Here is some of what Ive been doing !!! Not for the faint of heart !!!!

BushmasterM4

New member
My Aunt and Uncle always played music. In the early to mid 70's I remember going to their shows (local bars) with my parents, and we as a family are close. My Uncle passed away a few years ago and I always remembered seeing all these tapes and a big tape recorder on a shelf at their house. I asked my Aunt if they recorded stuff and if so I'd like to move it over to digital. She said "Yes" and that the tape deck was broke and that she had not listened to the stuff in years. She gave me 36 Reel to Reel tapes !!! I have digitized about half. It has been a chore. These tapes date from the late 50's through the early 70's. If anyone is familiar with 1/4 inch tape, they know the horrors involved. Many had the "sticky tape" problem, which baking in the oven cured. Some had been recorded over so many time, the "cross talk" was bad. Many are mono recordings, with each of the 4 tracks having different recordings. Some had drop out and were damaged. So its been a learning experience. I did alot of noise reduction, compression, doubling, and other processes to try to bring life to these family tapes. Im going to start a web site dedicated to their stuff at some point, but for now I will post a few tunes. This is "OLD SCHOOL COUNTRY & BLUEGRASS. They were recorded with one mic or two :) (mono or stereo) :) on a consumer stereo reel to reel. My uncle played guitar and sang, my Aunt plays bass and sings, my cousin was the drummer (when the tune had drums) and a friend of theirs played banjo. Hope you enjoy.

MP3 Player SoundClick

MP3 Player SoundClick

Added "Blue Ridge Mountain" and "Beneath Still Waters" and a tune I dont know the name of :) http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?q=hi&songID=9997681 http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?q=hi&songID=9997703 http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?q=hi&songID=9997753

Added "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain" http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?q=hi&songID=10001877
 
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yeeeeeehoooooo!


I felt it needed shouted a few times throughout :D


sounds like you did a good job restoring it....
 
nice job on the restoration. Sounds like some talented musicians. This isn't my genre, but it was my dads and it reminded me of him. Thanks for sharing this
 
Yes its been fun. There are some tunes which are fantastic. When I get to them, Ill post em. Some of the banjo work on them is outstanding. Makes me want to buy one. But I can barely pick my nose, let alone an instrument. :)
 
Heck yeah. I like the faster stuff myself when it comes to Bluegrass, so this has got a lot to offer. They are some great musicians and some of the best musicians, I think, come from Bluegrass, but there will be alot to argue against that probably. It sounds like you come from a great group of musicians.

It's cool as hell how you still got that old feel to it (like I know why it wouldn't :p) but I hope you can make a good CD out of this as I will get it for my dad. He loves Bill Monroe and all that Bluegrass stuff.
 
A) What a lovely thing to do for your Aunty & family.
b) I haven't heard the original tapes but have a few things of that vintage on reel in the hose & WOW you did a terrific job archiving & restoring.
 
Thanks guys. A few of the tapes are just family Christmas. My cousins are now 50 and 53 and at the time of the recordings they were 10 and 7. So its funny to hear them at that age and goofing around.
 
"Beneath Still Waters" is great. I could easily hear the early years Elvis or Jerry Lee covering that tune.

Oh man, what wonderful sounds. Who would have thunk back then or after all these years of sitting on a shelf we'd all to get an opportunity to enjoy these old recordings...on the internet(wut da heck is a internet?).
 
Im just glad I got the tapes when I did. They are in pretty bad shape. I've actually started collecting R2R tapes and have over 300 now. Some I got on ebay in bulk buys and they have stuff on them from the 60's thru the late 70's. I came across one that has a School Choir Concert (school in texas) and a college concert. Both tapes had the Program for the events and I found one name in common. These were dated 1962 and the other 1964. It was a girl whos parents must have bought R2R of the shows. Cant remember the name off hand, but I thaught I would google it some time and see what popped up. Another tape from the 70's has a Jimmy Swaggart sermon he done as a guest at a church (I bought all the church tapes). I plan on digitizing the tapes and then using them for personal recordings.
 
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