On 10/9/2013 1:44 PM, Frank Stearns wrote:
.. If not stationary head (tape speed perhaps implies that) what were
they doing? Some kind of rotating helical or quad head thing, ala video?
No, it was a stationary head, but it wasn't the Sony DASH format, nor
was it the Mitsubishi Pro Digital format, and probably not the
Soundstream format either. I don't recall any large track count rotary
head digital tape recorders, only the 2, 4, and 8 tracks ones that used
videocassettes (and, of course, DAT).
Mits or Sony?
Mitsubishi digital multitracks seemed to be the machine of choice in
Nashville, but New York and Los Angeles bought Sony. Before the days of
the computer-based DAW, people used to edit stereo digital recordings by
transferring them digitally to a Mitsubishi digital machine, which you
could edit with a razor blade, almost like analog tape. You had to leave
a small gap at the splice which created an error that the recorder would
crossfade over.
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