THE ART OF ANALOG MASTERY
Brief History
Nagra is a technological giant and true legend in reel to reel world. Although, Nagra stopped manufacturing reel-to-reel tape decks more than two decades ago, to this day Nagra’s Swiss-made masterpieces of sophisticated mechanical and electrical engineering have almost cult following all over the world. This could be compared to the cult following of another Swiss-made legend - Panerai watch by an international community called Paneristi or Grateful Dead band followed by Dead Heads. Perhaps it is time for all the followers of Nagra recorders to unite under the Nagraristi banner.
Nagra recorders have a reputation for extreme ruggedness and reliability, essentially being a symbol for finest audio tape recorders like the famous Swiss watches are a symbol for fine chronometers. Their cases are highly durable, and every component, from the transport rollers to the gain pots give the feel of excellent engineering. Nagra is a term that refers to the series of professional audio tape recorders produced by NAGRA AUDIO, a company owned by the Kudelski Group SA, based in Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland.
The Kudelski company that was founded in 1951 by Stefan Kudelski. Stefan Kudelski was born in Warsaw, Poland on February 27th 1929 where he also completed his primary schooling. In 1939 the family fled the war, moving to Hungary, France and later to Switzerland. He studied at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and constructed his first tape recorder there, as a student project. 1951 Stefan Kudelski builds his first Nagra tape recorder and founded the Kudelski company the same year.
"Nagra" origins from the Polish language (nagrac´, nagrany, nagranie) and literally means "record, cut, recorded or recording".
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In 1952 the first customers, Radio Lausanne and Radio Geneva placed official orders for the NAGRA I.
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​In May 1952, following the first international sound recording contest, some well-known reporters became interested in the NAGRA. Stefan Kudelski then obtained a firm order for six NAGRA 1’s from Radio Luxembourg.
Production of the NAGRA II began in 1953. The NAGRA II was quite sophisticated, driven by a record player spring from language laboratory equipment, and showed excellent audio quality. The recorder was extremely sturdy. No advertising was needed, as every day new reporters become acquainted with the machine and immediately were trying to buy one.
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The manufacturing was done at a house in Prilly (West of Lausanne) where a small staff were employed by the Kudelski company.
The manufacturing was done at a house in Prilly (West of Lausanne) where a small staff were employed by the Kudelski company. Various improvements were introduced to the original design including an addition of a printed circuit board and standardization of microphone jacks. By the end of 1953 eleven employees worked full-time at Prilly. By 1956 this number had risen to 17.
Designed for high-quality portable recording, the initial Nagra I and II models were driven by a wind-up clock spring mechanism.
​The breakthrough came in 1957 with the Nagra III, a compact, 11-pound mono 3.75/7.5/15 ips reel-to-reel deck. With 12 D cell batteries powering its DC servo-controlled motor and Germanium transistor electronics, the Nagra III's performance could rival much larger studio machines. The deck's rugged aluminum chassis and "Modulometer" peak-reading level meter appealed to pros who needed a dependable, near-indestructible location recorder. ​
Orders came flooding in and in 1958 240 NAGRA III machines were manufactured.
The NAGRA III was becoming a recording standard in many different industries based on the “PILOTTON” system for lip synchronization of audio recordings with moving pictures. However, Stefan Kudelski was determined to improve this system and in 1962 he invented a superior system which he called “NEOPILOT”.
Commercial motion pictures were traditionally filmed using a dual system, that is picture on photographic film in the camera, and sound on a magnetic tape recorder. Nagra used a special, very narrow time code track in between the space of channel 1 and channel 2 on the stereo Nagra IV-S and T models. With this feature synchronization data could be recorded on the tape in the middle of the audio track, but without crosstalk onto the program recording. Neopilot was the standard synchronization system used in filmmaking until the late 1980s, when timecode became the preferred standard.
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The physical appearance of Nagra recorders with their eye-catching "Modulometer", the single transport selector and large reel to reel tape deck are still the stereotypical image most people have of a professional tape recorder. The feature that gave Nagra the edge in quality and film use was Stefan Kudelski's development of the Neo-Pilottone system.
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