Does anyone know what this sound effect is or where to get it?

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Copy Paste only with sound now. Still working at this move ehh? I wonder how this thread will end.

[Greg Miller]

He's going to name his film "The Dirty Apocalypse in Chinatown" or maybe "Brokeback Kane Massacre."

[Christopher Young]

I'll play. A wet rubber glove sliding on glass then coming to a sudden stop? :)

Chris Young

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Originally Posted by Greg Miller

He's going to name his film "The Dirty Apocalypse in Chinatown" or maybe "Brokeback Kane Massacre."

“Sin-e-ma”
A deranged indie filmmaker makes 7 cinematic kills. The first victim he hits on the head with a telephoto lens yelling compression.

[Greg Miller]

Originally Posted by Christopher Young

I'll play. A wet rubber glove sliding on glass then coming to a sudden stop? :)

Chris Young

The sound of your doctor pulling on a latex exam glove. Or you, a few moments later.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Originally Posted by Pete Cofrancesco

I wonder how this thread will end.

I don't know, but the end is probably at least three pages away.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

I don't know, but the end is probably at least three pages away.

He seems to have mellowed. I’d thought by now we’d be knee deep in the intractable problems of coping a mainstream movie with no budget and a TI Rebel…

[Greg Miller]

It's definitely *not* a stylus skating across a bunch of grooves on a phonograph record. It's too smooth for that. The skating stylus would have a much different waveform.

Of course it's easy enough to extract that one brief bit of sound from the overall track. Once it's isolated, you get a better idea of what might have been the original source.

But that doesn't answer the question: how was it created; where did it come from? And we can only speculate about that. I don't think it's one simple raw actual recorded sound. It might be sped up, slowed down, have vibrato added, plus some reverb, etc.

If you really want that *type* of sound, which sounds "squeaky" to me, get out your mic and some squeaky things (some good suggestions above, a balloon, a really oil-free pane of glass, etc.) and experiment. You will end up with something different (but maybe similar), which might actually be a better length or pitch to fit your particular track.

[Paul R Johnson]

And of course we find low sounds and speed them up, or even just pitch shift them now, or find high ones and slow them down. I’ve just bought the model of reel to reel that I owned in 1980, and they were great for making new sounds. Remember music concrete?

[Greg Miller]

Number nine ... number nine ... number nine ...

I don't remember too much of the early experimental stuff, but I certainly remember Sergeant Pepper's.

Tape decks used to be "the" way to play around. I used pitch shifting, vari-speed, looping, reverse play, flanging, and of course the ubiquitous tape echo, in local radio production. It rarely drew comments so maybe nobody noticed. I might have been ahead of my time, or, then again, I simply might have been bad. That seems so prehistoric now that we have digital editing and manipulation.

I'm curious what kind of deck you got, Paul.

[Paul R Johnson]

This is the one I currently have and am swapping it for a slightly different version on Saturday. This one doesn’t have 15ips but has Dolby I wanted 15ips, and not bothered about the Dolby, as that version would have switched it out at high speed for licensing reasons. Dolby at 15ips isnt allowed.

[Greg Miller]

That looks like a nice machine, Paul, and certainly in very clean condition. I've never seen a Ferrograph in the flesh, here in the states.

If that machine has Dolby, I'm guessing it's Dolby B (or was it C?) as I think Dolby A (4 band) was always a separate stand-alone unit. And I'm pretty sure Dolby A *could* be used at 15IPS if you wanted to do so.

I'm curious about the two pairs of tone controls. I'm guessing those were somewhere in the playback chain. I've never seen a recorder that had tone controls in the record chain. I'm curious whether those affected only tape playback, or whether they affected the "output" circuits, whether the "input" or "tape" source was selected.

Anyway, congrats on getting it! I hope you have some old archival tapes to listen to.

[Paul R Johnson]

I had at first a series 7 - mid 70s, then a super 7, then a logic 7 - very much the same machines with cosmetic upgrades until the logic, which was the first with button control, not a rotary mechanical knob.

These machines came in many variations. normal was 1 ⅞ IPS, 3 ¾ IPS, 7 ½" IPS - this was available in quarter and half track versions, with or without Dolby B - this was available on all speeds. The High speed version started at 3 ¾ IPS, and had 15 IPS as the top speed. Dolby B was a domestic noise reduction system, so there was an interlock on the 15 IPS speed to prevent it engaging. This was on the logic 7 and the Super 7 - I cannot remember the series 7 having a dolby option. Oddly the series 7 could take 8" rather than 7" reels - super and logic had 10 ½" NAB spool capacity. Another option was loudspeakers - to eliptical speakers in the case sides and a stereo 10W amp - this was the idea with the tone controls - replay only treble and bass. Record was left/right or stereo. You also had the option of recording on say the right channel through the mic input and the left hand channel's output would be re-recorded, via the right channel line in so you could do sound on sound. Take your guitar recorded on the left and add the mic to it, then replay that and add another on the left track - you could easily do half a dozen adds like this. Loss of course with each bounce but it worked. The mic input was surprisingly forgiving, so on a low setting it was happy with a guitar plugged in. Output wise, speaker level and 600Ohm balanced line. The logic had a change to the head design - the same spec but a different shape - which allowed the tape path to be pressure pad free. Series 7 and Super 7 had felt pads on all heads. Logic has none, but a metal shield falls over the replay head to reduce noise piclup from stray magnetic fields.

The only real problem was discovered in the 80s when the rubber parts started to go soft, then sticky, eventually crumbling away. Here in the UK (this is turning into a history lesson, sorry) historically here we had only a few professional or semi-professional brands. Homegrown ones, like Ferrograph (who turned into Neal-Ferrograph, and made the police station interview recording machines) and Brennell made the popular machines. Revox of course were Swiss company with Willi Studer at the helm. The BBC started getting modified Revox machines from the UK ASC company, who took brand new Revox chassis and took bits away and added more broadcast facilities - spaces for splicers, removal of knobs that weren't needed - that kind of thing. Other popular european machines were from Grundig, and domestic machines from people like Elizabethan, but these were quite domestic in features. Tandberg in Skandinavia had some pro machines too, that were used in schools and colleges. Ferrograph were not as expensive as Revox, and Revox much cheaper than Studer, but we also had a few Phillips machines - but they were hifi products really, and all 4 track. Of course the machine we sold a few of that I always wanted, the Technics 1500 was a gorgeous looking machine, but out of my price range. I bought a nearly new Ferrograph from my boss - a Super 7, then got a Logic in part exchange, but stupidly I sold it to buy a Teac 3440. Never had another 2 track until now. I did see a few EMI machines but never saw any in my own area, just London. I lost interest in analogue as soon as digits arrived. First one was a Sony F1 betamax recorder which had a digital audio box - so you could record stereo onto a betamax cassette. Then DAT on Panasonic or Technics machines. They were identical apart from the Technics had copy management and only did 48K, while the Panasonic did not have SCMS and would do 44.1 or 48KHz. I had no need to go back to reel to reel.

History lesson over!

[Greg Miller]

I assume the "Wind" knob controls motor power and thus tape tension? What's the V/H switch for ... it can't be vertical and horizontal ... or can it?!

In reality I'm glad I'm not adjusting brakes and aligning heads any more. But in my fantasy world, I sometimes miss tape. I feel as if I'd get a somehow "better" recording (or maybe a "real" recording) if I used a Nagra IVs, rather than one my digital whatevers. But then I come to my senses and realize that today's digital audio is incredibly better than tape could be. Besides, it's much easier to transport a digital recorder (weight < 1 pound) compared to the old Ampexes I used that ranged from 45 to 60 pounds. Those Ampii also cost roughly $1,000.00 or more in 1965, which is ~$9,000.00 today, compared with a few hundred for most digital recorders. Hmmm, weight ratio ~60:1, price ratio ~60:1. No wow, no flutter, no head wear, no need for Dolby, etc. And of course infinite editing and processing capability. This *is* progress.

Still, that Ferrograph looks like a very nice machine. Kind of makes me wonder whether I could easily find one here in the US. (Hmmm, I wonder what brand Richard Nixon used.)

[Bob Hart]

It sounds like RF interference being tuned through on a radio receiver and tuned back across, something someone may have discovered and thought would be a cool effect.