GP9 problems

Russian Recording · Post by **Russian Recording** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 11:37 am

I had a n awful reel of 1/4" GP9. I bought up 20 reels right when I heard they were going under. No noticeable problems until this reel. It was giving me dropouts every 3-4 minutes. I checked it against several other reels to make sure it wasn't the machine. The other reels were fine. boo.

soundguy · Post by **soundguy** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 7:49 pm

how long were your dropouts?

I was getting shit where 10K would dive and stay down and then creep back up over the course of 10-15 seconds, which you know, is like an eternity when you are staring at the flanges spinning around... First thought this was a transport or headstack problem, turned out to be neither and repeatable on the same section of tape. wonderful, right?

dave

wayne kerr · Post by **wayne kerr** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 11:40 pm

soundguy wrote:how long were your dropouts?

that sounds like a personal question. long live analog.

Russian Recording · Post by **Russian Recording** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 6:16 am

soundguy wrote:how long were your dropouts?

It would just "flutter out" for about a second or two, kind of starting on the left channel and sweeping accross the right. The dropouts were quick but very obvious and relatively frequent. Frequent enough that a 3 minute song could not be mixed down without two or three occurances.

soundguy · Post by **soundguy** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 9:10 pm

man...

I dug out an old reel of GP9 today and mixed a song on it. Put up a new reel of GP9, cal'd it up, it cal'd differently, and did a mix. Didnt change any EQ in the mix or anything. The difference is so horrifying Im legitimately wondering if quantegy accidently put 456 on GP9 flanges. There's no high end on the new tape and there is a giant cloud around 200 hz. I had been comparing tone on new and old tape but never bothered to actually listen to a mix on both. Im almost sorry I did this comparison, I totally dont even want to finish the record Im working on now. Awful, awful, awful, awful.

dave

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 9:29 pm

I've got friend who thinks Quantegy's putting GP9 on 456 reels. Maybe you should buy a reel a of 456 and see what happens...

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

nick_a · Post by **nick_a** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 2:29 pm

so the real question is WHAT DO WE DO NOW??!?!

trodden · Post by **trodden** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 11:13 pm

nick_a wrote:so the real question is WHAT DO WE DO NOW??!?!

well duh, what do we usually do? panic, right?

soundguy · Post by **soundguy** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 11:31 pm

nick_a wrote:so the real question is WHAT DO WE DO NOW??!?!

I actually have an answer to this question. go figure.

check the date codes on the tape. Turns out, the tape that was giving me the MOST problem was made back in april and among the first batch of tape out of the factory after the restructuring. Im not saying its all bad, just the tape I got, my bad luck, whatever. But the shit was a different color compared to a new batch I just bought which is like WAAAAY better but still not doing what the old gp9 did, but at least this batch I got is workable. The date code is the year, 2005 followed by a three digit day code, following the 365 days of the year. they started up around april, so that would put a 120ish code for the early tape, etc.

What you should NOT do is panic. I got a bad box, whatever. I bought another case and its much better in comparison. what you SHOULD do is your due dilligence and align each reel as you put it up, you know, like recording engineers should do. The tape I had would cal sort of, but sound bad, if you cal up each reel at least you'll have that variable taken care of. After walking in these shoes, if you have bad tape you will *know*. If you mix and you play it back and it gives back what you put in, all is well. You guys should see the shit I was doing to try to get something usable off the tape, if you have ever sighted in a scope on a rifle at 200 yards you might get the idea, do one pass with like 8K 6dB high in the mix to hopefully get a tiny bit of lift to play back off the tape, maddening...

anyhow, quantegy were real saints and replaced all the tape without even flinching. I lost a lot of time but learned a ton. kudos to them for being responsible the way that I had hoped they would be in this situation.

dave

djimbe · Post by **djimbe** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:59 am

Thanks for the update on this, Dave. One of our regular freelancers is starting a session on Monday, and his client had reels delivered this week. My heart sank when I saw it was GP9. Just checked the date code on his reels and they're from Nov. 2005. I'm gonna put 'em up later today and see how they cal, but I feel better already. Good to know you got the product support you deserve...

Red Rockets Glare · Post by **Red Rockets Glare** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 10:47 am

I've had some GP9 dropouts too, but thought it was just due to the fact that I record multiple times on one reel. Kinda scary to think that "the take" might be lost eventually due to bad tape.

gregnrom · Post by **gregnrom** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 12:52 pm

nick_a wrote:so the real question is WHAT DO WE DO NOW??!?!

Let them know about it. Tell them word is getting around that they sell a defected product, and your going to buy used tape until ATR Magnetics or other gets on line.
Return the tape, and get your money back.
Right now they can't afford to have a bad reputation, and they should do what they always did, replace any bad reels for free (including cost shipping for the hassle).

nick_a · Post by **nick_a** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:06 am

excellent information, guys. thanks.

sonicmook56 · Post by **sonicmook56** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 7:47 pm

Return the tape, and get your money back.

Ive got three cases here that wont record over 12k. the distributer wont take it back, and quantagy wont take it back. Were shit out of luck. date code 2005032. I know its been a year, and they went bankrupt and all, but im still kinda pissed about it.

Right now they can't afford to have a bad reputation

Why not? The only other option we have now is to put your recorder in the closet. Are you going to quit using tape?

every piece of tape I have used in the past year "works" but not very well.

I just alligned/printed a bunch of mixes of a song to 456 across 4 diffrent tapes all of the same batch. I could hear the stero image shrink, then expand, and kinda flop all around...frequency responce was crappy too, on one pass, the bass was solid, the same mix, diffrent spot on the same tape, bass was thin and wimpy.

Im getting a couple more cases of GP9 for a big mix coming soon. should be dated 2006...well see.

djimbe · Post by **djimbe** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 4:56 am

Hey sonicmook, that stuff done at our place with the Nov. 2005 production GP9 went well. No problems that I heard with crazy response or dropouts or the like. Just so ya know...

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