Does anybody know anything about analog Nagras?

[Amadou]

We have a client who wants us to transfer his old quarter inch reel to reel magnetic audio tapes to digital. He says the audio was recorded on a Nagra in Stereo but he is not totally sure. Some of it was recorded in Mono. So here is the question: If we purchase a player that can play back the tape in stereo, can it also read mono? Follow up question: the client does not know at what speed the audio was recorded in. Are the players compatible with all speeds? What should we get to make sure we can read all his tapes? Thanj you.

 

[IronFilm]

If you get no luck here, you might like to ask over at jwsoundgroup where there are lots of old timers who have used Nagras extensively in the past.

 

[Mitch Gross]

You will need a Nagra to properly play back the Nagra tapes. A stereo unit can play back mono recordings. It will also be clear what speed to play back within a second or listening to the content. Get the latest model analog Nagra you can find, I believe that was the IV-S (Four-S).

I have to imagine these can be found dirt cheap these days. They are some of the most beautifully engineered devices you will ever see, and built rock solid tough. A crystal Nagra will keep incredibly accurate speed, and two small flathead screws are all that need to be turned to release the lid to hinge open so that you can get to the innards in case anything needs adjustment or service. The Nagra runs on a bunch of D-cell batteries for many hours, but you can probably hook it up to AC power. Be aware that your client likely has a LOT of tapes, at standard speed they could only hold about 15 minutes.

 

[IronFilm]

You will need a Nagra to properly play back the Nagra tapes. A stereo unit can play back mono recordings. It will also be clear what speed to play back within a second or listening to the content. Get the latest model analog Nagra you can find, I believe that was the IV-S (Four-S).

I have to imagine these can be found dirt cheap these days. They are some of the most beautifully engineered devices you will ever see, and built rock solid tough.

The Nagra IV still costs a pretty penny, nearly a grand to get a working machine on ebay is the cheapest I could find right now:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nagra-iv-l-2-input-reel-to-reel-tape-recorder/253748732945

Which is of course a complete steal compared to their original prices! But for something that old, is quite expensive, you could get a Zoom F8n for that instead!

I half suspect due to their famous build quality and famous reputation on film sets that their age is kinda turning them into "antiques" thus the higher prices than you might expect for something which from a practical aspect is basically worthless. (aside from tape transfers like the OP is asking about)

 

[Jim Feeley]

I have to imagine these can be found dirt cheap these days. They are some of the most beautifully engineered devices you will ever see...

A "recent" Nagra that has been recently serviced and known to be in good shape is surprisingly expensive... partly for the the reason you state above, and also because those who still have a bunch of tapes need/want a way to play them.

Maintaining a Nagra is craft, and there are very few people maintaining that craft. The OP here might want to consider suggesting that the person send their tapes to someone/somewhere with lots of experience working with Nagras.... Perhaps an archivist at a local university, someone at a long-established radio or TV station, or even a place in another country.

 

[IronFilm]

A "recent" Nagra that has been recently serviced and known to be in good shape is surprisingly expensive... partly for the the reason you state above, and also because those who still have a bunch of tapes need/want a way to play them.

Maintaining a Nagra is craft, and there are very few people maintaining that craft. The OP here might want to consider suggesting that the person send their tapes to someone/somewhere with lots of experience working with Nagras.... Perhaps an archivist at a local university, someone at a long-established radio or TV station, or even a place in another country.

Ah yes, I forgot about this, those old Nagras are not as easy plug in play as our modern electronics are in comparison.

 

[paulears]

If it's of indeterminate age, you need to watch out for neopilot - fitted to the mono machines that used a full track head. It recorded a tone on two narrow tracks close to the centre (although something in the back of my brain says they were on the edge?? (can't remember) The tone was flipped in polarity on one of them so they get ignored by the mono track which just has their tone cancelled - 50 or 60Hz, depending on where you were. This was used to sync the camera and audio recorder together. Playing one of these tapes back on a twin track machine produces a tone on both the audio tracks that you then need to process - and of course you can't just flip one, because then your audio vanishes!!

 

[Noiz2]

I would definitely send the tapes to someone with experience doing transfers who has the right machine.
I have done this before but I don't have the right machines anymore.

The big challenges are that Nagra used a custom EQ/Bias called "Nagra Master". Not all machines were set up that way but if these were recorded with Nagra Master you really want to transfer them with a machine set up for Nagra Master. It's kind of like transferring Dolby C recordings. If you don't play them through a machine set up for Dolby C they sound strange.

Also old analog tapes often need to be "baked" prior to playing. It depends on the tape the vintage and the storage conditions. Most tapes should be baked, but any tape from the 70's or early 80's and any tape with a black backing should absolutely be baked. If not there is a serious risk that the magnetic coating will be bonded to the back of the tape it's been touching and will literally peel off on playback. There is no fix once that happens. Baking tapes is not exactly rocket science but it does take some time and you have to be careful about magnetic fields and have good temperature control. Once baked you have a day or two to a week (maybe more if you are in a dry environment) to play it before you need to re-bake it.

We transferred thousands of hours of SFX tapes a bunch of years ago and it's a bit of a PITA. In some cases if the tape is really bonded you have to soak the whole thing in alcohol for days and then bake it.

Point is if you have never done it and these tapes are important to your client I would send them out because the risk of damaging or destroying them is not insignificant.

 

[IronFilm]

Just reading what paulears and Noiz2 said should scare any one off from trying it themselves if what is on the tapes matters at all!

 

[bryersen]

I had some 1/4' tape from the 60's transferred. Because the tapes had some heat damage, the digital files had to be sped up (or was it slowed slightly?) to get the voice to sound accurate. I knew the speaker on the tape, otherwise I wouldn't have known it was off a bit. Good luck!

 

[Noiz2]

Tape stretches with use, but heat damage might have made it shrink? And of course many older and lower price tape decks were not super accurate as to speed. That was one of the big pluses of the Nagra for film. On it's own it was crystal locked, so quite stable, and the pilot tone could be connected to the camera so the pilot tone tracked any camera speed variation. Then in post you could "resolve" the recording to the pilot tone. Cameras were not always super stable speed wise but projectors were very stable so this was a way to correct for that.

 

[S.Blanchardon]

We have a client who wants us to transfer his old quarter inch reel to reel magnetic audio tapes to digital. He says the audio was recorded on a Nagra in Stereo but he is not totally sure. Some of it was recorded in Mono. So here is the question: If we purchase a player that can play back the tape in stereo, can it also read mono? Follow up question: the client does not know at what speed the audio was recorded in. Are the players compatible with all speeds? What should we get to make sure we can read all his tapes? Thanj you.

You don't need specifically a Nagra to play back 1/4" tapes, any tape machine with the right head block (Stereo or Mono) will be just fine.

Nagra Master was a special alignment, most used were CCIR and NAB.

Nagra IV-S is Stereo, IV-L is Mono, you will not know until playing the actual tapes.

You can have a Stereo tape but recorded in Mono or dual Mono.

This is why tape were carefully labeled since you don't have the Metadatas of digital to know what is actually on them. What type of of alignment, if there was Dolby noise reduction, Mono Stereo or multitrack, who "hot" the magnetic signal was recorded, tape speed, etc...

 

[Mitch Gross]

On a side note, I kinda dug the appearance of a 50 year-old Nagra-SN in Mission: Impossible Fallout. A nice retro touch. Guess the theory was that old analog tech can't be hacked. Or that it just looked cool. Nagra inside a hollowed out book is so 1968.