OT: wire recorders - skip if no interest

From: John Lawson <jpl15_at_panix.com>
Date: Fri Sep 6 13:37:01 2002

  Sorry for the OT; this bears on classic restoration, albeit broadly.

  Toth, the head in a wire recorder is fairly low impedance. There were a
couple of precompensation schemes used to boost the low end, somewhat like
the curve applied to phonograph recordings, but nowhere near as severe as
records. Transfer the wire to a more modern medium first, then 'play' with
it. I have three machines here, a Brush and two Webcors, one of which has
been modified for handling damaged or abused wire. I don't use the old
electronics in them anymore, though the Webcors work fine.

  You can just hook the head leads up to a decent stereo with a 'Tape
Head' or 'Tape In' facility. Then it might be necessary to apply EQ to
the signal. You can of course hook up to your computer for recording to
the HD - I would suggest the Microphone input for best S/N ratio. Then
you can massage the program on the wire in your favorite Audio Workstation
program.


  ALL THAT BEING SAID: it is more important, IMHO, to handle the wire
safely - you never know what could be on it. I rescued the Brush
Soundmirror at a ham swapmeet for $5. It had two spools of wire in the
lid. One was a bunch of poorly recorded, often unintelligible 'family'
stuff and radio programs. On the other, however, was a well-made
recording (off radio) of a speech that Pres. Truman gave to the NAACP
conference in 1950. It turns out that there was no record made of the
speech itself, only that he had been there and given it. I transfered the
speech to CD via ProTools, then sent the wire and a copy of the CD to the
Library of Congress, and got back a nice letter and a commendation
certificate from them.

  SO: Before loading wire on the old deck, give it a nice lube and run it
in all modes for a while. [DO NOT lube the wire!!] The Webcors all used
large rubber-rimmed drive pucks and many times the machine was left in
"play" with the power off for decades, causing dents that need to be
worked out. Especially make sure that the take-up torque is gentle and
even, and that the hold-back brakes are still working. Wire moves pretty
fast and has considerable rotational inertia - once wire 'gets away from
you' (imagine stainless steel fishing line!) it nearly always needs to be
cut and spliced and cleaned... you end up with silver clumps of hoplessly
tangled knots everywhere. And you 'splice' wire by tying it in tiny knots
- ugly but true...


  If you have any other issues or troubles with the machine, let me know
off-list and we can sort it out. If the machine is not capable of
handling the wire safely anymore, you can always send me your spools and
I'll transfer them for you.



  I now return you to your currently-running Cctalk, already in progress.

     ;}

Cheers

John
Received on Fri Sep 06 2002 - 13:37:01 BST