In memorial: Paul Degville

BrownhillsBob — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 12:24:48 +0000

Following on from the sad news of the passing of Paul Degville, Ian Bourne has been back in touch to

A sad announcement

BrownhillsBob — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 02:08:45 +0000

A few people have contacted me now to inform me of the sad passing of Paul Degville. Paul was a grea

Crown jewels

BrownhillsBob — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I received a great email yesterday from reader David Danks relating to the great archive recordings

All jazz hands on tape deck!

BrownhillsBob — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 17:00:26 +0000

Here’s something very special, which I’m immensely proud and humbled to share with reade

Magic and loss

BrownhillsBob — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:13:49 +0000

Sometimes, the old technology doesn’t play ball… a sad moment. But at least Peter tried. Spare a tho

Nostalgia

soundlandscapes — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:17:22 +0000

Maybe it’s a sign of age but, much as I adore my twenty-first century digital sound recorders, the Nagra ARES-M, the H4N Handy recorder and the Sound Devices 722, there is nothing quite like the old reel-to-reel tape recorders to stir the emotions. There was always something rather comforting about watching those reels of tape going round and round.

I still have my Uher 4200 Report Monitor although sadly, it doesn’t get much use now except for replaying some of my old tapes.

This Uher has long since been superceeded first by DAT and now by digital recording devices but, even so, I simply can’t bear to part with it. It was amazingly heavy to carry around as anyone who had to carry one for any length of time will attest to. The BBC used the mono version of this recorder as their standard radio reporter’s recorder for many years. It was said that it was always easy to spot a BBC radio reporter because they all walked with a permanent list to one side, the infamous ”Uher Stoop”, generated by carrying the Uher around all day.

My Uher reel-to-reel recorder has many happy memories associated with it but not as many as the reel-to-reel recorder picured below. I found the picture at: http://www.schimmel.talktalk.net/tape/index.htm

This is a Ferrograph Series 4, the first tape recorder I used professionally. In my experience it justifiably earned its reputation of being “Built Like A Battleship”. I was first inroduced to the Series 4 in 1969 and immediately fell in love with it. It was a half track mono, 2 head, 2 speed, valve driven recorder whose most distinguishing feature was its utter reliability. Whilst the sound quality was probably not as good as the subsequent Series 6 and the flagship Series 7, it never failed to perform even in the most arduous conditions.

When I came across this photograph earlier today it was the first time I had seen a Ferrograph Series 4 since 1972 and it brought back many, many, happy memories not to mention a flood of nostalgia.

For the technophiles, you can find more detailed information about the Ferrograph Series 4 at:

http://www.morphet.org.uk/ferro/s4docs.html

http://www.ferrograph.info/pages/ferrograph-part-1-series%204%20servicing%20notes.pdf