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big band tapes sound awesome!

ConchBoy66

ConchBoy66

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so...being a rock and roll kinda guy, although I do listen to classical and jazz on occasion....I can't get over how my les and larry elgart tapes rock my stereo system... they sound soooo much better than my other tapes( and I have well over a hundred pre-recorded tapes)...are my other tapes worn or was there different methods used to record the earlier tapes?...just wondering
 
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Most rock tapes were duplicated at higher speeds than your big band tapes likely were. And often many rock tapes were 3 3/4 IPS. Many pre 1964 tapes were duplicated at 4x speed and 7 1/2 IPS. 1965 was when Ampex began issuing 3 3/4 IPS tapes and duplicating at 8x speed a lot more and higher later on.
 
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I have three Glenn Miller reel tapes and a Benny Goodman, they all sound amazingly good. The only other tapes I have are Led Zeppelin I through III (III is 7 1/2ips), and the big band tapes sound worlds better/clearer/more dynamic.
 
I don't know. I wonder if it's just the type of music. I have used tapes that were recorded years ago by the original owner. Big band and swing. Recordings were done off of the radio. They sound so nice to just sit and listen. It's just the music and the machine and the mood. It just works. :music:
 
Les & Larry were latter-day Big Band guys...But they knew what they were doing, & took advantage of the much better technology...
 
I've found lots od big band lp's and cassettes, but no reels yet.

Would love to though.

I will say that the big band cassettes sound pretty decent.
 
Still find cassettes fun! Easy to make. Each system here (3) and my '03 Subaru have cassettes. Got to hook up the TEAC. Made a tape of Harry James in HiFi and Benny Goodman. Awesome!
 
One of the BEST of the genre I found is Les Brown's "Concert Modern" (1958 Capitol) in 2-track. It's AMAZING! You can actually hear the brass musicians taking deep breaths on some of the solos.
 
Christmas Music !!! I was playing Ray Conniff and my son walked by the Teac and asked "what the heck is this machine"? ... today's X-Generation simply has no clue! LOL
 
Recording quality varies all over the map. I have a few commercial R2R's that sound very good-even though I do not like the music. The only one where I like the actual music, is so full of hiss to make it almost unplayable. Go figure :scratch2:

No matter the genre, there are losers and winners on sound/recording quality. R2R tapes stand a better chance of sounding better, simply because of lower duplication speeds and faster playing speeds. However, I have some Chrome 120us tapes that surpass many pre recorded R2R tapes.

I find more and more, that I can enjoy a great sounding recording of material that is not my primary listening preference. A great dynamic performance, recorded and played back with care and good equipment, is a joy to hear.
 
quote:I find more and more, that I can enjoy a great sounding recording of material that is not my primary listening preference

I'm right there with ya!.....I was testing the mechanical function on one of my machines with a Barbara striesand tape that I would never normally listen to and damn, when it started playing it sounded fantastic!
 
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