What to do with your old Reel to Reel

[Schmitty2005]

Have a couple of old reel to reels laying around ? I usually would not post a YouTube link, but in this case, it was interesting enough!

[Majik (Keith Milner)]

A friend of mine was one of the guitarists on this album.

Cheers,

Keith

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@Schmitty2005

Have a couple of old reel to reels laying around

Easier answer, especially if an Otari MX5050 in good shape… send to me:)

  Seablade

[slash]

But what are the tape machines actually doing here? To me it looks like the actual music is coming from the 3 keyboards and the tape bowing is just for the show…?

I could imagine that if there’s a recorded tone (or sample) on the tape, then pulling it forward and backward would produce a tone where the pitch of the tone is based on the speed of the tape pulling. But somehow this doesn’t match to what I hear…

[Von_Zoidish]

I don’t see nor hear what this has anything to do with reel to reels, unless it’s recorded on one, which quite a few bands actually still do for whatever odd reasons. If it is, I see no indication that it is recorded on one.

So what’s up with that?

[Von_Zoidish]

Slash? Is it you? Still drinking heavily and going on stage drunk? Is Axle still an A-hole?

[John_E]

Can you even buy magnetic tape these days??

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@Von_Zoidish

I don’t see nor hear what this has anything to do with reel to reels, unless it’s recorded on one, which quite a few bands actually still do for whatever odd reasons. If it is, I see no indication that it is recorded on one.

I believe they may have actually meant to link to this video instead of the one I see embedded in the post:

Magnetik Phunk (Studio Live Version) - Open Reel Ensemble

But maybe the OP can clarify. @Schmitty2005 ?

[slash]

Well, I’m not Soul Hudson, but just a dude from Austria who happened to have this nickname for ~30 years now.
But maybe I should really be more drunk on stage (and also during mixing our live recordings), until I don’t hear my screw-ups anymore.

[slash]

OK… I still don’t get why the keyboarder dude needs the tape machine, respective what the tape machine is actually doing for him / his sound…

[guth]

The connection I thought I understood at first was that, starting in 1950, radio broadcasts were increasingly produced in advance on tape recorder tapes and then broadcast later. This process was made easier by the fact that, as early as 1950, people were already thinking about technical devices that could handle a maximum dynamic range of 15dB. After all, when it comes to digital, it is still best to follow the K14 system. And you still use this parameter today! But maybe I misunderstood everything.

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@slash

OK… I still don’t get why the keyboarder dude needs the tape machine, respective what the tape machine is actually doing for him / his sound…

If you watch about 1:47 in the keyboardist is using to provide some saturation to the sound by overdriving the Reel to Reel and adding some modulation by manually adjusting the reels while they are spinning to give some variation to the speed.

[Von_Zoidish]

Now that is freaking cool! I can only imagine how much work went into the prep for it all!

[Von_Zoidish]

I think that may just add more screw ups! On the other hand those will hide the original screw ups, and enough of them people may think it’s on purpose and a comedy act!