The official music recording thread

[Unorthodox Yank]

Yeah...i don't really know how successful this thread will be..seeing as I THINK I'm one of very few people around here that records music...but I figure it would be worth a shot.

Big news as of recent has been the spontaneous implosion of Quantegy, the only company that made mass quantities of open-reel tape.

This, of course, comes to the dismay of dorks like me with our sexy reel-to-reel machines.

I haven't been following the news too closely since it broke, but last i heard there were a few different places that were willing to step in and basically take over the tape market...but nothing concrete has happened yet.

In other news...I'm listening to Weezer's "Pinkerton" right now, and wondering what the point of all this is...seeing as I'm probabaly never going to get a drum sound that good as long as I live.

Oh well.

[nicodemus]

I wish they released stuff on reel to reel. A friend of mine's dad has all of these great live recordings of old bluegrass shows on reel to reel, but he's pretty much the only person I know that has one.

I've been wanting to get into show recording since most of my favorite bands aren't dickheads and allow taping of their concerts. However, most of them do have a digital only policy meaning most folks go DAT.

[MeridianFC]

It's funny I was talking with some folks about this the other day. I just re-aquired a bunch of old 499 from some past session we'd done. Most of it's been edited but I bet it'll actually be worth something as recording material in the future when folks are getting hard up for 2". To think about how much I've spent on tape in my life....

Funny thing is the last session I did, over two years ago, was done all Pro Tools and we didn't even use guitar amps, it was on done on the Pod! The world has changed dramatically.

I think the midleve studio will be complete gone in 5 years.

[Mad_Bishop]

Alex, do you get TapeOp? In the issue that came out last week Larry Crane writes about how the Dutch company RMG International has already begun manufacturing tape and should be delivering next month. Also, ATR has pledged to begin delivering tape no later than June. Also, there is a shut down tape plant in Opelika, Alabama (Nico, you know anything about this?) that may start producing again. I agree with Kelly, though. I think in 3 years, 95% of recording will be entirly digital, either in bedroom rigs like mine or in multi-million dollar studios.

[Unorthodox Yank]

Alex, do you get TapeOp? In the issue that came out last week Larry Crane writes about how the Dutch company RMG International has already begun manufacturing tape and should be delivering next month. Also, ATR has pledged to begin delivering tape no later than June. Also, there is a shut down tape plant in Opelika, Alabama (Nico, you know anything about this?) that may start producing again. I agree with Kelly, though. I think in 3 years, 95% of recording will be entirly digital, either in bedroom rigs like mine or in multi-million dollar studios.

Yeah, I get tapeop when I'm at home...but i'm not at home. Most of my info comes from the tapeop message boards, and those seem to have been shut down as of late.

I knew ATR was gonna get into the tape making stuff, but i didn't know how far along they were until just now. That's awesome.

I may be totally off on this, but i THINK the plant in Alabama was where Quantegy was based before they folded. Maybe there's another company taking that one over? I dunno.

Either way, I am of the belief that open reel tape style recording is going to find a niche in the recording market much like tube amps have found a niche in the guitar amp market after the introduction of Solid state. It'll still be around for the forseeable future, but as more of a "specialty" item than digital rigs.