Steve Albini does Wilco's Jeff Tweedy a favor...

[MindGoneHaywire]

Don't know if anyone hear heard about this, but Quantegy--which unbeknownst to me was the last company standing manufacturing recording tape--filed for bankruptcy a couple of weeks ago & closed their plant. As a result any studio still using tape machines is in a bind; Quantegy has supposedly issued statements about how they're going to try to reopen their facility after reorganizing, but that's hardly a sure thing. Tweedy was reportedly going into the studio to work on a session & couldn't get any tape; so he called Albini, who sent him over a couple of reels as a courtesy.

Sorry for not having a link...but what I read is that Albini has been doing his homework the past few months & has managed to stock up with a decent amount of tape to work with. But since he runs a studio, he's not looking to become a tape sales outlet. Now, this is 2" tape I'm referring to...I don't know what this means for quarter-inch, half-inch, or whatever. 2" is a professional standard, or at least it used to be prior to pretty much the entire industry (I tend to think of guys like Albini as being outside the 'industry' in this context) moving over to Pro Tools. If you're not familiar with this, I guess it's sort of analagous to record companies initially halting production on vinyl record albums in favor of CDs around 15 years ago, with vinyl eventually becoming a boutique-type item. Which is what very well could happen with reel-to-reel pro recording tape, but someone will have to start making it again. At the moment, from what I read, the entire recording world is now having to adjust to life without it, because there is none whatsoever being manufactured.

Personally I do think that digital recording has managed to achieve the 'warmth' that some hear only in tape, for a few years now...prior to that I was a tape guy all the way. When I heard Pro Tools for the first time, though, it was on a state-of-the-art recording system & it sounded plenty warm to me. There'll always be a few sticklers who'll complain, but I have at least one album that was recorded on 2" tape that sounds like friggin' ADAT, which was a horribly not-warm digital medium that used VHS tapes. I think the world could get along fine without 2" tape, but a lot of great studios just might disappear, which is a shame. Any way you look at it, though, the world continues to change every day no matter how much we might not want it to.

[Dusty Chalk]

Yeah, I just read that same story on Obner, but it wasn't so flattering to Albini -- he's stockpiled over a hundred (hundreds) of tapes, and sent two to Tweedy.

I mean, don't get me wrong, that's still nice, and by golly, I wouldn't even be sending that many to any one if I ran a studio (the hundred or so he has only adds up to ten or twenty albums).

I have an old Wax Trax compilation special edition that came with some tapes...I wonder if it's worth anything now?

[-Jar-]

it's not Pro Tools that I have such a problem with in regards to modern recording, it's the mastering. If you look at the wave of any recent hard rock/emo/nu-metal recording, you'll see that the wave form is pegged through almost the entire song. I understand the reasons for it, but thank goodness there are still folks like Albini doing it the olden way.

-jar

[jack70]

This is news to me too. But not surprising when you consider how digital has taken over audio; in this case, the technology (size & speed and lower prices) of hard-drive technology is the reason. Radio stations typically used lots of RR tape for monitoring too (not 2" though), but the cost & upkeep for RR machines had to be considerable, never mind the storage, compared to digital/hard-drive technology, plus you have quicker access (less man-hours) to find stuff on a hard-drive. It's the same exact evolution we've already seen... going from the old Sony Walkman tech (cass tape), to CD's & then I-Pods and Nomad type units (hard drive tech).

I wonder about tape in general... My guess is there are (must be) firms still making it, although maybe not in 2" flavors anymore (?)... surely the demand (for the pro stuff) has shrunk as to make it unprofitable. Cutting edge technologies usually slowly migrate down from professional to consumer, hence we're now getting cheap home software & mixers for digital audio. But I'd guess there is still video & cass tape being produced, although it's probably moved to lower wage markets (from Japan & Taiwan to China & India). (although China is quickly becoming as technically proficient as anyone).

But I wonder what the market (demand & prices) is for the old tape (studio) equipt of old. Boy, how neat would it be to have some of that in the basement if you could get it for some dirt-cheap price. It's gone the way of the horse & buggy, and headed to museums. I'd hate to think some of it is rusting somewhere, or just shipped to the dump.

I still occasionally use my cassette recorder... I have a dozen or 2 TDK-X, and Max-XL-100's still unopened... good for taping off the radio when not at home. I also use my video recorder, A LOT. I probably save 100 hours a year just by fast-forwarding commercials that way. I haven't gone digital with TV yet, because I'm not up to speed on how to hack digital/Tivo-type systems yet, and I'm NOT about to use their "big brother" systems. I'm seeing more stand-alone digital TV recorders, and that's the way to go... figure I'll build my own stand-alone recorder.

But ...last year I went out to buy (yet another) back-up Video recorder. The superstore had all of 1 or 2 models... that's it. A few others they had were DVD/video units... NOT what I wanted. But what they had was crap (quality wise). In just 2 years, all the best Video recorders have been dumped, in leiu of DVD toys. Soon they'll be like 8-track. What makes this so shocking is that I have hundreds of recorded tapes... just like LP's, the technology still works extremely well, even if it's no longer cutting edge.

Jar, I agree 100% with the "volume maxing". But it's not JUST in the mastering. In most cases I'll bet the individual tracks are often highly compressed & down-limited too, way before it's mastered. The recording process has always been an art, and it takes a broad knowledge of a lot of technical issues to do it well (best). Any one miscue in the chain can ruin (hurt) the end product. Trouble is, with most R&R music, you don't really NEED the best stuff (hi-bit resolution & 125db noise floors), and you'd be hard pressed to hear/appreciate the difference anyway. My own experience is that most CDs today are not much better (sonically/technically) than the older LPs, but they CAN BE, when the people producing them are hip, smart, and cutting edge. I still remember the first CD I got, Dire Straits... I was few years behind the new technology, but I remember being impressed with the audio, but also heard how much even better audio could go in the future from that new "audio baseline" (dist/noise/dynamic room). But, I've seen little growth in the recordings since... a few here & there, but most rely on old thinking about recording & mixing.

Another aspect with today's digital recordings... in the 50's & 60's, you had but a few experienced recording engineers. Today, with cheap & easy-to-use software, you have tens of thousands doing it in their living room, many without much knowledge of acoustics or physics, let alone experience (the art side of it). So you're more likely to get poor recordings, even though the equipment is often technically "better." Sorta like if everyone driving the highway suddenly got Masseratti's to drive... heck, they don't know how to drive with the cars they have now.

[MindGoneHaywire]

I'm with you & Jar on the evils of mastering being far worse than Pro Tools. My first experience with Pro Tools saw it used in a way I don't have any aesthetic or philosophical problems with. The possibilities it offered, as opposed to tape, were significant, and, again, it's just a tool, good in the hands of the right person, potentially horrible in the hands of the wrong ones, or the ones that are using it for purposes we might frown upon.

I'm looking at moving my VHS collection to digital myself...before they friggin' deteriorate already. I've got a ton of r&r stuff I've picked up over the years, mostly on public access cable programs, with some amazing stuff. I don't want to pop a tape in & find that it's ng anymore, which probably won't happen now (actually it did happen with one tape) but how long are these things going to survive? Plus there's the space issue. Discs are just a bit more compact. I've been poking around CNET & found a couple of devices I can hook up to my PC & just run some cable from my VCR. I have to figure out exactly which format is going to make the most sense, MPEG-2 for now I guess, but I've got plenty of room for storage & it's a project I'm kinda looking forward to. I think I can get one of these units for less than $100...then I'll have to invest in a DVD burner. That part of it I'm not looking forward to all that much...

[-Jar-]

Yeah, I just read that same story on Obner, but it wasn't so flattering to Albini -- he's stockpiled over a hundred (hundreds) of tapes, and sent two to Tweedy.



Maybe Jeff only asked for two? I have a feeling that these two know each other from back in the day .. both were playing and recording in the St. Louis/Chicago indie rawk axis back in the late 80's/early 90's. So I doubt Steve was being unreasonable, but you never know.

-jar

[Dusty Chalk]

Maybe Jeff only asked for two? I have a feeling that these two know each other from back in the day .. both were playing and recording in the St. Louis/Chicago indie rawk axis back in the late 80's/early 90's. So I doubt Steve was being unreasonable, but you never know.

-jarI'm not saying it wasn't generous, it's more than I would have given him (at least, until I was sure I could get more).

And you're right, I think the article said it was enough to finish the album.

[jack70]

Yeah, the thing with digital audio studios, and probably more so with small home versions of that kinda production, is the tendency to overlook the basics, and concentrate on the flash & coolness of the digital interface itself (bells & wistles etc). Instead of taking a few hours with mic placement, experimenting with diff mics & loading, isolating with a better (lower) dynamic noise floor, etc, the tendency is to just quickly plug/patch everything in. And then, the tendency is to layer & mix haphazardly (badly). Listen to the simplicity of some of George Martin's early Beatles songs... the clean sound jumps out at you. Nothing complex he did (mostly 4-tracks), but KISS, and good basic techniques. Martin of course, had years of experience in the classical production side, and knew what he was doing. (he also had a good ear). Just like there's a natural bell-curve (distribution... good to poor) for singers, songwriters, and instrumentalists... there's one for recording engineers. And since there are MORE doing it today (in actual numbers), there's MORE bad ones.

Jay, I've also thought about the archival survivability of my video tapes. (but honestly, most (of mine) don't have a lot that's too special... LOL). But unlike some of my old RR tapes, which were based on older plastics, modern vid-tape seems like it should last fine. I had some shedding problems years ago on my Revox (audio) with tape breakdown... what a frickin' mess trying to dupe such "bad" tapes... they clog up & shut the transport mechanism down, and make your blood pressure go nuts. About as much fun as changing the timing belt in your car. But I've never seen, or heard about, any significant deterioration of video cassettes. Of course, mine are kept in a dry and cool environment, and I've only used name brands (there IS a difference). I've thought about tranferring some of them (to digital), but realized that would take a lotta time, being that you'd have to do it in real time.

Speaking of old video tapes... I'm halfway through watching Oliver Stone's Wild Palms this week... I'd recorded it on video (6 hrs-1 cassette) back in '93... yeah, I'm JUST getting around to seeing it...LOL. As for the movie itself, it's a real mess. I'll give (Oliver Stone) credit for trying, although it seems like he tried doing Twin Peaks on acid. It's well intentioned, but too broad in concept. But it's still better than Stone's JFK, one of the most harmful/ destructive movies ever.

I'm about to get myself a new PC pretty soon... one reason is to upgrade so I can work with video editing, something I wouldn't attempt now (slow 5 yr old chips). I'm still researching... I don't want to spend a few hundred hours converting video to digital, then finding out (down the road), I could've done it in a much better (cleaner or more efficient) way. My thinking right now is to use an external hard-drive as a dedicated storage unit. I got a medium size (120g) one a year ago, which I use for backup data, photos, MP3's & wavs. It sits on the desk and it's totally silent... very nice technology. I only connect it and turn it on once a week or so, so it should last forever. I'd probably get a 2-300g one for video. But I'll wait till I read a bit more about the DVD options before burning to individual discs. Here's an article I saw yesterday about the crazy DVD standards...

ZDNet has an interesting article about how the porn industry might end up deciding the outcome of the HD-DVD/Blu-ray debate. One side likes the higher capacity of Blu-ray, while others like the lower costs of producing HD-DVDs.

http://slashdot.org/articles/05/01/10/1149230.shtml?tid=97&tid=198&tid=126&tid=1

[rufus]

Speaking of old video tapes... I'm halfway through watching Oliver Stone's Wild Palms this week... I'd recorded it on video (6 hrs-1 cassette) back in '93... yeah, I'm JUST getting around to seeing it...LOL. As for the movie itself, it's a real mess. I'll give (Oliver Stone) credit for trying, although it seems like he tried doing Twin Peaks on acid. It's well intentioned, but too broad in concept. But it's still better than Stone's JFK, one of the most harmful/ destructive movies ever.

that's funny, i recorded the same show, and have yet to watch it. i've got a bunch of stuff like that.

[jack70]

that's funny, i recorded the same show, and have yet to watch it. i've got a bunch of stuff like that. Yeah, I also have lots of stuff I recorded while I was working nights for years. Most of the classic movies I've gotten to, but there's a LOT of stuff yet unseen... much very old. It's funny to see some local anchors on the commercials as they looked 10-20 years ago... LOL.

As for Wild Palms... save your time and tape over it... LOL. It's pretty bad. I'd hoped it would get better after watching 2-3 hours, even though the story was so convoluted it was hard to make sense of it... but it only gets worse towards the end... lamer, more contrived, and the writing & the acting gets worse... a real piece-o-sh_t.