Hello from the wondrous mountains of Colorado!

[sheshotel]

Hello! Official first post but I’ve been gleaning some very helpful info from this site for a short while now, it’s a wonderful resource and I love how kind and respectful everyone is! I’m not used to that from gearhead sites, haha. I’m 27 and I’ve been recording music in some form or another since about the 10th grade, so roughly 11-12 years now. It all “clicked” for me a few years ago and my love for it has increased exponentially on a daily basis ever since. I primarily record my own music, but I recently started recording bands for the “pay whatever you can afford if we can both agree that it’s fair” price. My primary setup is hybrid, Apollo Twin X with the UA 4710d as my workhorse pre’s, Sound Skulptor mp573 (my fave) and a BLA 312 for some transformer goodness, with Logic (usually) being the final destination. I have a Teac a3340s that I use often, sometimes for a little color and glue, sometimes for entire songs/mixes that are 100% computer free (aside from the A/D conversion necessary to be able to share with anyone, haha.) Some r2r purists scoff at that machine, but I absolutely love it. Some older gentlemen are surprised when they learn someone my age uses a reel to reel in general, though! I hope to upgrade to a Tascam 38 or a similar 1/2” 8-track soon-ish when moneys not as tight Love building/working on my own gear, I take great joy in it and I find it very “zen”. My current project is a u47 build! I currently have a fab v8 (Chris is an incredibly kind person), planning on getting the Maiku k47, about to order the d47 kit from Vintage Mic PCB, and haven’t decided on the rest yet. Anyways, thanks for reading, really excited to be amongst like minded people and to learn from much more experienced individuals than I! Much love everyone

 

[Brian Roth]

Welcome aboard!

Bri

 

[ruffrecords]

Good to hear the love of reel to reel is alive and well amongst the younger generation. I used to have an A3440 which I sold and regret doing so ever since. I have some reels of demos I recorded for local bands on it b\ck in the 90s that I would love to be able to play again but A3440 comes up very rarely on this side of the pond.

Welcome!

Cheers

Ian

 

[sheshotel]

Welcome aboard!

Bri

Thanks!

 

[sheshotel]

Good to hear the love of reel to reel is alive and well amongst the younger generation. I used to have an A3440 which I sold and regret doing so ever since. I have some reels of demos I recorded for local bands on it b\ck in the 90s that I would love to be able to play again but A3440 comes up very rarely on this side of the pond.

Welcome!

Cheers

Ian

Oh yeah, I love working with tape. It forces you to be better at everything, haha. I got lucky and my friend/recording-spirit guru/mentor randomly gave me a pretty janky Sony machine, some old tapes from the thrift store, and a Teac 2a mixer one day and told me to have fun. I’ve been hooked ever since! Also; I don’t know if this would be feasible or practical to do, but if you ever wanted to ship those demo tapes out this way I’d be more than happy to convert them to 1s and 0s so you could listen again!

 

[gyraf]

Great introduction - welcome..!

 

[ruffrecords]

Oh yeah, I love working with tape. It forces you to be better at everything, haha. I got lucky and my friend/recording-spirit guru/mentor randomly gave me a pretty janky Sony machine, some old tapes from the thrift store, and a Teac 2a mixer one day and told me to have fun. I’ve been hooked ever since! Also; I don’t know if this would be feasible or practical to do, but if you ever wanted to ship those demo tapes out this way I’d be more than happy to convert them to 1s and 0s so you could listen again!

Thanks for the offer but I am not sure I would trust NAB spools to the vagaries of international post!

Edit: One reason I would like to get my hands on an A3440 is I think they can be significantly improved. When I had mine I spent a lot of time measuring its performance and the one that could do with most improvement is the noise. It did not matter a whole lot in practice because I had the dbx unit that went with it but the actual noise was quite poor. I traced this to the bias/erase oscillator, which although it was a push pull design, still put a lot of noise onto tape. At the time I also had a high speed Revox and I was amazed how quiet that was without noise reduction. Again I put this down to the quality of the erase/bias oscillator. I could erase a tape on the TEAC then play it on the Revox and measure the noise. Then I would erase the same tape on the Revox and measure the noise again and it was several dB less. So my plan was to try to upgrade the A3440 oscillator to the same standard as the Revox but alas it was not to be.

Cheers

Ian

 

[lightningbefore]

Welcome! I’m new too and learning a lot. Please keep me posted if you build the Maiku or D47. I built a mic parts 47 but really would like to do a Maiku or Vintage Mic PCB for another 47 or tube 67 or 251. I’m working on C12 here right now and it’s nice to buddy up

 

[sheshotel]

Thanks for the offer but I am not sure I would trust NAB spools to the vagaries of international post!

Edit: One reason I would like to get my hands on an A3440 is I think they can be significantly improved. When I had mine I spent a lot of time measuring its performance and the one that could do with most improvement is the noise. It did not matter a whole lot in practice because I had the dbx unit that went with it but the actual noise was quite poor. I traced this to the bias/erase oscillator, which although it was a push pull design, still put a lot of noise onto tape. At the time I also had a high speed Revox and I was amazed how quiet that was without noise reduction. Again I put this down to the quality of the erase/bias oscillator. I could erase a tape on the TEAC then play it on the Revox and measure the noise. Then I would erase the same tape on the Revox and measure the noise again and it was several dB less. So my plan was to try to upgrade the A3440 oscillator to the same standard as the Revox but alas it was not to be.

Cheers

Ian

Good to know, I’ll have to look into that… I actually just got a DBX 155 in an attempt to squash the hiss buildup after a few generations but if I could bypass that altogether that would be ideal!

 

[sheshotel]

Welcome! I’m new too and learning a lot. Please keep me posted if you build the Maiku or D47. I built a mic parts 47 but really would like to do a Maiku or Vintage Mic PCB for another 47 or tube 67 or 251. I’m working on C12 here right now and it’s nice to buddy up

Will do!! I’ll shoot you a message so we can stay in touch. It’s gonna be interesting sourcing the parts while trying to toe the line between quality/affordability which can be a tricky dance sometimes…

 

[sheshotel]

Great introduction - welcome..!

Thank you! I have a Gyraf buss comp that’s one of my all time favorite pieces of gear I’ve ever owned