But first, some background. During the late 1960s and 1970s, some manufacturers of studio-quality recording tape unwittingly used a mildly hygroscopic binder to 'glue' the magnetisable ferric oxide particles to the backing ribbon. Over time, through absorption of moisture, this binder broke down, causing the tape to start shedding its coating when played, i.e. the recorded part was stripped off. It was termed "sticky-shed syndrome" and was first discovered in the 1980s and by the end of that decade, a solution had been found that was implemented across the industry. This solution was in fact quite simple - with the tape still tightly bound on its reel, bake it in a suitable oven or other vessel where a steady temperature of 54-60C (130-140F) could be maintained for a few hours. After that, the tape could be played normally and its contents copied or digitised.
It's likely therefore that many of the analogue reissues in our CD collections involved "baking a tape". As an occasional recording engineer myself, I had to render many of my tapes in this way to digitise them, and it was indeed straightforward. I used a commonly available food dehydrator set to the appropriate temperature, and its design allowed me to process several large reels at once. These tapes, by the way, were of the same age and kind as those used by Decca, et al.
What is my point? I suspect I'm not alone in believing that the industry has been shamelessly milking the analogue reissue market since the dawn of the CD with an apparently endless succession of new 'remasters', nearly always citing 'original masters' (whatever that actually means) and technological advances (which most in fact are not, but that's another topic). What I find perplexing about the Decca disclosure is this: why are they doing this now rather than 30 or so years ago when the shedding problem and its solution were already well known, and if this is indeed the very first time these particular 'original masters' have been accessed for transfer, what have we been listening to up until now?
Message Thread
« Back to index | View thread »
Thank you for taking part in the MusicWeb International Forum.
Len Mullenger - Founder of MusicWeb