes me cringe and his comments are so shallow and often sound condescending or telling exactly what we see or he's captain obvious. And his over used "WOW!" and "Awesome" arrggghhhhh.