Re: Pin 3 hot - why do I care?

[Fill X]

it's a religious issue to some. And scott dorsey has always told me not to get
involved in these arguments. I care. I correct the polarity rather than
flipping it in the console, but that's me.


P h i l i p

______________________________

"I'm too ****ing busy and vice-versa"

- Dorothy Parker

[Mike Rivers]

In article <jeffrey.chestekYouKnowWhatToRemove-9F writes:

> If these Dolbys are meant for encode/decode noise reduction use with a
> tape machine (I missed the original reference), then recording through
> them will invert the polarity of the audio going into the machine, and
> thus recorded on tape.
>
> Not a problem if you're subsequently using your inverted polarity unit
> to do the decoding.
>
> But if you send your tapes to someone else (say a mastering house),
> they'll play them back on a system that is presumably wired correctly,
> and your master will play back inverted.

Hey, it's worse than that. There's now a standard that defines the
polarity of recording on tape. When you have a little magnet on the
tape oriented so that when the tape is moving in the normal playing
direction, the north pole crosses the head before the south pole, the
electrical output is positive.

Before the standard, nobody really thought about this, and different
manufacturers (for example, Ampex and MCI) were wired opposite. So
if you played a tape on an MCI that was recorded on an Ampex, the
polarity of the audio would be electrically inverted. Some people have
rewired their machines to conform to the standard, others don't care
and if they think a track might sound better with the polarity
inverted, they try that and listen.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

[Mike Rivers]

In article <jeffrey.chestekYouKnowWhatToRemove-9F writes:

> If these Dolbys are meant for encode/decode noise reduction use with a
> tape machine (I missed the original reference), then recording through
> them will invert the polarity of the audio going into the machine, and
> thus recorded on tape.
>
> Not a problem if you're subsequently using your inverted polarity unit
> to do the decoding.
>
> But if you send your tapes to someone else (say a mastering house),
> they'll play them back on a system that is presumably wired correctly,
> and your master will play back inverted.

Hey, it's worse than that. There's now a standard that defines the
polarity of recording on tape. When you have a little magnet on the
tape oriented so that when the tape is moving in the normal playing
direction, the north pole crosses the head before the south pole, the
electrical output is positive.

Before the standard, nobody really thought about this, and different
manufacturers (for example, Ampex and MCI) were wired opposite. So
if you played a tape on an MCI that was recorded on an Ampex, the
polarity of the audio would be electrically inverted. Some people have
rewired their machines to conform to the standard, others don't care
and if they think a track might sound better with the polarity
inverted, they try that and listen.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

[sodderboy]

> Hey, it's worse than that. There's now a standard that defines the
> polarity of recording on tape. When you have a little magnet on the
> tape oriented so that when the tape is moving in the normal playing
> direction, the north pole crosses the head before the south pole, the
> electrical output is positive.

I never knew that there was not a standard. I assumed there had to be
in analog electronics. The old dogs taught me that the leading edge of
a kick should throw the speaker cone towards you, not away. I have
worked with Studer, Otari, MCI/Sony, Alesis, Tascam, Fostex, and Akai,
and they always were the same, if all other wiring polarities in the
chain were properly observed. I never worked on Scully, Ampex, Saturn
(remember them?), or the suitcase 2". did I forget any? We have
gotten tapes that were polarity reversed, and I figured the studio was
wired incorrectly. Did not have a microscope to anal-ize the
particles : )
Dang. We have not run tape on a 2" here in over 16 months. . . They
have become shelves for FW drives.

[sodderboy]

> Hey, it's worse than that. There's now a standard that defines the
> polarity of recording on tape. When you have a little magnet on the
> tape oriented so that when the tape is moving in the normal playing
> direction, the north pole crosses the head before the south pole, the
> electrical output is positive.

I never knew that there was not a standard. I assumed there had to be
in analog electronics. The old dogs taught me that the leading edge of
a kick should throw the speaker cone towards you, not away. I have
worked with Studer, Otari, MCI/Sony, Alesis, Tascam, Fostex, and Akai,
and they always were the same, if all other wiring polarities in the
chain were properly observed. I never worked on Scully, Ampex, Saturn
(remember them?), or the suitcase 2". did I forget any? We have
gotten tapes that were polarity reversed, and I figured the studio was
wired incorrectly. Did not have a microscope to anal-ize the
particles : )
Dang. We have not run tape on a 2" here in over 16 months. . . They
have become shelves for FW drives.