Does anyone remember Aristocarts? They were blue and I think they were made in Canada. The frequency response seemed to be excellent when I worked at a station that used them for most of our music, but the tape was very fragile. We would usually have about a half dozen eaten on the air per week, and sometimes more than one per day. When I was on a quick weekend trip in the next state and I was listening in the car for our sister station in the next market, I wasn't sure it was them I had just tuned in on the fringe of the signal until I heard the song end abruptly in a garbled mess when the cart was eaten on the air.
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Scotchcarts...
- Thread starter SFM-Ptgal
- Start date
The Otari machines were not nearly as good as the Tomcats. And they were an absolute bear to take apart.
Music played at 15ips on a Tomcat was essentially impossible to tell from the source.
Music played at 15ips on a Tomcat was essentially impossible to tell from the source.
I have 50 Aristocarts that came from the CBC (Canada ;D) along with a ITC Delta triple decker. Most of them were music carts with tape tension stretched to the limit of no playback possible. They are not nice regarding phase... I read somewhere that the plastic they used was virtually impossible to break... I can prove it 
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DRoberts
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I've got about 25 - 70s, about 25 - 90s, and another 50 assorted ones. I still use them in production and syndicated programs I produce. There's just something about having a couple of good ITC stereo single cart machines and a good ITC stereo three stack. They allow me to do things I could never do with a computer. Plus, it helps me keep touch with what was.
I may be aging myself but I started in radio when we used the old Spotmaster where you put in the cart and pulled back the pinch roller lever to arm the machine. They made a terrible "THUNK" when you triggered them plus you had to put foil tape on the cart tape to set the cue point. Old, but those old things made a lot of money for a lot of stations. BTW, we also had a mono Magnecorder and a stereo "Knight" reel to reel. Oh year, we sourced our music from a record rack and 2 huge Gates turntables that once turned on, you didn't turn them off because it took about 10 minutes for the old motors to come back up to speed.
Yes Victoria....there was AM!
I may be aging myself but I started in radio when we used the old Spotmaster where you put in the cart and pulled back the pinch roller lever to arm the machine. They made a terrible "THUNK" when you triggered them plus you had to put foil tape on the cart tape to set the cue point. Old, but those old things made a lot of money for a lot of stations. BTW, we also had a mono Magnecorder and a stereo "Knight" reel to reel. Oh year, we sourced our music from a record rack and 2 huge Gates turntables that once turned on, you didn't turn them off because it took about 10 minutes for the old motors to come back up to speed.
Yes Victoria....there was AM!
HadYourPhil said:
The Tomcats were the Rolls Royce of cart machines (well they were in our station anyway).
One thing I noticed however was they emitted a hell of a lot of heat! The main studio had six of them enclosed
in a bridge above the on-air console. We had to cut a hole in the back and fit a muffin fan to keep them
cool.
While we're on the subject, does anyone have any spare parts for the Otari CTM-10? I have been trying to find
a drive belt (the one that engages the pinch roller) but it's an odd size and even the belt specialists can't supply one.
I'm sure most people remember IGM's Instacart 48 tray machines. I thought those machines were pretty awesome. I know they had a lot problems with carts not cuing up and multiple carts firing all at once from static electricity. I just they were unique. I would love to have a working IGM system for nostalgia reasons.
I never used the Scotchcarts while "on the air" back in the day. But now that I'm realizing an old dream of converting a spare bedroom into a " vintage radio studio" just for fun I have discovered Scotchcarts. You are talking about the "no pad" carts, right? Does anybody want to get rid of any ITC Delta stereo decks?
Most of the stations I worked for had either 2 ITC triple decks or 6 ITC single decks. Did anyone ever notice that 6 Deltas stacked 3 on top of 3 generate a lot of heat?
So if a Tomcat runs at 15ips then your 10 minute cart is only good for 5 minutes right? Seems like with them running that fast there would be a lot of external noise.
So if a Tomcat runs at 15ips then your 10 minute cart is only good for 5 minutes right? Seems like with them running that fast there would be a lot of external noise.
Mike Sheridan said:
There wasn't. Remember, Tomcats use Audiopak AA-4 carts, They were quieter at 15 IPS than most brabds of carts were at 7.5 IPS.
The triple deckers had a fan to cool out the machine, but they were a very compact model. The singles had their motors running continuous and no fan but less dense in electronics. I don't recall reading on the manual any special care regarding single decks. Are brands sold special vent shelves for cart machines...
SFM-Ptgal said:
I have nine ITC Delta single decks and five record amps. Some are obviously for spare parts. Most are stereo but there are some mono units, too. So far I know I have four good stereo decks and one good stereo record amp.
RE: Cart tape... if they are still in business, www.cartguys.com is a great source for new cart machines and carts. They can reload carts for you or you can buy 7" reels of new tape and reload them yourself. Last time I checked, they had three different tape types.
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