GREAT NEWS......................hopefully!

[Ray Montee (RIP)]

Just rec'd word that some old tapes had been discovered from down in New Mexico, a former band leaders home. These tapes were recorded on state-of-
the-art equipment that was leased for the occasion back in the late 1950's.

They were going to be masters for several 4-Star Record releases that, for whatever reason, never came to fruit.

I'd imagine they were in a tin can, reel to reel, of course.

What do you experts feel the chances might be for these tapes being reserected and transferred over to MP-3's at this late date? I understand that all kinds of variables will apply but I'm mainly interested in your opinion......provided the tapes got reasonable care during this storage and minimal abuse.

[Alan Brookes]

Were they on 1/4" 1/2" 3/4" or 1" tapes ? Were they recorded on 1, 2, 4 or 8 channels ? At what speed ?

I absolutely guarantee that many people have equipment that can play the tapes, but we need to know the format.

If it's one of the formats that I have equipment for I would be very glad to transfer them to CD or .mp3

[Ray Montee (RIP)]

I'll check into it right away. My recollection seems
to believe it was 3/4 inch for some reason....

[John Macy]

We do lots of tape transfers at our studio. The problem with a lot of old tapes is they get gummy and need to be baked to bring them back to playable condition. This has to be done in a temperature controlled convection oven, which we have. If you need any help, let me know...we have been transferring the tape vault from the original Caribou Ranch--just did a lot of 2" 24 track stuff from 1975 live recordings of the Beach Boys and Chicago, and last month got to transfer unreleased Billy Joel tracks cut with Elton John's band....I doubt it was 3/4"...tape was usually 1/4", 1/2", 1" and 2" (MCI even experimented with 3" tape)....

[David Hartley]

Hi. Ray, get it done professionally, as J Macy says, you only get one good chance to get the best from these old tapes. Once its done, then the digital copies are here forever. I had a studio tranfer from an old master tape and he said it really did clog up the tape machine, heads and rollers etc, it sounds like john macy is your first contact here as these tapes you are talking about are very much older than the one i had done.

Regards, David

[b0b]

This is very mysterious. Who is the "former band leader"? Who was in the band? Was there a steel player? If so, who was it?

I discovered an old tape in my garage. Here's the picture that was with it. Maybe I'll re-release it on MP3.

[Mike Perlowin RIP]

I am friends with a guy who runs a company that does the sound restorations on old movies. He said the same thing about baking old tapes that John Macy did.

David is right. Get it done by professionals. And since John is part of this community, he is the logical choice.

[b0b]

Sorry, I assumed this was a Steel Players topic, which was the reason for my off-the-wall response. I see now that it's a Recording topic.

Topic is moved to the Recording section of the forum, where it belongs.

[Ray Montee (RIP)]

The leader was Tommy Kizziah.......of Salem, Oregon.
His band was the West Coast Ramblers of 4-Star Records.

Vocal: Eddie Zunck, rythmn guitar
...........aka Duke Davis, Las Vegas.
Vocal: Buddy Simmons, bass
Lead guitar: Glenn Smith, Sweet Home, Oregon
Drums: Johnny Reese
Fiddler: Ed Whitaker, Salem, OR....aka Fiddlin Ed,
Reno, Nevada
Steel gutiar. Ray Montee

[Joe Casey]

I had an expiriment with gummy tape..I was working on an album in Nashville off and on having to travel once twice a year there to do so..It was taking me a few years and several trips to do..I had the 2"Master stored in my basement music room on a shelf..I decided it was time to add to it and a friend who was engineering at a studio figured he had a few open hours..When he put it on the machine and started to run it well you guessed it..He spent most of the day cleaning the equipment and I lost the 3 years of work..Luckily I had made a Half inch master of what I had done in my last studio effort and I was able to at least use that..That was an expensive lesson .

[Alan Brookes]

They've been going through the Library of Congress tapes and trying to preserve them. They had a documentary on the television about a year ago and in the documentary they opened a tape recorded in the late 40s, just after its invbention, and showed that the magnetic coating was just falling away.

The coatings must have improved enormously over the next ten years because I have tapes recorded in the late 50s/early 60s which are still intact and playable.

[John Macy]

Hey Joe--that reel may be ok unless you kept trying to play it...we have brought back to life lots of tape that would not get more that a few few into the playback before they bogged the machine down....they will run fine for a few months after baking before they start breaking down again....

[Teddy Ray Bullard II]

by the way, I have a tape transfer business(can work with any format)

if you need someone down the road. I'd do it for free for any SGF member.

[Chris Cummings]

tape from the 50's 60's if stored well can survive better than tape from the 70's 80's as the manufacturers changed their tape process / formulations. This change in the early 70's lead to tapes needing to be ' baked ' prior to transfer.
At a guess I would bet the tapes are mono one track quarter inch and 15ips. Must be loads of pro's who can offer the service . Probably need a Ampex 350 recorder. If you really struggle contact Bear Family records in Germany who do loads of CD reissues of 50's USA country / rockabilly material from original master tapes [ I would also suggest they might even be interested in releasing the results]