Talk:Magnetic-tape sound recording

message: I think this article would be much improved by a greater discussion of the physical means of magnetic tape sound recording. There is very little about how the data is actually encoded on the magnetic tape. I would edit it myself, but I came here to learn about the subject.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.92.231.118 (talk) 03:19, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Technical Information

message: I moved all the information on tape speeds here from inches per second, where it clearly didn't belong.  (See Talk:Inches per second).  The following note on "Microcassettes" is moved here from that talk page to keep it with the content to which it refers.  — Johan the Ghost seance 16:19, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Information on tape speeds 

message: I expect some people to do a double take on the claim that the playback speed is not specified, but it's true!
Nor in the case of a microcassette is it implied that the playback speed will be identical to the record speed, far from it. The function of a dictating machine is (or was, it's an obsolete technology) to allow transcription to typed pages by a professional secretary or typist. For this purpose, the quality of the voice was irrelevant, so long as intelligibility was unimpaired. It didn't matter whether the secretary liked or even understood what they were hearing just so long as they typed it accurately. So far as speed was concerned, the ideal was the secretary's maximum accurate typing speed, which could be faster or (possibly more commonly) slower than the speed at which the material was dictated. Continuously variable playback speed was therefore a feature of all the best machines designed for the secretary to use.
Some secretaries got very proficient at typing for particular people using a variable speed playback machine, and would rarely need to stop or rewind a tape. So long as the playback speed wasn't a lot slower than the recording speed (which would have affected intelligibility anyway), the ability to avoid stopping and rewinding was far more important than a high playback speed in determining the overall time a transcription would take. In the days before word processors, typing accuracy was also very important.
Some will I imagine do another double take at the claim that it didn't matter whether the secretary understood what they were typing. But that was my experience! I worked in two technical areas in which I had professional secretarial services (although never my own secretary). In both cases I had the pleasure of working with typists who had an uncanny ability to type accurately things of which they had very little understanding. They quickly learned the vocabulary without needing to know its meaning, and the office could not have functioned without this talent.
So while this is a form of sound reproduction, and the accuracy of this reproduction is as important here as in any other application, the criteria for this accuracy are radically different to those for some other applications. Most notably and obviously they differ to those for recorded music where tempo is important and pitch extremely critical. Andrewa 19:09, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you sure about microcassette speed being unspecified?  Perhaps you're confusing microcassettes with minicassettes.  Minicassettes don't use a pinch roller, so tape speed will vary with pack diameter and the machine on which the cassette is played.  Microcassettes, on the other hand, use a precision capstan and pinch roller, so their speed is regulated just as well as that of their full-size cousins.—QuicksilverT @ 23:01, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

text: Relative pitch is important; absolute speed not so much. Example from a different technology: PAL DVD version often at entirely different absolute pitch to the film, as no correction is made for 24fps v 25fps. Most people don't notice, much less care, even on concert DVDs. Infojunkie23 (talk) 14:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Microcassettes

message: These materials are very detailed, but seem to be out of sync a little.  
* http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/MAGN_REC_CHRON.html
* http://www.richardhess.com/tape/history/
Please add more source links if you can.
-- Austin Murphy 03:37, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources/references 

message: The article, for all practical purposes, starts the historical discussion with:
:"Early tape recorders were created by replacing the steel wire of a wire recorder with a thin steel tape."
But the article never mentioned recording on wire apart from a brief reference to the inventor prior to this revealing statement.
Someone needs to add a section on the development of wire recording. 20.133.0.13 (talk) 14:40, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Something missing. 

message: I've had a look around some related articles and can't find any good summary of the common issues - eg flutter / other speed regulation issues, degradation, head cleaning, etc...
Does this belong here or is there a better article for it? 
Infojunkie23 (talk) 14:45, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Issues with the technology 

message: :: "During World War II, the Allies noticed that certain Ger:man officials were making radio broadcasts from multiple time zones almost simultaneously.[1] The broadcasts had to be transcriptions (much of this due to the work of Richard H. Ranger), but their audio quality was indistinguishable from that of a live broadcast[1] and their duration was far longer than was possible with 78 rpm discs. At the end of the war, the Allied capture of a number of German Magnetophon recorders from Radio Luxembourg aroused great interest."
Really... the transcriptions used in the German broadcasts were due to the work of Mr. Ranger???  That whole paragraph needs to be rewritten.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.231.129.103 (talk) 16:06, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Ive heard the "Allied monitors mystified at Nazi broadcasts" story several times but Im a tad sceptical.
Given that the technology was available commercially (albeit priced beyond the means of home users) for at least three years before the outbreak of WW2 surely word of the new development must have spread outside of Germany (at least in broadcast engineering circles) during that time ? Incidently it wasnt just a case of "German officials making radio broadcasts from multiple time zones" There were also broadcasts at different times on Germanys (regionalised) domestic network and propaganda broadcasts to various overseas target audiences. 89.242.194.4 (talk) 10:45, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Since when did Richard H Ranger work for the Nazis?