Studer A800 or 827 wanted

[erjos]

Hi guys
Im sory for this maybe off topic for The Lab but here i feel like home, with all of you wonderful suporters out there.
Lately, after finishing some great 1176 and Sb4000, and waiting to finish the Drip670 project, i decided to complete the analog madness with a 2" 24 track tape machine.
After reading about them allaround, confused with the fight and largely different opinions about Studers or Otaris, the more Scientific thought of Gyraf and other experts here, made me decide more toward Studer multitracks.
But my main problem is that it seems that i cant find any available in Europe.
I can Find some very good Otari mtr90 MKII or MTR100 but ni studers, and im afraid going with an Otari, because i want the best sound in my first experiences, for not guessing any quality related problems it may arise.
So pls guys, if anyone has any info about any European studios, willing to sell their 2" machine, or some of you tired of tape and wishing to sell yours ( ) pls notify me here erjon at esp-al dot com
Although any thought about 2" other machines will be very much apresciated.
Regards to all
Erjon

 

[pucho812]

o.k. as far as studers go, I always felt the 800 sounded the best of any 2" machine they made. However the 827 is easier to align and if you believe the literature, the alignment is stored and you never have to align the machine again until the next project.  I found the machine drifts in alignment and you have to realign every few days on a project.

Otari machines are nice, they are not studers but they do work well and I would not kick one out of bed if you know what I mean. In other words an otari mtr-90 will perform well and sound pretty good.

If you can find one an atr124 is hands down the best 2" I ever heard, however when doing punch in's it takes about 109ms, I think it was around there, before it drops in record, which can be a pain until your used to it.

Lastly check around for a sony apr24, They align in a similar fashion to the studer 827 and have a built in time code synchronizer, it can read time code, write time code, etc, etc. So you can sync it to your daw with ease. Plus they sound pretty good. 

 

[erjos]

Hello Pucho
Your expertise is more than welcome. Some questions though.
I heard rumors even here at group diy about Otaris being phasey because of exesive xtalk in adjacent tracks. This scared me somehow. What about this?
About punches, yes i punch like crazy in my pro tools Hd, and as for the tape, this is the only way.
Sony Apr.... Hmmm i read Endino Response curve for a lot of tape machines, and Sony was one of the best in that. But that was for a 2 track half inch. I haven't heard good words about Sony Apr. Is any link and heritage of Apr in regard to the Sony/Mci Machine?
So many many contradictions in the forums about tape machines.
Im so confused...Maybe this is a story of feeling and love with own machines rather than logical thinking based on fine perception and real experience and comparison so help from experts with real experience on tape like pucho and others out there is needed
Waiting from you..
Thanks

 

[r2d2]

... seem a lot of ... & more too.. , here
http://www.ebay.de/sch/i.html?_nkw=STUDER&_in_kw=1&_ex_kw=&_sacat=See-All-CategoAries&_okw=STUDER&_oexkw=&_adv=1&_udlo=&_udhi=&_ftrt=901&_ftrv=1&_sabdlo=&_sabdhi=&_samilow=&_samihi=&_sadis=200&_fpos=Postleitzahl&LH_SubLocation=1&_fsradio2=%26LH_PrefLoc%3D1&_sargn=-1%26saslc%3D3&_salic=77&_saact=77&LH_SALE_CURRENCY=0&_sop=12&_dmd=1&_ipg=50

peace
r2d2

 

[erjos]

R2d2
First thing i did was to check ebay.de but nothing is there except an overpriced A80 24 track.
Maybe you didnt noticed that im searching for a 24 track 2" machine.
Thanks anyway
Erjon

 

[r2d2]

hey erjon
try to check ebay any 2-3 days
or place an automatic search report that advise you as someone put for sale that you need
i seen fiew for sale one week ago
i remember my friend that sold on ebay the "old" studer in good condition 1 year ago
because the dealers contacted about , evaluated too low the stuff
peace
r2d2

R2d2
First thing i did was to check ebay.de but nothing is there except an overpriced A80 24 track.
Maybe you didnt noticed that im searching for a 24 track 2" machine.
Thanks anyway
Erjon

 

[erjos]

Been 3 weeks searching the globe and all possible ebay listings. Nothing in view. And yes i dont want to buy overpriced from dealers
Still searching.......

 

[sodderboy]

I maintain all of the above.  My professional recommendation is anything Studer, preferably a 827 because of the simplicity and "youth".  A well maintained A820 is the same transport with deep audio electronics, but still a solid machine.  If it has Dolby cards you can have a side biz doing transfers of old masters to digital.
The A800 is the best multitrack, but those machines have already been depreciated several times over.  The audio interconnects are dodgy, the audio supplies have been running like small cookers for 30 years, and replacement mechanical parts are difficult to get.  A800 only if it has REAL low hours (lost in some Latvian storage?) and you have someone who can totally show and tell all the quirks.  And get a second scavenged machine for parts.
The Otari MTR90, even the III, will never match a Studer with flutter specs.  Even with a full overhaul with Athan replacements and re-builds you will still see flutter at 10k.  It has never been a stable machine.  I blame the "capstan-less" design, because even Otari techs left you with flutter.
The APR24 goes through a lot of bearings, and it did not have the gravitas that the MCI predecessor had.  Still more stable than an Otari.

My WTF recommendation is get anything that passes tape and some audio but plan to spend another purchase price's worth of mechanical and electronic parts to get it solid.  Even if you have 16 tracks working out of 24 it should suit.

Mike
 

 

[pucho812]

Hello Pucho
Your expertise is more than welcome. Some questions though.
I heard rumors even here at group diy about Otaris being phasey because of exesive xtalk in adjacent tracks. This scared me somehow. What about this?
About punches, yes i punch like crazy in my pro tools Hd, and as for the tape, this is the only way.
Sony Apr.... Hmmm i read Endino Response curve for a lot of tape machines, and Sony was one of the best in that. But that was for a 2 track half inch. I haven't heard good words about Sony Apr. Is any link and heritage of Apr in regard to the Sony/Mci Machine?
So many many contradictions in the forums about tape machines.
Im so confused...Maybe this is a story of feeling and love with own machines rather than logical thinking based on fine perception and real experience and comparison so help from experts with real experience on tape like pucho and others out there is needed
Waiting from you..
Thanks

all I can say is one man's trash is another mans treasure. Mike is right about the flutter of the otari's. One 2" that never gets much press and are hard to find is the Tascam ATR-80.  Those can be had for  super inexpensive and are solid.

 

[erjos]

Thank Mike and Pucho for your in depth explanation.
I found 2 machines in Europe by now. One is a A800 mkiii with very good conditions in the heads but no remote. This can be sold at £2500 (GB) but needs some small repairs as it has been in Dry storage for more than 3 years. I know this is not good but anyhow i can arrange fixing it. The other version is in Germany from a broker, and its a very nice machine. Its studer A820 fited with dolby sr and dolby A cards. The dealer says that they can sell it even without the cards and the price depends on this.
What you guys think about dolby cards ( the truth is that i dont really understand how can be Dolby SR or A, are they different cards or an switch or option inside the cards to change the reduction type ?) Are they of any big help? As Mike mentioned, they can bring some side profit for digital transfers, but the chances for this to happen are rare i think. Can i still do good records not having them, without loosing a big deal?
How much can i wait to pay for the 820 to call it a good deal?
And yes, i have visited analogrules.com but this is more toward the States kinda pricing
Thanks again
Erjon

 

[pucho812]

I never used dolby when I engineered as I usually recorded  loud music that was way over the hiss of tape. I have set it up a few times. Eddie Kramer will tell you 15 ips no dolby is where it is at.

 

[erjos]

Yeah war of loudness of today will be a plus on that side. But i mean dont you suffer the hiss at the begining of the songs starting softly, and then the end with only some acc guitar or a solo vocal....

 

[phantomas]

For me this thread is an enjoyable way to travel back in time. I've used most of these machines when they were "new", first for music and then in audio post.
The Dolby cards for the A820 is cat280 SR only and cat300 SR/A switchable. They shouldn't really make any impact on the price since they have very little value on their own, and the seller probably don't want to be stuck with a pile of hard to sell cards.

Tomas

 

[erjos]

Thanks phantomas. For me your name is a way to travel back in times i was a kid, watching some Lui De Fine films, if you know whay im talking 
Today i see a A827 listed in ebay for around 10000 usd located in germany. Price is too high but in the "bundle" are included 20 pcs of one pass 499  and 456 ampex 2" reels and a Studer TLS 4000 sync unit. Its fitted with Dolby A too. 8600 hours on it.
All this new information is overloading my CThU ( central thinking unit)... This normally happens when you never have touched or worked with a device before, and try to learn from the experience of others.
What you think guys? Is this "bundle" worth the money?

 

[phantomas]

I just wanted to add that the Dolby A cards are very useful if you want to add some 1980s goodness to recordings. Encoding a track and playing it back without decoding brightens things in a unique way. Just the thing for vox and snare.
I missed my old M16 rack so much I just bought a Dolby 362 unit for that purpose. And yes, I'm a big fan of De Funes!

Tomas

 

[erjos]

  To Phantomas, Pucho, Mike and others that may have passed those experiences before.
I decided going 2" tape after some tests i made. I recorded some good finished tracks through 2 converters of the most sought after, the crane song hed192 and lynx aurora that i have in my studio. Both of them resulted in degrading the audio quality in an unaceptable way. I bet the diference was not subtle even at 192khz. It was not close to what i hear from my analog console. So i purchased a Studer A 80 1/4 ". Same test. Woha... The sound is losless and maybe even better for reasons we all know( tape compression, harmonics etc)
I wonder.. Why for the god sake, people sell their tape multitracks?
Despite the maintenance, lets not talk about that, only from the sound quality point of view, will recording to tape is really better or not a big deal? ( 24 track is not the same track density as a 1/2 or 1/4 " master recorder) what you think about that?

 

[pucho812]

the only digital format that ever sounded analog, without sonic differences, was DSD also known as sacd. I was in on the ground floor testing dsd mastering computers and coverters and testing between that and the 1/2" master offered no sonic difference. As usual Sony came out with something cool and did not give it a chance to catch on. 


In my opinion there are benefits to recording to tape either by itself or hitting tape first.  From a sonic point of view, there are sounds you can get out of tape that do not happen in the digital world like, hitting the tape hard and getting that tape compression/distortion, unlimited bit depth and sampling rate( if you can measure it from tape I would like to know what it is).

People  are selling tape machines as the format is expensive. For what you pay in one reel of 2" that will last 30 minutes at 15 IPS, you have hours to days of recording time in digital. Digital is convenient as you really don't have to align it like you would an analog machine. There is less to think about using a daw.

I miss the days of big bulky machines that kept the rift raft out of the studio. 

 

[0dbfs]

Tape machines are great and you can listen to a bunch of records and compare to contemporary "records"... All that difference is not "just tape" of course.
Just my opinion but I think you will want console automation to mix from tape. Or lots of manual moves and/or splicing of your two-track masters as you print "sections" and edit the master together. I guess without automation you plot out your mix and make fader marks on console tape where you need changes. Then you may need some extra hands to do the mix "live". Also need to memorize your mutes and probably break out your returns to different/mult console channels when during tracking/od's you ran out of tracks but had four bars of empty space on a track in a the choruses and put the shaker in there on the organ track which wasn't playing the chorus.

I love and miss the tape machines and that style of production but I've got to say that there is some merit to "good enough" in many cases. Especially with the ability for full recall. In my full time gig I do a ton of long format live to disk multi-track recordings and jump around a lot mixing. Would be impossible to work that way on tape.

Have you tried a UAD2 card (or even the apollo interface that can do low latency and print DSP to disk) with the Studer plugin? I've had a UAD1 for quite some time and just upgraded to a UAD2 Quad. Now I've got a bunch of DSP available. I might try the studer plug at some point but have never used it before. What am I going to do with all this DIY outboard I have built?? Ha Ha!Just kidding.

Cheers,
jb

 

[erjos]

Yeah Pucho,DSD this is the best that i have heard.Actually my work path is from mix to Korg M1 DSD recorder.I mix in DFF and than convert to PCM with Weiss Saracon.Its as good as digital can be.this was before i get Studer A80,but even now for some type  of jobs.
But DSD is an uneditable format,and (i dont know why) very expensive.Pyramix and Sony come out with crazy prices for a small independent studio as mine, and sony even discontinued. Pyramix is not even real DSD (in order to be editable) but some kind of PCM at 384 Khz.Sony did it rendering the edit points in Wav PCM.Thats why they are not so popular as an option.And yes its strange why should DSD converters and platforms be so expensive,today all major chip producers like TI are making converters with DSD option for the same price more or less as PCM only.And DSD is the native format that comes out of the converters,without the problems of aliasing and dither and all PCM related ones. i may be  wrong,but this is my understandig.
A song of Iron Maiden says "Only the good die yang" and so SACD...

0dbfs,its true that without automated console,its gonna be an war..
but my workflow i think will be like this(as i dont have an automated console yet) only drums bass and guitars maybe vocals if the performer is good.the other tracks from Pro tools synced as master with tape machine.The hi dynamic instruments,except drums, better be on DAW to allow automation.The tracks that will be on Tape,maybe dont need as much volume movements,once levels set,as they are somewhat leveled from the tape compression,and outboard compressors.I heard that one of the tape benefits is that contrary to digital,the projects recorded to tape seem more like finished products immediately after the tracking.but yet  delicate tracks can be recorded to daw for more control.

Best
Erjon

 

[pucho812]

I mixed several 24 track 2" songs without automation, it can be done and makes a mix performance vs a mix.  I think the reason you can't edit dsd is because they, sony and others decided to not pursue it as a working format. However there is one company that makes a dsd multitrack that you can edit the audio.


http://superaudiocenter.com/Products.htm