British Tape Recorder

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British Tape Recorders or BTR machines were reel-to-reel tape recorders initially made by EMI in England after World War II. They were the first magnetic tape recorders to be manufactured in Britain, and their design imitated that of the tape recorders used by the Germans during the war. Because these multi-track recorders were painted EMI green, they then became known as the "Green Machines".

The first model made was named the BTR/1. Later models included the BTR/2 and TR90 tape recorders.

The Otari company made a BTR-5 model recording machine but it stood for Broadcast Tape Recorder.^{[citation needed]}

Mono and twin-track BTR reel-to-reel recording machines were used in the making of the first two Beatles albums. Mono and stereo BTR machines were used to mixdown the 4 and 8 track masters of later albums recorded on Telefunken, Studer and 3M multi-track machines.

The Beatle song I Want To Hold Your Hand was the first song to be recorded with a 4-track BTR machine on October 17, 1963. 4-track machines would be used on every Beatle album until Hey Jude was recorded at Trident Studios in 1968 using an 8-track recorder.

The Sergeant Pepper album was made using two 4-track Studer J37 recorders, bouncing down tracks from machine to machine. For A Day In the Life, two J37s were synched together, using a 50 Hz tone. The 2-track BTR-2 machines remained in use for mastering. The first 8-track reel-to-reel analogue recorder used by EMI's Abbey Road Studios was the 3M 8-track machine.^{[citation needed]}

When the Beatles on the new Apple label began the recording of tracks for the White Album on Abbey Road's new 8-track recorder in 1968, the resulting tracks did not have the same sound as previous Beatles albums had. Thinking that something was wrong with the sound of EMI's new 3M 8-Track machine, they asked to have a technician check the factory calibration of the machine. The technician using a calibration tape showed the recording engineers that nothing was wrong with the machine, that it was calibrated perfectly to factory standards. The recording engineers were stymied -- until they were told by industry professionals that the previous mixing boards at EMI had been Tube powered boards making the earlier Beatle albums sound different. The new mixing boards were the culprit - not the new 3M 8-Track recording machine. It, therefore, took some time before the EMI engineers were able to get the quality of sound they wanted using these transistorized mixing consoles. It, therefore, took some time before the engineers were able to get the earlier sounds they wanted on the final Beatle album Abbey Road. The title for this last album was suggested by Ringo Starr - the Beatle drummer also came up with the phrase A Hard Day's Night.{Fact|date=March 2007}}

The two main EMI recording engineers who recorded the Beatle albums were Norman Smith and Geoff Emerick, with Emerick beginning his work with the Beatles from the Revolver album (1966) to the last Beatle album entitled Abbey Road in 1969.^{[citation needed]} Emerick went on to co-write his Autobiography, with Howard Massey, of his Beatle recording days in his book entitled Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording The Music of the Beatles<" (published in 2006 by Gotham Publishers).^{[citation needed]} Emerick's recording genius is also described in Maureen Droney's book on recording engineers called Mix Masters: Platinum Engineers Reveal Their Secrets of Success published by Berklee Press in 2003.^{[citation needed]}

Currently, the professional Studer studio analogue reel-to-reel tape recorder, Model A827, is the only 24-track professional analogue multi-track recorder in production today using 2" magnetic tape, with a current list price of $58,000. This 24-Track analogue machine records at both 15 and 30 i.p.s. (inches per second)tape speeds and is the analogue recorder-of-choice for most professional recording studios still having analogue capability.^{[citation needed]}

1 Other Professional Multi-track Analogue Recorders
2 Companies who have discontinued Reel-to-Reel Recorder Manufacture
3 Current Open Reel Tape Manufacturers
4 Notes
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Other Professional Multi-track Analogue Recorders

(no longer in production) are:

Ampex
Brenell
BTR (Made by EMI)
Soundcraft
3M
Fostex
MCI (now owned by Sony)
Otari
Scully
Tascam
Studer
Sony

The Saturn analogue recorder made by Soundcraft (Brenell) went out of production in 1992. Historically, multi-track reel-to-reel tape formats have been in 1/4", 1/2", 1", and 2" tape formats across the entire spectrum of both consumer and professional grade machines.^{[citation needed]}