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Nagra III

Nagra is the trademark referring to any of the series of mostly battery-operated portable professional audio recorders produced by Kudelski SA, based in Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland.

The machines were initially designed by Polish inventor Stefan Kudelski, and his company won numerous technical awards for their precision and reliability.

Nagra means "will record" in Polish, the mother tongue of Kudelski.

History [edit]

Nagra-brand tape recorders were the de facto standard sound recording systems for motion picture and single-camera television production from the 1960s until the 1990s.

Models [edit]

Nagra recorders are identified by their model number, which indicates their technological generation and features:

• NAGRA I - The very first prototype with clockwork motor and miniature tubes, appearing in 1951. Two were sold to Radio Genève.
• NAGRA II - The first production model, miniature tubes equipped, clockwork motor, appearing in 1953.
• NAGRA II CI - The second generation fitted with printed circuit boards replacing chassis wiring, appearing in 1955.
• Nagra III NP - The first Nagra usable for film work, appearing in 1961. Monaural, Neopilot sync
• Nagra IV-L - Monaural, Neopilot sync, featuring two microphone inputs and a built in audio limiter. Introduced in 1968.
• Nagra 4.2 - Same as the IV-L, but added powering for microphones and built-in equalizers. Introduced in 1972. In the '80s one could upgrade a 4.2 to record SMPTE timecode.

Nagra IV-STC

• Nagra IV-S - Stereo Nagra, recording two-track stereo. It had dual level pots, limiters, and equalizer presets. It was introduced in 1971. It originally employed a 14kHz sync signal that is not compatible with the earlier Neopilot sync. This signal is recorded employing FM modulation on a third or center track that could simultaneously be employed as an additional but lower quality "cue" track.
• Nagra IV-STC - In 1984 Nagra introduced timecode support. With timecode support an IV-S became an STC with a pull out tray.

Nagra IV-STC internal

• Nagra IV-SJ - Stereo Nagra for instrumentation and logging. Pots are replaced with switches to set gain in precise steps, no limiters, and when present, the microphone inputs are for high-voltage unbalanced instrumentation mics rather than low impedance balanced with T-power and phantom.
• NAGRA E - A simple, single-speed (7.5ips), mono recorder aimed at radio reporters was introduced in 1976.

In addition to these field recorders, Kudelski S.A. produced a studio recorder called the Nagra T-Audio, designed mainly for use in telecines for transferring dailies. All of the above machines use 1/4" tape.

Kudelski SA have also produced a series of miniaturised reel-to-reel recorders using 1/8" tape. These machines are referred to as SN (for Série Noire) and production was originally ordered by President Kennedy for the United States Secret Service.^[1]

Nagra SNS

The SN range comprises the following models:

• Nagra SNN - monaural, full-track, main tape speed of 3-3/4 ips.
• Nagra SNS - monaural, half-track, main tape speed of 15/16 ips (multiplying the recording length at the expense of the dynamic range and high-frequency response).
• Nagra SNST - stereo, intended more for security service "two microphones to record two different people talking" usage than hi-fi usage due to technical limitations.
• Nagra SNST-R - full hi-fi stereo.

A special version of the SN using unique tape cassettes was made in cooperation with JBR Technology and widely used by US domestic intelligence agencies.

The Nagra IV-STC was the standard for film and classical music recording until the mid-1990s, when DAT recorders became reliable enough to use in the field. In response, Kudelski produced two digital recorders to compete:

• Nagra D - 4-channel PCM digital audio recorder. Instead of recording to the DAT format, the D used a digital reel-to-reel format using a helical scan head and 1/4" tape on 5" and 7" reels. The tape is identical to that used on Digital Audio Stationary Head machines such as the Sony PCM-3202 and Mitsubishi X-86 series. The unique format, combined with its heavy weight, made it somewhat unpopular with many production sound mixers, but year after year many great-sounding films were completed with Nagra Ds (and the newer 24-bit/96 kHz Nagra DII). Despite some popularity in the late 1990s, the Nagra D and DII are a rarity on U.S. films as of the mid-2000s.

Nagra V

• Nagra V - 2-channel PCM digital audio recorder, 24-bit/96 kHz, removable hard drive based recorder with timecode support. Has the additional benefits of being very light, and producing files easily processed by non-linear editing systems. Originally released with the Orb removable hard drive system, which proved to be unreliable. The drive system was replaced by Agate Technology's DN-Boy system in October 2002. Unlike the analog Nagras, the Nagra V digital recorders have not been adopted as readily for the motion picture and TV industries, which mostly use competing digital multi-track machines such as the Aaton Cantar, the Fostex PD-6, the Sound Devices 744T and the Zaxcom Deva (as of the mid-2000s). In 2008, Nagra has introduced a new model, the Nagra VI, a portable 6-track digital recorder touted as "the natural successor to the NAGRA-D / DII multi-track digital recorders."

Other equipment [edit]

Aside from its line of motion picture sound recorders, Kudelski S.A. originally produced and continues to produce high-quality recorders for electronic news gathering, radio, and music recording. The ARES-PII hand-held recorder for journalists, and the Universal digital recorder, the ARES-BB+, both introduced in 2004, are state-of-the-art digital recorders recording to compact flash PC cards. They offer USB file download and can record both linear PCM or MPEG compressed audio. They have recently been replaced with the Nagra SD, a slightly smaller yet rugged hand-held broadcast recorder with extremely high quality microphone preamplifiers which offers recording quality up to 24bit / 96k but on removable SD cards of memory size up to 64GB and beyond.

Nagra's main business in the 2000s has diversified into digital security encrypting systems, including cable TV and satellite descrambling systems and other high-tech components, while audio occupies a smaller side of their manufacturing.

In 1997, Nagra launched the PL-P, a vacuum tube phono preamplifier, beginning a range of high-end audio equipment comprising preamplifiers, amplifiers and CD players. That range is intended for audiophile consumers (as opposed to exclusively professional equipment manufactured hitherto).

References [edit]

This article relies on references to primary sources. Please add references to secondary or tertiary sources. (February 2013)

External links [edit]

• Nagra website
• Nagra IIC tape recorder held at the British Library
• History of Nagra recorders
• photographs of Nagra recorders