My Reel-to-Reel Master Tape Collection

In this video I explore most of my reel-to-reel master tape collection. Originals, copies, scams and other strange stuff!

More content & Ana[dia]log groove here:

#mastertapes #reeltoreel #tape

[SEAN]

Can you make a video showing your collection of commercially released 7 ½ ips and 3 ¾ ips reel to reel tapes?

[hacmustafaus]

Wov !!! What a lucky man you are.... Reel to reel tapes of The Wall and The Dark Side of The Moon....

[Nemsterfly]

Thank you for that video. I thoroughly enjoyed it. You are a great collector as well as a good enthusiast. Your presentation skills are excellent. Love your videos. Ciao

[adrianwu]

Thank you for an interesting video. I have been recording on analogue tape since the late 1990s, when I started recording some concerts and dress rehearsals for the Hong Kong Philharmonic. A digital recording was what they wanted, but we added two Nagra IV-S as "back ups". The classic Decca tree technique was used, and all the tracks mixed in real time before going to the recorders. So, I have a pretty good idea what master tapes should sound like. When the Tape Project started to come out with tapes, I was one of their first subscribed, getting their first series (10 tapes) for $2000. I was really most interested in the two Decca titles that Winston Ma managed to negotiate for them. Decca has never allowed any of their master tapes to be released on tape ever since. I do agree that Saxophone Colossus was a bit disappointing, but Waltz for Debbie is excellent. For the two Decca titles, the Hindemith VC/Bruch Scottish Fantasy is better than the Albeniz, both being celebrated Decca classics. The two Reference Recordings titles are astounding, and as my set up improves over the years, I find them more and more amazing.
For the grey market master tape copies, one really needs to trust the seller. In my case, I have a contact who used to work at Melodiya in St Petersburg, who is doing his own thing now. I asked him to try and copy the three Tchaikovsky Symphonies DGG did for Mravinsky, and he managed to convince an ex-colleague to do it. I love those performances, and I want to try and find the best recording for them. The original DGG LPs were decent but not up to Decca standard. The CD releases are disasters. After several weeks, I got word that they would do it. I put these tapes on right after I received them, and boy, they just blew me away. They brought tears to my eyes. My impression that DGG was not as good as Decca is wrong, at least during the 1950s and 60s. They only started to do these multi-mike recordings in the 1970s, and before that, they were doing minimal miked recordings in great venues such as the Jesus Christ Church. Their original LP mastering (at Emil Berliner studios) probably did not do them justice. Another point is, the Melodiya archives is a treasure trove, since they had incredible artists during the Soviet era, and they also produced LPs for EMI for the Soviet market. You can find master tapes of some of the most coveted EMI recordings (Oistrahk, Kogan etc.) there. It is only a matter of getting access to them !

[johnf]

John F ...from Canada love your show..You teach me alot..Thank You..Keep Up The Good Work..You got great stuff ..Great Advice ...Salute Italy.. and I Salute you

[ScottGrammer]

Hi, Guido. I really enjoyed this video. I wish I could afford such tapes myself!

The issue with 30 IPS tapes having "no bass" (12:13) is somewhat overblown. It's not that they have "no bass, " it's that the bass rolloff frequency becomes unacceptably high. The problem with reproducing bass at such a high tape speed is that the wavelengths of low frequencies (on the tape) become comparable to or even longer than the width of the poles of the playback head, and the result is that the low frequencies partially cancel themselves out on playback. I'll have to do a video about this sometime. I have a video in the works about open-reel tape now, and perhaps it could become a series.

In any case, bass on analog tapes is always a bit of a problem due to "head bumps, " which cause variations in the level of the reproduced bass, depending on tape speed and head design, and once you get to 30 IPS, the problem is exacerbated so much that the high tape speed begins to define the limits of how low the bass can go. Playback LF equalization can help, but only so much. And you can't fix it on the record side because (1) it's a playback machine problem, different for each type of machine, and, (2) you'd quickly overload the tape at low frequencies if you pre-emphasized the bass too much.

[blackwaterdogs]

I have two similar tapes, created by a former studio engineer, which are "Meddle", and "Dark Side Of The Moon", both by Pink Floyd. They (supposedly) came from low-generation safety copies, and sound better than any other commercially-available vinyl copies of the same albums in my collection. I generally use a Teac X-1000R deck for playback.

[myrecordcollection]

Just inherited a reel to reel yesterday. On here doing my homework

[analogue]

ooh, you got my attention with "the wall"!😛

[stevenclarke]

I had a reel to reel tape machine for Christmas 1970 it was a fidelity 4 track mono machine . I had great fun with it recording the top 40 on Sunday nights. Most people had cassette recorders, shoe box size not really made for music. A friend of mine heard me playing a recording and thought that it was the radio, bit of an insult but showed the huge difference between reel to reel and the cassette of the day .

[JeffersonDD]

Great collection! I have a few of the IPI, and I agree on price and overall quality. I also have the Tape Project Sonny Rollins, and find it sounds really, really good. Maybe it’s my Ampex vs. your telefunken gear, or just personal preference? The AP Ultra Tape may have slightly better packaging than tape project even.

One thing I’ve learned the hard way, test tones make a HUGE difference, . If you can align your machine to the same setup as the machine the dubs were made on, it’s a tremendous improvement in sound quality.

Cheers and please do more master tape videos :]

[kawmic]

"Digital is a huge mistake in humanity" !! You are 100 percent RIGHT!!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😎😎

[DirectorsGarage]

Late to this party. I have a Staples Singers album off the Tape Project that's pretty good. Gentle Ben Ultratape (Ben Webster) from Analogue Productions is spectacular. I also have probably a dub of a dub of Hard Day's Night-- what's interesting about it is that someone went through the trouble of splicing leader between the tracks. It sounds good, for sure, but I can't imagine it's anywhere near original. It's definitely cool though. I buy a lot off ebay and I have visions of someone dubbing their CD collection in a basement somewhere. But I didn't pay much more than what the cost of 2 reels of new tape would be. Unless it's from Analogue or a reputable dealer, there's just no way to be 100% certain.

[anthonysmith]

Wouldn't it be great if Impex, Mofi & Speaker's Corner released reels of the titles they offer? Analogue Productions is doing this but it's taking a long time. Tape Project hasn't released anything for a while now. I would like to see the "Analogue Resurgence"!

[jimmyjoejeeter]

I bought a lot of reel to reel tapes off E-bay! I really love my two Reel to Reel tape decks! If I had room, I would have at least 3 or 4 more of them!

[DanClapp]

Jesus, I would love to have even just copies of those tapes

[RetroPanic]

Have 3 Revox, a77, b77 and PR99, love it and I would like to have so much a master tape! Never Found

[coucoun]

Sir, you are right saying Brothers In Arms album by Dire Straits is SUPPOSEDLY as they claim is full DDD.
(They) Warner Bros, which made this release, claimed it was full DDD due to the popularity of new audio standard those years.
And now what is really true? We got a copy of this master tape. And checking diagnosis with a special studio recording software
it was actually DAD and DAA (in case with a vinyl release). I never liked sonics of both releases, i.e. CD and vinyl
due to their restrained, squeezed sonic character but when I heard the master tape copy I completely changed my mind.
It's "Oh, boy! Oh, mama!". You name it.
Yes, the album was recorded digitally, that is D, then edited by an analogue studio tape deck due to the fact digital editing was ultraexpensive in 1985.
And we'll get soon a copy of Dire Straits album (Sultans of Swing) (1978), their first and my favorute DS album. Luckily it's all AAA.

[pabloficosecco]

Felicitaciones Guido!! Un abrazo, desde Bahía Blanca, Argentina.

[carljuztine]

The Pink Floyd copies are just fascinating