As the 1980s came to a close, Akai who were enjoying their time in the sun with the massive success of their range of digital samplers, had turned their attention to recorders. By around 1987 they released the Akai MG14D, a tape based recorder that was very unique and bespoke. It offered great sound quality with 12 tracks for a reasonable price point. The development had a number of hurdles to overcome, but given Akai’s experience in high end consumer tape recorders, they made it work.
The Akai MG14D is a rack mountable tape recorder based on the recorder section of the Akai MG1214 with a dedicated sync and control track which made it suited for use with SMPTE and synchronisation with MIDI devices.
The Akai MG14D’s ability to lock up with SMPTE time code made this flexible compact multitrack also useful as a production tool for video, film, and sound effects assembly in addition to being a powerful music production tool.
Adding the Akai ML14 Auto Locator gave you complete remote control over memory search, auto repeat, punch in/out with precision to 1/10the of a second. Memories in the Akai ML14 were retained for up to one week….odd.
Features
- Uses 1/2 Inch Akai Original Tapes (MK20)
- Two Tape Speeds, 19 cm/s and 9.5 cm/s
- A +/- 1% Pitch Control is available
- DBX Type I noise reduction ensures professional sound quality
During the development phase of the Akai MG14D and its siblings, Akai was planning to use VHS tape to minimise cost of development, however there was a clause in the licensing of VHS which stated that the format could only be used for video products, or so the story goes. This begs the question, how did Alesis manage to use the VHS tape format in the ADAT? Perhaps by the time the ADAT was in development, JVC, the owner of the VHS format, had a change of heart.
Failing to secure VHS tapes for their new machines, Akia approached Sony to see if they could license the Betamax tape format, only to be turned down once again. This left them with one choice, which was to make their own tapes, which is exactly what they did.
The Akai MG14D and its siblings, were great machines, however the tape that Akai made for use on these machines…not so much. These tapes tended to shed the oxide which would cause audio dropouts, and fill the machine with the oxide which was not a very good situation.
To fix this problem, Akai approached the experts in tape, TDK, and managed to convince them to make the tapes for their systems, which proved to be a far better option and solved the issue of tape shedding.
While the Akai MG14D may be forgotten, you have to give Akai some credit for developing such a system, at the time they did, with digital recorders just around the corner. The Akai MG14D was a very well designed, and good sounding system, that is sadly all but forgotten.
