jfn music-the listening room: September 2017

9/01/2017

Vintage Home Audio Memories

As just as a testament to how far we have come in home recording technology: my recent posting on multi-track recording that can be done from your Android phone. Take a look at these once state of the art home recording reel to reel machines. I used to have several of these which recorded sound on 1/4" magnetic tape. We used to measure wow & flutter, frequency response, harmonic distortion, and recorded at the fastest speed 15 ips (inches per second) or 7.5 ips, to get the best sound quality. I still get nostalgic over this old equipment because as a teenager, they were beyond my means. Admittedly the equipment was very well made and still can be found on eBay as "vintage audio". Gosh that is so 1970's.... But today we have none of these problems and can record perfect audio, zero wow & flutter, zero noise, and it can take place anywhere we get inspiration. So the technology cannot be matched today and has become cheap enough for anyone to buy. Enjoy this trip back down memory lane, where things were a lot more difficult, expensive, and time consuming.