Ampex


Ampex Data Systems Corporation is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name AMPEX is an acronym, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence. Ampex operates as Ampex Data Systems Corporation, a subsidiary of Delta Information Systems, and consists of two business units. The Silicon Valley unit, known internally as Ampex Data Systems, manufactures digital data storage systems capable of functioning in harsh environments. The Colorado Springs, Colorado, unit, referred to as Ampex Intelligent Systems, serves as a laboratory and hub for the company's line of industrial control systems, cyber security products and services and its artificial intelligence/machine learning technology.
Ampex's first great success was a line of reel-to-reel tape recorders developed from the German wartime Magnetophon system at the behest of Bing Crosby. Ampex quickly became a leader in audio tape technology, developing many of the analog recording formats for both music and movies that remained in use into the 1990s. Starting in the 1950s, the company began developing video tape recorders, and later introduced the helical scan concept that made home video players possible. They also introduced multi-track recording, slow-motion and instant playback television, and a host of other advances. Ampex's tape business was rendered obsolete during the 1990s, and the company turned to digital storage products.
Ampex moved into digital storage for DoD Flight Test Instrumentation with the introduction of the first, true all digital flight test recorder. Ampex supports numerous major DoD programs with the US Air Force, US Army, US Marines, US Navy and other government entities. Ampex also works with all major DoD primes and integrators including Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed, Northrop, Raytheon and many others.
Currently, Ampex is attempting to do more with the data stored on its network attached storage devices. This includes adding encryption for secure data storage; algorithms focused on control system cyber security for infrastructure and aerospace platforms; and artificial intelligence/machine learning for automated entity identification and data analytics.

Origin

Russian–American inventor Alexander Matthew Poniatoff established the company in San Carlos, California, in 1944 as the Ampex Electric and Manufacturing Company. The company name came from his initials plus "ex" to avoid using the name AMP already in use. During World War II, Ampex was a subcontractor to Dalmo-Victor, manufacturing high quality electric motors and generators for radars that used alnico 5 magnets from General Electric. Ampex was initially set up in an abandoned loft-space above the Dalmo-Victor plant; eventually they would have offices at 1313 Laurel Street, San Carlos, California.
Near the end of the war, while serving in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, Major Jack Mullin was assigned to investigate German radio and electronics experiments. He discovered the Magnetophons with AC biasing on a trip to Radio Frankfurt. The device produced much better fidelity than shellac records. The technological processes in tape recording and equipment developed by German companies before and during the 1939–1945 war were subject to patents which were effectively voided after Germany's 1945 surrender and defeat. Mullin acquired two Magnetophon recorders and 50 reels of BASF Type L tape, and brought them to America, where he produced modified versions. He demonstrated them to the Institute of Radio Engineers in San Francisco on May 16, 1946.
Bing Crosby, a big star on radio at the time, was receptive to the idea of pre-recording his radio programs. He disliked the regimentation of live broadcasts, and much preferred the relaxed atmosphere of the recording studio. He had already asked the NBC network to let him pre-record his 1944–45 series on transcription discs, but the network refused; so Crosby had withdrawn from live radio for a year and returned for the 1946–47 season, only reluctantly.
In June 1947, Mullin, who was pitching the technology to the major Hollywood movie studios, got the chance to demonstrate his modified tape recorders to Crosby. When Crosby heard a demonstration of Mullin's tape recorders, he immediately saw the potential of the new technology and commissioned Mullin to prepare a test recording of his radio show. Ampex was finishing its prototype of the Model 200 tape recorder, and Mullin used the first two models as soon as they were built. After a successful test broadcast, ABC agreed to allow Crosby to pre-record his shows on tape. Crosby immediately appointed Mullin as his chief engineer and placed an order for $50,000 worth of the new recorders so that Ampex could develop a commercial production model from the prototypes.
Crosby Enterprises was Ampex's West Coast representative until 1957.

Early tape recorders

The company's first tape recorder, the Ampex Model 200A, was first shipped in April 1948. The first two units, serial numbers 1 and 2, were used to record Bing Crosby's show. The American Broadcasting Company used these recorders along with 3M Scotch 111 gamma ferric oxide coated acetate tape for the first-ever U.S. delayed radio broadcast of Bing Crosby's Philco Radio Time. Ampex tape recorders revolutionized the radio and recording industries because of their superior audio quality and ease of operation over audio disk cutting lathes.
The firm's earliest production of multichannel machines was not aimed at music recording; it noted in 195354 that "Ampex began the commercial production of multitrack tape recorders about four years ago for those interested in telemetered information from guided missiles and the like. These equipments provided any number of simultaneous channels up to 14. It was a simple step, therefore, to make stereophonic tape recorders with two or more channels."
During the early 1950s, Ampex began marketing one- and two-track machines using tape. In May 1953 the firm announced production of two- and three-track machines on 1/4 inch tape. The line soon expanded into three- and four-track models using tape. In the early 1950s, Ampex moved to Redwood City, California. Ampex acquired Orradio Industries in 1959, which became the Ampex Magnetic Tape Division, headquartered in Opelika, Alabama. This made Ampex a manufacturer of both recorders and tape. By the end of that decade Ampex products were much in demand by top recording studios worldwide.
In 1952, movie producer Mike Todd asked Ampex to develop a high-fidelity movie sound system using sound magnetically recorded on the film itself, as contrasted with the technology of the time, which used magnetic tracks on a separate celluloid base film. The result of this development was the CinemaScope/Todd-AO motion picture sound system, which was first used in movies such as The Robe in 35mm and Oklahoma in 70mm. In 1960, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded Ampex an Oscar for technical achievement as a result of this development.
Les Paul, a friend of Crosby and a regular guest on his shows, had already been experimenting with overdubbed recordings on disc. He received an early portable Ampex Model 300 from Crosby. Using this machine, Les Paul invented "Sound on Sound" recording technology. He placed an additional playback head, located before the conventional erase/record/playback heads. This allowed Paul to play along with a previously recorded track, both of which were mixed together on to a new track. This was a destructive process because the original recording was recorded over.
For Operation Gold in Berlin 1955–56, 150 Ampex tape recorders in the warehouse operations centre were used to record intercepted Soviet telephone calls and teletype messages.

Professional 8-track recorders

Ampex built a handful of multitrack machines during the late 1950s that could record as many as eight tracks on tape. The project was overseen by Ross Snyder, Ampex manager of special products. To make the multitrack recorder work, Snyder invented the Sel-Sync process, which used some tracks on the head for playback and other tracks on the head for recording. This made the newly recorded material be in sync with the existing recorded tracks. The first of these machines cost $10,000 and was installed in Les Paul's home recording studio by David Sarser.
In 1967, Ampex responded to demand by stepping up production of their 8-track machines with the production model MM 1000. Like earlier 8-track machines of this era, it used 1-inch tape.

16 and 24-track recorders

In 1966, Ampex built their first 16-track recorder, the model AG-1000, at the request of Mirasound Studios in New York City. In 1967, Ampex introduced a 16-track version of the MM 1000 which was the world's first 16-track professional tape recorder put into mass-production. Both used a tape transport design adapted from the video recording division. The 16-track MM-1000 quickly became legendary for its tremendous flexibility, reliability and outstanding sound quality. This brought about the "golden age" of large format analog multitrack recorders which would last into the mid-1990s. MCI built the first 24-track recorder in 1968 which was installed at TTG Studios in Los Angeles. Later machines built by Ampex starting in 1969 would have as many as 24 tracks on 2-inch tape. In addition to this, the introduction of SMPTE time code allowed studios to run multiple machines in perfect synchronization, making the number of available tracks virtually unlimited.
By the 1970s, Ampex faced tough competition from the Swiss company Studer and Japanese manufacturers such as Otari and Sony. In 1979, Ampex introduced their most advanced 24-track recorder, the model ATR-124. The ATR-124 was ruggedly constructed and had audio specifications that nearly rivaled the first digital recording machines. However, sales of the ATR-124 were slow due to the machine's high price tag. Ampex sold only about 50 or 60 ATR-124 machines and withdrew from the professional audio tape recorder market entirely in 1983.