Record Store Day is usually 'the one day each year when over 200 independent record shops all across the UK come together to celebrate their unique culture. Special vinyl releases are made exclusively for the day, in what’s become one of the biggest annual events on the music calendar.' This year, due to COVID-19, Record Store Day is being split across 3 dates: 29th August, 26th September and 24th October.
This Record Store Day, Saturday 29th August 2020, is particularly exciting for Greatbear as it sees the release on Vinyl Revival, Manchester of The High - Martin Hannett Sessions, a restoration and digitisation project we worked on earlier this year.
One of the Martin Hannett session DAT tapes digitised at Greatbear
Martin Hannett - Manchester music producer, known for his era-defining creative work with Buzzcocks, Joy Division, New Order, John Cooper Clarke, The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and many others - died aged 42 in April 1991.
The tapes we received were DAT (Digital Audio Tape) masters, produced by Hannett at recording sessions with The High in 1989 (at Strawberry Studios) and 1991 (at Great Linford Manor), and included Hannett's last production work before his untimely death.
The High - Martin Hannett session at Strawberry Studios 1989: producer Martin Hannett / Hannett inspecting DAT manual. Stills from footage by Nigel Couzens.
The High - Martin Hannett session at Strawberry Studios 1989: mixing desk / Andy Couzens. Stills from footage by Nigel Couzens.
The High were formed in 1989 by former Turning Blue singer John Matthews and former Buzzcocks F.O.C. members Andy Couzens (guitar, also formerly of The Stone Roses and pre-Roses bands The Patrol and Waterfront), Simon Davies (bass), and drummer Chris Goodwin (also formerly of the Waterfront as well as the Inspiral Carpets). They were signed by London Records and had three UK Singles Chart hits in 1990 before breaking into the top 30 in 1991 with a revamped version of their debut single, the Martin Hannett-produced "Box Set Go".
The High DAT cassette insert card tracks 1-4
The High DAT cassette insert card tracks 5-9
analogue to digital
From the Nigel Couzens footage (see video clip below), it looks like the Strawberry Studios sessions were recorded to 2 inch analogue tape, on a 24 track Studer A80. This was quite an old machine at that time as there would have been the A800 and possibly the A820 available too - but maybe they just loved the sound on the A80.
DAT, introduced by Sony in 1987, became popular in the audio and recording industry for mastering during the 1990s. The initial recordings would be made to 2" (or other width) analogue tape, but the mixed and produced final versions would be recorded to DAT - allowing the benefits of lossless encoding and avoiding the addition of further analogue tape hiss at the mastering stage. This process could be seen as a stepping stone towards an emerging all-digital production chain, and the development of hard disk recording.
fragile tape
At 3.81mm wide and 0.013mm thick, DAT is more fragile than other cassette-based digital tape formats such as DTRS/DA-88, ADAT and PCM digital audio, or any of the reel-to-reel formats (analogue or digital).
This makes it vulnerable to ripping. The High - Martin Hannett Sessions DAT masters arrived at Greatbear with visible signs of mould growth along the edges of the tape. (See the fuzzy white threads along the surface of the tape pack in the pictures above and below.) When this happens, the mould sticks the layers of the tape together - particularly along the edges - which inevitably leads to the tape ripping under the high tension of playback.
A ripped tape is especially problematic because DAT uses a helical scan recording system, based on a miniature video transport, and so cannot be spliced for clean edits. (Splices also risk irreparable damage to heads on the drum of the playback machine.) A ripped DAT tape - the helically-imprinted signal being bisected - results in irreversible signal loss.
Red arrow showing point where a speck of mould caused this DAT to rip. (Not one of The High - Martin Hannett tapes, but one previously brought to Greatbear in this state!)
Disassembly: unscrewing The High DAT cassette shell to access tape inside
restoration
We've found the safest way to restore mould-stricken DAT cassettes to a playable state and avoid ripping is to:
Acclimatise the tape to the controlled temperature and humidity of the Greatbear studio, driving the mould spores to dormancy
Disassemble the cassette shell
Very slowly and carefully unwind and rewind the tape by hand, dislodging the 'sticky' mould
Re-house the spools in a new, clean shell
Digitise via multiple passes, cleaning the DAT machine between plays. For these tapes we used our Sony PCM 7040
Sony ceased production of new DAT machines in 2005, and working, professional machines are becoming rare. We spend a considerable (and usually enjoyable) amount of time and resources keeping our machines in good condition. The Sony PCM 7040 is one of the better DAT machines in terms of the robustness of the tape transport and machine parts availability, as the same transport system was used in many Sony DDS DAT drives used in computer backup.
The High - Martin Hannett Sessions DAT master shell open with white mould visible on surface of tape pack
DAT during manual unwinding, showing mould-induced tendency for tape to stick to itself
The problem of mould growth on DATs is not unique to these precious Hannett / The High recordings.
Most DATs are now between 20 - 30 years old, and it only takes one period of storage at high temperature and/or relative humidity (RH) for mould to set in. To avoid damage, magnetic tape must be stored consistently at levels of 18 - 21 °C, and at 45 - 50% RH - something which no garage, attic or back room can guarantee...
We regularly receive mouldy DATs at the Greatbear studio. So much important material was mastered to DAT in the 1990s, and its vulnerabilities make it a priority for digitisation.
Support your local independent record shop on Record Store Day and every day!
A significant amount of archive material that exists on the web has been collected by dedicated amateurs, and a recent transfer in the Greatbear studio is an example of such endeavour.
The Genesis archive is powered by the passion of Mark Kenyon who spearheads a small team of Genesis enthusiasts. Together they have created a detailed, unofficial fan-resource dedicated to one of England's most successful rock bands, and the solo careers of its members.
Mark's site is unique, however, for its focus on artifacts, and his drive to share a range of ephemeral and well known material with other fans across the world.
Mark told me he had 'various headaches' with website design, before he settled on a template that would allow him to showcase the wide range of material he has collected, and continues to collect.
Of particular note is the timeline function, which enables the user to browse each subsection of the site chronologically. This helps break down the content into digestible bits, while presenting items in a manner that is visually appealing.
The transfers
Mark contacted Greatbear because he had acquired two open reel tapes of rare Genesis-related material. Both tapes were in perfect playable condition and are the first reel to reel tapes to grace the Genesis archive.
The first reel was an interview between John Shaw, who died in 2013 , and Phil Collins, recorded on Radio Trent on 27th January 1981. This interview captures Collins as his debut album, Face Value, is climbing the charts.
Mark acquired the tapes for a reasonable price from ebay, after a friend of Shaw had put them up for auction early this year.
The second reel we transferred was picked up at a Flea Market in Brick Lane, London, in the early 1980s. It contains semi-finished versions of Genesis's iconic 1974 album, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
The tape includes guide and out of tune vocals, different time signatures and guitars are placed high in the mix. Michael, who helps Mark to run the archive, ran an A/B comparison with the original vinyl version. He found that vocals ran ahead or were missing in places, and Phil Collins' drum fills differed significantly to the finished versions.
The lack of vocals can perhaps be explained by Kevin Holm-Hudson's claim that Gabriel was 'still writing and revising lyrics a month after the backing tracks had been finished'.
Another interesting point about the tapes is that work-in-progress titles are written on the box. 'Sex Song' for example, became 'Counting Out Time', 'Countryman' refers to 'Chamber Of 32 Doors' and 'Broadway' is used to refer to the title track.
There is also a discrepancy between the titles written on the box and the material on the transferred tape which includes the following songs: 'Counting Out Time', 'The Supernatural Anesthetist', 'Back In NYC', 'Hairless Heart (Instrumental)'.
Mark cannot be 100% certain about the origin of the tape. It is equally likely they are from sessions recordedat the farm in Glaspant Wales, where Genesis used the Island mobile studio to record material for the album, or from sessions at Island studios in Basin Street, London. He has, however, seen photographic evidence of the sessions which indicate thataround 10-15 tapes similar tapes were recorded.
Many of these tapes, of course, ended up in a skip once the final version had been 'laid down.' These tapes were never destined to be 'the final copy' of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. They may even be a source of embarrassment for the artists because they document their raw, unfinished moments of music making. Nonetheless, such tapes provide a fascinating insight into how 'classic' albums are recorded and written. For fans such recordings are gold dust. They help them to get closer to the moments when a magical piece of music was invented, or present evidence that it could have sounded very different.
The tapes also make clear that the recording itself can function as an instrument, integral to—rather than a one-dimensional document of—the writing process. Holm-Hudson wrote that 'occasionally, Gabriel would record over vocals over passages that some band members...thought would be instrumental.' Gabriel was using the recording, in other words, as a platform for vocal creativity, often against the creative vision of other band members.
It is no doubt that the Genesis archive will continue to evolve and grow in the future. The site Mark and his team have created is a resource for Genesis obsessives and popular music archivists.
It also more than that: an open, public site where visitors can learn about a range of popular music histories that intersect with the Genesis story. These include progressive rock and the concept album, 'World Music', the changing nature of both the music industry and its aesthetic expressions from the 60s-90s, to name a few examples.
***
Many thanks to Mark for discussing his archival work with us.
At the end of 2015 Steve Lindsey, founding member of Liverpool art rock trailblazers Deaf School, stumbled upon two 1/2″ open reel video tape recordings of the band, tucked away in a previously unknown nook of his Dublin home.
2016 is the 40th anniversary of Deaf School’s first album 2nd Honeymoon.
With the landmark approaching, Steve felt it was an ideal time to get the tapes digitised. The video transfers done in the Great Bear studio will contribute to the growing amount of documentation online celebrating the band’s antics.
Betwen 1976-1978 Deaf School were signed to Warner Brothers, releasing three albums.
Deaf School are described by music journalist Dave Simpson as ‘a catalyst band‘ ‘whose influence was great – who might even have changed pop history in their own way – but who never made the leap into the music history books.’
Deaf School nonetheless remain legendary figures to the people who loved, and were profoundly transformed by, their music.
Holly Johnson, who went on the achieve great success with Frankie Goes to Hollywood, described Deaf School as ‘the benchmark that had to be transcended. Someone had to make a bigger splash. After the “big bang” of the 1960s, they were the touchstone that inspired a wave of creative rebellion and musical ambition that revived Liverpool’s music scene for a generation.’
Camp and Chaotic
Deaf School’s performances were a celebratory spectacle of the camp and chaotic.
The band took their lead from art music projects such as the Portsmouth Sinfonia, an orchestra comprised of non musicians which anyone could join, regardless of ability, knowledge or experience.
‘Everyone who wanted to be part of Deaf School was welcomed and no one turned away. The music was diverse and varied, drawing on rock and roll, Brecht and cabaret,’ Steve told us.
Rare Footage
The ½” porta-pak video tapes feature rare footage of Deaf School performing on 1st December 1975 at the Everyman Theatre, one of Liverpool’s many iconic venues.*
The show was organised for Warner Brothers employees who had taken the train from London to Liverpool to see Deaf School perform.
Porta-pak open reel video was revolutionary for its time: It was the first format to enable people outside the professional broadcast industry to make (often documentary) moving images.
For this reason material captured on ½” videotape is often fairly eclectic and its edgy, glitchy aesthetic celebrated by contemporary documentary makers.
The Greatbear studio has certainly received many interesting ½” video tapes from artists and performers active in the 1970s. We also did an interview with researcher Peter Sachs Collopy who discusses how porta-pak video technology was perceived by artists of that era as a ‘technology of consciousness’.
Non-professional video tape recordings made in the 1970s are, nevertheless, fairly rare. At that time it was still expensive to acquire equipment. Even if videos were made, once they had served their purpose there is a strong possibility the tape would be re-used, wiping whatever was recorded on there.
With this in mind, we are in a lucky position to be able to watch the Deaf School videos, which have managed to survive the rough cuts of history.
Preserving 1/2 ” open reel video tape
The video of the Everyman Theatre performance was cleaned prior to transfer because it was emitting a small amount of loose binder. It was recorded onto Scotch-branded ½” video tape which, in our experience, pose very few problems in the transfer process.
The other tape Steve sent us was recorded onto a SONY-branded ½” video tape. In comparison, these tapes always need to be ‘baked’ in a customised-incubator in order to temporarily restore them to playable condition.
The preservation message to take away here is this: if you have ½” video tape on SONY branded stock, make them your digitisation priority!
Deaf School Now
Steve told me that members of Deaf School ‘always kept in touch and remained friends’.
Over the past 10 years they have reformed and performed a number of gigs in the UK and Tokyo.
In 2016 they are planning to go to the U.S., reaching out to ‘the pockets of people all over the world who know about Deaf School.’
Ultimately though Liverpool will always be the band’s ‘spiritual home.’
When they return to Liverpool the gigs are always sold out and they have great fun, which is surely what being in a band is all about.
—
* The Everyman archive is stored in Special Collections at Liverpool John Moores University. This archive listing describes how the Everyman ‘is widely recognised as a pivotal influence and innovative key player in regional theatre. A model of innovative practice and a centre of experimental theatre and new writing, it has thrived as a nurturing ground for a new breed of directors, actors, writers and designers, and a leading force in young people’s theatre.’
Many thanks to Steve Lindsey for talking to us about his tapes!
Sometimes genuine rarities turn up at the Greatbear studio. Our recent acquisition of four reels of ‘missing, believed wiped’ test recordings of cult BBC TV show The Old Grey Whistle Test is one such example.
It is not only the content of these recordings that are interesting, but their form too, because they were made on 1” Type A videotape.
The 1″ Type A was ‘one of the first standardised reel-to-reel magnetic tape formats in the 1 inch (25 mm) width.’ In the US it had greatest success as an institutional and industrial format. It was not widely adopted in the broadcast world because it did not meet Federal Communications Commission (FCC) specifications for broadcast videotape formats—it was capable of 350 lines, while the NTSC standard was 525, PAL and SECAM were 625. (Note: upcoming conference ‘Standards, Disruptions and Values in Digital Culture and Communication‘ taking place November 2015).
According the VT Old Boys website, created by ex-BBC engineers in order to document the history of videotape used at the organisation, 2″ Quadruplex tape remained very much the norm for production until the end of the 1970s.
Yet the very existence of the Old Grey Whistle Test tapes suggests type A videotape was being used in some capacity in the broadcast world. Perhaps ADAPT, a project researching British television production technology from 1960-present, could help us solve this mystery?
From Type A, to Type B….
As these things go, type A was followed by Type B, with this model developed by the German company Bosch. Introduced in 1976, Type B was widely adopted in continental Europe, but not in UK and USA which gravitated toward the type C model, introduced by SONY/ Ampex, also in 1976. Type C then became the professional broadcast standard and was still being used well into the 1990s. It was able to record high quality composite video, and therefore had an advantage over component videos such as Betacam and MII that were ‘notoriously fussy and trouble-prone.‘ Type C also had fancy functions like still, shuttle, variable-speed playback and slow motion.
From a preservation assessment point of view, ‘one-inch open reel is especially susceptible to risks associated with age, hardware, and equipment obsolescence. It is also prone to risks common to other types of magnetic media, such as mould, binder deterioration, physical damage, and signal drop-outs.’
The Preservation Self-Assessment Programme advise that ‘this format is especially vulnerable, and, based on content assessment, it should be a priority for reformatting.’
AMPEX made over 30 SMPTE type A models, the majority of which are listed here. Yet the number of working machines we have access to today is few and far between.
In years to come it will be common for people to say ‘it takes four 1” Type A tape recorders to make a working one’, but remember where you heard the truism first.
Harvesting several of these hulking, table-top machines for spares and working parts is exactly how we are finding a way to transfer these rare tapes—further evidence that we need to take the threat of equipment obsolescence very seriously.
Whole subcultures have emerged in this memory boom, as digital technologies enable people to come together via a shared passion for saving obscurities presumed to be lost forever. One such organisation is Kaleidoscope, whose aim is to keep the memory of ‘vintage’ British television alive. Their activities capture an urgent desire bubbling underneath the surface of culture to save everything, even if the quality of that everything is questionable.
Of course, as the saying goes, one person’s rubbish is another person’s treasure. As with most cultural heritage practices, the question of value is at the centre of people’s motivations, even if that value is expressed through a love for Pan’s People, Upstairs, Downstairs, Dick Emery and the Black and White Minstrel Show.
We were recently contacted by a customer hunting for lost TV episodes. His request: to lay hands on any old tapes that may unwittingly be laden with lost jewels of TV history. His enquiry is not so strange since a 70s Top of the Pops programme, a large proportion of which were deleted from the official BBC archive, trailed the end of ½ EIAJ video tape we recently migrated. And how many other video tapes stored in attics, sheds or barns potentially contain similar material? Or, as stated on the Kaleidoscope website:
‘Who’d have ever imagined that a modest, sometimes mould-infested collection of VHS tapes in a cramped back bedroom in Pill would lead to the current Kaleidoscope archive, which hosts the collections of many industry bodies as well as such legendary figures as Bob Monkhouse or Frankie Howard?’
Selection and appraisal in the archive
Mysterious tapes?
Living in an age of seemingly infinite information, it is easy to forget that any archival project involves keeping some things and throwing away others. Careful considerations about the value of an item needs to be made, both in relation to contemporary culture and the projected needs of subsequent generations.
These decisions are not easy and carry great responsibility. After all, how is it possible to know what society will want to remember in 10, 20 or even 30 years from now, let alone 200? The need to remember is not static either, and may change radically over time. What is kept now also strongly shapes future societies because our identities, lives and knowledge are woven from the memory resources we have access to. Who then would be an archivist?
When faced with a such a conundrum the impulse to save everything is fairly seductive, but this is simply not possible. Perhaps things were easier in the analogue era when physical storage constraints conditioned the arrangement of the archive. Things had to be thrown away because the clutter was overwhelming. With the digital archive, always storing more seems possible because data appears to take up less space. Yet as we have written about before on the blog, just because you can’t touch or even see digital information, doesn’t mean it is not there. Energy consumption is costly in a different way, and still needs to be accounted for when appraising how resource intensive digital archives are.
For those who want their media memories to remain intact, whole and accessible, learning about the clinical nature of archival decisions may raise concern. The line does however need to be drawn somewhere. In an interview in 2004 posted on the Digital Curation Centre’s website, Richard Wright, who worked in the BBC’s Information and Archives section, explained the long term preservation strategy for the institution at the time.
‘For the BBC, national programmes that have entered the main archive and been fully catalogued have not, in general, been deleted. The deletions within the retention policy mainly apply to “contribution material” i.e. components (rushes) of a final programme, or untransmitted material. Hence, “long-term” for “national programmes that have entered the main archive and been fully catalogued” means in perpetuity. We have already kept some material for more than 75 years, including multiple format migrations.’
Value – whose responsibility?
For all those episodes, missing believed wiped, the treasure hunters who track them down tread a fine line between a personal obsession and offering an invaluable service to society. You decide.
What is inspiring about amateur preservationists is that they take the question of archival value into their own hands. In the 21st century, appraising and selecting the value of cultural artifacts is therefore no longer the exclusive domain of the archivist, even if expertise about how to manage, describe and preserve collections certainly is.
Does the popularity of such activities change the constitution of archives? Are they now more egalitarian spaces that different kinds of people contribute to? It certainly suggests that now, more than ever, archives always need to be thought of in plural terms, as do the different elaborations of value they represent.
Digital technologies have helped to salvage all manner of ‘lost’ or ‘forgotten’ recordings. Whole record labels, from the recently featured Bristol Archive Records to institutional collections like Smithsonian Folkways, are based on the principle of making ‘hard to access’ recordings available in digital form.
Occasionally we get such rare recordings in the Greatbear studio, and we are happy to turn the signal from analogue to digital so the music can be heard by new audiences. Last week we were sent a particularly interesting collection of tapes: a box of nearly 40 3”-10.5” reel to reel tapes from the songwriter and artist Jack Hollingshead, who sadly passed away in March 2013. The tapes are in good condition, although the spools are pretty dirty, most probably from being stored under the bed or at the back of a cupboard, as these things often are! Jack’s tape came to our attention after a phone call from the writer Stefan Granados, who wanted to arrange for a few songs to be digitised for a research project he is doing focused around the Beatles’ Apple Records company.
The Beatles set up Apple Records in 1968 as an outlet for their own and emerging artists’ recordings. Well known performers who were signed to Apple included Mary Hopkin, Ravi Shankar, James Taylor and many others. But there were also a number of artists who recorded sessions with Apple, but for one reason or another, their music was never released on the label. This is what happened to Jack’s music. Jack’s Apple sessions are psychedelic pop-folk songs with striking melodies, song cousins of drowsy Beatles hits like ‘Across the Universe’. He recorded seven songs in total, which we received on magnetic tape and acetate disc, the test cut of the recording that would have been printed on vinyl. We digitised from the magnetic tape because the disc was in fairly poor condition and we didn’t know how many times the disc had been played.
It wasn’t the first time that Jack’s work had aroused record company interest. When he was 16 he signed a contract with Aberbach publishers. Like his experience with Apple a few years later, nothing came of the sessions, and because the companies owned the recordings, he was not able to release them independently.
Jack soon became very frustrated by the record industry in the late 1960s and decided he would do it himself. This was ten years before home recording became widely accessible, so it was not easy, either financially or technically.
In the 1970s a series of serious accidents, and a spell in prison, proved to be disruptive for his musical career. Jack’s prison sentence, received for growing marijuana he was using for medical pain relief purposes, was however fairly positive. It gave him time to focus on playing guitar and he wrote his best songs while incarcerated.
The back of a test acetate is grooveless
He continued to write and record music throughout his life, and there is a significant amount of material that Trina Grygiel, who is responsible for managing Jack’s estate, is determined to organise and release in his memory.
Jack was also prodigiously talented artist in other mediums, and turned his hand to puppet making, wax painting, gardening and property restoration. His obituary described him as a ‘perfectionist, in all his artistic, creative and practical endeavours he would settle for nothing less.’
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.
Celebrate What? is a documentary we transferred and created DVD access copies for its director recently. He only had a VHS copy of the 8mm original unfortunately but it’s still a great piece of history about St Pauls, the St Pauls Carnival and Bristol.
If anyone can recognise themselves or anyone else, please contact the director, Colin Thomas by email, ctbr03509 at blueyonder.co.uk
2 U-matic video tapes were discovered of a Black Roots live performance in Bristol in the 1980s. We were able to restore, digitise and make the umatic transfer of this recording as a high quality, uncompressed Quicktime file then encode and author a DVD for future release by Bristol Archive Records.
Some information supplied by the label:
Black Roots were Bristol’s premier Reggae band throughout the eighties and having gone their separate ways in the nineties they reformed last year and will be rekindling the magic with an intimate hometown gig at the Fleece on Friday September 9th, the show coincides with the release of “Black Roots – The Reggae Singles Anthology”, released on Bristol Archive Records in collaboration with Nubian Records, this release showcases all of the band’s singles released during their first decade and as an extra bonus the CD issue comes coupled with a DVD of the band’s 1986 video release “Celebration” recorded at the long gone Studio nightclub in Bristol. This show will be something special and likely sell out so book your tickets early and don’t miss out.
We were very excited recently when Chris Bradfield from Soundscommercial uncovered a previously unseen batch of EIAJ half inch reel to reel video tapes. In the process of looking for 1976 footage for their event, Spirit of 76, we uncovered many other gems. One of these goals was the famous hat-trick scored by Kevin Mabbutt against Manchester United at Old Trafford in 1978. Mabbutt is one of only two players in Football League history even to have done this and this footage was never recorded anywhere else!
Unfortunately this large batch of valuable recordings had been stored in damp, unheated conditions and had suffered. The tape had deteriorated in several ways.
Mould growth was evident on some tapes
The oldest tapes from the early 1970s were shedding oxide severely and had little lubrication left in the binder.
Binder hydrolysis, often called sticky shed was evident on other tapes.
Each issue needed a different process to treat the tape. The common assumption that ‘tape baking‘ will restore all unplayable tape is not true. It is just one solution to one of these issues and can cause more problems if used incorrectly. Deteriorated video tape is much less forgiving than audio tape when attempting transfer and must always be handled and processed with extreme care. Crinkled, curled, edge damaged tapes are next to impossible to restore back to their original condition and it’s common that more damage can occur when owners are desperate to transfer footage.
We were able to restore all the tapes to a playable condition and make uncompressed quicktime files of these.
Below is a clip from a later recording. We are not able, unfortunately, to show the Kevin Mabbutt clip yet.
Unseen to 32 years, although there could possibly be other tapes in the vaults at Abbey Road.
This NTSC U-matic transfer to uncompressed quicktime files was a damaged tape that at some point in its life had been ‘eaten’ by a greedy U-matic machine! The tape shell also had some plastic debris inside that needed removing before it was safe to attempt loading and migration.
We’ve recently been proud to be regularly involved in the transfer of a range of rare and often unique recordings of great but often forgotten Bristol bands from the late 1970s onwards.
“… aims to showcase music from the diverse Bristol Music scene and provide a historical account / document of all things Bristol that should never be forgotten. Many of the artists and releases are rare, unknown or never before released. The material has been lovingly digitally remastered from vinyl, ¼ inch tape, dat or cassette. The original vinyl releases would generally have been limited to runs of 1000 copies or less.”
Many of the recordings have survived well over the years and sound great, a testament to the bands and the engineers that recorded them.
