Reel-to-reel audio tape recording
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A reel-to-reel tape recorder (Sony TC-630), typical of those which were once common audiophile objects. Note the distinctive Scotch tape spool at left. |
Reel-to-reel or
open reel tape recording refers to the form of
magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording medium is held on a
reel, rather than being securely contained within a
cassette. In use, the
supply reel or
feed reel containing the tape is mounted on a spindle; the end of the tape is manually pulled out of the reel, threaded through mechanical guides and a
tape head assembly, and attached by friction to the hub of a second, initially empty
takeup reel. The arrangement is similar to that used for motion picture film.
The reel-to-reel format was used in the very earliest
tape recorders, including the pioneering German
Magnetophons of the 1930s. Originally, this format had no name, since all forms of magnetic
tape recorders used it. The name arose only with the need to distinguish it from the several kinds of tape
cartridges or
cassettes which were introduced in the early
1960s. Thus, the term "reel-to-reel" is an example of a
retronym.The format was commercially developed in the late 1940s by American audio engineer
Jack Mullin with assistance from
Bing Crosby . Mullin had been a member of the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II. His unit was assigned to investigate German radio and electronics activities and in the course of his duties he acquired two Magnetophon recorders and fifty reels of Farben recording tape from a German radio station at Bad Nauheim, near Frankfurt. He had these shipped home and over the next two years he worked to develop the machines for commercial use, hoping to interest the Hollywood film studios in using magnetic tape for movie soundtrack recording.
Mullin gave a demonstration of his recorders at MGM Studios in Hollywood in 1947, which led to a meeting with
Bing Crosby. Crosby immediately saw the potential of Mullin's recorders to pre-record his radio shows; he invested $50,000 in a local electronics company, Ampex, to enable Mullin to develop a commercial production model of the tape recorder. Using Mullin's tape recorders and with Mullin as his chief engineer, Crosby became the first American performer to master commercial recordings on tape and the first to regularly pre-record his radio programs on tape. Ampex and Mullin subsequently developed commercial stereo and multitrack audio recorders, based on the system invented by musician
Les Paul, who had been given one of the first Ampex Model 200 tape decks by Crosby in 1948. Ampex went on to develop the first practical
videotape recorders in the early 1950s to pre-record Crosby's TV shows.
Inexpensive reel-to-reel tape recorders were widely used for voice recording in the home and in schools before the advent of the Philips "
compact cassette" in 1963. Cassettes quickly displaced reel-to-reel recorders for consumer use. However, the narrow tracks and slow recording speeds used in cassettes compromised
fidelity.
Following the example set by Bing Crosby, high-speed reel-to-reel tape recorders rapidly became the main recording format used by
audiophiles and professional recording studios until the late
1980s, when
digital audio recording techniques began to allow the use of other types of media (such as
DAT cassettes and
hard disks).
Even today, many artists of all genres swear by the analog tape's "musical", "natural" and especially "warm" sound. Due to
harmonic distortion, bass can thicken up, creating the illusion of a fuller sounding mix. In addition, high end can be slightly
compressed, which is more natural to the human ear. It is common for artists to record to digital and re-record the tracks to analog reels for this effect of "natural" sound. In addition to all of these attributes of tape, tape saturation is a unique form of distortion that many
rock and
blues artists find very pleasing. Today, Reel to Reel tapes are still popular among many
Collectors [
1].
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7 inch reel of ¼ inch-wide recording tape, typical of audiophile, consumer and educational use in the 1950s-70s. Studios generally used 10½ inch reels. |
The earliest reel-to-reel systems used metal wire as a medium (see
wire recording), which is robust, but suffers from a number of problems—fidelity is poor, it requires a strong current to imprint the signal onto the wire, it is inconvenient to physically cut and splice to effect an edit, and the wire can kink or even tangle. The invention of
cellulose acetate plastic tape coated with
iron oxide solved these problems, opening up the use of tape recorders in studios. Wire was also used as a recording medium in
black box voice recorders for aviation in the 1950s.
The great advantage of tape for studios was twofold—it allowed a performance to be recorded without the 30 minute time limitation of a phonograph disc, and it permitted a recorded performance to be edited. For the first time, audio could be manipulated as a physical entity. Tape editing is performed simply by cutting the tape at the required point, and rejoining it to another section of tape using
adhesive tape, or sometimes
glue. This is called a
splice. The splicing tape has to be very thin to avoid impeding the tape's motion, and the adhesive is carefully formulated to avoid leaving a sticky residue on the tape or deck. Usually, the cut is made at an angle across the tape so that any 'click" or other noise introduced by the cut is spread across a few milliseconds of the recording. The use of reels to supply and collect the tape also made it very easy for editors to manually move the tape back and forth across the heads to find the exact point they wished to edit. Tape to be spliced was clamped in a special
splicing block attached to the deck near the heads to hold the tape accurately while the edit was made. A skilled editor could make these edits very rapidly and accurately. A side effect of cutting the tape at an angle is that on
stereo tapes the edit occurs on one channel a split-second before the other.
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Professional-style tape reel. Note larger hub hole. |
The performance of tape recording is greatly affected by the width of the tracks used to record a signal, and the speed of the tape. The wider and faster the better, but of course this uses more tape. These factors lead directly to improved
frequency response,
signal-to-noise ratio, and high frequency
distortion figures. Tape can accommodate multiple parallel tracks, allowing not just stereo recordings, but multi-track recordings too. This gives the producer of the final edit much greater flexibility, allowing a performance to be remixed long after the performance was originally recorded. This innovation was a great driving force behind the explosion of
popular music in the late
1950s and
1960s. The first multi-tracking recorders had four tracks, then 8, then 16, 24, and so on. It was also discovered that new effects were possible using multi-tracking recorders, such as
phasing and
flanging, delays and echo, so these innovations appeared on pop recordings shortly after multi-tracking recorders were introduced.
For home use, simpler reel-to-reel recorders were available, and a number of track formats and tape speeds were standardised to permit interoperability and prerecorded music. [The first prerecorded Reel To Reel Tapes were introduced by RCA Victor Record Co. in 1954.] Reel to reel was still popular through to the end of the
1970s, despite the ubiquitous cassette, mostly because of the superior quality of open reel recordings.
Audiophiles are willing to accept the relative fiddliness of open reel tape to gain better quality reproduction. Reel-to-reel
tape editing also gained cult-status when many used this technique on hit-singles in the
1980s.
When
Ampex broke apart in the 90's, a company named Quantegy Inc. was formed, later becoming Quantegy Recording Solutions in 2004.
Quantegy (and formerly
Ampex) led the field in reel-to-reel technology, and
Quantegy is the only company left making reel-to-reel tape in the world. Quantegy is still located in
Ampex's original spot:
Opelika, AL.
In general, the faster the speed the better the sound quality. Slower speeds conserve tape and are useful in applications where sound quality is not critical.
*15/16 inch per second (ips) or 2.38 cm/s — used for very long-duration recordings (e.g. recording a
radio station's entire output in case of complaints)
*1 7/8 ips or 4.76 cm/s — usually the slowest domestic speed, best for long duration speech recordings
*3 3/4 ips or 9.52 cm/s — common domestic speed, used on most single-speed domestic machines, reasonable quality for speech and off-air radio recordings
*7 1/2 ips or 19.05 cm/s — highest domestic speed, also slowest professional; used by some radio stations for speech programs
*15 ips or 38.1 cm/s — professional music recording and radio programming
*30 ips or 76.2 cm/s — used where the best possible treble response is demanded, e.g., many
classical music recordings
*
Audio format*
Audio storage*
Audio tape length and thickness.
*
Tape editing*
Inches per second*
A true history of magnetic recording (dates and facts)in German language will be found here*
AEG*
Akai*
Ampex*
Concord*
Crown*
Dokorder*
Ehrcorder*
EMI*
Ferrograph*
Fostex*
International Tapetronics*
Leevers-Rich*
Lyrec*
Magnecord*
Marconiphone*
MCI*
Nagra*
Nakamichi*
Otari*
Panasonic*
Philips*
Pioneer*
R-F-T*
Realistic*
Reflectograph*
Revox*
Roberts*
Sansui*
Scully*
Sony*
Stephens*
Stellavox*
Studer*
Symphonic*
Tandberg*
Tascam*
Teac*
Technics*
Telefunken*
Uher*
Voice of Music*
Wollensak
