Reel-to-reel tape shortage?

obscurity · Post by **obscurity** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 3:18 pm

Leaf wrote:Obsurity: Chomp on it.

Well, if you *insist* then I guess I could. But you'd have to help me find it first.

Leaf · Post by **Leaf** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 3:19 pm

obscurity wrote:
Leaf wrote:Obsurity: Chomp on it.
Well, if you *insist* then I guess I could. But you'd have to help me find it first.

Touche.

you nasty ho you.

Phil. Redmon. · Post by **Phil. Redmon.** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 3:21 pm

Oh man, speaking of MIDI & Bosendorfers, checkit-

In the new Popular Science mag (i think... it coulda been discover, or scientific american. I got all 3 this weekend...) they mentioned a new Yamaha piano that plays midi files. Like, PIANO, not keyboard. An actual modern player piano, with, like, an 80 gig internal hard drive.

they're 35 grand.(presumably, that's list

I wanna act all "intendin' to buy one," grab a mic and a flash drive full of midi fiddlin'z, and, you know......

[edit] this is, like, the greatest thread ever.

jack · Post by **jack** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 3:25 pm

jb wrote:<b>Hey, let's reel this thread in yo, before I get too tempted to freeze it. I'm part of the problem, so I'm gonna shut up unless I have something useful rather than incendiary to say.

JB</b>

reel this thread in. hehe. i get it....

wait that was neither useful nor incendiary. i guess i'll shut up now.

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 3:27 pm

Phil. Redmon. wrote:In the new Popular Science mag (i think... it coulda been discover, or scientific american. I got all 3 this weekend...) they mentioned a new Yamaha piano that plays midi files. Like, PIANO, not keyboard. An actual modern player piano, with, like, an 80 gig internal hard drive.

There's no doubt there's a new model, but that's been around for years.

Prior to that there were player pianos, and you all should check out the Gershwin piano roll recordings released about 8 years ago. This is George Gershwin recorded on paper rolls (back in the day), which are being played back on a coverted modern piano (I believe it was a Steinway) and recorded with modern techniques. Its pretty awesome. Obviously paper rolls are not as accurate as MIDI (or mics...heh) but its still a marvel to be heard.

tonetripper · Post by **tonetripper** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 3:29 pm

"Screw it man hit rewind!! I don't care what the man in the Blue suit says, he's not the one who has to sing it live!!! Reel it back!!!"

;p

tonetripper · Post by **tonetripper** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 3:36 pm

roymond wrote:Prior to that there were player pianos, and you all should check out the Gershwin piano roll recordings released about 8 years ago. This is George Gershwin recorded on paper rolls (back in the day), which are being played back on a coverted modern piano (I believe it was a Steinway) and recorded with modern techniques. Its pretty awesome. Obviously paper rolls are not as accurate as MIDI (or mics...heh) but its still a marvel to be heard.

So the converted piano was playing the roll back as it had been punched in the day to key the hammers? And do you know anything about the modern techniques of recording? Just curious. Link perhaps?

Phil. Redmon. · Post by **Phil. Redmon.** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 3:37 pm

So, the paper was punched as he played? That's awesome! I had always assumed piano rolls were somehow transcribed from written music and hand/mechanically punched!

And: I guess I did know such a thing existed, midi piano, i'm sayin. I must have seen one at the state fair years ago... I dunno. The fresh thought of it, in the context of this thread just got me all excited and imaginy.

And for some on-topicness:

THE SUM OF THIS THREAD IS AS FOLLOWS:

HALF SAY: DIGITAL GOOD, TAPE BAD.

HALF SAY: TAPE BAD, DIGITAL WORSE.

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 3:52 pm

I SAY TAPE GOOD, DIGITAL GOOD...
MUSIC IS THE BEST

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 4:07 pm

tonetripper wrote:So the converted piano was playing the roll back as it had been punched in the day to key the hammers? And do you know anything about the modern techniques of recording? Just curious. Link perhaps?

You need to look up how the rolls were created in the first place, I'm rusty...
As for links...
Amazon listing

Notes on the piano rolls in Gershwin's life

erik · Post by **erik** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 4:08 pm

roymond wrote:I SAY TAPE GOOD, DIGITAL GOOD...
MUSIC IS THE BEST

I Hate Music.

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 4:12 pm

Phil. Redmon. wrote:I had always assumed piano rolls were somehow transcribed from written music and hand/mechanically punched!

There were discussions on Conlon Nancarrow's piano roll compositions in the old boards.

Mostess · Post by **Mostess** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 4:43 pm

Phil. Redmon. wrote:Oh man, speaking of MIDI & Bosendorfers, checkit-

I worked at a music cognition lab at Ohio State an embarrasingly long time ago. We were studying piano performers (kids just learning, and experts). We used computer recordings of performances and analyzed the timing and force levels and all that to learn how people use phrasing and tempo and stuff to convey emotion, and how the motor system remembers and reproduces structured information like music, types of mistakes they make, effects of practice, all that.

We had access to a bosendorfer, but the detail in the recording information was far too much to deal with. If I recall, the timing was accurate to about a quarter of a millisecond, and the hammer velocities were measured directly from the hammer (as opposed to from the key) with a couple thousand levels (our technician did not let us use the loudest 25% or so of the range as it would actually break strings). The pedals were sampled each millisecond and had 127 positions.

Compare all that to MIDI: millisecond accuracy, 127 levels of volume (the Yamaha MIDI piano we used measured key velocity, so it was actually possible to record little keypresses that didn't actually move the hammers; so the softest 4 or 5 dynamic levels didn't actually make any sound, and the loud end maxed out pretty easily), and pedals that were either down or up. (For some reason, the pedals didn't use a continuous controller value like the pitch wheel or something).

We generally couldn't tell the difference between a typical bosendorfer performance played back on the bosendorfer and the same recording translated to MIDI (losing information) and back to bos. and then played back on the bosendorfer. Unless some weird half-pedalling is needed, or those extra low register keys on the bos, or something odd like that. That would make it obvious. But Joe Schmoe professional pianist playing Mozart Sonata ## wasn't really using perceivable shadings of dynamics beyond the 127 levels, or timing shifts less than a millisecond (actually motor jitter in an expert musician is still around 10 milliseconds) to convey much information.

But still, the resident piano performance professor (Donald Gren) was working on an album recorded using the bos, and then edited by hand to shape some phrases here and there, adjust some dynamics and pedalling, etc. Not synching to a click track, but playing back sections over and over and telling the tech guy "make that second G# a hair softer and a shade sooner" and stuff. Then they emailed the files to some tech guy in Vienna who recorded the automated performances in some famous hall (I believe with an audience).

Anyway, I have no beef with using tech stuff to tweak human performance. Groove and nuance are important, but some variance in timing and force comes solely from the fact that neurons and muscle fibres don't fire and contract exactly the same way each time. The best rhythmic performer I ever tested (expert drummer) still had about 5ms of jitter when tapping a simple 400ms beat. That's 20 bosendorfer samples, and 5 MIDI samples. The desire to fix it post production is very similar to the desire to get it that good in the first place.

thehipcola · Post by **thehipcola** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 5:11 pm

Mostess wrote: The desire to fix it post production is very similar to the desire to get it that good in the first place.

That pretty much says it all.

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 5:12 pm

The best thing about this new-fangled digitally stuff is that it's lighter and easier to carry that old big-arse amps and stuff. So roadies may one day be obsolete. Anything that means that musicians may no longer have to associate with fat sweaty men in tight black teeshirts who count to 2 slowly and regularly expose their bum-cracks is a good thing in my book.

Also, drum machines don't fart in the van like real drummers do.

Leaf · Post by **Leaf** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 5:46 pm

I think they should replace all musicians with a trained monkey. Oh, wait, they did that already.

Drummers don't fart.

They fluff. (a combination of a flam and ruff, slightly pungent, with an aftertaste similar to burnt almonds.)

Poor June · Post by **Poor June** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 5:13 am

Leaf wrote:I think they should replace all musicians with a trained monkey. Oh, wait, they did that already.

well shit... i was wantin' to see if they had the full video... cause i've only seen like 30 seconds of it...
but i have to purchase a player that costs money... 'monthly'... bleh sucks...

deshead · Post by **deshead** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 6:20 am

Leaf wrote:And it goes without saying, Ashley sings the melody. ...or DOES she??

Leaf wrote:its about using that magic to LIE. To do the "Ashley" for a current pop-culture example.

Leaf wrote:My only opinion on this topic is thus:

Ashley Simpson.

Leaf wrote:think they should replace all musicians with a trained monkey. Oh, wait, they did that already.

The Leaf doth protest too much, methinks.

j$ · Post by j$ » Thu Jan 20, 2005 7:24 am

Yes, Leaf, why don't you admit your crush / desire to be that woman and we can all move onto slagging someone else off for a change? :p

j$

thehipcola · Post by **thehipcola** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:27 am

Leaf wrote:Drummers don't fart.

They fluff. (a combination of a flam and ruff, slightly pungent, with an aftertaste similar to burnt almonds.)

....

and if memory serves, they get really pissed when other people fart ....

Leaf · Post by **Leaf** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 10:27 am

j$ wrote:Yes, Leaf, why don't you admit your crush / desire to be that woman and we can all move onto slagging someone else off for a change? :p

j$

Oh, I'd bang her, make no mistake on that. ("bang" is so romantic, is it not?) I feel sorry for that girl, sincerely sorry, cause she is the social watermark for ...whatever you wish to label this scenario as...

I love threads that have nothing to do with the actual thread title.... on topic, it occured to me that I much prefer digital as a medium though. As JB said, I really haven't heard anything that compares in fidelity (or convenience for that matter)... it seems the arguement regarding the value of tape over digital focuses on tone rather than fidelity.... or Ashley Simpson ....pant ...pant....squirt.

maybe I should have put a rating on this message first...

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 11:03 am

err, i think this thread got a bit off track. but anyway, i finally got around to getting a power cord for my revox a77 to play my very first recordings again, and suddenly realized that i don't have an empty reel for taking up the tape. anybody know where i can get one?
also, what about getting new tapes these days?
-bill