My Year at AMPEX page 3
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My Year at AMPEX page 3 |
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| Slave decks for recording from the master deck. These decks record the actual 8-track tape onto hubs that are later inserted into the empty cartridges. |
The raw tape was loaded into the recorders in the form of sideless 12" diameter 1/4" wide tightly packed reels of tape on plastic drive hubs. There was a fair amount of skill and finesse required of the operators to remove these spools from the shipping boxes they came face-on stacked in, lay them down sideways onto the recorder feed spindles, and feed them through the machines.
Once the operator had laid the spool of tape onto the unwinding spindle, it was fairly safe because the spindle was made to be the same diameter as the tape spool and was flat, but getting it there could be a chore. Many a time I watched some poor operator pick up a spool and it would simply come apart in her (usually a "her") hands. In the dumpster it went, it wasn't worth salvaging. The Opelika (Ampex) tape was about the worst offender for this because they just couldn't seem to tension it tightly enough at the factory, or perhaps it stretched in shipping, I don't know. The Scotch was best and Memorex was in the middle. These reels of blank tape came stacked face-on in larger boxes, and were separated by nice foam pads that were discarded (I think I may still have a few at home salvaged for use as packing material).
OK, so the line operators punch the start buttons on the master playback machines, now what? Well, that varied a bit depending upon what form of tape was being produced. In all cases there were rows of recording decks (slimmer versions of the Ampex studio decks, what else?) which were slaved to the playback output. Well, sort of. When the operator pushed the start button on the master machine, the slave recorders did not start automatically. They would go up and down the lines and start each one individually. Why you may ask? Because then they wouldn't all run out of tape at once giving the operators a chance to change the blank feed reels in a staggered manner. The first tape on a reel was always discarded, as was the last. The entire reel of tape was recorded from the continuously looping master. The end of track tones would be used as flags later to cut the reel of tape apart into the final products. There were 10 or 12 slave recorders per master unit, and there were five or six dedicated 8-track lines, four dedicated cassette lines, and two open reel lines. I might be +/-1 line each, it has been almost 30 years after all.
I know this is an
8-track interest website, but I want to explain each of the three different formats in
order to convey a sense of just how different the 8-track production process was from the
other two.
The open reel tapes were the simplest. The entire reel of blank tape (I believe it was 6000-8000 feet in length) was recorded and re-reeled onto a precision reusable reel (with sides, of course). The amount of tape on a reel varied because the thickness of the tape varied. It was then fed into machines that would cut and transfer the recorded reel onto individual "consumer" reels that the operators would mount into the machine one-at-a-time. The machine would transfer the recorded tape until it encountered the pilot tones, then stop and back up until they were found again. The operator would then splice on a length of leader, splice a leader onto the start of the next recording, change the output reel and go again. These machines ran at very high speeds and used pneumatic disc brakes to stop the reels. They were a real pain to balance so that the tape was neither stretched nor unwound as it stopped. They were also incredibly noisy, and you could hear them "screech" to a stop all over the plant. The individual reel of tape was then labeled, boxed, and packed. QC would sample these tapes on a random basis, often listening to the entire tape for defects. They could catch things most people wouldn't even notice (like flutters, which often indicated that the tape had been stretched).
The cassette processes were similar, though a bit more complicated. The winding machines were made by Phillips, and had semi-automatic splicers. After recording, these reels were taken to another area where they were hand-inserted into partially assembled cassette halves (including the rollers and other hardware), the tops were placed on, and then the whole shebang was ultrasonically welded together. Other manufacturers used screws to hold the halves together, but the welder was extremely quick and positive (and cheap of course). Naturally you could NEVER get them apart again without destroying the case halves, and if the welder was misadjusted, it would collapse the case halves enough to jam the rollers and hubs. Since these machines were complex and finicky, you might guess that I spent a significant percentage of my time working on them. From there the cassettes were labeled either by applying adhesive labels or by ink transfer pad printers (also a major maintenance headache, but cheaper than dirt when it worked). They were then placed into their miniature cases with the inserts, shrink-wrapped, boxed and stocked. Finished tapes were sampled at random for defects including the same sorts of audible problems as the open reel tapes, packaging defects, and of course to make sure that the welded halves wouldn't come apart short of total destruction.
And now, at last... the 8-tracks. First, about the tape: the tape we used mostly was Scotch, which unlike the earlier Scotch tape was pretty good. The Opelika, Alabama tape facility later developed a yellowish tape that I despised. It flaked off and gummed up everything. The early Memorex (black oxide) wasn't much better. The backside lubricant flaked off and looked a lot like disk brake dust with about the same bad effects (particularly when it stuck to the capstan).
My friend Ed from Ampex Corporate tape actually toured the Memorex factory (which used to be near San Jose). The Memorex tape started out as 4" wide mylar roll stock and was fed into a building-length horizontal machine. The coating(s) was(were) applied to the tape and it was basically dried and baked (this is a "calendaring" operation). At the exit it was slit into whatever widths were required, from 2" to 1/4" (at that time). Ampex was always looking for a way to save a buck, and that was the reasoning he recalled for the transition to the all-plastic pinch rollers. Of course as it turned out they were ultimately more durable. They caused a lot of problems in players though because the amount of "retention" the cartridge saw when inserted into a player was more critical with them. If the side retention roller (or pawl) that detains the cartridge into the player is a bit weak, the tape will slip on the capstan. If a bit too strong, it will mar the oxide when starting and stopping, and can permanently deform the tape if the player is switched off with the cartridge left in. The bearing surface of the roller on its support shaft can actually bind, skidding the tape on the pinch roller. Obviously that will do damage to the tape, if it doesn't wear it through completely. Remember that the typical setup is a plastic roller or roller hub on a plastic shaft. Cheap, huh? The padded or molded rubber rollers have some "give" to them and are therefore less critical insofar as the retention pressure is concerned. Of course plastic on plastic is not a good formula for longevity.