Interesting things on old tape reels

[DMcMahon]

Originally Posted by Ted Kendall

Raudive voices, anyone?

Had to Google this, very interesting ! never experienced this.

[Essexsteve]

During lockdown I thought I'd try my old Phillips 4308 out to see if it still worked. It worked quite well and the tape that was on it had a couple of Kenny Everett shows from capital radio in the 70s. Also it had a Kenny and Cash show on it, (Kenny and Dave Cash). It was a special show broadcast on August bank holiday Monday 1974. Love me for a reason by the Osmonds was No.1!

The signal quality isn't too good as we lived way out of the london area in south Cambridgeshire but it was great to hear it again!

[barretter]

Originally Posted by ben

I found some interesting recordings on Steno cassettes, mostly off-air TV news and current affairs coverage of a teachers strike in the early 60s. Quality surprisingly good. I think I had to use a 4-track machine in position '2-3' to hear the audio. I also have a Stenorette player but its headphone output used a strange 360º DIN which I didn't have to hand, so it was easier to play them on a standard deck and tweak in audacity.

On the Stenorette SL at least the 6-pin DIN socket is used to connect the machine to a telephone. The headphones connect to the machine via the microphone socket with a different plug. In fact the microphone doubles as a loudspeaker. If you connect the appropriate microphone and engage "start" without pressing the red "record" button the tape will play back through the microphone.

[TIMTAPE]

I have an old Stenorette here complete with the speaker/microphone. I repaired it last year. It uses all Germanium transistors so I guess late 50's/ early 60's. The tape on it contains a business letter for typing, recorded in Adelaide, South Australia.

I'm more familiar with the Philips dictation machines of that era but they seem generally similar. Generally the sound quality on both brands seems very thin with little in the bass register, and there's a lot of motor/transformer hum picked up by the tape head. It seems a limitation of the compact design with the transformer and motor crammed into a small space, close to the tape head.

[barretter]

Believe it or not but you can buy an adaptor to make the Stenorette SL usable with modern stereo headphones. I'm not sure I'd want to listen the noise generated by the machine in stereo.

[TIMTAPE]

It wont be in stereo as it's a mono recording!

[barretter]

OK then, not in both ears!
I started going through some of the second-hand tapes I've acquired over the years. The first one was totally blank. The second one had a recording of a film soundtrack in mono on the first side. It turned out to be from the Powell & Pressburger film, "The small back room" which I have never seen - I admire their films. I was using a TEAC auto-reversing machine and this tape had the requisite metal strip insert but instead of going into a further part of the film it started playing a badly distorted recording of Beethoven's 1st symphony in dual mono with one track playing forward and the other backwards. People seem to have done this quite often to economise on tape.
The next one was also dual mono but with both channels playing forwards, pop songs recorded from the radio on the right and middle of the road instrumentals on the left. End of experiment so far.
With regard to the Stenorette SL, does anybody know where the 4700uF main smoothing cap is located? It's not on the main circuit board.

[barretter]

Found a picture of the insides of the Stenorette SL on RadioMuseum showing the 4700uf cap in the top right-hand corner. Just a matter now of figuring how to get the top off!

[jamesperrett]

Originally Posted by barretter

...it started playing a badly distorted recording of Beethoven's 1st symphony in dual mono with one track playing forward and the other backwards. People seem to have done this quite often to economise on tape.

It was probably originally recorded on a 2 track mono machine and then the film soundtrack was recorded over the top on a 4 track machine.

[DMcMahon]

Several of the Grundig dictation machines on this link.

http://www.taperecorders.nl/steno.htm

[Welsh Anorak]

Going back to things on old tapes, I have a recording of (heaven help us) the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest with Sandie Shaw's 'Puppet on a String' winning, despite the vocals being mute for the first two bars! Came from an old Ferrograph 5 I was repairing and I forgot (honestly) to return the tape. Fair quality but no ironic commentary. Also a few inevitable 'ring-a-ding's and 'boom boom's, but also Vicky Leandros with L'Amour Est Bleu'.
I've been repairing a couple of machines recently for a retired American radio producer, and one recording that was interesting was from, I believe, June 1963 with 'Gentleman' Jim Reeves and the Blue Boys when they toured American Forces' bases. Good recordings, typical with the sponsorship to the fore, but very slick.

[flywheel]

I found this blog some years back:
https://thingsfoundonoldreels.blogspot.com/

It now links to: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZz...Xri6NkQ/videos

[DMcMahon]

Just finished unpacking my latest R2R acquisition, another Telefunken 204 TS which took around 5 weeks to get here from Germany (thought it was lost). It came with 31 spools most of which are fully loaded with tape, a mixture of 7", 5 3/4" & 5".

Many of the tape brands/types are not readily identifiable, ones which are are BASF & Agfa.

A couple of the tapes have that horrible looking lime green backing.

Wil give me something to listen to and hopefully I can find something of interest to report back on later.

One of the tape spools has a Dymo label "English Kusrs" I cannot easily find any translation for kusrs so could be interesting to find out what is recorded on it. Another one has label "Tanz-schone stimmen" which translates as Beautiful dance voices ?

David

[ben]

That would be 'Englisch -Kurs', just a typo. Would be interested to hear that, don't wipe it

The other is 'Dance - nice voices' so probably the likes of Gunter Kallmann or Ray Conniff.

[DMcMahon]

So I guess you are thinking English Course, certainly will be interesting to hear what is on it, if original recording still there of course.

David

[DMcMahon]

So far only horrible instrumental 60's music on the tape, made more horrible by the fact that I was playing it on my fixed speed Uher 4000 at 7.5 ips and the music recording is a slower speed.

[David001]

I've got some really odd tapes, home recordings and some odd plays, bought from eBay or charity shops. Also a very odd C-120 that has a very weird recording (voice actuated recorder?) of a business trip. I love the random nature of old tapes, you can get some very interesting textures at lower speeds on my Uher recorders through effect pedals etc

I sometimes chop up tapes into loops, cassettes are a bit trickier but doable. It's good fun, like musical collages.

[camtechman]

Some years back, I bought a box of 3.5" R2R tapes and in them were several "Sensitive" recordings from a Norfolk Air Base and they were communications regarding up grading plans and one particular reel contained communication with a Scandinavian field gun manufacturer. !!!

[DMcMahon]

After various 60's instrumental music on the "English Course" tape, found a long stretch of English voices in sections each preceded by a German number so think this is the English course section.

A short section of the music (sounds somewhat better now at correct speed of 3 3/4 ips) and a slightly longer section of the English course in the attached ZIP, just as a taster.

[ben]

Originally Posted by DMcMahon

After various 60's instrumental music on the "English Course" tape, found a long stretch of English voices .

Love the English course! Just the sort of stuff I collect
The instrumental is a cover of Donovan's Sunshine Superman.