Is it all over for 1/4" tape??

Post by **Nigel** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 7:18 am

http://www.tapeonline.com/pr/pdf/Quante ... cement.pdf

Say it ain't so!!!

Good Luck

Post by **reflex** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 8:52 am

I miss the old Ampex days sometimes. But only sometimes.

It's good to hear that Quantegy is attempting to stop the bleeding - here's hoping they don't go belly-up again.

Post by **Angus** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 2:58 pm

Last time I checked I could still buy Maxell 1/4 inch tape...but I have a stash of Agfa PER368 so I'm not too bothered as I use the stuff less frequently these days.

I believe there are still pro studious using it....some artists swear by analogue 1/4 inch recording tape...I know for sure that of all the recording technologies I've tried, nothing beats my Akai 1/4 inch...ecxept maybe DVD-audio 192KHz 24-bit...

Post by **svabo** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 4:01 pm

Wittner Hamburg sells 1/4 tape, look at http://www.wittner-kinotechnik.de/katal ... zweiba.php

Post by **fastwind** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:19 pm

RMGI ( formerly EMTEC ) is picking up the slack :

http://www.rmgi.nl/nieuws.htm

ATR Magnetics will be offering their own brand of tape soon. They also
service ATR machines and conduct seminars. :

http://www.atrtape.com

Post by **wado1942** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:31 pm

ATR Magnetics is in production on a new line of tape. But it looks like they're only making 1/2" 1" and 2" which really sucks because I just bought a 1/4" Otari a couple of months ago. Though my main deck is 1" and don't really need the 1/4" deck, I had a lot of uses in mind for it. And the stuff currently available on the market just can't touch GP9. There's no doubt that the top end studios prefer 1/2" over 1/4" but there's still a lot of people who want to use 1/4" myself included because it's just too expensive to run 1/2" at my level of work. I find it odd, however that Quantegy is discontinuing their magnetic tape when they got back in business BECAUSE people were petitioning, and organizing short runs of tape even while Quantegy was officially closed. I think Quantegy's idea of operating just as a repackaging factory for hard drives and CDs is a load of crap. I can buy Maxtor drives from Maxtor and Mitsui CDs from Mitsui, so why would I want to buy them from Quantegy?

Post by **mathis** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 1:52 am

Angus wrote: nothing beats my Akai 1/4 inch...ecxept maybe DVD-audio 192KHz 24-bit...

and a 1/2 inch stereo...

that's the only professional stereo format which is still used in some of my surrounding. We're talking here one time out of thousand or so.

Post by **Nigel** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 5:24 am

I think its all over kids.

Good Luck

Post by **Janne** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 10:22 am

wado1942 wrote:But it looks like they're only making 1/2" 1" and 2"

:?:

Are you sure?

http://www.rmgi.nl/studio.htm

Post by **Angus** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 12:12 pm

mathis wrote:
Angus wrote: nothing beats my Akai 1/4 inch...ecxept maybe DVD-audio 192KHz 24-bit...
and a 1/2 inch stereo...
that's the only professional stereo format which is still used in some of my surrounding. We're talking here one time out of thousand or so.

Of the formats I have tried nothing beats 1/4 inch.....I've not got the space or money in my flat to get hold of a half inch machine!

The wife wants me to ditch the 1/4 inch as it is...

Post by **flatwood** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 12:20 pm

Analog recordists have been going through this for years. I truly doubt that analog tape is going to vanish any time soon. The price might rise however.

Post by **MovieStuff** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 12:44 pm

Angus wrote:
Of the formats I have tried nothing beats 1/4 inch.....I've not got the space or money in my flat to get hold of a half inch machine!

The wife wants me to ditch the 1/4 inch as it is...

Hmmm. Let's see, 1/4 inch tape is getting more and more rare but I figure there'll be an endless supply of wives..... Hard choice. :twisted:

Roger

Post by **Will2** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 2:50 pm

I used to have a giant 1/2 mastering deck I bought from a radio station many years ago. It was huge with its own stand and looked really impressive, like a 24 track analog machine. I think I used it twice. When I moved from Miami to Dallas I sold it for $300.

Post by **audadvnc** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 4:23 pm

They're huge old tanks, expensive to maintain and clunky to move. They do sound great, however.

Post by **wado1942** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 5:03 pm

I tested my 1/4" deck recently and it had a frequency response of 30Hz-24KHz +0dB -1dB. Actually, the response was clear up to 40KHz at -28dB, THD of .2% with a noise floor of 60dB (0VU) using GP9. The noise may not seem impressive but by using emphasis, the noise is disguised better so even though the floor was at -60dB, it sounded more like -70dB. It's crisp and clean sounding, even more so than my computer with its budget convertors so I think I'm going to buy all the stock I can.

Are you sure?

Their site only says 1/2" - 2" so I'm assuming they're not making 1/4". I asked them to verify this and also asked a couple of other questions but that was a week ago and they still haven't responded so I'm taking that as a sign they don't want my business. Because of that, I'm just going to try and buy up a bunch of Quantegy stock.

They're huge old tanks, expensive to maintain and clunky to move. They do sound great, however.

I keep hearing that analogue decks are expensive to maintain and yet I've only had to clean the tape path with some alcohol and cotton swabs before each use on my 85-16. The 85-16 is not known for being a top quality deck but it's given me trouble free service for the 5 years I've owned it. Degaussing doesn't cost anything and I just checked the alignment a couple of months ago and it only needed a minor tweek to be optimal. Now on the otherhand, my computer costs me a TON of time to keep working somewhat glitch free and all the computers I've had were the same way. I'm now on my 3rd new computer for recording in the last 8 years and even though I'm a stickler for maintainance and optimising, I still can't record 8 tracks at a time for half an hour. That job is a snap for my 30-year-old 16-track.[/quote]