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Wow. Next Time I come there I am definitely booking studio B and 72 tracks.

I have to see you pull that caber-tossing thing.

That's some fancy engineering

4/17/7
Fender Pro Junior crackly when bumped. Crackle noise would occur any time you tapped the chassis. Narrowed down to noisy inverter tube (12AX7). Replaced roasted looking output driver tubes as well (not related).
Redesigning/building MX 35 pre box. This supplies phantom power, polarity reverse, and a pad to the inputs of our MX-35s in studio B.

Greg, I was reading your letter about the tests you did on RMG tape as research prior to ordering some, and I wondered about something:

greg wrote:Both tapes were tested on the same 24-track Studer 820MCH calibrated for 500nwb/m operating level, 15 IPS, CCIR equalization (our most common use).

Is 15 IPS (rather than 30) your most common use because most bands choose this in order to get more recording time out of a given amount of tape, or is it more of an engineers decision, based on LF response, or some other factor?

Just curious. Thanks, Daniel.

tarandfeathers wrote:Is 15 IPS (rather than 30) your most common use because most bands choose this in order to get more recording time out of a given amount of tape, or is it more of an engineers decision, based on LF response, or some other factor?

Just curious. Thanks, Daniel.

I use 15 IPS CCIR on the multitrack for almost everything. Once in a while there will be a session with a lot of delicate HF information and a bunch of quiet passages, without much bass content. Those sessions I'll do at 30 IPS. There is a significant improvement in LF extension at 15 IPS, and using the CCIR curve (especially with the 16-track), keeps the noise at a minimum.

Steve, were the Joanna Newsom and the Nina Nastasia records done at 15 IPS? Or, were those records more appropriate for 30 IPS?

thanks,
Bill

Joanna Newsom was 30 IPS, Nina's records have been 15IPS.

4/20/7
Problem-
MX-35 (pre-preamp box) shown below the MX-35 here: Some inputs have DC on them, a phantom power led dead, and one of the pads doesn't work.

Solution-
Rewired and modified the whole box. I built this thing when I was new to this business of building things, so it was destined for a upgrade.
Replaced old pads with Jensen style -20dB pads (was an "H" pad).
Removed phantom power blocking caps. I believe I put these things in to try to rid the "thump" noise of phase reverse switch switching with phantom power on it.
Added bypass electrolytic caps for phantom power switches, and tied the "off" pole of the switch to ground. There will be no more DC stored at the input.
Rerouted audio wires a further away from the Phantom PSU, and transformer. There weren't noise issues related to this, but I had to do it for analitude.
Improved the grounding, shortening routs to the star-ground.

4/23,24/7

Problem-
Akg 414 pad switch broke off.

Solution-
We had a spare board from one of these mics. I lifted a switch off it and fixed the mic.

Problem-
Studer 24-track in edit mode has stuttering movement.

Solution-
The tape was moderately sticky, grabbing the heads, and not gliding past them.

Sent off some sizzly e22s.

Sony C-38 mic returned from Sony service. The mic had a broken post where the fork-like stand mounts to. Sony didn't bother fixing it (didn't charge us either). They cut a threaded piece to be held in there by the friction coming from the stand mount. Kind of half-assed, but appears to work.

4/25/7
Problem-
Prunes and Custard pedal does not switch on and off reliably.

Solution-
Replaced foot switch with new one, works fine. There is a relay that does the actual switching, controlled by the foot switch. If there is another failure that guy's going.

Disassembled Lomo 19-18 to get the base/connector housing off to a machinist so he/she can make ones that will fit XLR connectors.

4/26/7
Problem-
Our little phone adaptor (telephone to xlr) kinda sucks. We use this to record people singing through a telephone or recording voicemail messages.

Solution-
Simple rewiring so that the headphone signal pair goes to pin 2 and 3 on the xlr.

Jon San Paolo and I are reconditioning the 16-string guitar.