Tape discussion at Axpona 2016, Friday April 15th, 3:15-4:15

[docb]

Tape: The Format Of The Future (with a short history of its Glorious Past)

Chad Kassem, Acoustic Sounds
Paul Stubblebine, The Tape Project
Chris Mara, Welcome to 1979
Dan Labrie, ATR Service and ATR Magnetics
Myles Astor, Journalist


Meet pros who are directly involved in the Tape Renaissance

Find out how easy it can be to have a studio quality tape machine playing back Master Tape Copies in your listening room.

How to get the most out of the format, making sure your tape machine is operating at its best.

[Listens2tubes]

I don't see this on the schedule. Can you tell us the room, time and dates?

[High and Outside]

The time and date are both in the subject of Doc's post. The Axpona website doesn't mention what room it's in. I'll just have to figure it out when I get there.

http://www.axpona.com/sessions_detail.asp?id=4109

[Satch]

Chris Mara has a cool operation in Nashville. I have a MCI JH-24 1' 8-Track "Mara Machine", a JH-110 1/2" 4-Track and I'm waiting delivery of a JH-110 1/2" 2-Track mastering machine.

I went to Nashville in 2013 to pick up the first Mara Machine (1/2" 4-Track) and while I was there I attended a Recording Summit at Welcome To 1979. Chris is a very good speaker, teacher, engineer and the '79 recording studio is really something to see if you have a chance.

I hope to go to one of their Tape Camps this fall.

Ray Satcher

[Listens2tubes]

So PICTURES! would be nice.

[MylesAstor]

So PICTURES! would be nice.

A video of the session will soon be available on the  Axpona YouTube site. Paul was really awesome and the audience really enjoyed hearing about his experiences in both the recording and playback end.

Of course the highlight of the session was Chad announcing he'll soon be releasing music in the R2R format. Axpona attendees were treated to four 30 ips, 1/2 inch sampler tapes from Analogue Productions in the Joseph Audio room. All that heard them were pretty blown away. I didn't hear all of the samplers but some of the highlights were Dean Martin, Getz/Gilberto, Ray Charles, Muddy Waters, Kenny Burrell and especially Dusty's The Look of Love.

Chris also mentioned that he'll be releasing an audiophile version of the MCI decks later this year. One really interesting tidbit from Chris was how the ratio of professional/consumer business has shifted over the last five years changed from 80/20 to 20/80. (I think that Dan Labrie of ATR Services is also seeing the same shift in business; in fact, five years ago, it was rare for him to sell a machine to an audiophile. Not so today!) Chris also mentioned in passing that several other companies involved in refurbishing and repairing pro decks are also becoming interested in the audiophile market.

[Listens2tubes]

This is all great news Myles. Thank you.

[ironbut]

Wow!
Can't wait to get my ears on some Dino on tape!

All fantastic news.

[MylesAstor]

So PICTURES! would be nice.

A video of the session will soon be available on the  Axpona YouTube site. Paul was really awesome and the audience really enjoyed hearing about his experiences in both the recording and playback end.

Of course the highlight of the session was Chad announcing he'll soon be releasing music in the R2R format. Axpona attendees were treated to four 30 ips, 1/2 inch sampler tapes from Analogue Productions in the Joseph Audio room. All that heard them were pretty blown away. I didn't hear all of the samplers but some of the highlights were Dean Martin, Getz/Gilberto, Ray Charles, Muddy Waters, Kenny Burrell and especially Dusty's The Look of Love.

Chris also mentioned that he'll be releasing an audiophile version of the MCI decks later this year. One really interesting tidbit from Chris was how the ratio of professional/consumer business has shifted over the last five years changed from 80/20 to 20/80. (I think that Dan Labrie of ATR Services is also seeing the same shift in business; in fact, five years ago, it was rare for him to sell a machine to an audiophile. Not so today!) Chris also mentioned in passing that several other companies involved in refurbishing and repairing pro decks are also becoming interested in the audiophile market.

So here's the video of the sessions.

I guess there's no way to post a video so here's the link:

https://youtu.be/StL9w56lVic

[ironbut]

Great stuff Myles!
Thanks for the link.

[Listens2tubes]

Thanks for the link. Can't wait to see what Chad has in store.

[c1ferrari]

Thanks for that...genuine analog tapes from the 60's-70's duplicated in real time would be fabulous!

[astrotoy]

Dan, Paul and Romo,

You folks should really be proud of what you started 10 years ago - the 15ips 2 track tape release business is a really booming cottage industry.  With some larger players coming on board, like Chad, and the newly announced Horch House machine, we are getting to the stage where chicken and egg questions are becoming less of a stumbling block to reaching critical mass.

Larry