Reel to reel master copy

[dtroise]

You  have to trust your ears!

It helps to have a 2nd generation master  that you know the history of for comparison. From your collection I am sure that you have plenty of those. (IPI) Johnathan Horowitz is the only company That I know of that sells a direct copy of the master ( Analog ) he still sets up the recordings himself with local artist in Chicago. he has recoded some of the greats in days long gone and every now and then offers copies from the production master, I have one from him of Joe Pass and it is always goose bumps.

I have some A/P tapes and they are very nice indeed albeit they are Direct Digital and are a Master from the digital file. IMHO the Native DSD files that I have sound just as good and the analog tapes that I have blow them all out of the water.

Donald

[Vintagepsych]

I totally agree. an analog copy, even the fourth or fifth generation, is pleasing to the ears.
I would like to enjoy the sound for a long time, while a copy from a digital medium even 24/192 sounds "rotten" and there is enough patience to listen for 1-2 tracks.
But the question is purely technical: how to identify a fake? For example, we see on the spectrogram a clear difference between the figure and the analog. are there any other ways to identify?

[Vintagepsych]

at the top is a spectrogram of a record purchased from a regular seller on eBay. below is the same song, but already downloaded from the Internet.  The same frequency marks of 15.6 kHz, 23 kHz, 31.4 kHz are noticeable. Can it be argued that a phonogram purchased on eBay is fake?

[Bodyslam]

In the world of tape, since it's pretty easy to copy, it becomes challenging to know what the true history of a given tape is.

We have become accustomed to sleuthing digital files using spectragrams, but I have doubts that this is the way to solve this for tapes. What differences would you expect to see that would tell an original from a fifth generation copy?

In the case of my company, The Tape Project, at least I know what tapes were used as a starting point. And having worked in the studios for half  a century now, I have learned a lot of tricks to make sure I'm getting the original masters. In many cases I have been dealing with people at the labels who are not really knowledgeable on the subject and they have offered copies or production masters--not out of dishonesty, just out of unfamiliarity. Just to give an example, I was licensing jazz titles recorded in the late '50's and early '60's, and sometimes the vault would call up the "Master Tape" which turned out to be labeled "Dolby Stereo Master."  It was an instant giveaway to me, because I know that Dolby wasn't being used until 1967. And the studio that recorded these titles never did choose to equip with Dolby. We sent those back and asked the vault to try again. Sometimes they eventually came up with the original. Sometimes they never could find it.

Part of the problem is that so many people are a little vague on what "Master" really means. There's so much focus on it in the audiophile world that many people assume that "Master" means the same thing as "original." Not really. Within the record companies "Master" actually means something that is used to make copies. Back in the "70's when I was mastering for one of the major labels it was routine to make several tape copies as part of the mastering job. The lacquer masters would be sent to the pressing plants in the US, and the tape copies were sent to the foreign affiliates. They would use the tapes to cut lacquers locally for their own pressings. The proper term for those tape copies would be "Production Masters," since they were indeed used to generate LP's.

Many years ago Mobile Fidelity chose to call their product "Original Master Recordings" because they understood that neither "original" nor "master" was enough on its own to describe what they were using.

"Safety copies" means something else again.

[Kno]

Interesting. Would you know, for example, if the blue note releases, classic, tonepoet etc are from originals or masters.  Does it matter?

[Vintagepsych]

Thanks, Paul for your post and for writing about your vast experience with analogue master tapes and copies. But I'm interested in another question: how to identify technically  tapes recorded with digital media? This is perfectly audible by ear. But I'm interested in technical ways ... Thank

[Bodyslam]

Interesting. Would you know, for example, if the blue note releases, classic, tonepoet etc are from originals or masters. 

I know a little about this, but not enough to comment, really.

Does it matter?

Matter to whom? How much?

All I can say is that I listened to a couple of those production masters because the originals could not be found. I was disappointed in the sound, and I passed, even though I really wanted to license those titles.

Except one. I don't know whether this forum has a policy about directing readers to other sites, but I'll risk it till someone tells me otherwise. If you want to read the story, it's on the Tape Project forum at:
https://forum.tapeproject.com/index.php/topic,1367.0.html

[Bodyslam]

But I'm interested in another question: how to identify technically  tapes recorded with digital media? This is perfectly audible by ear. But I'm interested in technical ways ...

Yes it is pretty easy to do it by ear. I'm not sure why you would want to look for a technical way to establish it though.

I suppose you could use spectrograms like people use when trying to establish the original sample rate of a digital recording--you know, trying to bust people who upsample and try to sell files as Hi-Res. If you can see a steep rolloff at the high end you can conclude that it was PCM at some point, and even at what sample rate. But the recording may not have enough high frequency energy in the first place to allow you to make an accurate judgement. If it was Hi-Res PCM, or DSD, the signs would likely be outside the flat response range of the tape.

In other words, here's a suggestion for a difficult and unreliable method, and no suggestions for an easy and foolproof method. Sorry.

[analogadikt]

I know a little about this, but not enough to comment, really.

Except one. I don't know whether this forum has a policy about directing readers to other sites, but I'll risk it till someone tells me otherwise. If you want to read the story, it's on the Tape Project forum at:
https://forum.tapeproject.com/index.php/topic,1367.0.html

You can post links that are related to the discussion so no issues

Am interested in reading the story in cannot get beyond the captcha. It is always difficult to identify boats, cars or whatever in tiny images crammed in smartphone screen. Could you provide an alternative?

Regards,

Anwesh

[Bodyslam]

Am interested in reading the story in cannot get beyond the captcha. It is always difficult to identify boats, cars or whatever in tiny images crammed in smartphone screen. Could you provide an alternative?

Regards,

Anwesh

On the forum we have shields up to keep spammers out. If you're seeing the captcha it means your visit triggers one or more of the shields. I'm not saying that you're a spammer, but I don't have an effective way to turn down the sensitivity on a case by case basis, so you'll probably see the captcha every time you visit.

The best I can offer is a suggestion to turn your phone sideways and do the finger swipe that increases the size of the image. Or try again the next time it's convenient from a full size computer.

[hxt1]

Jonathan Norwich makes great tapes, no compression, simple clean setup, acoustic instruments. Once you find "tape people" it's a pretty small group of us, trading is good, eBay used to be ok  not anymore (greed, etc) Do you know 'Les' from Florida?
also, trading dubs is fun, and if your machines are properly calibrated, your dubs will be indistinguishable from your source... you'd need a 'scope to tell the difference. There are fellows who are serious archivists, they don't make money off of "selling tapes" they make archival copies of rare, and old tapes, for posterity. And if you enjoy collecting and listening, they can make archival copies for you, for the cost of tape stock, and their time. These fellows have thousands of tapes  with provenance etc, and are always looking to trade  etc.
If you would like to trade or borrow tapes please let me know!
Harv

[Vintagepsych]

Hi, Harv!
thank you for your letter.  Unfortunately, there are currently difficulties with purchases and shipping.  But your proposal is interesting and may be useful in the future.  Could you tell us in more detail about the subject of discussion?