Iain Churches wrote:

"Phil Allison"



Did Ampex make a cutting lathe? Perhaps you mean Westrex?


** The lathe was from the 1950s and incorporated a valve amplifier and PSU underneath. It was a *large* machine. My memory tells me it was Ampex, but that could be mistaken.

I was certainly not a major brand like Scully or Neumann.


I have always understood that there were three American
manufacters were, Scully, Westrex and Presto.


** AFAIK Westrex made cutting heads and amplifiers, not complete lathes.




He rang me in a panic one day saying the FM station had rejected his tape,
claiming is was "out of phase". So I went to the studio, checked his set
up and listened to the tape on headphones. When switched to mono it
sounded fine, so was not out of phase.

I then rang the FM station and eventually go onto the guy who had
condemned the tape. He explained that his stereo modulation monitor showed
the tape was OOP.

When pressed for more detail he grudgingly went on to say that the L
channel meter regularly a read higher than the sum meter and this meant it
was OOP.

The problem was simple: my customer has panned the bass guitar hard left
in the mix, the piano hard right and drums in the centre.


He re-mixed the tape with bass in the CENTRE and it got played on air.

The safest and most sensible solution of all:-)


But why supply an acetate when a quarter inch stereo tape
would have been much easier and cheaper?


** My post says he suppled a tape, 1/4 inch two track.

His business was called "DemoDisc" so had to be able to make them.



..... Phil