I dont know much about sound to picture, i know a lot of film has a
optical audio track on the side, but anyways heres my question.

I heard that the band Mercury Rev records to 35mm magnetic tape. How
does that work? what machine? is it just as matter of replaceing the
block on a standard audio recorder? Im not so interested in the why i
guess, just the how.

Any thoughts?
Nace

Nace wrote:
I dont know much about sound to picture, i know a lot of film has a
optical audio track on the side, but anyways heres my question.

I heard that the band Mercury Rev records to 35mm magnetic tape. How
does that work? what machine? is it just as matter of replaceing the
block on a standard audio recorder? Im not so interested in the why i
guess, just the how.

It's a magfilm dubber. The film comes off a reel, and it goes over
a big sprocket, then over an unperforated roller attached to a flywheel,
over the heads, over another roller, over the sprocket, and back up to
the takeup reel.

It uses 35mm "fullcoat" film, which has an oxide coating across the surface
of the film, or "stripe" which has an edge stripe. You can get up to six
very wide tracks on fullcoat.

These machines were used because of the wide tracks and the low flutter
resulting from the Davis drive mechanism. Everest and Command also used
them for album recording.

The Mercury folks were using modified Westrex dubbers, I think,
although Rangertone also made some fine ones back then. Of the current
technology units, Magnatech and Sondor propbably make the best ones.

Currently you can buy magfilm from Pyral in France and from FPC, which
is a division of Kodak. This means supply for magfilm today is actually
much better than for conventional tape.

I keep meaning to get photos of the dubber room up on the web site at
some point. It's a nice technology and while it's taken a big hit from
the current mode of editing film tracks digitally, it's still viable.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 1 Apr 2005 19:13:30 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Incredibibly great stuff. Thanks,

ps: Dude, whereTF did you ever learn all this stuff?

Chris Hornbeck
6x9=42

Chris Hornbeck wrote:
On 1 Apr 2005 19:13:30 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Incredibibly great stuff. Thanks,

ps: Dude, whereTF did you ever learn all this stuff?

I interned in a studio back in the days when it was reasonable to expect one
facility would have a film post suite, a nice big tracking room, and a
mastering studio with a couple lathes on premises. These days you'll be
hard pressed to find a facility with even one...
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott Dorsey wrote:

These machines were used because of the wide tracks and the low flutter
resulting from the Davis drive mechanism. Everest and Command also used
them for album recording.


When I worked at United, once in a great while, we would get an order to
dub something from 35mm mag to 1/4". One of the other guys usually did
it, but I would watch him.

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
Chris Hornbeck wrote:
On 1 Apr 2005 19:13:30 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Incredibibly great stuff. Thanks,

ps: Dude, whereTF did you ever learn all this stuff?

I interned in a studio back in the days when it was reasonable to expect
one
facility would have a film post suite, a nice big tracking room, and a
mastering studio with a couple lathes on premises. These days you'll be
hard pressed to find a facility with even one...
--scott

These days you would be hard-pressed to find a facility with more than PTLE
& a quantity larger than five mics.

Neil Henderson

On 1 Apr 2005 21:55:11 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

I interned in a studio back in the days

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Doesn't really explain *everything* though,
does it? I still suspect an extra-terrestrial influence.

Deny it if you will!!!!!

Chris Hornbeck
6x9=42

right on thanks man, thats exactly what i wanted to know.



Nace