Commercially-released albums were made on 24-track tape machines for a very long period of time, approximately 1971 – 1995. Now, before 24-track machines were available there was always the possibility of ping-pong’ing, which can get you 8 solid-sounding tracks on a 4-track machine (and at least 20 on an 8-track) , and at some point in the 70s engineers were able to lockup two 24-track machines to get, I imagine, 46 tracks of audio plus timecode. But as early as 1973, Stephens Electronics of Burbank offered another solution: a 40-track, 30 IPS 2″ tape machine that still promised 40 – 2oK response. Users of these machines apparently included Leon Russell and Roy Thomas Baker; can anyone positively confirm any well-known records that were made on the Stephens 40-track?
A helpful dude has made the original Stephens catalog/spec sheet available online; click here to download the PDF (not my link).
Let’s get back to that advert tho… WTF is going on here?
Pensive lady
Drags 132lb tape deck along beach
Nonsensical ‘greek’ placeholder copy tells us nothing
Headline hails the freaks
There’s clearly some sort of Venus/Aphrodite metaphor at work here, but what exactly IT ALL MEANS remains a mystery (at left, a painting of Aphrodite by Fowler). I could find one other similar-period Stephens advert, and it’s a little quirky, but not as bizarre as beach-lady.
Any of y’all using these machines nowadays?
Many former Stephens users report that the machines compare well to Studer and Ampex in terms of sonics. They were also designed for utmost mechanical and electronic reliability; designer John Stephens apparently had a background in aerospace engineering. The machines seem to be few and far between these days, commanding prices well above that of similar vintage Studers.
One of the Stephens special features (other than its track count) was its portability, because you could separate the meters from the deck for easy shipping (compared to an A80). Hence all the lugging and train tracks.
nice one man. i think u might be right. good call.
Can you confirm if the transport is a 3m? looks like a iso loop to me…
I believe Queen and Giorgio Moroder made use of 40 track Stephens machines. I had one of his 24 track machines myself. John Stephens was a genius.
Some early Stephens decks used 3M transports but John came up with something different later on – a precursor to some of the later high-speed data tapes and also on some video recorders. The later 811 and I believe all of the 821 machines had a very unique system with no pinch roller and only two motors. Tape speed was sensed using the tape reversing idler and an optical pickup underneath it. Control electronics in the bottom steered current to each reel motor to maintain backtension (total current) and speed control (current steering). Very clever idea, sometimes very tough to fix.