MOMSR is dedicated to the preservation of the technology of magnetic sound recording and its impact on music, broadcasting, film/video and science. While most content deals with the history and manufacturers of the reel to reel tape recorder, or tape deck, we cover many aspects of magnetic recording.
In addition to the vintage technology, our Museum documents the significant individuals who invented, manufactured, engineered and produced audio creating the sounds in our lives!
(pictured) Robert Metzner, founder Califone & Roberts Recorders with his son Richard and wife Esther.
Go to MOMSR/Phantom YouTube Channel • Go to all prior home content
Updated sound proofing at MOMSR
Cool article on Shure's 100th birthday in the April 2005 MIX magazine • This is the 1934 Shure 3A microphone in our collection. Interestingly, Shure documentation only shows the Shure 3B microphone. Shure 1936 catalog shows the 3A available.
Go to more about our MOMSR mic collection
RTM Recording the Masters • FB RTM Tape manufacturing tour in France
Interviews
Manufacturers
Extensive vintage archive
The vintage collection
Ads, catalogs and docs
See below We documented our collection and made the 7 hours of video available on line!
comment from reviewer
"The most comprehensive information about the open reel, or analog reel to reel tape recorder!"
TEAC corporation was founded in August 1953 (In this year, NHK, the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation started television broadcasts in Japan). Factory was set up in Musashino City, Tokyo for the manufacture and sale of semi-professional audio components for recording and playback along with general electrical appliances. Originally named the Tokyo Television Acoustic Company it employed Katsuma Tani (left), a former aviation and aeronautics engineer where he established a reputation as a highly qualified creator of audio equipment. Known as the "King of Sound Technology" he had developed the first photo disc cutting system.
In 1956 his brother, Tomoma Tani, brought home a hand made 3-motor, 3 head stereo tape recorder. This sparked Katsuma's interest in reel-to-reel tape recorders. Confident they could engineer a better tape recorder the Tani brothers founded the Tokyo Electro-Acoustic Company on December 24th, 1956. The name was later changed to TEAC. The factory was set up in Chitose-cho, Sumida Ward, Tokyo for the production of audio components, measurement and optical equipment and tape recorders.
TEAC's goal was to be a leader in magnetic recording technology. In these early years when "hi-fi" was not a well known word, Tokyo Electro Acoustic Company developed a prototype of 3-motor open-reel tape transport system. In subsequent years TEAC introduced the world's first open-reel tape deck which had an automatic reverse mechanism. With this innovative product made in Japan the Tape-based hi-fi audio has begun.
Go to MOMSR profile of Teac /Tascam
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Here's a wonderful history on the impact of a Teac 3340. MOMSR recently received a donation of an excellent Teac 3340 from Steve Counter and his wife Lynn. Here's Steve's information on the 3340's history and a couple of photos.
A couple of us had taken a road trip from Denver to LA where I had a family connection who was high up in the Hollywood entertainment sector. That got us a tour of Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank where we got to see a real recording studio, a sound stage in fact - really big studio - and drop by a session in progress. The session was a vocal comping session but i wouldn't know until much later what exactly that meant. The session was for a film soundtrack project, the song was The Way We Were for the film of the same name and the artist was Barbra Streisand. Armed with that experience we went back to Denver and set to work building our little four track recording studio with the The upshot of all of this that I got pretty good at jockeying the 3340 and discovered I had a little bit of a knack for this recording thing. I started recording other bands, friends and musical acquaintances which eventually led to a 40 year career as a professional recording engineer and mixer working in studios in Denver, Phoenix and San Francisco Bay Area where i've recorded projects at Starlight Sound, The Plant, Prairie Sun Recording, Coast Recorders,Fantasy Studios and FM Recorders where I was Chief engineer for 15 years., I'm retired now but I had a good run and a few multiplatinum projects over the years with En Vogue, Digital Underground, Tupac Shakur, Tony Toni Toné, Club Nouveau among others.
I'm extremely pleased that it is going to a group of analog tape recorder enthusiasts for whom "analog" is something more than a promotional buzzword for selling plug-ins. Yes I work "in the box" now as does most of the world, but I've also done more audio alignments on Studier, Sony, MCI, Otari and even a Lyric or two, tape machines than anybody should have to, and I'm one of the few people in the world who can fly a Euphonix 2000M-96 console. All in all, I was very happy to discover your museum and very pleased that you can add my "old reliable" 3340 to your collection. Cheers, Steve Counter One of Steve’s old band mates was able to locate a photo of the TEAC in place in the studio on Gilpin Street, in Denver Colorado. The first photo shows the TEAC in place in the studio. If you have questions about the set up or other gear, Steve can fill in the blanks. The second photo is of Cliff Eager at the Gilpin street studio. He was a friend of Steve and the band, back in the day. Cliff Eager worked with Energy, the Doobie Brothers, Charley Pride, and Ray Wylie Hubbard, to name a few. He hand built a lot of gear back in the day because it didn’t yet really exist in the wild. Again, Steve can tell you more if you’re curious. Hope you enjoy the photos! Best, Lynn Ampex professional photos donated to MOMSR by David Bockholt • more at this link • Link to all photos pdf David Bockholt's dad Walter Bockholt worked at Ampex from 1958 to 1987. He passed in 1996.
Of note, I included a US PATENT invented by my father Walter Bockholt. It has to do with testing and controlling the distortion levels in magnetic recording. I do not know what some of the equipment in the stack of photos are, but some to have labels on the edge of the photo or you can make out the model number in the photo. My dad Walter on the far right above
Ampex Pro Photos donated to MOMSR by David Bockholt View David Bockholt's Ampex FR 600 demo produced by Ampex's Instrumentation Advertising Division. Originally on 16mm film, David graciously had it converted to digital and made available on YouTube. David also converted Ampex's 16mm "The Miracles of Magnetic Recording" and made it available at this link.
MOMSR and ACC MBP&T tours - In April of 2022 Connie and Mark Vedder, along with their daughter Emily Jablon, visited Chris and Martin Theophilus at Phantom Productions in Texas and toured the Museum of Magnetic Sound Recording. Also Martin facilitated Tim Dittmar's providing a tour of Austin Community College's Music Business, Performance and Technology studios. This video of their tours was shot and edited by Mark Vedder. view video MOMSR presents the Evolution of the Austin Community College Music Business, Performance and Technology program video link A Restoration page has been added showing some of the work since 1997 - link
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In 1977 our Highland Sound Company (later Phantom Productions, Inc.) received our order of a Teac A-3340, A-3300 2T, Model 2 mixer and 2 Teac ME120 mics. It was pretty exciting as it enabled so many new options. The new equipment all laid out in photo.
Hi Martin, The machine was purchased around 1973 - 74. The band I was in at the time had a band house and we decided to build our own recording studio in the basement of the house because no one told us 'hey, you can't build a recording studio". We had only the vaguest notion of what we were doing but we thought we'd figure it out as we went.
Teac 3340 as the centerpiece. We outfitted the control booth (yeah it was literally a booth) with the 3340, A Pioneer 1/4 track stereo tape recorder for a mix down machine, a pair of DBX 117 companders for noise reduction, and a trio of Shure microphone mixers. We used a Kenwood hifi amplifier to drive a pair of Auratone Cubes for monitoring and a separate Kenwood amplifier for headphones. We built a homemade patch bay to connect everything together and Presto! Recording Studio...
Despite not using it since the late 70's I've kept the 3340 all these years for sentimental reasons as it is the machine that literally "started it all" for me. I have rather fond memories of it.
One of the 1962 newsletters from AMPEX in Redwood city where my dad worked listed Ken Patton as the company photographer. He would be the judge for employee photo contests.
