35mm Magnetic Film?

[Peter.H]

35mm Magnetic Film?

Hallo
I have seen an American recording that claims to have been recorded using 35mm magnetic film.



The writing on the label claims to have advantages over using normal magnetic tape?
The recording is on the “Enoch Light – Project 3 Total Sound” label.
There is a website with something on at http://www.enochlight.com/~enochlig/inde...el_History

Does anyone know anything about this method of recording? Why would it be better than magnetic tape? What is the equipment that is used to make recordings?

I have seen an ebay auction for 35mm Magnetic film. http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?View...%26fvi%3D1
Is this the same material used for recordings?
Any information please.

Grüße

Peter.

[Frank]

´
That’s the only kind of magnetic film I know. There are several widths, as 16mm or 17,5mm (so called split film)

Usually, magnetic films are used for motion picture soundtrack synchronization. The perforation insures absolute synchronization of sound and image. Since the copy of a movie runs frame by frame the sound is taken from the soundtrack in a kind of loop to get a smooth sound reproduction.

There are also magnetic film recorders which use the same principle of capstan and pinch roller like conventional audio recorders. I’ve no idea about the quality of the magnetic coating of magnetic films compared with high quality recording tape like SM468 or SM900. Furthermore, I’ve no idea who actually manufactures magnetic films except Pyral in France (www.pyral.fr) since Emtec / BASF are out of the business.

I see no reason why a recording of on a film should sound better then a carefully recorded tape. The fellows from the marketing dpt. Always find new words for old things….

Edit: Typo fixed

[Zelluloid]

Uiui, der Frank hat aber Ahnung..... dem ist nichts hinzuzufügen!

Sehr gut, Frank! :-)

Gruß
Martin

[Frank]

´
@ Martin: Wenn man magnetische Tonträger verkauft, sollte man etwas Ahnung haben. Die "Tonstudiotechnik"- Bücher von Johannes Webers liefern auch zu diesem Thema viele Informationen.

Ich hatte gehofft, Du könntest zu den Geräten mehr sagen... aber das in einer Fremdsprache zu tun ist nicht so einfach.

[Friedrich Engel]

Hello Peter,
more of the same: look for "Mercury Living Presence" in the Internet. As far as I know, these people were the first ones using magnetic film for 3-channel audio recordings. CDs made using these recordings are still available.

F.E.

[Frank]

´
A bit off topic: some time ago found a tape recorder which recorded 3 tracks on a ½” tape. I don’t remember the make, but I guess it was MCI or Ampex.

[Riho]

Hi,

I think there's no difference of sound quality because the magnetic material is still the same. The only differences are the motion speed, film width, perforation zona(s) and the basis (which probably is not made of polyester or acetate cellulose).

By the way, 17,5 mm is something new for me - never heared before. One rare format i know 9,5mm but never seen with my own eye. Why so many formats...?

Riho

[tape2]

Riho postete
Hi,
I think there's no difference of sound quality because the magnetic material is still the same. The only differences are the motion speed, film width, perforation zona(s) and the basis (which probably is not made of polyester or acetate cellulose).

By the way, 17,5 mm is something new for me - never heared before. One rare format i know 9,5mm but never seen with my own eye. Why so many formats...?

Riho

1) Magnetic film was produced on AC basis and later on PE basis. The total thickness is around 100 microns, AC version was thicker than PE. Therefore the contact to the magnetic heads is worse than with "normal" tapes wich measure about 18 - 50 microns thickness, resulting in more dropouts. This a disadvantage.
2) Normally magnetic film is driven by its sprocket holes to maintain absolute sync to picture, this leads to incresed wow and flutter compared to tape driven by a pinch roller. There is an exception, the MWA MB51 and its successors were driven by a pinchrollerless capstan, but they still use a sprocket reel to measure the speed. So again, no advantage over tape.
3) The speed of magnetic film at 25 fps is 47,5 cm/s, this is an advantage for high frequency performance, but a disadvantage because of more low frequency frequency response ripple.
4) The magnetic properties of magnetic film are generally worse than tapes, there never were magnetic film versions of PEM 468, SM 911 or SM 900.

So I do not see advantages in using magnetic film compared to "normal" tape at 1/4, 1/2, 1 or 2 inch width, apart from the more "conservative" magnetic coating which might be more stable for archiving. But you could use tapes like PER 528 or the older PER 555 which proved to be very stable.

Magnetic film was produced in widths of 35 mm and 17,5 mm (split film to save cost, half the width of 35 mm) for 35 mm film, and 16 mm for 16 mm film.

tape2

[Peter.H]

Hello,

Probably you are right - I cannot think of any reason why the film recordings would sound better?? One thing that all of the above systems / recordings have in common is that they originate from America. Could it just be that the Americans like to do things a little differently? (PAL/NTSC, 50/60Hz, 110/230Volts for example)

Peter

[Zelluloid]

All things Tape2 said are exactly right!

17,5mm Splitfilm has same perforations like 35mm, only on one side. its 35mm cut in two pieces (in length) and its ONLY magnetic for sound recording.

9,5mm is an old Amateur-format with a big picture, because the perforation is not at one side, but its in the middle of the film where the Bildstrich is (the line between two pictures). So 9,5mm has nearly the same picture size like 16mm, so its a sharp picture. 9,5mm raw-film is still available, but hard to find.

greetings
Martin

[hanns-d.pizonka]

Hello Peter,

Enoch light was born in 1905 in Canton (Ohio, USA) and died 1978 in New York (USA). Small and compressed Information about his life can be found here :

http://bigband-era.com/forum/cgi-bin/ult...001692;p=1
and here
http://www.rcb.uklinux.net/light/index.htm

Here can be found:
Records and CDs of Enoch Light and his Orchestras (I think the same can be found in the UK):

http://www.amazon.de/s/ref=sr_nr_seeall_...%3Apopular

Here can be found some Information about the 35-Millimeter-Film-Recording-Machine (Base AMPEX 350 ?? used by Mercury??)

http://www.soundfountain.com/amb/mercury.html

Enoch Light founded two Record Companies:
First „Grand Award“ (1956) and in 1959 „Command Records“, both Companies were sold in the beginning of the sixties to the ABC-Paramount and Light founded „Project 3“.

Greetings
H A N N S -D.

[Reel-to-reel-man]

Hello, I actually owned a 16mm magneto film recorder, made by Leevers Rich, what a monster!



The recorder had 3 decks, all of them driven from 2 capstan motors, there was a clutch operated system to engage the machines, the sprockets have a huge advantage that the tape was easier to synchronies.

[Frank]

´
In case you are looking for films - send me an eMail.

[Reel-to-reel-man]

My leevers went some time ago sad to say, it was just too big, in the end I stripped it down s the recorder had some connectors which were hard to find and ended up fixing other Leevers Rich machines.