We have recently worked on probably the worst looking tapes but with some of the best sounding music recordings we’ve seen for a while! A batch of 10.5″ NAB studio masters had bad tape mould growth.
Andy Leighton, owner of Bolex Brothers and music publisher of the Rocky Horror Show, found a batch of studio masters on quarter inch tape that had been growing mould for some of them over 30 years. All of these recordings had been made at the renowned Sound and Recording Mobile studios better known as SARM, later creative home of Trevor Horn.
Among these tapes was the first ever recording made at SARM in 1972 by Richard o’Brien, writer of the Rocky Horror Show, in addition to rare tracks by artists such as Kimi and Ritz.
When the tape mould was finally cleaned from the tapes and some of them baked for binder hydrolysis the quality of the recordings was very high and testament to the high quality available from analogue recording. Even though tape can be vulnerable to physical problems, it is also robust. If these had been tape-based digital recordings, in the same condition, I doubt we’d have been able to achieve the same results.
SO, who would someone need to speak to about the status of the release of these recordings? Would love to hear them somehow.
still wondering what is going to happen with these recordings. Is there something that cna be done to help these recordings see the light of day?