Congrats on getting a real work horse! I began my studio tech career on an early model of that very beast. It did not have separate settings for low and high speed, so if they wanted to record at a different speed, I had to show up and calibrate every channel for the new requirement. At least one hour per drawer! And I won't mention the headaches of the transport logic, or the AutoLocater II--which was made before printed circuit boards came into being. There must have been 4 or 5 of those machines in Honolulu when i was active and I serviced them all. Each studio had their own calibration tape. They were full track tapes, no separate tracks--very important for azimuth settings of the heads. And the manual! I hope you have one of those huge yellow 3-ring binders. It has all the procedures described, plus schematics of every circuit board. MCI was still MCI in those days and I had many conversations with the techs there. They were always very helpful. The definition of distortion is the difference between the input and the output. The tape recording process itself has distortion--the output is different from the input--in the frequency response. I used to record a CD onto a new tape, once the calibration was finished. The studio owner and I would listen to the input--straight from The CD player--and then switch to the playback head. The usual response was "That sounds better!" The tape has a 'fuller' sound or 'warmer' or something. And recording on slow speed actually increases the bass response. I think the roll-off is down to almost 20Hz. High speed starts rolling off just below 40Hz and is -3dB at 30Hz. So for low end, the slow speed is great. And the high end is still above 19KHz. Not too bad. The main difference between the hi and lo speeds is the noise floor. Hi speed has less noise. But I couldn't really hear it, though I could see it on an oscilloscope. Anyway it is nice to see one of my old friends again, doing that which it was designed to do; making music. Aloha.
In 1988 I got my first job as a recording engineer. We had one of these machines. And yes, it is a gigantic pain in the ass to operate and maintain! I was also the in-house studio musician, and played guitar, bass, and occasionally keyboards (even though I don't know how to play keyboard - but, you do what you gotta do). I'd sometimes do punch ins by holding a pen between my teeth and hitting record, while playing guitar. Now, when I first got that job, I didn't know anything about recording either! But the guy who owned the studio showed me a few things. After two or three days of training, he tells me that this night, a Salsa band was coming in, and were recording AND mixing their whole album that night. Then he hands me the keys to the studio and goes home. Mind you, I'd been a recording engineer, three days, never ran a recording session before, and to top it off, I was in recovery from alcohol and cocaine addiction (I've been clean 31 years now). Well, I survived the session and the clients were happy with the results. Aligning the channels,,, Dear God! Seriously painstaking work. One mistake, and you're cooked. Wow,,, you sure bring back a lot of memories. Thanks for posting the video!
Brilliant... I was an Engineer in a Philly studio in the late 70's and early 80's and I miss these big elephants..We had Studer 24 tracks and Harrison and Spectra Sonics boards.
Thank you DAW. I don't miss these machines a bit. The hours I spent keeping them running in top form, the time spent planning its use, the complications of the editing process, the expense in dollars and time, all of it. All that time and energy that could have gone into creating that I'll never get back. No sir, I don't miss them at all.
I did loads of sessions on the MCI JH-16 and it sounded great and you could punch in and out fast at 30 ips speed. I did the maintenance on it as well. Notice the big ceramic shaft capstan that it has! This brings back some nice memories.
I would love to see a follow up video of how the tape machine is patched to your mixer, converters, etc. Almost like a tutorial on how to integrate a tape machine into your home studio.
At first I thought this was a joke but I had to remember that most people watching this video have no clue what a tape machine is other than using a plugin... which is NOTHING like tracking to real tape. Man, the memories, the razor blades, the accidents...lol ... splicing tape was an art. If you really want to hear what tape can do, track using REAL instruments like trumpets, saxophones, drums guitars and basses... oh the saturation... especially on a nice horn section.
This brought back some great memories of working in a studio in the late 80's. We had a sweet deal where we had full run of the studio from 10pm - 10am when it wasn't booked. Luckily the most maintenance that I had to do was clean the heads & normalize the board lol.
~somewhere on the river, DG is chillin with his wife and laughing about how they used a mic stand for the tape, and how everyone in the studio needed every finger on the board to mix. So cool to see you into this!
Thank you! Bob Dylan just released a remixed & remastered original 24-channel analog tapes recording of Budokan 1978. Your video added the background/context I needed to appreciate the recording and editing involved. Excellent job and very clear explanation. Thanks!
Thanks for introduction into this machine! Until now I knew it only from discussion with my father long, long, long time ago. I also remember the problem with heads azimuth and all adjusting stuff. In that time it was quite usual, any tape system had to be calibrated, even "Compact Casette" in HiFi deck at home. Really nice piece of hardware, have fun on it.
Ow I remember doing 24Track edits for a producer, lots of edits from 1 song to the other, after it was done he said "ow lets go back to the originals". Shit luckily I had put arrows on the tapepieces I took out for the direction of the tape, and I had numbered them, so I could actually put it back together. Edit block, a razor and splicing tape, white marker to do edits. Another thing was spot-erasing, we used this to erase ticks etc. Cue up te tape and mark on the back of the tape the beginning with a white mark and the ending. Then there was a setting on the machine (Lyrec) to put the machine into record but without the pinchroller pressingthe tape to the capstan. Now you could move the tape by hand back and forth betwee your two markers over the erasehead. Thank god for harddisk recording/editing!
I've been doing a mixture of live shows, broadcasts, and studio sessions on and off for the last 20 year. And I can honestly say I've never used a tape/reel to reel. I started with Hard disk recoding, and wave form editing back in the mid 90's . Did use a neve console once, those were amazing.
Very nice job, I was very impressed how well you quickly explained about the relationship of frequency to tape speed. As a 55 year old guy those machines were the high tech way of their time to record the bands I grew up with. It is cool old technology but it is very clear why digital takes over.
Bias is a high frequency signal that is mixed with the audio signal going to the record head when you are recording (also to the erase head). Its purpose is to excite the magnetic particles on the tape so that they more readily accept the magnetic audio signal. The frequency is calibrated so that one wavelength fits inside the head gap at the selected tape speed. This gives a net magnetic signal of zero so there is no residual magnetism left on the tape by the bias. The real fun in calibrating this machine is the electronics that control the supply and take-up reel motors and the capstan motor. You don't have to mess with it as often, but they're a real pain when you do.
Wow. A real blast from the pat. I remember getting to the studio an hour and a half before a session to do the alignment, clean the heads, calibrate etc. and still just barely get ready for the start of the session. I wonder where you can even get the tape these days. You can't argue that they had a great sound.
Such a sweet machine. I am at the 16.51 minute mark and just before you got there I was looking at all the VU meters thinking, to align the heads I imagine you will have to be watching the levels on each as you play a test tone. Now I'll turn the video back on and listen to how you did the alignment. Frankly I'd love to hear one first hand. The closest I came was an EE friend restored a 4 track professional reel to reel and played a variation of a master tape recorded at 15 inch per second and I was blown away by how good it sounded.
Great machine! About the "tails out vs. print through", here's the explanation: print through is active outwards (from reel center to reel periphery). So tails out storage makes the print through affect the tape AFTER the main sound, like a small echo, which can be musical. The other way around, the print through sounds like a "pre-echo", being BEFORE the actual sound. And that really stands out as "un-natural" and is more noticeable. So it's not that the print through levels are any different, it's that they sound awkward "heads out".
Wow - that takes me back. I spent 7 years in the late 80s and early 90s with machines like that, including an older Ampex 16 track and a Studer 24 track, and I honestly can't even remember the other two - except that I know I never worked with a Sony. Every few hours you had to clean the heads with isopropyl alcohol and special swabs that didn't leave dust. Typically we'd do that at the beginning of each session, at every break, and after the session. There were also conditioning fluids for the rubber parts that contacted the tape. There was always a big decision on 15 or 30 ips, everyone seemed to have a different reason for their preferences. Of course, tape was never a question, everyone I knew used Ampex 456. All of the studios I ever worked in had weekly calibration, often on Sundays when the artists were usually too hung over to want to be in the studio. It was not unusual to run the tape over the heads hundreds or thousands of times if you were doing any sort of overdubs, or had a performer that wasn't all that good and had to retake many times. Studio lore says that Bohemian Rhapsody had the tape over the heads so many times that you could see through it. Oddly enough, I'm sitting here with a system that cost a tiny fraction of that machine but is orders of magnitude more capable... and yet, there's still something about the solidity of those big analog machines.
MCI multi tracks were popular in Australia. At point they manufactured a "layback" machine that enabled audio studios to record audio onto 1" C format video tape, saving the need to buy an expensive C format video recorder (Sony sold lots of those, but they were expensive). SMPTE time code was used for syncing. Sony bought out MCI so that they could kill the layback machine.
Tails out is a good practice. My studio has a 1972 Teac 3300s 2 Track Mastering deck @ 7.5 & 15 IPS. A great audio tool. Best success with your tape machine !!
I totally understand. I'm all for the gear passion too. I almost bought one three years ago. Found and bought the rack mountable Tascam MS-16 1 inch. But I think of this 2 inch machine a lot. I have a friend selling one locally. It's tempting...
That’s an impressive piece of engineering, what a beast. I’d imagine it beeing quite maintaince intensitve. This machine commends commitment and dedication. It’s like a cat, you give it food and shelter, it gives back love to it’s owner. Always nice to see electromechanical devices in an age that’s increasingly silicon chip based when it comes to recording media/storage.
Great Video!! I agree, 2 inch tape sounds amazing especially for drums & guitars. I have an Mci JH-24 it’s in great condition the more I calibrated it the easier it got, and it’s really no big deal. You can see & hear it in action on my youtube video.
Thank you for going into alot of detail about this old 24-track; really eye opening. There's some RUclips videos on this subject where not a single word is spoken, the presenter is mute, so the video is basically useless. You clarified a number of things, thanx. Get ahold of an old Tascam 24-track and do a tutorial!
Thank you so much for the tour. It's fun to see your passion. I'm even more curious to see how you plan to use it. I still haven't figured out how it's going to that much of an improvement over what the Telefunken was doing for you since you're not actually a recording studio, but I'm sure you've got a million ideas for it. Looking forward to learning about this.
You could simplify the description by just saying that it's like the 4 channel tape recorders we used to use, but it has six times as many tracks, amplifiers, and a wider tape. My favourite reel-to-reel over the years, for home use, was the Teac Studio 8. It was basically an 8-channel Portastudio using open reel tape. I still have two of them.
So cool. When I was younger and wanted to be a studio engineer (never happened) that is what I dreamed of using. Hope you use it like it was created to be used. 🤘
I began recording in 1993 on analog machines starting with my first Tascam 424 PortaStudio and later upgraded to the eight track Tascam 488mkII. There was a good deal of project studios in my hometown (Las Vegas NV) so as I gained experience & friends in the industry I got to work on Tascam & Fostex 8 track reel to reels and eventually a few 16 track machines. Soon ADAT's and then DAW's took hold and there were few if any analog machines ready to record bands, demos, jingles, etc. because the convenience and quality just made digital so much more attractive. I went back to college to finish my music degree and there was an MCI JH24 at the studio of recording tech program I went to. We got to record some stuff on it basically learning hybrid techniques (recording drums on tape and dumping the tracks into a DAW, etc) over the course of a week and it was incredible. Great sound. BUT!...the maintenance and constant babying of the machine you'd have to do was just insane. I remember the pain in the ass of cleaning heads & demagnetizing ¼" 8 track machines in the past but a 2" 24 track machines upkeep was just crippling. Analog of course has "THAT sound", but it's inconvenience and expense just becomes too much to deal with when you've got infinite tracks, zero physical maintenance and fairly good analog emulation plugins in a laptop in your backpack. But these behemoths will always have a special place in the hearts of us who were around them awhile. Because when they worked, the sound was incredible.
The Sony machine is actually a MCI machine. MCI (Music Center Incorporated) was a prolific manufacturer of professional analog studio tape machines and recording consoles for many, many years. A large number of recording studios in the US and overseas bought MCI machines, as they were less expensive than their competitors. The 8, 16, and 24 track machines used the same circuit cards, which was an economical advantage for MCI. Their Autolocator, which is seen in this video, was a far more advanced "remote control", and MCI sold them at 500-700 dollars, at a loss, which was a major point in selling their machines over the competition. When Sony wanted to get into the professional analog studio tape machine business in the US, MCI sold their business to Sony.
I remember playing on an album which was recorded with an Ampex, 16-track on 2-inch tape. I forget what the tape speed was. It had a good sound. I played on two albums which were recorded on an MCI 24-track, Scotch 250 2-inch tape, running at 30-ips (72 cm/sec). In the hands of a good engineer, there is something special about the "sound" of 2-in tape running at 30 ips. At 30-ips, the oxide on the Scotch 250 used to shed like crazy. About once per day, the engineer would go to the tape machine and use his t-shirt to wipe off the oxide on all the heads.
I enjoyed this video. I come from the analog tape days and there is a lot more to it, like calibrating that you touched on, but you need that calibration tape or some test tones. The fun part was when a tape had no test tones printed on it.
Congrats with the machine - the JH24 sounds and looks gorgeous :-) When I was upgrading from a Fostex to 2" 24 track I had my eyes on a JH16 and a JH24 like yours, but ended going with my Otari because of better parts availability and tech support in Denmark. But damm, those MCI's sound just a hair better.
What a great piece of gear. Its also so much to do to run this. I think recording drums and Bass on this is soooo good. Have fun with your 24 track darling. Greetings from Germany Michael
It was high tech in the days.Worked on a few audio/video tape machines in my career.High maintenance to say the least.They last forever if maintained well.
The Studer A827 was perhaps one of the best 24 track machines produced. Was 1989, when they were still making them. I seem to recall that they made a small batch of them in the mid-90's but, I don't see any info on that, anymore. They are one of the most sought after and still command a high price for one in good working order. You can still get parts for them, as well, to some degree. Other than the Otari MTR series, there are few that compare. Nobody was making 24 track tape machines by the mid-90's, as everything was going digital, by then...
Great video mate! And yes I prefer a plugin, but I'm just a semi pro and time, space and money are crucial. But again, that doesn't mean, that I wouldn't like to work with tape anytime again.
Beautiful machine! Congrats on your acquisition! I have to admit I'm a little jealous. I only have an Otari MX5050 2-track. It's a fun toy. I hope you get a lot of enjoyment from your "new" machine! Be well...
I think the best part about analog recording is the limitations you need to work within. Less can definitely be more. That being said, artists don't make much money selling recorded music these days and the added costs of doing an analog recording is not practical for 99% of them. It's very niche. The listener generally doesn't care what medium the recording was made on. Kudos for living your dream, but don't bankrupt yourself.
Bias is a higher frequency applied to the recording head to energise the dipole molecules on the tape so they can rotate and align properly with the audio signal.
The passive nature of the dancer arm on MCI recorders is a serious weakness, as is the fact it is a fixed guide rather than a rolling one. If there is any flaw in your tape or if the tension is less than ideal, the fixed dancer arm will do some serious damage. Though it is highly polished stainless steel, it is literally scraping on the non-oxide side of the tape at all times, often at very high speed. The much more sophisticated Studer had all rolling tape contact surfaces, and in later models, fully servo-connected dancers on both sides of the headstack which maintained tension to perfection. Precious master tapes were treated much better by the Studer and Ampex recorders.
MCI JH-24 and late JH-16's have an optional roller dancer arm and it's still available. And it is not a fixed arm, the tension of the arm is fixed, to which servo-based active tensioning reacts. In fact MCI only stresses about 140g on the heads, way less than any Ampex ever and only Studer A800 stresses less than that.
MCI or Sony MCI machine like this is a a fantastic bit of kit. Done more than a bit of work on them and for the most part they can be fixed. Finicky at times but fantastic none the less. They also can be loaded with a 16 Track head for and even better signal to noise ratio. I heard tell that Ampex even made a custom 8 track head for one of these 2" decks for a lucky owner. Yes that is around a 1/4" track width, let that sink in. IF the head report is good on this machine then the guy is lucky indeed!
In fact it ain't... it really depends on the machine and which condition its in. I make a living recording and only record to tape and mix analog, of course there's maintenance but most of the time its easy and nothing that can't be handled with some basic knowledge and routine :-)
@Zzzz oop Regardless it's a good idea to print test tones just in case. Just basic 1 KHZ and 10 KHZ will be way better than nothing. If way out of spec this can save your ass if your heads need a relap or your machine get so serious issues you'll have to send it to a tech for a month and need to rent another. I usually do basic record calibration for each tape cause of the difference between different badges of SM911 or whatever floats your boat. Because of the price of 2" tape I mostly run good, well tested second hand tape and while reliable it also just mean that the amount of wear can vary a bit and the frequency response change to an extent. I just leave the playback calibration alone most of the time though, the MTR-90 MKII holds calibration like a mofo and can get by with just borrowing a calibration tape once or twice a year.
@Zzzz oop Ah, in the late 70's that could have been a MCI JH16? Those things sound massive. I hated to pass on the one my mate wanted to sell, but too many things needed fixing. MCI wasn't bought by Sony till the mid-80's so if it was Sony badged it would have been something else.
dutch accent intensifies :) anyway, i remember recording some stuff at cat music in Roelofarendsveen back like 25 years ago orso, and i remember them having this big white table with wheels under it, with the controls on it and big old artery sticking out running towards the 24-track tape machine in its own dedicated room right next to the mixing room
The shield button allows the operator to mark the tape with a wax pencil for certain positions of the tape, chorus, .... so the operator can find the right spot on the tape to use it as a reference or for cutting and taping back togheter the tape. That's probably why both shield and edit buttons are side by side, also the button to jog the reel.
@@datasilouk1995 Cool! So am I :D I own most of the models in the "Majestic" line, e.g. the SR-40, TI-57, Business Analyst, The MBA to name a few, as well as both the SR-52 and SR-56, a couple of TI-59s and even a TI-85 and a TI-86. Sadly, the battery contacts in the '52, '56, and both 59's are corroded from leaking batteries :( but i hope i can find enough machines to rebuild one of each that will work. ;) Anyway, since you're a fellow collector, you might be interested in these sites: datamath.org/ www.rskey.org/CMS/ Cheers from Denmark.
One of the best days of my young life was taking delivery on or first Sony/MCI JH24 MIII AutoLoc3 24tk at our previously 3M 16tk studio. It we paid $25K in mid 80s. If memory serves, the extension cards for the electronics cost a grand. They allowed you to acess/work at a component level on the rec/play/erase/bias cards outside the draw. Pretty good tour considering that you weren't born into a 2" world. PS; Every US built Tape machine know to man used the most obscure light bulbs on earth. Hell, 3Ms used a mylar fan built around a machined flywheel. Try replacing one of those.
As an old audio geek i can confirm that NAB (formerly NARTB, i believe) and IEC are two different sets of pre- and post-equalisation standards. Interesting video by the way, earned you a new subber. :)
Congratulations!!! You have NO Frigging idea how my soul has ached to own one of these in pristine condition! I would really appreciate guidance on making ownership a reality.
I've been following your excellent channel for a while. Welcome to the best sounding recording medium ever created by man. Give us a video on your thoughts about what it does to the sound of music.
I agree 2 inch tape sounds amazing especially for drums & guitars. I have an Mci JH-24 it’s in great condition the more I calibrated it the easier it got, and it’s really no big deal. You can see & hear it on my youtube videos.
Хобби
Congrats on getting a real work horse! I began my studio tech career on an early model of that very beast. It did not have separate settings for low and high speed, so if they wanted to record at a different speed, I had to show up and calibrate every channel for the new requirement. At least one hour per drawer! And I won't mention the headaches of the transport logic, or the AutoLocater II--which was made before printed circuit boards came into being. There must have been 4 or 5 of those machines in Honolulu when i was active and I serviced them all.
Each studio had their own calibration tape. They were full track tapes, no separate tracks--very important for azimuth settings of the heads. And the manual! I hope you have one of those huge yellow 3-ring binders. It has all the procedures described, plus schematics of every circuit board. MCI was still MCI in those days and I had many conversations with the techs there. They were always very helpful.
The definition of distortion is the difference between the input and the output. The tape recording process itself has distortion--the output is different from the input--in the frequency response. I used to record a CD onto a new tape, once the calibration was finished. The studio owner and I would listen to the input--straight from The CD player--and then switch to the playback head. The usual response was "That sounds better!" The tape has a 'fuller' sound or 'warmer' or something. And recording on slow speed actually increases the bass response. I think the roll-off is down to almost 20Hz. High speed starts rolling off just below 40Hz and is -3dB at 30Hz. So for low end, the slow speed is great. And the high end is still above 19KHz. Not too bad. The main difference between the hi and lo speeds is the noise floor. Hi speed has less noise. But I couldn't really hear it, though I could see it on an oscilloscope.
Anyway it is nice to see one of my old friends again, doing that which it was designed to do; making music.
Aloha.
In 1988 I got my first job as a recording engineer. We had one of these machines. And yes, it is a gigantic pain in the ass to operate and maintain!
I was also the in-house studio musician, and played guitar, bass, and occasionally keyboards (even though I don't know how to play keyboard - but, you do what you gotta do). I'd sometimes do punch ins by holding a pen between my teeth and hitting record, while playing guitar.
Now, when I first got that job, I didn't know anything about recording either! But the guy who owned the studio showed me a few things. After two or three days of training, he tells me that this night, a Salsa band was coming in, and were recording AND mixing their whole album that night. Then he hands me the keys to the studio and goes home. Mind you, I'd been a recording engineer, three days, never ran a recording session before, and to top it off, I was in recovery from alcohol and cocaine addiction (I've been clean 31 years now). Well, I survived the session and the clients were happy with the results.
Aligning the channels,,, Dear God! Seriously painstaking work. One mistake, and you're cooked.
Wow,,, you sure bring back a lot of memories. Thanks for posting the video!
If you didn't ever wake up hearing 1k tones, you never worked in a real studio as a second...LOL!
I had NO idea there was SO much tech involved with analog. Brilliant video....you are a terrific host.
Brilliant... I was an Engineer in a Philly studio in the late 70's and early 80's and I miss these big elephants..We had Studer 24 tracks and Harrison and Spectra Sonics boards.
Thank you DAW. I don't miss these machines a bit. The hours I spent keeping them running in top form, the time spent planning its use, the complications of the editing process, the expense in dollars and time, all of it. All that time and energy that could have gone into creating that I'll never get back. No sir, I don't miss them at all.
I've worked with these back in the day -- and I learned from this...thank you. My dream machine is a Studer 24-track.
I have A80 mk2 for a month now and it's really great. I'm looking for user manual for it.
I too have. JH24 tape 2” and 1/4”, very cool machines I hope you get many years of fun with yours!!!!
I did loads of sessions on the MCI JH-16 and it sounded great and you could punch in and out fast at 30 ips speed. I did the maintenance on it as well. Notice the big ceramic shaft capstan that it has! This brings back some nice memories.
Congratulations on your purchase. I used these machines for many years. You will love the sounds that come from tape.
I would love to see a follow up video of how the tape machine is patched to your mixer, converters, etc. Almost like a tutorial on how to integrate a tape machine into your home studio.
What a fantastic piece of vintage equipment. Reminds me of my early studio days in the 90's. Thanks for this vid!!!
At first I thought this was a joke but I had to remember that most people watching this video have no clue what a tape machine is other than using a plugin... which is NOTHING like tracking to real tape. Man, the memories, the razor blades, the accidents...lol ... splicing tape was an art. If you really want to hear what tape can do, track using REAL instruments like trumpets, saxophones, drums guitars and basses... oh the saturation... especially on a nice horn section.
This brought back some great memories of working in a studio in the late 80's. We had a sweet deal where we had full run of the studio from 10pm - 10am when it wasn't booked. Luckily the most maintenance that I had to do was clean the heads & normalize the board lol.
Hi WSS, thx for the vid, can't wait to hear something from your tape machine
~somewhere on the river, DG is chillin with his wife and laughing about how they used a mic stand for the tape, and how everyone in the studio needed every finger on the board to mix.
So cool to see you into this!
Excellent presentation, thank you !
A great commitment. Thanks for the tour. I've never used one.
Thank you! Bob Dylan just released a remixed & remastered original 24-channel analog tapes recording of Budokan 1978. Your video added the background/context I needed to appreciate the recording and editing involved. Excellent job and very clear explanation. Thanks!
Congratulations! One of my dreams too! Can't wait to do it too one day!
Thanks for introduction into this machine! Until now I knew it only from discussion with my father long, long, long time ago. I also remember the problem with heads azimuth and all adjusting stuff. In that time it was quite usual, any tape system had to be calibrated, even "Compact Casette" in HiFi deck at home. Really nice piece of hardware, have fun on it.
So pleased you're a geek with retro gear 👍
I had no idea about how in-depth calibration was for a machine like this. Thanks for showing us round.
Ow I remember doing 24Track edits for a producer, lots of edits from 1 song to the other, after it was done he said "ow lets go back to the originals". Shit luckily I had put arrows on the tapepieces I took out for the direction of the tape, and I had numbered them, so I could actually put it back together. Edit block, a razor and splicing tape, white marker to do edits.
Another thing was spot-erasing, we used this to erase ticks etc. Cue up te tape and mark on the back of the tape the beginning with a white mark and the ending. Then there was a setting on the machine (Lyrec) to put the machine into record but without the pinchroller pressingthe tape to the capstan. Now you could move the tape by hand back and forth betwee your two markers over the erasehead. Thank god for harddisk recording/editing!
Frank Koppelmans At MCI, we referred to the spot erase mode as “puck off” - not energizing the pinch roller solenoid.
Very manual process; Nothing automatic about it... It did work tho.
The only thing I miss from tape editing are the grease pencils. Unraveling them was oddly satisfying.
Trev Mingus I guess I do too. They remain in the bottom of my pen tray decades after last using them.
Haha, damm... was that Trevor Horn?
Wow what a great explanation of how these work!
I used to work in a studio as session pianist. We had an Otari MTR90. These old machines are a work of art. Gotta love the warmth of analog.
I've been doing a mixture of live shows, broadcasts, and studio sessions on and off for the last 20 year. And I can honestly say I've never used a tape/reel to reel. I started with Hard disk recoding, and wave form editing back in the mid 90's . Did use a neve console once, those were amazing.
Beautiful machine hope to see more videos in the future, very interesting! thanks for taking time to make this video!
Very nice job, I was very impressed how well you quickly explained about the relationship of frequency to tape speed. As a 55 year old guy those machines were the high tech way of their time to record the bands I grew up with. It is cool old technology but it is very clear why digital takes over.
Bias is a high frequency signal that is mixed with the audio signal going to the record head when you are recording (also to the erase head). Its purpose is to excite the magnetic particles on the tape so that they more readily accept the magnetic audio signal. The frequency is calibrated so that one wavelength fits inside the head gap at the selected tape speed. This gives a net magnetic signal of zero so there is no residual magnetism left on the tape by the bias. The real fun in calibrating this machine is the electronics that control the supply and take-up reel motors and the capstan motor. You don't have to mess with it as often, but they're a real pain when you do.
absolutely amazing! thank you!
Hey man thanks for making awesome videos, I been learning alot from you
Very cool, and interesting video. Thanks for sharing!
Way too cool! Nice tape machine, Wietse!
Wow. A real blast from the pat. I remember getting to the studio an hour and a half before a session to do the alignment, clean the heads, calibrate etc. and still just barely get ready for the start of the session. I wonder where you can even get the tape these days. You can't argue that they had a great sound.
Such a sweet machine. I am at the 16.51 minute mark and just before you got there I was looking at all the VU meters thinking, to align the heads I imagine you will have to be watching the levels on each as you play a test tone. Now I'll turn the video back on and listen to how you did the alignment. Frankly I'd love to hear one first hand. The closest I came was an EE friend restored a 4 track professional reel to reel and played a variation of a master tape recorded at 15 inch per second and I was blown away by how good it sounded.
Great machine! About the "tails out vs. print through", here's the explanation: print through is active outwards (from reel center to reel periphery). So tails out storage makes the print through affect the tape AFTER the main sound, like a small echo, which can be musical. The other way around, the print through sounds like a "pre-echo", being BEFORE the actual sound. And that really stands out as "un-natural" and is more noticeable.
So it's not that the print through levels are any different, it's that they sound awkward "heads out".
Don't forget to discuss the differences between inside and outside tracks.
I like think of bias as the lubricant for getting audio onto the tape.
This is very fascinating. Thank you! : )
Wow - that takes me back.
I spent 7 years in the late 80s and early 90s with machines like that, including an older Ampex 16 track and a Studer 24 track, and I honestly can't even remember the other two - except that I know I never worked with a Sony.
Every few hours you had to clean the heads with isopropyl alcohol and special swabs that didn't leave dust. Typically we'd do that at the beginning of each session, at every break, and after the session. There were also conditioning fluids for the rubber parts that contacted the tape. There was always a big decision on 15 or 30 ips, everyone seemed to have a different reason for their preferences. Of course, tape was never a question, everyone I knew used Ampex 456.
All of the studios I ever worked in had weekly calibration, often on Sundays when the artists were usually too hung over to want to be in the studio.
It was not unusual to run the tape over the heads hundreds or thousands of times if you were doing any sort of overdubs, or had a performer that wasn't all that good and had to retake many times. Studio lore says that Bohemian Rhapsody had the tape over the heads so many times that you could see through it.
Oddly enough, I'm sitting here with a system that cost a tiny fraction of that machine but is orders of magnitude more capable... and yet, there's still something about the solidity of those big analog machines.
MCI multi tracks were popular in Australia. At point they manufactured a "layback" machine that enabled audio studios to record audio onto 1" C format video tape, saving the need to buy an expensive C format video recorder (Sony sold lots of those, but they were expensive). SMPTE time code was used for syncing. Sony bought out MCI so that they could kill the layback machine.
when you start to understand the "tuning" of the machine its starts to be fun
Tails out is a good practice. My studio has a 1972 Teac 3300s 2 Track Mastering deck @ 7.5 & 15 IPS. A great audio tool. Best success with your tape machine !!
This was very interesting, thank you! 😊
I totally understand. I'm all for the gear passion too. I almost bought one three years ago. Found and bought the rack mountable Tascam MS-16 1 inch. But I think of this 2 inch machine a lot. I have a friend selling one locally. It's tempting...
That’s an impressive piece of engineering, what a beast. I’d imagine it beeing quite maintaince intensitve. This machine commends commitment and dedication. It’s like a cat, you give it food and shelter, it gives back love to it’s owner. Always nice to see electromechanical devices in an age that’s increasingly silicon chip based when it comes to recording media/storage.
i really liked this one thanks for sharing this
Really interesting video, thanks!
Great Video!! I agree, 2 inch tape sounds amazing especially for drums & guitars. I have an Mci JH-24 it’s in great condition the more I calibrated it the easier it got, and it’s really no big deal. You can see & hear it in action on my youtube video.
The best machine!!! Good buy!
Thank you for going into alot of detail about this old 24-track; really eye opening. There's some RUclips videos on this subject where not a single word is spoken, the presenter is mute, so the video is basically useless. You clarified a number of things, thanx. Get ahold of an old Tascam 24-track and do a tutorial!
Thank you so much for the tour. It's fun to see your passion. I'm even more curious to see how you plan to use it. I still haven't figured out how it's going to that much of an improvement over what the Telefunken was doing for you since you're not actually a recording studio, but I'm sure you've got a million ideas for it. Looking forward to learning about this.
You could simplify the description by just saying that it's like the 4 channel tape recorders we used to use, but it has six times as many tracks, amplifiers, and a wider tape. My favourite reel-to-reel over the years, for home use, was the Teac Studio 8. It was basically an 8-channel Portastudio using open reel tape. I still have two of them.
So cool. When I was younger and wanted to be a studio engineer (never happened) that is what I dreamed of using. Hope you use it like it was created to be used. 🤘
I began recording in 1993 on analog machines starting with my first Tascam 424 PortaStudio and later upgraded to the eight track Tascam 488mkII. There was a good deal of project studios in my hometown (Las Vegas NV) so as I gained experience & friends in the industry I got to work on Tascam & Fostex 8 track reel to reels and eventually a few 16 track machines.
Soon ADAT's and then DAW's took hold and there were few if any analog machines ready to record bands, demos, jingles, etc. because the convenience and quality just made digital so much more attractive. I went back to college to finish my music degree and there was an MCI JH24 at the studio of recording tech program I went to.
We got to record some stuff on it basically learning hybrid techniques (recording drums on tape and dumping the tracks into a DAW, etc) over the course of a week and it was incredible. Great sound. BUT!...the maintenance and constant babying of the machine you'd have to do was just insane. I remember the pain in the ass of cleaning heads & demagnetizing ¼" 8 track machines in the past but a 2" 24 track machines upkeep was just crippling.
Analog of course has "THAT sound", but it's inconvenience and expense just becomes too much to deal with when you've got infinite tracks, zero physical maintenance and fairly good analog emulation plugins in a laptop in your backpack.
But these behemoths will always have a special place in the hearts of us who were around them awhile. Because when they worked, the sound was incredible.
The Sony machine is actually a MCI machine. MCI (Music Center Incorporated) was a prolific manufacturer of professional analog studio tape machines and recording consoles for many, many years. A large number of recording studios in the US and overseas bought MCI machines, as they were less expensive than their competitors. The 8, 16, and 24 track machines used the same circuit cards, which was an economical advantage for MCI. Their Autolocator, which is seen in this video, was a far more advanced "remote control", and MCI sold them at 500-700 dollars, at a loss, which was a major point in selling their machines over the competition. When Sony wanted to get into the professional analog studio tape machine business in the US, MCI sold their business to Sony.
I remember playing on an album which was recorded with an Ampex, 16-track on 2-inch tape. I forget what the tape speed was. It had a good sound.
I played on two albums which were recorded on an MCI 24-track, Scotch 250 2-inch tape, running at 30-ips (72 cm/sec). In the hands of a good engineer, there is something special about the "sound" of 2-in tape running at 30 ips.
At 30-ips, the oxide on the Scotch 250 used to shed like crazy. About once per day, the engineer would go to the tape machine and use his t-shirt to wipe off the oxide on all the heads.
that's why those kind of tapes used to not last much time, because of that speed
It was the good kind of clickbait. It was humorous to me.
That's a beautiful big-bastard boatanchor of a tape machine - looks like it should have racks of vacuum-tube controls.
I m glad we use software now( Thumbs-Up)
I enjoyed this video. I come from the analog tape days and there is a lot more to it, like calibrating that you touched on, but you need that calibration tape or some test tones. The fun part was when a tape had no test tones printed on it.
Congrats with the machine - the JH24 sounds and looks gorgeous :-) When I was upgrading from a Fostex to 2" 24 track I had my eyes on a JH16 and a JH24 like yours, but ended going with my Otari because of better parts availability and tech support in Denmark. But damm, those MCI's sound just a hair better.
I learned on an Otari Mtr 90 and Studer A820 with a 64 input SSL g series console. Back in ‘89 that was the shizzle
Nice!
This guy is an audio engineer savage. 👀🙏
What a great piece of gear. Its also so much to do to run this. I think recording drums and Bass on this is soooo good. Have fun with your 24 track darling.
Greetings from Germany
Michael
Great video
I expect Joe Meek would have loved this modern stuff!
It was high tech in the days.Worked on a few audio/video tape machines in my career.High maintenance to say the least.They last forever if maintained well.
Nice demo vid . Easy to see now why studio time was so expensive.
Now let the reel get started! Veel plezier met je mci! 👏🏽🍻
The speed of the tape means that you get better sound the higher the speed !
Nice machine by the way ;)
The Studer A827 was perhaps one of the best 24 track machines produced. Was 1989, when they were still making them. I seem to recall that they made a small batch of them in the mid-90's but, I don't see any info on that, anymore. They are one of the most sought after and still command a high price for one in good working order. You can still get parts for them, as well, to some degree. Other than the Otari MTR series, there are few that compare. Nobody was making 24 track tape machines by the mid-90's, as everything was going digital, by then...
Super awesome machine. Usually needs a lot of work’n. Jh110A 1” 8-track is on my list.
Great video mate! And yes I prefer a plugin, but I'm just a semi pro and time, space and money are crucial. But again, that doesn't mean, that I wouldn't like to work with tape anytime again.
Beautiful machine! Congrats on your acquisition! I have to admit I'm a little jealous.
I only have an Otari MX5050 2-track. It's a fun toy.
I hope you get a lot of enjoyment from your "new" machine! Be well...
I think the best part about analog recording is the limitations you need to work within. Less can definitely be more. That being said, artists don't make much money selling recorded music these days and the added costs of doing an analog recording is not practical for 99% of them. It's very niche. The listener generally doesn't care what medium the recording was made on. Kudos for living your dream, but don't bankrupt yourself.
I buy all analog vinyl records, it's totally worth it
Can't wait for the shoot out between reel and plug-in. Calibrating that machine seems like a nightmare but it must sound like a dream!
It's like homeopathy for audio.
@@SebBrosig is it Seb?! Analog dynamics and depth are better, if you can't hear it, well that is the hard reality: if you can't you can't.
Bias is a higher frequency applied to the recording head to energise the dipole molecules on the tape so they can rotate and align properly with the audio signal.
As someone who learned on and is a fan of tape, it is not possible to bore me.
Super vet man! Gefeliciteerd!
The passive nature of the dancer arm on MCI recorders is a serious weakness, as is the fact it is a fixed guide rather than a rolling one. If there is any flaw in your tape or if the tension is less than ideal, the fixed dancer arm will do some serious damage. Though it is highly polished stainless steel, it is literally scraping on the non-oxide side of the tape at all times, often at very high speed. The much more sophisticated Studer had all rolling tape contact surfaces, and in later models, fully servo-connected dancers on both sides of the headstack which maintained tension to perfection. Precious master tapes were treated much better by the Studer and Ampex recorders.
MCI JH-24 and late JH-16's have an optional roller dancer arm and it's still available. And it is not a fixed arm, the tension of the arm is fixed, to which servo-based active tensioning reacts. In fact MCI only stresses about 140g on the heads, way less than any Ampex ever and only Studer A800 stresses less than that.
I hope you get this machine working. I want to see it used in a recording session when it's finished!
MCI or Sony MCI machine like this is a a fantastic bit of kit. Done more than a bit of work on them and for the most part they can be fixed. Finicky at times but fantastic none the less. They also can be loaded with a 16 Track head for and even better signal to noise ratio. I heard tell that Ampex even made a custom 8 track head for one of these 2" decks for a lucky owner. Yes that is around a 1/4" track width, let that sink in. IF the head report is good on this machine then the guy is lucky indeed!
Cool Merch/ Nice T-Shirts
If I ever had a romanticized notion to use tape, you just squashed it! 🤣tape maintenance is a full time gig!
In fact it ain't... it really depends on the machine and which condition its in. I make a living recording and only record to tape and mix analog, of course there's maintenance but most of the time its easy and nothing that can't be handled with some basic knowledge and routine :-)
@Zzzz oop Regardless it's a good idea to print test tones just in case. Just basic 1 KHZ and 10 KHZ will be way better than nothing. If way out of spec this can save your ass if your heads need a relap or your machine get so serious issues you'll have to send it to a tech for a month and need to rent another. I usually do basic record calibration for each tape cause of the difference between different badges of SM911 or whatever floats your boat. Because of the price of 2" tape I mostly run good, well tested second hand tape and while reliable it also just mean that the amount of wear can vary a bit and the frequency response change to an extent. I just leave the playback calibration alone most of the time though, the MTR-90 MKII holds calibration like a mofo and can get by with just borrowing a calibration tape once or twice a year.
@Zzzz oop Ah, in the late 70's that could have been a MCI JH16? Those things sound massive. I hated to pass on the one my mate wanted to sell, but too many things needed fixing. MCI wasn't bought by Sony till the mid-80's so if it was Sony badged it would have been something else.
Subbed! Just bought one of these units. Waiting to get it from my tech. Would love to see videos of calibration!
dutch accent intensifies :)
anyway, i remember recording some stuff at cat music in Roelofarendsveen back like 25 years ago orso,
and i remember them having this big white table with wheels under it, with the controls on it and big old artery sticking out running towards the 24-track tape machine in its own dedicated room right next to the mixing room
The shield button allows the operator to mark the tape with a wax pencil for certain positions of the tape, chorus, .... so the operator can find the right spot on the tape to use it as a reference or for cutting and taping back togheter the tape. That's probably why both shield and edit buttons are side by side, also the button to jog the reel.
nice dude!
Ive worked on few records on JH16's. Fun Machines. Always sounded good to me. The Sony MCI Consoles were pretty great too.
Just discovered JRF still offers multitrack heads, service.
Very, very interesting and nicely explained for a novice like me. Now subscribed.
Hey i like your avatar pic; it looks like an SR-52 :)
@@BertGrink. Yes, Ibelieve it is. I'm a collector of old TI calculators and have quite a few.
@@datasilouk1995 Cool! So am I :D I own most of the models in the "Majestic" line, e.g. the SR-40, TI-57, Business Analyst, The MBA to name a few, as well as both the SR-52 and SR-56, a couple of TI-59s and even a TI-85 and a TI-86. Sadly, the battery contacts in the '52, '56, and both 59's are corroded from leaking batteries :( but i hope i can find enough machines to rebuild one of each that will work. ;)
Anyway, since you're a fellow collector, you might be interested in these sites:
datamath.org/
www.rskey.org/CMS/
Cheers from Denmark.
Good for you! You must have studied this machine for years. I only remember 16 & 24 track Studer and Otari machines.
Awww I miss those days
One of the best days of my young life was taking delivery on or first Sony/MCI JH24 MIII AutoLoc3 24tk at our previously 3M 16tk studio.
It we paid $25K in mid 80s. If memory serves, the extension cards for the electronics cost a grand. They allowed you to acess/work at a component level on the rec/play/erase/bias cards outside the draw. Pretty good tour considering that you weren't born into a 2" world. PS; Every US built Tape machine know to man used the most obscure light bulbs on earth. Hell, 3Ms used a mylar fan built around a machined flywheel. Try replacing one of those.
As an old audio geek i can confirm that NAB (formerly NARTB, i believe) and IEC are two different sets of pre- and post-equalisation standards. Interesting video by the way, earned you a new subber. :)
You are 100% crazy... ;-) Awesome equipment! I'm very jealous.
Congratulations!!! You have NO Frigging idea how my soul has ached to own one of these in pristine condition! I would really appreciate guidance on making ownership a reality.
awesome
Indian composer Ilaiyaraja is the one who fully explored this recording machine
I've been following your excellent channel for a while. Welcome to the best sounding recording medium ever created by man. Give us a video on your thoughts about what it does to the sound of music.
I agree 2 inch tape sounds amazing especially for drums & guitars. I have an Mci JH-24 it’s in great condition the more I calibrated it the easier it got, and it’s really no big deal. You can see & hear it on my youtube videos.