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Pilot frequency for Nagra SN


Nick Flowers

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New to the forum, so if this is in the wrong place, please forgive me.

I am trying to remember what the pilot frequency was for the Nagra SN. 25Hz is nagging at me but I am not utterly convinced - and am I right in thinking that it was recorded as an audio tone (not phase shifted as in the III, IV and 4.2?) and a high pass filter got rid of it on playback?

Thanks,

 

Nick.

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It's my understanding that Stu Cody was the first to make a resolver for the Nagra SN, bringing a product to market a year before Nagra. If I were interested in knowing specifics of Nagra SN sync particulars, my first inquiry would be to customer service at Nagra Audio:

http://www.nagraaudio.com/

If I didn't get a satisfactory answer, I would try to contact Stu. Presently he is running a company that provides batteries for cameras and other gear used in expeditions, mountain climbing, etc.

http://automatedmedia.blogspot.com/

https://twitter.com/stucody

(He seems to be semi-retired so he doesn't have so large a profile as when he was operating Boston's (Somerville) only professional post-production facility.

David

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  • 3 weeks later...
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We used the Nagra SNN with Ryder 30Hz crystals a lot in the 70s and early 80s, and I have to go back and re-transfer a lot of tapes from that area for an archival project.  The Ryder TSR-260 resolver really wasn't very good -- the audio path especially.  Has anyone ever modified the Kudelski 10Hz SN resolver to work with 30Hz tapes?  Of course, I suppose that I could just use the Ryder resolver to resolve the speed and split off the audio and filter out the 30Hz either with a Little Dipper (UREI 565) or digitally.

Cody did make the first resolver for the SNN -- we had one at the MIT Film Section -- but as I recall it didn't work all that well.  We also had a terrible device that let you resolve the tapes using a Nagra IV and an SLO and reel adapters -- but of course there were no tape guides so the azimuth veered all over the place.  The Ryder was the first real resolver that worked, but they were buggy.  Not looking forward to getting one working properly again!

Bill Day at Cody also developed a remote start-stop system for the Nagra SN that let you plant the SN on the person you were filming, with an ECM-50, and use it like a wireless mic.  This was built for Ed Pincus for his Diary films, but it had a lot of disadvantages.  We always argued with him about the disadvantages of being tied to whoever was wearing the SN -- the ridiculous running discussion was how you'd film a murder (!) -- Ed's line was that he'd wait for the person wearing the SN to discover it.  We thought that was way too restrictive!  (Note that MIT was a hotbed of autobiographical cinema-verite filmmaking back then, so one-person being able to shoot and record sound without a soundperson -- heresy here I realize -- was a big deal.  For you kids, this was long long ago, before "camcorders" -- I started out shooting one-person with my crystal-sync Auricon, a 10mm lens, a Nagra 4.2 around my waist, and a Sennheiser 804 in my left hand.  I was a lot stronger then....)

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There was not room on the SN or SSN heads for split phase pilot heads like on the 4 series, so 10Hz was first used because it would be inaudible across the playback head. The problem was that rumble from wind noise of handling noise could confuse the resolver, causing wow. That's why the 30Hz option was made, but also required a 30Hz filter for playback output. Either system were as well, though.

Glen Trew 

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Thanks for all the information, chaps. I remember hearing back in the '80s that SNs were used on Whicker's World 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whicker's_World

for his long walking pieces to camera. The routine was for him to say a word or two before he began his lines to get the compressor/limiter to act, 

 

And when you think of Alan Whicker, how can you not think of this as well?

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