Metaxas & Sins GQT – Reel to reel just got more real
Remember the awesome-looking Metaxas and Sins skull-shaped headphone amp? Well, the same genius, Kostas Metaxas, has not only put his design skills to use but also his wealth of recording experience, to create this open reel tape machine built like a Swiss Watch – the Metaxas & Sins GQT Portable Recording Device No.1
If you ask any studio or live sound recording professional with more than just a few years in the job, they will attest that the absolute best source for reproduced music is analogue tape recorded on 10-inch reels at 15ips. The same analogue tape reel-to-reel recorders are also the absolute best way to record and capture music.
This fact is responsible for the incredible resurrgence in interest in open reel analogue tape recorders. The high-end audio industry has embraced and acknowledged this over the past 10 years.
Metaxas & Sins GQT background
Artist and Recording Engineer Kostas Metaxas has been aware of the high quality recording and reproduction available from using reel-to-reel since the 80s. Furthermore, he has in fact been using two portable heavily modified Swiss Stellavox portable tape recorders to record over 300 concerts on to analogue tape [www.metaxas.com/recordings.html].
This probably makes him the most prolific recording engineer using analogue tape of the past 20 years.
Kostas decided to produce an entirely new tape machine based heavily on the portable Stellavox SM8 recorder. He has even received the blessing of Stellavox founder Georges Quellet.
Metaxas & Sins GQT details
The Metaxas & Sins GQT (Georges Quellet Tribute) is a portable analogue tape machine designed for ultimate location recording and playback duties. Biased for either 468 or 911 1/4-inch analogue tape.
The machine only operates at 15ips using a brushless DC motor in a pure mechanical operation.
In other words, it will be built like a large Swiss mechanical watch mechanism. There will be absolutely no logic/computer controlled hardware will be employed.
The circuits utilise 100% discrete transistors and parts similar to construction from the 1960s to early 1970s. This was before tape recorders started using Logic controls and 5534 op-amps.
The result will be a “kinetic art object” which just happens to also record and play analogue tape. I have no doubt that its function will be as beautiful as its form.
Where can I experience the Metaxas & Sins GQT?
The prototype will be displayed at the Munich High End Show in May 2018 [Hall 1.0, Stand D01a] and a very limited edition production will commence later in the year in August/September.
For those still interested in Tape, you can purchase blank tape from:
http://www.recordingthemasters.com/
