James Perrett wrote on Mon, 07 August 2006 08:15 |
mattallen wrote on Thu, 03 August 2006 03:25 | The crazy thing was the Tape baking was BLUE!! Like M79 blue. Any idea what the story is on that?
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I've got a few reels with blue backing - I think they came on EMI spools but they could possibly be Zonal.
Scotch 263, which was used by the BBC for a while, had a light green back coating.
Cheers
James.
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Dear James,
You are right the green 263 made by 3M’s, was used by the BBC, purposely to archive recordings made for BBC3’s Classical Music Programs due to its low print through spec.
EMI brought out a brown tape if I remember correctly it was called 816
Agfa brought out a Low Print through Pink Tape = PE something.
I do have a complete article from Racal expressing how the turn rust into recording tape (If someone requires it)
The blue 888 Tape made by Racal Zonal, this tape was designed to compete against Ampex 456, it claimed to require exactly the same bias set-up etc, making it very simple to use this tape at half the price without having to re-calibrate your tape machine.
I was using a lot of 456 at the time mainly for the Pro-Artists who could afford it, but it would be nice to have a tape costing half the price for the local bands doing demos.
The Racal sales guy dropped off two reels for me to try.
I checked it out and sure enough the set-up was identical, the only thing I could find wrong, was the hiss levels were higher.
On further checks I realised that it was the blue backing running against the fixed posts on the Ampex MM1200, making this hissy mechanical noise, and having the tape machine in the centre of my monitors it was unacceptable.
A couple of weeks past and Racal called to ask me my thoughts, I replied that I was pleased with the tape, they then asked
"We have not received an order from you yet"
I replied no you wont for a while let me explain"
As it is also the same price as a small reel of leader tape, and yet 3 times longer I have decided to continue to use it as
"Blue Leader Tape".
Best Regards
Tony
www.arnys-shack.com