Noise reduction for my Studer A807?

Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 4:58 pm

Hello everyone,

I just have an used (but in good shape) Studer A807.
Today I have recorded some music to test it and I was very surprised to hear how good and different the sound was!

I did an CD audio extract of a song in Sounforge, then recorded the same track into the Studer through my cheap Tascam M30(without any EQ) and sent the tape into Soudforge.
Then I created a project in Cubase SX and listened to the 2 versions.
The difference was enormous, maybe because the studer had the benefit to have a mixer in front of it?

Anyway, I noticed that there was some noise (white noise?) on the studer version of the song. So I plan to buy a noise reduction.
I would like to know if there is one NR which is better than others for R2R? maybe a DBX something?

Thanks for advices!
Jazzo

Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 5:10 pm

The Studer sounded better, but it wasn't because there was a Tascam mixer feeding it!!!! You should hear one of those machines with a REAL mixer pushing it!
I'd suggest that you either learn to operate it with a low-noise desk, with everything properly calibrated, or investigate a Dolby NR system that was designed for that machine.

Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 5:52 pm

Yeah I know, Tascam is cheap... but that's all I had at the moment.
Rca to XLR do not help I think...

The fact is that I don't know if there was a Dolby NR system designed for the Studer machine! That's why I'm looking for advices.

I know dbx made some noise reduction system but there are so many of them I don't know what to choose!
any experiences?

Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 4:33 am

There are many causes for noise on a machine like that:
Tape quality
Head conditions
Component conditions
Alignments/calibrations
Operating conditions
And many others, NONE of which are improved by an outboard NR unit.
If you want to get the best out of that machine, you need to learn more about it and how to tweak it. Throwing an outboard box at it is not a smart thing to do at this stage. I remember that, in the "golden age" of Studer's analog days, their recorders were used with NO NR. I used to have a Revox (Studer's "hi-fi" line), it did great recordings of live mixes, no NR for that. Do some homework. Or sell it Smile

Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 9:36 am

Sell it? NO WAY Wink

I love this machine and want some more!

You're right, I will try to do some research and test. I know that heads are good. Maybe tapes and calibration.

Thanks

Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 11:43 am

The previous guy is right. If the machine is not correctly aligned and biased, you'll be there all day trying to get rid of noise.
Most of the best stuff I was ever involved with was 30ips at Ampex +6 operating level with 2dB of overbias at 10 Khz and Ampex 456/499. Personally, I preferred MCI machines, but there was a lot of Studer fans out there.

Best NR
Telefunken
Dolby SR
DolbyA/dBx

The dBx system was actually capable of very good noise reduction, but it only had one compander system, (ie was not bandsplit into 4 with different attack/release rates for the 4 bands), so you couldn't use it on bass, piano (sharp transients), drums. Pretty much most of your basic tracks actually. Good on vocals, guitars, saxes.

The Telefunken system was developed because they had made a 32-track machine on 2" tape, but had had to reduce the operating level to such an extent they were now down in the tape noise. 1:1.5 ratio companders, band split not level concious.

One studio in London (Angel Studios, actually) did a comparison of Ampex ATR124 with Telefunken NR against Sony 3324, through a Neve console; no prizes for guessing which sounded the best. Analog blew the digits away!

BUT, any NR system requires the whole system to be well calibrated, especially Dolby which is level-concious. I could get into whether Americans could line up tape machines properly................

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