Comments on: Surreal reel-to-reel http://rogerbourland.com/2006/11/24/surreal-reel-to-reel/ Roger Bourland writes about music and life Fri, 19 Mar 2010 02:19:13 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Brad Wood http://rogerbourland.com/2006/11/24/surreal-reel-to-reel/comment-page-1/#comment-7085 Brad Wood Sat, 25 Nov 2006 07:27:56 +0000 http://rogerbourland.com/blog/2006/11/24/surreal-reel-to-reel/#comment-7085 Doug Sax* points out that LP metal masters are the most impervious to decay. In principle, digital media, when backed up before the "Perfect Sound Forever" has lost enough information to be unrecoverable through error correction, should endure indefinitely. But who's going to mind that store? We've all got better things to do. And when the big computer achieves consciousness it all get incinerated anyway...wait, no, that's just a movie. Sax also remarked that magnetic tape sounded terrific a few hours later, and by several days later was...ummm...not so great, compared to the recollection of the live mike feed. Some of the more modern formulations were especially subject to this. Meanwhile, fortunately, some older stuff (from the ancient RCA Red Seal era for example) although plagued with hiss from the inevitably noisy electronics of the time, nonetheless held up extraordinarily well with age, long enough to be remastered and dazzle with both the sonics and the spectacular performances. There's a long list from those halcyon days, but one recording that I suspect Roger either knows or would enjoy is the Reiner/Chicago Song of the Nightingale/Lt. Kije pairing. Yum. * Mastering engineer extraordinaire, famous for the Sheffield Direct-to-Disc LPs. Roger, do you remember when you were over at Devonshire and I put on the Sheffield Leinsdorf/LA Phil excerpts from the Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet? You were pleased (I think it may have been after you voiced a gentle chide about how all I tended to put on was ~early music). Doug Sax* points out that LP metal masters are the most impervious to decay. In principle, digital media, when backed up before the “Perfect Sound Forever” has lost enough information to be unrecoverable through error correction, should endure indefinitely. But who’s going to mind that store? We’ve all got better things to do. And when the big computer achieves consciousness it all get incinerated anyway…wait, no, that’s just a movie.

Sax also remarked that magnetic tape sounded terrific a few hours later, and by several days later was…ummm…not so great, compared to the recollection of the live mike feed. Some of the more modern formulations were especially subject to this. Meanwhile, fortunately, some older stuff (from the ancient RCA Red Seal era for example) although plagued with hiss from the inevitably noisy electronics of the time, nonetheless held up extraordinarily well with age, long enough to be remastered and dazzle with both the sonics and the spectacular performances. There’s a long list from those halcyon days, but one recording that I suspect Roger either knows or would enjoy is the Reiner/Chicago Song of the Nightingale/Lt. Kije pairing. Yum.

* Mastering engineer extraordinaire, famous for the Sheffield Direct-to-Disc LPs. Roger, do you remember when you were over at Devonshire and I put on the Sheffield Leinsdorf/LA Phil excerpts from the Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet? You were pleased (I think it may have been after you voiced a gentle chide about how all I tended to put on was ~early music).

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