Ampex reverse tone, first reversing 4-track deck
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KentTeffeteller
Gimpus Stereophilus!
1965 was when Ampex began using the reversing tones. The first auto-reverse playback machines using this system were from Ampex. The 1100 family. Most of the earliest auto-reverse tape machines were mainly background music system reproducers.
jan_stevns
Super Member
If memory serves me right - we used 3 huge Scully tapedecks and a Reddifusion controller to distribute MUZAK here in Denmark - the tapes also had "Ampex" signals to tell the controller what to do.
KentTeffeteller
Gimpus Stereophilus!
And the Scully machines you used were also the 14" 270 playback decks. FM Radio automation systems in the tape era used boatloads of them. Rewind was frightfully fast as they had Maytag spooling motors. You ducked if the hubs were not locked down, lock thy reel hubs. The tapes used for radio automation and Muzak had 25 hertz signals for stopping the tape at the end of a selection/event advance to next source commands. Which was the standard cue tones used in broadcasting even now. Subaudible except for those with really bass efficient setups. Know about these machines well as I maintained a fleet of them as engineer and operated them too during my airshift.
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jan_stevns
Super Member
It was LJ-10 decks - we ran 3 decks each played 6 hours ( 2 x 3 )
there was a que in tone to set the start point, at the end a que tone to stop and engage reverse - at the end a que tone to tell the controller to switch to the next tapedeck (the deck that just had finished playing was set to forward play and stop.
We had a line out monitor system that listened to the outgoing signal - if silence for more than 10 seconds, a backup player was engaged and it audio was send out on the lines.
Later reddifusion made a cd system with longplay and suce a player was used .....
(those Scully'ies never failed
there was a que in tone to set the start point, at the end a que tone to stop and engage reverse - at the end a que tone to tell the controller to switch to the next tapedeck (the deck that just had finished playing was set to forward play and stop.
We had a line out monitor system that listened to the outgoing signal - if silence for more than 10 seconds, a backup player was engaged and it audio was send out on the lines.
Later reddifusion made a cd system with longplay and suce a player was used .....
(those Scully'ies never failed
KentTeffeteller
Gimpus Stereophilus!
Didn't deal with too many LJ-10 machines, but the few I cared for seemed to never have appreciable downtime. They were low maintenance and ran and ran. Wish we had had more of these machines in use, I loved how reliable and easy to maintain they were. Beat the ReVox and the ITC playback decks, but cost rather more as well.
