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Question for the Nagra aficionados...


Issadore

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The external resolver has nothing to do with the recording of the TC track.  As I said, the best course of action might be to remove the TC board from the recorder.  Nagra designed this to be a relatively simple field-service, since in the early days of TC-on-1/4"-tape a recordist needed to be able to swap back to Pilotone sync recording easily since it took several years to get all production on board with TC.  (In fact, the usage of TC vs. Pilotone was never universal.)    This required putting a Pilotone board in the IV-STC.  The "Harvey Mod" did not precede the factory Nagra IV-STC, it was in fact a reaction to it, or more exactly its price, lack of features, and operational +ergonomic issues.  (Most of which Harvey and Andy solved, including the ability to change between TC and Pilotone with the turn of a switch.)  The Cue Track could be used for exactly that, recording a low-fi cue track of comments by a producer etc during the course of a recording, or a Pilotone signal.  The system that Coherent Communications (and production facilities like One Pass Inc in SF) used recorded BOTH Pilotone AND TC (from Ivan K's external TC generator) in the Cue Track, as a sort of "belt-and-suspenders" method, and had custom made gear in their telecine bays to filter out one signal or the other for syncing.

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29 minutes ago, tourtelot said:

God bless the Harvey Mod.  One of the best decisions I ever made.  It fixed SO many UI problems!

 

D.

No argument from me--so much better than the stock IV-STC in very aspect, even xtal accuracy!   But I had Harvey Himself on hand to help me with mine....  (RIP Harvey.)

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Just now, Philip Perkins said:

... in the early days of TC-on-1/4"-tape a recordist needed to be able to swap back to Pilotone sync recording easily since it took several years to get all production on board with TC.  (In fact, the usage of TC vs. Pilotone was never universal.)    This required putting a Pilotone board in the IV-STC.  ....

 

My assumption was that the TC went to the centre track so feeding any signal (or 'silence') to the centre track would bypass the TC. Seemed a little extreme to have to open up a machine and modify a board to cancel it - you might be doing this every other day! Unscrewing a tuchel (and remembering not to lose it) seemed a simpler solution. Apologies for leading you down a blind path. If I were you I'd probably disable it at the board anyway, since it's hardly much use to you and a potential annoyance for bleed down the road (after all, you could always reengage it if desired).

 

Best, Jez

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Yes, people swapped those boards out quite often in the early days of CTTC recording with Nagras, they had no choice since the acceptance of CTTC for sync in post required a whole new suite of very expensive (and cantankerous) technology so the transition was slow.   There was a period of a few years in which a recordist had to ask about what flavor of sync was wanted on every job, with a lot of misinformation passed on by clueless production people.  (As I said, this was one of the Harvey Mod's advantages--it could do CTTC, Pilotone or nothing recorded at the turn of a switch.)  Taking the sync board out is quite simple.

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Aloha, for cleaning the Nagra deck lids, A product called Novus works extremely well. It comes in three versions, Novus no.1 for clean and protect, Novus no. 2 restore and refinish, Novus no. 3 for repair and prepare. No. 2 is best for you to remove fine scratches and abrasions. Contact them for more information at 1-800-548-6872. For cleaning the rest of the Nagra including the heads simply use 91% denatured alcohol. Has worked great on my Nagras for many years. Thanks

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1 hour ago, Clay Reeves said:

Aloha, for cleaning the Nagra deck lids, A product called Novus works extremely well. It comes in three versions, Novus no.1 for clean and protect, Novus no. 2 restore and refinish, Novus no. 3 for repair and prepare. No. 2 is best for you to remove fine scratches and abrasions. Contact them for more information at 1-800-548-6872. For cleaning the rest of the Nagra including the heads simply use 91% denatured alcohol. Has worked great on my Nagras for many years. Thanks

 

Aloha Clay. Thanks for the recommendation! I will give these products a try. I appreciate the recommendation. 

On 5/29/2018 at 9:28 AM, Philip Perkins said:

The external resolver has nothing to do with the recording of the TC track.  As I said, the best course of action might be to remove the TC board from the recorder.  Nagra designed this to be a relatively simple field-service, since in the early days of TC-on-1/4"-tape a recordist needed to be able to swap back to Pilotone sync recording easily since it took several years to get all production on board with TC.  (In fact, the usage of TC vs. Pilotone was never universal.)    This required putting a Pilotone board in the IV-STC.  The "Harvey Mod" did not precede the factory Nagra IV-STC, it was in fact a reaction to it, or more exactly its price, lack of features, and operational +ergonomic issues.  (Most of which Harvey and Andy solved, including the ability to change between TC and Pilotone with the turn of a switch.)  The Cue Track could be used for exactly that, recording a low-fi cue track of comments by a producer etc during the course of a recording, or a Pilotone signal.  The system that Coherent Communications (and production facilities like One Pass Inc in SF) used recorded BOTH Pilotone AND TC (from Ivan K's external TC generator) in the Cue Track, as a sort of "belt-and-suspenders" method, and had custom made gear in their telecine bays to filter out one signal or the other for syncing.

 

Thanks for this information Phil, I appreciate it! I will have the guys at Trew in LA show me how it's done. i don't want to botch anything up. 

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