Dumb idea?

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sr1200

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 6, 2010
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Location
Long Island, NY USA
Probably, most of mine are...

OK so heres the idea...
take a 3.5" floppy disk and drive.  Swap out the head in the drive for a 24 track studer head (or otari or any other tape head that might work) the disc material itself is around 3" or so which is plenty bigger than 2" (tape standard for 24 tk)

have the record head blast the disc with audio goodness, have a play head pick it up and an erase head clear it out before it comes around to the record head again.  As the disc gets worn out, you replace it with another floppy...

Is this something that could actually be done?
 
I'm guessing this is for a tape delay type thing... the discs only have one opening so you'd have to mod that as well...
 
Since you suggest a multitrack head, I'm guessing you have a sort of CLASP idea in mind ...

No reason I can think of why it wouldn't work in theory, except that a 3.5" diameter disk is too small for 2" heads - as the radius needs to span the head. Even a 5.25" disk wouldn't have the space for three 2" heads to be that close together.

If you could find an 8" drive and a disk to go with it, you might be in business, but it would still be a tight fit.

In any case, 16 tracks (or 8T 1") would sound infinitely better, and even then you would have to maintain good disk-to-head contact somehow.

 
Iwas thinking for more of a tape emulation type thing rather than a tape delay since you wouldnt get much of a delay being that small.  the disk thing is easy.  The actual disk inside is easy to remove, if the heads were mounted facing upward you could pop a new disk on (double sided discs) without messing up any head calibration and being that the disc is on a spindle, there really wouldnt be a too much of a need to calibrate over time.

ok then perhaps an 8 or 16 tk head would do,  (i agree with the sound) The heads wouldnt need to be right next to each other.  you could space them out kinda like a "Y" shape.  If the disc is spinning fast enough, there wouldnt be too much of a delay, and for a DAW you could easily re-align or compensate for any delay there might be.

I would love to try this just to run some drums through.  Nuttin like slammin a kick and snare (and OH's) on some tape.
 
If you want a cheap tape emulation, use a VCR! The tape formula really does make the sound, though... My old bands frist album was recorded on 456, the second on gp9...big difference. You should be able to get some cool tape saturation, though. Just use a low density tape, like a 90 minute one. Run it on the highest speed you can.
 
2 issues with that:
1) only 2 track
2) ive tried that in the past and have gotten some kinda weird high frequency (almost sounds like flyback) added to the sound which is totally undesireable.
 
I suspect the audio quality will be very poor because the oxide recipe is designed for digital rather than analogue recording leading to high distortion and also the oxide thickness will be very small leading to poor signal to noise ratio.

Cheers

Ian
 
Might I also point out:

1: The outer area of the disc will travel faster than the inside, and probably sound way different from track to track. Also, the head will wear much faster on the outer tracks. Big old keystone wear pattern on the heads, especially considering you have to maintain consistent pressure of the disk against the heads, probably in some unorthodox way.

2: Headblocks are pretty expensive. Do you have one to use? If you do, why not sell it and use the money to buy a tascam 1/2" 8trk/whatever? Those were at least designed for audio recording, so you wouldn't have to design all the erase/record amp/playback amp electronics.

So to answer your question, yes. Though that shouldn't stop anyone from doing it. I LOVE dumb ideas, and it's pretty awesome when you can get them to work. I would say probably stay away from 2" heads and it seems more reasonable to pull off.
 
Youve all talked me out of my insanity... on to the next dumb idea... but this time i think ill build it before asking lol.  For now ill stick with my UAD Studer 800 plugin for some tapish sound... (it really is a great sounding plug, if ya get a chance to play with it, smack it hard!)
 

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