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 they were painted in EMI green, they then became known as the Green Machines.

The first model to be made was called 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]}

The EMI made BTR analogue reel-to-reel tape recorders were used in the making of most of the Beatle albums until 1968. 2, 3 and 4-track BTR reel-to-reel recording machines were used in the making of the first Beatle records up to the recording of the single, Hey Jude, in 1968 which was recorded using an 8-track recorder at Trident Studios.^{[citation needed]} The last three Beatles albums (The White Album, Let it Be, and Abbey Road) were all made with 8-track recording machines as well.^{[citation needed]}The Sergeant Pepper album was made using two 4-track BTR recorders that were time- synched together. They needed some adjustment before the speed of both BTR Recorders were in "synch" with one another.^{[citation needed]}The first 8-track reel-to-reel analogue recorder used by EMI's Abbey Road Studios was the Studer 8-track machine.^{[citation needed]}

When the Abbey Road recording engineers and legendary Producer, George Martin, started to record the Beatles "White Album in 1968, the resulting tracks did not have the same sound as previous Beatle albums had. Thinking that something was wrong with the sound of EMI's new Studer 8-Track machine, they asked Studer to have a technician check the factory calibration of the machine. The technician did so showing them 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 officials that the previous mixing boards had been Tube powered boards making the earlier Beatle albums sound different. The new mixing boards were the culprit - not the new Studer 8-Track recording machine. It therefore took some time before the EMI engineers were able to get the quality of sound they wanted on transistorized boards.^{[citation needed]}

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 ever recorded named Abbey Road in 1969.^{[citation needed]} Emerick went on to co-write his Autobiography, with Howard Massey, of his Beatle recording days in their 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 today.^{[citation needed]}

1 Other Professional Multi-track Analogue Recorders
2 Discontinued Reel-To-Reel Manufacturers
3 Current Open Reel Tape Manufacturers
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Other Professional Multi-track Analogue Recorders

(no longer in production) are:

AMPEX
BRENELL
BTR (Made by EMI)
SOUNDCRAFT
3M
MCI (now owned by Sony)
OTARI
SCULLY
TEAC/TASCAM
STUDER/REVOX
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]}