mlsstl
08-25-2007, 05:03 PM
One topic that has been increasingly discussed the past few years has been the trend toward ever-increasing compression and volume in the new music that is released. While most common in the pop/rock/hip-hop scene, other music genres have not been immune to this disturbing trend.
However, I came across a great example of what music can sound like without all this artificial enhancement and I'd like to share it.
My open reel (a Tandberg 9241X) had not been performing up to par the past few years because the rubber pinch roller and idler wheel had gotten hard and cracked. New parts are basically not available so the machine had been sitting pretty much unused. However, I found a fellow that rebuilds tape recorder rollers (Terry's Rubber Rollers - highly recommended) and he restored mine.
Since then I've been rediscovering all the gems in my open reel collection. However, tape deteriorates over time so I decided to copy my open reel collection to digital for preservation.
One of the items I'd almost forgotten I had was a demo tape recorded by a bluegrass group back in 1976. No album ever came of it and to my knowledge nothing became of the group, but I have a 2nd generation 7 1/2 ips copy of the master. Since there was never an album, copyright shouldn't be an issue.
The original recording has minimal processing. I don't think much more than some peak limiting might have been applied. There is zero compression as applied these days. The recording is not perfect, (being a tape copy of a tape, there is some slight background hiss and the audio production is not polished) but it captures a sense of real life that is quite amazing in some regards. I think the conversion to digital (lossless FLAC format) went well and captures the quality of the open reel.
Anyway, for anyone interested, you can download the songs "Orange Blossom Special" and "John Hardy" from the following web site: http://www.rzootwo.com/music. Be forewarned the files are quite large - 52 MB and 22 MB so you'll definitely want a fast connection if you download them.
Enjoy.
However, I came across a great example of what music can sound like without all this artificial enhancement and I'd like to share it.
My open reel (a Tandberg 9241X) had not been performing up to par the past few years because the rubber pinch roller and idler wheel had gotten hard and cracked. New parts are basically not available so the machine had been sitting pretty much unused. However, I found a fellow that rebuilds tape recorder rollers (Terry's Rubber Rollers - highly recommended) and he restored mine.
Since then I've been rediscovering all the gems in my open reel collection. However, tape deteriorates over time so I decided to copy my open reel collection to digital for preservation.
One of the items I'd almost forgotten I had was a demo tape recorded by a bluegrass group back in 1976. No album ever came of it and to my knowledge nothing became of the group, but I have a 2nd generation 7 1/2 ips copy of the master. Since there was never an album, copyright shouldn't be an issue.
The original recording has minimal processing. I don't think much more than some peak limiting might have been applied. There is zero compression as applied these days. The recording is not perfect, (being a tape copy of a tape, there is some slight background hiss and the audio production is not polished) but it captures a sense of real life that is quite amazing in some regards. I think the conversion to digital (lossless FLAC format) went well and captures the quality of the open reel.
Anyway, for anyone interested, you can download the songs "Orange Blossom Special" and "John Hardy" from the following web site: http://www.rzootwo.com/music. Be forewarned the files are quite large - 52 MB and 22 MB so you'll definitely want a fast connection if you download them.
Enjoy.