GP9 problems

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soundguy
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GP9 problems

Post by soundguy » Wed Jan 25, 2006 12:43 pm

This probably doesnt belong here but whatever.

I have some questions:

Is there anyone left who uses tape, like, for everything?

Of those people, how many of you know how to properly calibrate a tape machine?

Of those people, how many people calibrate their machines every single time they put up a new reel of tape?

Of THOSE people, have any of you noticed any insanely horrid inconsistencies with new batches of GP9?

Im having major problems and havent heard about any big issues from other users but then again I dont really know anyone who is using tape anymore for anything outside of novelty. I dont think Im alone, I just dont think that people are looking closely enough at the tape stock right now. I know Im guilty of biasing a machine and then loading a second reel without rebiasing but looking at the tape stock Ive been getting lately, that shit cant fly anymore like, at ALL. Wondering if other users have seen variances as high as 3dB over 6K on GP9.

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sonicmook56
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Post by sonicmook56 » Wed Jan 25, 2006 2:07 pm

YES!! I have been saying this for over a year!, When Quantagy was about to go under, the tape was REALLY BAD, but since the new productions, it has gotten a bit better, but its still dosent work like it used to..


I re-calabrate when tape stock is switched (batch numbers)

We use tape all the time at the studio where I work... Engineers that come in like to track to 16 track 2" on a studer a827...I have had sessions where we have 3 2" synced up with linxes... so tape is very much alive here.

Most of the time, engineers print to tape 1/2 2 track. We have Ampex ATR 102's with the sweet magnetic flux heads, and all the mastering upgrades (w/f to .0001% ish)

I use an audio precision system one to calabrate our machines. After doing an allignment, I plot a frequency response curve and print it on a giant sticker that gets stuck to the back of the box for the mastering engineer. I used to be able to get the sweetest, smootest curves with low distortion using an overbias of 1.75 @10k

those days are gone...

it kind feels to me the an O.B. of 1.75 is just smacking the shit out of the tape. (looking at distortion and flagging, exc) I have done O.B to 1.5 and even 2.2ish, and the tape dosent really respont well to ANYTHING..

If I use an old crusty shop tape thats 4 years old and was used for transport adjustments its whole life, I get my sweet frequency responce back, so I know its not ALL my machines.

Needless to say, It is my opinion that Quantagy tape is shit. even 456 sucks.

I cant wait for the new ATR magnetics tape. Hopefully it will WORK like it is supost to.

I will try and post some scans of my tape allignments if I get a chance.

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Post by soundguy » Wed Jan 25, 2006 2:59 pm

After replacing every single capacitor on my 440 and getting the headstack height set (oh my god, never imagined how critical this is) Im now able to get new GP9 +/-0.5 dB from 50hz to 14 Khz and Im only down 2dB at 17.5K, however tape from within the same lot will not repeat this, ann entire recalibration needs to happen. And its completely not the machine, a tentelometer doesnt even move (for real) on the transport, the machine is solid. I take off one reel, put on another and one channnel is down like 1dB and the other is down 2dB at 10K, put on a third reel and see something completely different then put on the original reel and see what Im supposed to see. This is also with a 3dB overbias at 10K at 15IPS. The old tape before the "vacation" did not do this at all and it biased totally differently.

I find it odd that everyone has so much faith in the new manufacturers. Quantegy was making "OK enough" tape for me, which I loved the sound of, they closed the shop down for a very short period of time, go back to the same shop with the same chemicals with the same employees making the same tape and so far as Im concerned cant get it right. Now a bunch of people who have never made tape before are just supposed to magically get it right? I sure hope so and while Im positively looking forward to an alternative to this I will be shocked if its better than where we are at right now.

Looking at the differences in this case of tape with the same lot numbers, if I were you guys Id be doing a total record calibration for every single reel that gets loaded on to a deck, you might be suprised at what you see. I know I was.

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Post by drumsound » Wed Jan 25, 2006 5:29 pm

Thanks for the tip Dave. I just got a batch of GP9 1/4" that I'm going to start using next week.

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Post by wayne kerr » Wed Jan 25, 2006 7:30 pm

soundguy wrote:
I find it odd that everyone has so much faith in the new manufacturers. Quantegy was making "OK enough" tape for me, which I loved the sound of, they closed the shop down for a very short period of time, go back to the same shop with the same chemicals with the same employees making the same tape and so far as Im concerned cant get it right. Now a bunch of people who have never made tape before are just supposed to magically get it right? I sure hope so and while Im positively looking forward to an alternative to this I will be shocked if its better than where we are at right now.
oh i dunno dave, i don't think mike spitz is gonna risk his stellar rep in the biz by putting crappy tape on the market. keep in mind that their business plan calls for low-volume, high-quality (read: boutique). the quantegy model simply doesn't work there. ok, i'll go back into seculsion now. :idea:
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sonicmook56
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Post by sonicmook56 » Wed Jan 25, 2006 10:09 pm

I take off one reel, put on another and one channnel is down like 1dB and the other is down 2dB at 10K, put on a third reel and see something completely different then put on the original reel and see what Im supposed to see.
dude, I see this on diffrent sections of the same tape! No one who mixes here has ever reported a problem, but its somthing I should check into.
The old tape before the "vacation" did not do this at all and it biased totally differently.
yea, I feel like I am doing somthing wrong trying to get this stuff to work..Im like, fighting it!

Here is an alignment that I did useing pre-vacation tape -
http://benmook.com/images/SnapShot.jpg

Here are two post:
This one is kind of old
http://benmook.com/images/SnapShot1.jpg
This one a week old
http://benmook.com/images/SnapShot2.jpg

see how the high end is all jerked off? I really wish I could find the plot of the first batch of post vacation tape.. It was down 6db @20k, flatnd out around 10k, distortion was so far into space that my AP was having a hard time reading it @1k
I find it odd that everyone has so much faith in the new manufacturers.
I dont really have faith, I think it would be cool to have options again, and I will be excited to get my hands on anybodys 'new' tape..Maybe it will really suck..who knows.
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Post by soundguy » Thu Jan 26, 2006 12:36 am

sonicmook56 wrote:
I take off one reel, put on another and one channnel is down like 1dB and the other is down 2dB at 10K, put on a third reel and see something completely different then put on the original reel and see what Im supposed to see.
dude, I see this on diffrent sections of the same tape! No one who mixes here has ever reported a problem, but its somthing I should check into.
well, I sure am glad you said that. Ive got the same thing going on. Ive been going out of my mind trying to make this work, "fighting it" is definitley the right phrase. I thought I was completely going nuts but the head of some reels cals differently than the tails. I sat with a tentelometer and measured the head and tail and saw no change in the transport, yet change on the tape. swapped electronics and got repeatable inconsistency. The QC over there is absolutely in the toilet. I suppose I can live with .5dB difference from the head and tail but several dB between reels is totally wack and its all from the same batch. Ive got tone before every song Im mixing on this record now, I guess thats the world we live in though.

I shouldnt bitch, I shouldnt be so damn lazy. I got to handle some old War masters a while back and every track had tones before them.

Im glad Im not the only one seeing this, thought I was completely off my rocker for a while here... Its my guess that this is happening in not so isolated doses just that nobody is looking at it closely enough, I mean, out of all the people I know even die hard into tape, they havent even rebuilt their decks for tight L/R tracking, with a deck that is out of tolerance to begin with, this might be harder to see without thinking that its the electronics that are drifting. Shit, I rebuilt my electronics and thought that it was my electronics drifting, not the tape...

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Post by sonicmook56 » Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:32 am

Ive been going out of my mind trying to make this work
yea....i was up for days working on one of my machines...I really thought I forgot how to align.

:shock:

I should try and scan a piece of tape that I saved....There are straight up "birds eyes" all on the surface...you can almost feel the inconsisty with your fingers.....fuckers

Im going to screw around with the tension on one of the ATR's tomarow. If I stick my finger on the record head and press, the bias seems to "stick" to the tape better. How much tension do you have on your transport Soundguy? Are you 1/4" 2 track?


I suppose I can live with .5dB difference
Its all we can do now because thats all we can get! Do you think they will ever get there QC back where it was? Not as long as there the ONLY mfg. of profesional tape in the world. Fuck me running... They have the market by the balls.

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Post by sonicmook56 » Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:40 am

Oh yea, whats your operating level and tape speed?

I do +3/185, somtimes +5 overbiased 1.75 @10k 30ips.

maybe we are thinking about this too scientificly. My new theory is all about the color of the flanges. Maybe the red flanges make the tape stock feel "pimp" 8)

It was when the silver gp9 flanges started commin' around when I started to notice trouble. :evil:

Anyone try spooling tape onto a red flange for a pimpier sound?

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Post by soundguy » Thu Jan 26, 2006 12:35 pm

sonicmook56 wrote: They have the market by the balls.
well, I think they have the balls end of the market. Having been told off the record of their operating costs I cant imagine how they are breaking even every month let alone making money. I dont care about red flanges, it cost more money to anodize them. Id just like to keep being able to buy tape in the future...

Im running at 355nW/m, 15ips, 3dB overbias at 10K. 2" 16 track and 1/4" 2 track. I dont mind having to rebias for every reel of 1/4" for mixing, that just takes a little time and a little tape, no biggie. Having to go to that for multitrack masters however presents major problems, how do you cal for one reel, then put up a second reel, cal for that, THEN, what do you do when you have to go back to reel 1 to do overdubs when the bias is way different? When the record eq is TOTALLY different? Do we have to do a record cal every fucking time? Well yes, but after you print tones a bunch of times, WIERD shit starts to happen. So now what? Are we looking at a legitimate 20 or 23 minute record time on a 33 minute reeel just so we can save tape for tones?

this sucks but its still better than pocket calculator.

I hope someone works this out...

dave
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Post by gregnrom » Thu Jan 26, 2006 2:22 pm

I've noticed that the new GP9 is more flexible/less sturdy (physically) that the old. It has been shedding more here.
I will do sweeps after calibration. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, however I don't check all over the reel.
I?ll calibrate before each session chunk. You obviously shouldn't have to recalibrate every time you switch reels. That is totally impractical. I sucks that at the time you find out you have shitty tape you are using it. Maybe if you keep a stock of new tape you guys can have an intern stare at meters all day to screen the good reels from the bad, then send the bad ones back. How's that for impractical?
A while ago there was a session I worked on that used a 2001 and 2000 batch of GP9. The 2000 batch recorded an even 3/4 dB lower than the 2001. So I set up the "Tape B" calibration on our A820 for the 2000 batch, and "Tape A" for 2001 (one set of tones on the tone reel needed because it all should be at the same playback level). This is a convenience that owners of newer Studers have. It is still unacceptable to not be able to rely on it.
Maybe a good thing for the newer companies, especially if they charge boutique prices, would be to test the tape thoroughly before letting it go.
I know that ATR has a plan. They were coming up with this before Quantegy took their nap. Their goal was to get an improved product out to compete with Quantegy, and Emtek, not just make tape because no one else was doing it.
Btw where is that new BASF/EMTEK replacement company?
What is their excuse?
Those screen shots are great Mook. The Salt n Pepper response is more like our ATR with 911 (thank god we have 1000s of miles of that tape -same batch). -6dB @20k is ridiculous! It looks like they just threw whatever they had out on to the truck.

I?m definitely curious, and will do some tests when this Pro Tools session is over. In the mean time, are there any interns out there with a long attention span?
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Post by gregnrom » Thu Jan 26, 2006 2:25 pm

Why is this in the People Skills forum?
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Post by knobtwirler » Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:22 pm

So does that mean when printing mixes to 1/2" I have to recalibrate the record side every time I move on to a new reel? Jeez, thank goodness the record buying public likes mp3s.

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Post by nick_a » Thu Jan 26, 2006 9:45 pm

i was having a hell of a time trying to get the stuff to line up, too. i thought it was the machine (which has a weirdo roller on one side). It's good to know that the tape is part of it. i guess.

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Post by knobtwirler » Fri Jan 27, 2006 11:27 am

gregnrom wrote:Why is this in the People Skills forum?
Because tape reliability these days has a personality of its own.

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