Neil Young and Bob Dylan recording to tape

  • Thread starter Thread starter miroslav
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Nothing wrong with that.
When you get to the bottom of the article, there is another article where Al talks about the recording process itself.

Not too much in depth, but enough to give you an idea.

:D
 
Didn't Bob Dylan just start recording to digital about 6-7 years ago? I guess he didn't like the experience much after all :D

I'd like to know where the writer buys his tape from that it costs him $500 a reel, if that's for 14" reels, or if he's just exaggerating...
 
What I find interesting is that only 7 mics were used to record Dylan's whole band. With NO overdubs. Could have used a one inch 8 track for that. Or 2 inch 16 track if printing effects to tape.
:D

Personally, I like the live, no headphones recording approach. But your band has to know the tunes AND be tight.
 
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I'd like to know where the writer buys his tape from that it costs him $500 a reel, if that's for 14" reels, or if he's just exaggerating...

Well...when you have Dylan...Young...and All Schmitt on the line, recording at Capitol Records, I doubt they bought their tape from SpliceIt or USRM.
They probably request very specific NOS tape, from some "private stock" warehouse that only sells to the top pro studios...where the tapes are 100% guaranteed and properly stored....and for that, they pay $500/reel. :D
 
Well...when you have Dylan...Young...and All Schmitt on the line, recording at Capitol Records, I doubt they bought their tape from SpliceIt or USRM.
They probably request very specific NOS tape, from some "private stock" warehouse that only sells to the top pro studios...where the tapes are 100% guaranteed and properly stored....and for that, they pay $500/reel. :D

Well I guess for that it might be worth $500. Must be nice to have that kind of pull then...
 
I am convinced that there exist a few large stashes if pro audio tape, and it's nothing you or I will even get our hands on...but the reality is that pro studios still use tape...not as much, but they still use it...and if all the more "common" tape outlets stopped selling tape years ago, and all the old tape brands went out of business years ago...WTF are they getting from it then? :D

It has to be kept properly stored, and there needs to be some sort of quality classifications, and a variety of the most desired formulations...which all totaled, is going come at a premium price, but like I said, when you are a major artist, recording in a major studio, with a major, multi-award engineer...what's a few extra $$ to get you want you need.

Think about it.

This is why I grab anything NOS that I'm interested in, and sometimes I get crazy good deals, like the four 2" reels of NOS BASF 911 that I got for just under $50 each recently...or sometimes I'll pay $150 if I really want some reel of NOS 2" tape.
I'm almost set for my own recording needs, just a few more reels, and I'll be able to cruise for 15-20 more years...
...so I too have a stash. ;)
 
Well I guess for that it might be worth $500. Must be nice to have that kind of pull then...

I don't know, a brand spanking new 14.5" reel of SM900 is $821 here in AUS which works out to be about $574USD and the AUS dollar is a lot weaker now than it has been the last few years.... I imagine that ATR tape would be even more expensive.

Apparently D'Angelo went through about 200 reels of 2" ATR tape recording his band 'jamming' in the studio trying to write their latest album. A lot more shocking these days but not really 20+ years ago when recording budgets for most big release albums were in the $100,000's.
 
A roll of 2" ATR is about £300, which equates to $430. I'm not sure if that includes VAT - if not, it will be £360 and $518 respectively.
 
That's disgusting. Over here it's just over $300
To be fair, a roll of SM900 is more like $290 here, which is why I tend to use ATR for the stereo mixdown and RMG for tracking. I suspect that the whole transatlantic shipping thing isn't exactly keeping the price of ATR low.
 
Perhaps not, though I don't remember any RMGI tape being any more than $300 either, and they come across the pond. Oh well, proud to be an American :b
 
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