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Reel-to-reel audio tape recording

Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape is spooled between reels. To prepare for use, the supply reel (or feed reel) containing the tape is placed on a spindle or hub. The end of the tape is manually pulled from the reel, threaded through mechanical guides and over a tape head assembly, and attached by friction to the hub of the second, initially empty takeup reel. Reel-to-reel systems use tape that is 1⁄4, 1⁄2, 1, or 2 inches (6.35, 12.70, 25.40, or 50.80 mm) wide, which normally moves at 3+3⁄4, 7+1⁄2, 15 or 30 inches per second (9.525, 19.05, 38.10 or 76.20 cm/s). Domestic consumer machines almost always used 1⁄4 inch (6.35 mm) or narrower tape and many offered slower speeds such as 1+7⁄8 inches per second (4.762 cm/s). All standard tape speeds are derived as a binary submultiple of 30 inches per second.

"Reel to reel" redirects here. For other uses, see Reel to reel (disambiguation).

Reel-to-reel preceded the development of the compact cassette with tape 0.15 inches (3.8 mm) wide moving at 1+7⁄8 inches per second (4.8 cm/s). By writing the same audio signal across more tape, reel-to-reel systems give much greater fidelity at the cost of much larger tapes. In spite of the relative inconvenience and generally more expensive media, reel-to-reel systems developed in the early 1940s remained popular in audiophile settings into the 1980s and have re-established a specialist niche in the 21st century.


Studer, Stellavox, Tascam, and Denon produced reel-to-reel tape recorders into the 1990s, but as of 2017, only Mechlabor[1] continues to manufacture analog reel-to-reel recorders. As of 2020, there were two companies manufacturing magnetic recording tape: ATR Services of York, Pennsylvania, and Recording the Masters in Avranches, France.[2]


Reel-to-reel tape was used in early tape drives for data storage on mainframe computers and in video tape recorders. Magnetic tape was also used to record data signals from analytical instruments, beginning with the hydrogen bomb testing of the early 1950s.

15⁄16 inch per second (2.38 cm/s): used for very long-duration recordings (e.g. recording a 's entire output in case of complaints).

radio station

1+7⁄8 in/s (4.76 cm/s): usually the slowest consumer speed, best for long-duration speech recordings.

3+3⁄4 in/s (9.53 cm/s): common consumer speed, used on most single-speed domestic machines, reasonable quality for speech and off-air radio recordings.

7+1⁄2 in/s (19.05 cm/s): highest consumer speed, also slowest professional; used by most radio stations for copies of commercial announcements.

15 in/s (38.1 cm/s): professional music recording and radio programming. Through the early to mid 1990s, equipment in many radio stations did not support this speed.

30 in/s (76.2 cm/s): used where the best possible treble response and lowest are demanded, though bass response might suffer.[15]

noise floor

Digital reel-to-reel[edit]

As professional audio evolved from analog magnetic tape to digital media, engineers adapted magnetic tape technology to digital recording, producing digital reel-to-reel magnetic tape machines. Before large hard disks became economical enough to make hard disk recorders viable, studio digital recording meant recording on digital tape. Mitsubishi's ProDigi and Sony's Digital Audio Stationary Head (DASH) were the primary digital reel-to-reel formats in use in recording studios from the early 1980s through the mid-1990s. Nagra introduced digital reel-to-reel tape recorders for use in film sound recording.


Best known for its lines of tape media and professional analog recorders, with its M series of multitrack and 2-track machines, the Mincom division of 3M spent several years developing a digital recording system, including two years of joint research with the BBC. The result was the 3M Digital Audio Mastering System, which consisted of a 32-track deck (16-bit, 50 kHz audio) running 1-inch tape and a 4-track, 1/2-inch mastering recorder. 3M's 32-track recorder was priced at $115,000 in 1978 (equivalent to $537,000 in 2023).


Digital reel-to-reel tape eliminated all the traditional quality limitations of analog tape, including background noise (hiss), high frequency roll-off, wow and flutter, pitch error, nonlinearity, print-through, and degeneration with copying, but the tape media was even more expensive than professional analog open reel tape, and the linear nature of tape still placed restrictions on access, and winding time to find a particular spot was still a significant drawback. Also, while the quality of digital tape did not progressively degrade with use of the tape, the physical sliding of the tape over the heads and guides meant that the tape still did wear, and eventually, that wear would lead to digital errors and permanent loss of quality if the tape was not copied before reaching that point.


The extremely short wavelengths used by digital tape formats meant that tape and tape transport cleanliness was an important issue. Specks of dust or dirt were large enough in relation to the signal wavelengths that contamination by such dirt could render a recording unplayable. Advanced digital error correction systems, without which the system would have been unworkable, still failed to cope with poorly maintained tape or recorders, and for this reason a number of tapes made in the early years of digital reel-to-reel recorders are now useless.


Because digital audio recording technology advanced over the years, with development of cassette-based tape recording formats (such as DAT) and tapeless recording, digital reel-to-reel audio recording is now obsolete. The metal particle reel tapes for digital audio recording are no longer manufactured today.

In the late 1940s, Les Paul began experimenting with creating a virtual dance band or jazz ensemble, from his solo guitar accompanying his wife, vocalist Mary Ford, by or overdubbing from one tape machine to another multiple times, layering new vocal or instrument parts on top of previously recorded tracks. While this had been done in the past using phonograph discs, that process was cumbersome and resulted in degraded audio quality after only one or two overdubs. A disc had to be discarded if there was any mistake, but tape was reuseable. Magnetic tape recording allowed Paul to shift instrument sounds to higher or lower octaves by manipulating the speed of the tape while recording his guitar. He used tape echo to enhance ambience or create a special effect. Paul and Mary Ford produced many popular recordings over the next two decades using these techniques. One of their most famous was "How High the Moon".

bouncing

In 1958, , a.k.a. David Seville, recorded his voice at one-half normal speed, raising its pitch a full octave when played back at normal speed, to create the early rock and roll novelty song Witch Doctor. He later used the same technique, plus overdubbing his voice three times, to create the Chipmunks. Many other creators of novelty, comedy, and children's records, such as Sheb Wooley, Sascha Burland, and Ray Stevens have since used this process.

Ross Bagdasarian

The is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard that uses a bank of parallel linear magnetic audio tape strips. Playback heads underneath each key enable the playing of pre-recorded sounds. Each of the tape strips has a playing time of approximately eight seconds after which the tape disengages and returns to the start position.

mellotron

The title track of 's album Are You Experienced, on which the guitar solo and much of the drum track was recorded then played backward on a reel-to-reel.

Jimi Hendrix

recorded many songs using reel-to-reel tape as a creative tool. Examples include "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" and "Yellow Submarine" which cut up stock recordings and then randomly spliced and overdubbed them into the songs (recordings of calliope organs on "Mr. Kite", and recordings of marching bands on "Yellow Submarine").[17]: 168  On "Tomorrow Never Knows" multiple tape machines were interconnected to play tape loops that had been prepared by the band. The loops were played backward, sped up or slowed down. To record the song, the tape machines, located in separate rooms, were manned by technicians and played together to record on the fly.[17]: 113  "Strawberry Fields Forever" combined two different taped versions of the song. The versions were independently altered in speed to end up together miraculously both on pitch and tempo.[17]: 139  "I Am the Walrus" used a radio tuner patched into the sound console to layer a random live broadcast over an existing taped track.[17]: 215  "Revolution 9" also had effects produced using a reel-to-reel with tape editing techniques.

The Beatles

The and Delia Derbyshire arranged and realised the original theme to the BBC series Doctor Who by recording various sounds including oscillators and then manually cutting together each individual note on a group of reel-to-reels.

BBC Radiophonic Workshop

The British rock band created a human harmonium of sorts on a 16-track tape recorder by overdubbing their own voices many dozens of times, singing only a single note each time. The cumulative result was a total of 630 voices spread evenly over an octave-and-a-half of proper musical scale notes, with each of the distinct notes assigned to an individual track of the tape. When played back, any track (or note) could be faded in and out manually on a mixing console arranged like a piano keyboard, to simulate an immense virtual choir. This effect provided the atmospheric backing instrumentation for their song "I'm Not in Love".[18]

10cc

blues guitarist Claudio Gabis, needing an amplifier for his electric guitar, used a modified Geloso recorder as a distortion device for his debut album Manal of 1970. This was achieved by injecting a signal and letting it "record under vacuum" (without tape, recording infinitely). The amplified signal thus obtained could be distorted by considerably increasing the volume.[19] Also the first single of the group "Qué pena me das", has an abrupt ending with tapes passed upside down.[20]

Argentine

founding member of Wolf Eyes, often utilizes a reel-to-reel tape machine in his solo performances.

Aaron Dilloway

of the band Boredoms uses a reel-to-reel tape as an instrument in live performances and in post-production (an example is the track "Super You" from the album Super æ).

Yamantaka Eye

member Martin Swope played a reel-to-reel tape recorder live, either playing previously recorded samples at certain times or recording part of the band's performance and playing it back either in reverse or at different speeds. When the band re-formed in 2002, audio engineer Bob Weston took over Swope's role at the tape deck.

Mission of Burma

is a type of music composition that utilizes recorded sounds, typically on reel-to-reel, as raw material.

Musique concrète

's cash register introduction to their track "Money" was made using a loop of spliced tape which was looped around a mic stand and through a tape player.[21]

Pink Floyd

is a recording artist who includes tape editing as a significant portion of the creative process.[22]

Steve Tibbetts

's Lumpy Gravy,[23] We're Only in It for the Money and Uncle Meat,[24] featured numerous edits, and multiple instances of speed alteration and intricately layered samples upon samples.

Frank Zappa

The improviser uses a ReVox A77 reel-to-reel to create and manipulate tape loops in live performance.[25]

Jerome Noetinger

Early reel-to-reel users learned to manipulate segments of tape by splicing them together and adjusting playback speed or direction of recordings. Just as modern keyboards allow sampling and playback at different speeds, a reel-to-reel recorder could accomplish similar tasks in the hands of a talented user.


In addition, multiple reel-to-reel machines used in tandem can also be used to create echo and delay effects. The Frippertronics configuration used by Brian Eno and Robert Fripp on their 1970s and '80s recordings illustrates these possibilities.[26]

Audio format

Audio storage

Audio tape length and thickness

Multitrack recording

Sound recording and reproduction

Magnetophon

A history of magnetic recording, BBC/H2G2

David Winter's 1950s EMI tape list

David Winter's Barclay Crocker tape list

Documentary sound recordist discusses his work using a Nagra reel to reel tape recorder on documentary production

Magnetic tape technology (in German)