[Rick Ruskin]

On Wed, 09 Oct 2013 07:57:37 -0500, Frank Stearns
wrote:

I recently caught the 1985 documentary of the re-recording of "West Side Story" with
Leonard Bernstein conducting (and at one point of session-friction Mr. B calling
legendary producer John McClure a "silly man").

Not sure which NY studio was being used (the control room appeared to be a sonic
mess, with the back wall not more than 5 feet from the arm rest of the console), but
they were using the 3M digital recorder, 32 tracks, 16 bit, 50 Khz, apparently a
DASH format running at 45 IPS. The thing cost $115K in 1978 US dollars.

16 bit converters weren't around in 1978 (or at least in those years of development
leading up to this machine), so 12 and 8 bit converters were paired.

Curious if anyone here used the thing, what it sounded like, ease of use, and
reliability. At least according to the brief article at
mixonline.com/TECnology-Hall-of-Fame/1978-EM-Mastering the machine was liked and was
used by some larger names in the business -- but its history seems quite thin. Are
any of these still around? How wide-spread was its use?

(My vague memory from second-hand sources was that the Sony DASH multitracks mostly
took over this market within a few years -- but that could be in error.)

Comments invited.

Frank
Mobile Audio


I think that Steely Dan's "Gaucho" was done on a pair of those
machines - one recording the other for backup. It sounded damn good
to me.