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[ssltech]

"Andy Pop" has been doing it for a good while, I remember him from when I was in the 'Pool.

I can get his number, I'm sure. I owe an email to someone who will have it. -Let me dig it up.

Keith

[Gurdo]

Ah glad you asked...

Sorry can't remember name of anyone who had a go at fixing our ACES, propably all had nervous breakdowns by now.

Sorry to show ignorance but to moi line up either means...

Physically getting the tape to run smoothly on the transport - not as easy as you'd think! Rob from ACES admitted this was a black art and depended on very subtle tilting of the heads. I got him to fix some PCF on our machine  "...what's PCF?" has asked as if I knew someting he didn't - PCF was actually my made up term for Post Capstan Flap - as the tape after the capstan roller was flapping up about a lot before it was taken up....my how we larfed.

Lining up so you go the same level going on as coming off the machine - Chris Jones was obsessed with this, he used the tone generator on the Amek Angela and trusted the VU meters thier to record 100Hz, 1K and 10K tones onto a tape and twiddle with the presets on the HQ ("High Quality"!) modules on front of the beast. We did have a test tape but our friend from ACES advised that these can go off with age.

Actually Chris Hewitt from the music shop next door, Tractor Music, once came in and offered to line up the machine for us. He  manhandled it so that the side of the casing was square with the rear wall...my how we larfed.

Actually with an ACES in the studio it was all tears.

ACES was an acronym for A(?) C(?) Electrical Services.

I was also told that a chap called Richard Hewson had one at home, he named his band after his initials ergo The Rah Band who I think might have had the only example of a chart single recorded on an ACES machine - Clouds Across The Moon.

I don't know if our test tape had 16 discrete tracks or was one broad 2" wide track. You could get a thingy that made them visible so you could see them on the tape. CJ had a story about seeing some Engineer use a scalpel to edit a single track on the multitrack tape. Cool stuff or just an urban myth, I don't know?

[ssltech]

"Now, when I look at the clouds across the moon,
here in the night, I just hope and pray that soon
You'll hurry home to me."

Never knew who that was in real life... thanks for that bit of trivia! -I knew it was the RAH band, which was a cover for a one-man band when they recorded "the Crunch" (instrumental... -anyoe got a copy of that?) and that his wife sang the lyrics, with possibly his voice as the male "phone operator"...

Funny thing about acronyms with ACES: The one in Liverpool used to work intermittently, and when it could be cajoled into working, the owners used to ask what I'd done to make it work. -I'd usually tell them that I'd had to use some "PFM". -when they asked (the first time) I told them that to make it roll tape, it needed "Pure F***ing Magic!"



Keith

[althemusicwizard]

[althemusicwizard]

[ssltech]

Hard to say, since it's hard for you to describe to me (and us) how "squishy" something is, and have us picture the same resistance. It needs to be firm, but not hard. Any 'give' in the 'tyre' material needs to spring back, -so if you squeeze it in, it should not stay 'dinged', but should be reasonably resilient.

I've just finished looking at an MTR-90 that needs a new roller. (It's a pinch-rollerless transport, so the case is slightly different, but it does have a rubber-grippy-type roller, which in the case of the MTR-90 and MTR-100 are the capstan rollers... the ACES/Studio Magnetics line used hard metal capstans, and a rubber pinch roller that force the tape to bite on the hard metal...)

There's a lot of influencing factors that makes tape skew. -Out-of-true guides, rollers, capstan, swing arms and pinch rollers are principal culprits. -I forget which approach the ACES models took in order to address this issue, but different manufacturers do different things. -The most adjustable machine that I ever saw was the Lyrec TR532/Tr533 series. EVERY roller, every guide, every swing arm, the capstan and the pinch roller were ALL mounted on gimbal bases. There were three grub-screws set into the pase of the gimbal, at 120

[althemusicwizard]

[ssltech]

Well, don't worry excessively so long as you're not pulling tape across the heads.

The most irritating things with the (older) ACES machine that I nursed for a while was transport stuff that just plain old stopped working, and the fact that I seem to recall there was always a slight amount of 'weave' to the path that never really dialled out completely. -People suggested at the time that Ampex tape had slitting problems, but I found that it was never so obvious on other machines...

Mechanical alignment and 'fettling' is sometimes a little like plate-spinning.

Keith

[althemusicwizard]

[Gurdo]

Sent an email to Richard hewson and he was kind enoughtot confirm that "Clouds Across The Moon" was in fact recorded on an ACES machine, which only goes to show you need (in order of importance)...

1) Good Material
2) A Good Performance
3) A Good Recording

I can think of many examples of hits with only No 1. or No 1. & No. 2.

[althemusicwizard]

[ssltech]

Yep. Like a someone said when someone was asking what the most important part of the "deftones" vocal chain was: '"the Deftones vocalist".

Gear will never replace talent, though it's certainly less frustrating capturing the talent with good gear!

I think 'the Crunch' may have preceded ACES by at least couple of years, -don't know much about the other tunes tough.

Keith

[thedoc]

ssltech Said...
"(HINT- with MTR-90's you can COMPLETELY PREVENT this situation from EVER arising by simply applying an inch of splicing tape to the free end of the leader, and use this -rather than simple friction alone- to grip the spool's center hub... do this and you'll never again bend a swing-arm)"

Nice!!!