Tascam MSR-24/S
A one-inch 24-track open-reel machine that put a full 24 channels of dbx or Dolby S recording within reach of project studios that could never justify a two-inch deck.
Overview
The pitch for the MSR-24/S is simple: 24 tracks of analog multitrack recording on one-inch tape, at a price that undercut the two-inch machines by a wide margin. Tascam had already been selling the dbx-equipped MSR-24 when the company introduced the MSR-24S variant with Dolby S noise reduction in place of dbx Type I. Contemporary coverage of the Tascam lineup put the MSR-24 at $12,499 and the Dolby S version, the MSR-24S, at $13,999. That is a premium of roughly fifteen hundred dollars for the Dolby S circuitry. For a studio weighing whether it could afford real 24-track analog at all, those numbers counted for more than any spec sheet.
The narrow track is the whole story here. Squeezing 24 tracks onto one-inch tape means each track gets a fraction of the width a two-inch machine would give it. That is why noise reduction isn't optional on this deck. EQ magazine's review of the MSR-24 credited the integral dbx Type I noise reduction for how quiet the machine ran, noting that the bench signal-to-noise and crosstalk figures rivaled many digital recorders of the day. That is a surprising thing to read about a narrow-gauge analog deck, and it is the reason the MSR-24 earned a following despite the physics working against it.
Owners and reviewers tend to describe the transport as the deck's strong suit. EQ called it a joy to use, reporting that it handled a full reel smoothly and precisely and that its functions responded well and were easy to learn. The same review judged the transport solid enough to withstand the harsh life of a commercially operated studio. The fascia is dominated by 24 twelve-segment LED meters, large enough that peak levels could be read from across a control room, with the meters momentarily holding peaks. Tape/source monitor and record-status buttons for each track are oversized and easy to hit.
Editing and locating features are more generous than the price suggests. There's spot erase, a tape-lifter defeat for cueing during high-speed winds and when rocking the reels, a tape-dump function for spilling tape between cuts during razor-blade editing, and a spool mode for tight tape packs. Pitch control runs ±15%, paired with a combination tape counter and pitch-percentage display. A built-in "mini-autolocator" provides two autolocation points plus return-to-zero, and the memory points and zero can be coupled with selectable auto-play, which drops the deck into play once it reaches its destination after a high-speed wind. There's also the sync-lock feature shared with the TSR-8 and MSR-16. It defeats noise reduction on track 24 to keep time code from interfering with the noise-reduction system, and it prevents accidental erasure of the code once recorded. Reviewers singled this out as a brilliant safety feature for anyone who has had to reconstruct time code after a late-night punch-in blunder.
Punching is gapless, as Tascam claimed, though the circuitry requires anticipating the punch by a fraction of a second - presumably while the bias oscillator ramps up. A little practice makes it a clean operation every time, according to EQ's testers. The same review flagged one ergonomic gripe: the record button sits close enough to the adjacent play button, with guards that aren't quite high enough, that accidental erasure is a real risk when any tracks are armed.
EQ found the MSR-24 a good-sounding machine in most respects - full and even frequency response, clear and open-sounding tracks, crosstalk in most cases virtually inaudible - but reported that sustained bass tones sounded slightly mushy and less than perfectly clear compared with the source. The review also heard a faint low-frequency warble on high-frequency tracks recorded adjacent to low-frequency tracks, an "overdubbing crosstalk" its 1kHz test didn't catch. These are complaints historically associated with dbx processing, and the review put them in context: most signals pass through with virtually no compromise, and depending on the music, some users might never notice. The blunt summary is that this is an affordable 24-track, and anyone who finds its shortcomings unacceptable had best budget for a two-inch machine and Dolby SR.
The Dolby S version, the MSR-24S, is the one to seek if the choice is available. Studio Sound (September 1991, p.53) ran Tascam's own advertising for the MSR-24S in its pages. The S variant exists for the Dolby S noise reduction in place of dbx, a format derived from Dolby's professional and domestic work including SR. Whether Dolby S fully sidesteps the low-end character of dbx isn't settled cleanly by the period record. Tascam did charge a premium for it.
The MSR-24/S also fits into Tascam's machine-control lineup, which suited MIDI-based studios. The MMC-100 MIDI Machine Control Interface translates MMC data to and from the MSR-24 and MSR-24S (along with the 238, 644, 688, TSR-8, and MSR-16/MSR-16S). It responds to commands from sequencers including fast forward, rewind, stop, play, record, record enable across up to 24 tracks, and up to eight autolocation registers, and it can generate SMPTE and convert SMPTE to MIDI Time Code. EQ (April, p.26) covered the MMC-100 as part of the broader MIDI Machine Control push that reached fruition at the 1992 NAMM show.
The available documentation doesn't pin down production years, tape speed figures beyond references to 15 and 7.5 ips in the review's wow-and-flutter measurements, dimensions, or weight. Anyone evaluating a used MSR-24/S should verify those against the specific unit and its manual rather than assume. The period sources do establish a machine that delivered 24-track analog capability at a price the two-inch world couldn't touch, with a transport reviewers trusted and a noise-reduction trade-off they were honest about.
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