So I guess your hanging up recording for lack of tape is all in the past now?
Good for you.
Let's just say I'm trading an arm and a leg, and making an offer they can't refuse. They would be stupid to pass on it.
And I would be stupid not to offer my arm and leg. This is a once and a lifetime deal, and is probably my last chance at recording now and in the future.
For anyone knocking my pickiness, in a nutshell, I'm putting my life's work on this tape. That may be corny or funny to you guys, but at the moment I'm living in an attic with my machines/instruments/turntable/speakers a TV, a few end tables, and a bed. I have no car, no insurance, no job, and I dropped out of highschool to pursue a promising commercial music career only to have my throat develop some chronic problem that no doctor can diagnose properly, which was when I turned to mastering the art of engineering to bide my time until the voice got better. That was 6 years ago. Throat is still the same now. Also bear in mind, for those who would tell me to get my priorities straight; Last year I had the most desirable job for a musician in the city, a place I could've retired at, a decent car, and a two bedroom, three storey house, that was once owned by the Crosley family, with nothing more than a GED, at the old brittle age of just 20.
Tradgedy hit me and my family (what's left of them) multiple times while I worked there, financials got bad, and shit spiraled down to rock bottom in a matter of months, which is what led me to be where I am now.
I dug up my Tascam M30 at that job in a pile of 20 year old junk, and bought the 80-8 without knowing a thing about analog recording a week later. I was intranced by this stone age forgotten technology, and have since fell in love with it. Its the only medium I would put my music, my life's work, on.
So as you can see, this is kind of all I've got left. I may have to move across the country soon to the middle of nowhere to live with family, and I'm going there prepared to lock myself up and not come out until all 5 of my albums are finished. These are fully written albums, ready to record, two of which are double albums. This is why onesies and twosies of different tape formulations won't work. I need a loooot of tape, and I will not have the ability to recalibrate the machine at my new location. I'm literally going all in and then cashing out. I'm not waiting on anything anymore.
EDIT: Sorry if this got too real guys. I just didn't want anyone to think I was some snobby prude scoffing at new reels of 406 and other perfectly fine tape. I just happen to need a lot of tape, right now, and it needs to survive decades after I'm dead without going sticky.