Reel to Reel

The vault?

I know a few reel to reel collectors, Nancy, but my own personal experience is at this point, they are rather hard to come by.  I have a handful of reels made for commercial distribution left, but nothing too exciting (The Turtles Golden Hits and Blood Sweat & Tears 4 are the best of what's left).  I've sold Led Zeppelin, Byrds, Santana, CSNY reels before, but honestly, you never really see them in trade-ins anymore.  Your best source is probably Ebay or Discogs, but they can get spendy.  Since you're in the Bay Area, you do have the Amoeba locations on Haight and in Berkeley, and I'm pretty sure they still deal in them.  Rasputin's probably does too.  You might poke around on Craigslist too.

The Vault

good luck   ha ha

ask sideshow bob

>Amoeba

is that what he's calling himself these days?

I have a reel from my parents' house that I took with me when my mom moved.  I think it's ampex.  I'm curious if it's a reel that my brother and I taped, trying to act like radio drama actors, making our own sound effects, like crackling plastic to create "fire noises" and other things, like turning on the vacuum cleaner when a character was flying.  (Our Dad was waxing about his childhood at the time..."The Shadow knows.")

Or there could be something else on that reel...

I do have a 78 rpm record that my Dad and his older sister made in a Santa Barbara when they were kids (I think part of it was a piano recital), but I don't even have a turn table anymore...

Keep us posted Nancy.

One of my projects has been doing a lot of reel to reel recording, it's less reliable but richer sounding than digital.

I don't know about GD but u can get old reels on eBay with all kinds of classical music and old rock that was recorded on them years ago

The only time I saw Grateful Dead reels was when I got approached by the owner of a recording studio who was moving his operation after a long tenancy in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle to the old Olympia Beer building in SODO.

He had about 40 reels of shows that he was trying to get appraised.  They were all homemade reels of concerts, not the commercially distributed albums.  They did not appear to be master reels, but copies that had been dubbed from them.  I think I posted about this here a few years back.  I gave him a ballpark estimate of their worth based on what I was seeing things like that sell for on Ebay.  Not sure what the guy ever did with them, as I never saw him again, but I could probably find him if I had to.

One thought I had was to try to contact Rob Eaton.  As both a professional recording engineer, and with his involvement with the restoration of the Betty Boards, I would think he would have a lot of insight on this matter.  He undoubtedly is in touch with some of the most dedicated tapers in the Grateful Dead taping community.  These guys might not be willing to give up their own reels, but might be amenable to making copies of theirs onto your blank reels.  Maybe Vorty could help make an introduction?

Dave pretty much has this covered. The collectible reels (worth more than like ~$20) are in the still sealed commercial releases and the master reels. Very little outside of these parameters is worthwhile unless it's a one-off, or the "first" or other historical significance, or the only known copy, or sometimes if it was owned or came from the collection of someone famous (this would be carefully documented, of course.) Even still, many at this point in time will need to be "baked" to evaluate the contents, this kind of restoration is sort of a process in itself.

multitrack masters are usually on one inch (16-track) or two inch (24-track) tape. This is what acetates would be cut from to make record pressing stamps. This is also what could potentially be used to remaster and re-release an album. Quite identifiable. Source material. Very uncommon to "stumble" onto as most are held in collections and/or archived by the publishers. 

Truthfully, tape tech is bad.  The "rich" "full" sound is distortion.  A digital recording properly EQ'd through good speakers or phones is superior. I recently got a rack mount tube equalizer, that gets the richness in spades from a digital source.  There is a reason this tech is all but extinct.  

A tape deck requires head cleaning frequently and must be demagnetized frequently.  The heads become misalinged after a few passes. In a professional situation these tasks are done before each use.  When tape is used that is which is not often.

The tape medium itself is fragile.  Each pass removes a bit of the iron oxide coating.  The plastic base stretches affecting the reproduction of the recording.  Ideal storage is not easy.  The recording can print on itself just sitting in a box.

The decks themselves are mechanical and parts are increasingly harder to find.  

Frankly it is better to avoid it and resist the nostalgia.

Sorry to be the wet blanket.

What's on the Sinatra reel?

Nice. Did you check it out? There's a song titled Nancy (With the Laughing Face) on it.

My face is laughing now too.

AIQ makes some good points, all those things r true.

it will b interesting to see how much of comeback analog makes or if it will just b a passing fancy as it was for Nancy

No matter how strong the demand/resurgence of analog recording methods, the "work" will still be done in protools before converting back for analog output. It's just too good, too perfect. I mean, the entire industry is essentially built around it now. The only studio I know of that still even has the capability and willingness to actually do tape edits is linear labs, and still this is reserved for only the most nuanced projects, is cost prohibitive, and as a diminishing skillset and very specific artform in itself, this method will likely become extinct rather soon.

analog recording yes

analog playback yes

analog mastering / editing not likely

next closest would probably be royal studios / boo mitchell in Memphis 

all opinions of course

these are just the realizations I have had while researching the viability of building up an "all analog" boutique type recording studio

Realistically, would also need to have one of a very small handful of professionals on speed dial (someone like Dan Healy) to source parts and perform correct and timely repairs on ~50-75 year old recording gear.

 this just isn't knowledge that is passed down or taught anymore

because like aiq said: tape tech is bad

Nice work!

This is the shit baby - if you can find one ...good luck.

Good for you, Nancy.  

There are folks out there who repair them, I knew a guy but he said he did it more as a hobby.  The search for parts, getting an old one working.

Even he said they really are only for the hard core.

So, from reel-to-reel to wheel-to-wheel. Nice.