Analog Tape Part II – Expensive Fun

I was prompted to begin writing again for a couple of reasons. First, the challenges of having to deal with so much loss as a result of the Palisades fire have been so overwhelming that sharing with people that know – and support me – has had therapeutic value. My life feels like some unknown external power suddenly and without warning “changed the channel” on my life. Before the fire, I had managed to settle into a routine that was satisfying and rewarding. Having worked on my home for three years after a “water incident” ruined much of the first floor gave me a major projects to work on. Resurrecting my woodworking skills and successfully designing and building the bathroom vanities, all of the kitchen cabinets, an entry area table, replacing the stairs, and refacing the ceiling and beams in the living room required countless hours of finish carpentry skills and physical work.

I found a robust social outlet, some wonderful friendships, and competitive success with my two bocce ball teams. During one of my daily visits to the park with my border collie and best friend Charlie, I noticed a group of people gathered at the far end of the park. They were playing bocce ball on three recently completed courts within the Veteran’s area of the park. Looked like fun to me, so I signed up. That was over three years ago – and several championship seasons with The Bocce Buddies. What was a casual gathering of people from the neighborhood playing a benign game became a regular and very enjoyable part of my life. My teams practiced on the weekends, met for birthdays and other special occasion, and relaxed post games with crackers, cheese, and some wine. I was awarded the MVP during one season and honored to be given the Martini Award, named after a local doctor that participated in the bocce matches until he was 97 years old! The Palisades fire destroyed everyone’s home. Everyone has dispersed to other areas around the city and even to points north like Ojai or Santa Barbara.

After living at my studio for a short stint post, I’ve relocated to a small house in Venice. Charlie and I have found a new circuit to walk every morning and my commute to the university is much shorter than it was.

I’ve been researching the rebuild process, dealing with insurance companies, consulting with neighbors, and looking at a future full of new building projects. Life has become a series of slow careful steps towards normal – a new normal.

A Correction…

I love having smart friends. After my recent post lamenting the shortcomings of analog tape and specifically the generation loss whenever analog tapes are copied, I received a welcome note from John Siau, the principal at Benchmark Media Systems. It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken to John, a pleasure I sadly miss. When I wrote, “At each stage of analog copying, the dynamic range decreases by 3 dB,” I was incorrect.

John wrote, “Actually, the dynamic range decreases by 3 dB each time the number of generations doubles.”

If the original is 0 dB, then the 2nd generation will have 3 db more noise. The 4th generation will be 6 db and the 8th generation 9 dB noisier. The 3rd generation would be 4.77 dB down. The point is each successive generation suffers a substantial loss of fidelity. And the production process of many if not most of the classic era recording we cherish went through multiple generations! The dynamic range of analog is highly compromised due to the shortcomings of analog recording equipment.

However, the dynamic range of recordings sourced from digital masters doesn’t typically exceed the specifications of those older masters. Why? It’s not because digital degrades or loses fidelity with each generation. There is no generation loss when a digital multitrack master is mixed “in the box” (within the environment of the DAW) to a stereo master and likewise there is no additional noise when that stereo master mix is mastered in the digital domain. Even an analog conversion doesn’t degrade the fidelity as much as a single analog copy.

So why then are there vendors rehabbing and upgrading old consumer tape machines, putting sexy painted facades on them and selling them for $55,000? Yep, you read that right. A couple of weeks ago, I happened on an article written by Jonathan Valin extolling the virtues of Greg Brown’s new Apollo tape deck. The article is titled United Home Audio Apollo Open-Reel Tape Machine. I expressed my disappointment in Jonathan’s unsubstantiated claims about analog tape in my last blog post. The use of nonsensical terms to describe the marginal fidelity of analog tape as compared to the potential on high-resolution digital master leaves me thinking that the author has never really researched analog tape. Yes, it’s a flavor of sound and has a prominent place in the history of recording but advocating for analog tape as a commercially viable alternative to high-resolution physical media or even streaming is just plain uninformed. We have plugins that can reproduce – by degrading the fidelity – the sound of analog tape from a digital master but we are extremely limited when trying to improve the fidelity of an analog master to digital quality.

Fred Thal is among the most knowledgeable individuals I know when it comes to analog tape recording and reproduction. He’s been able to modify and upgrade professional grade analog tape decks from Studer to reach the pinnacle of performance so necessary when a prized analog master is digitized for the first time. His decks can be found in the best mastering houses in the world and cost well over $100K each. If you’re a die hard fan of analog tape, the only machines worth investing in would be those upgraded by Fred. A consumer Technics or Revox just can’t cut it. I wouldn’t rule out a high-end Nagra machine like their studio T machine, but unless you’ve got a boatload of extra dollars floating around stick with an all digital system based on solid components.

AIX Records Discs

I lost a lot of discs and copies of my book in the fire. Over the past few years, I’ve serviced online orders and shipments to my distributors from my house. Copies of the best selling discs were moved from my studio to my house…and they’re all gone. Recently, I spent an afternoon upstairs in my building taking inventory of the discs I still have. There are still a large number of discs but many of my favorites are gone.

I can’t really afford to rereplicate thousands of DVDs or Blu-ray discs. And the printed booklets and covers are gone too. I never saved the print masters in the cloud so I would have remake all of the printed booklets and covers…for the few orders that trickle in these days.

So for those interested in our products, I can offer digital downloads of the high-resolution tracks. OR…

I can burn you copy of the disc on recordable DVDs or Blu-rays and ship them to you. I purchased a DVD/Blu-ray burner and have tested the process. It works. I have software that can clone a disc and record a copy of recordable media. It’s not the same as the previously available commercial releases but these burned discs do work. Let me know if I can help. I’lll publish a list of the discs I have available and have a “post fire sale” soon.

Help AIX Records Mark & Mona Waldrep Recover from Pali Fire

Many friends, family, and customers of AIX have reached out with notes of support and offers of assistance after learning our home was destroyed in the recent Palisades fire. We’ve initiated a GoFundMe campaign. If you would like to donate, please visit Help AIX Records Mark & Mona Waldrep Recover from Pali Fire

Thanks for your kind support.

I’ve heard from the Army Corps of Engineers. They are planning on removing the debris from our lot in the coming days. They will haul away all of the twisted metal pipes, burned out appliances, bathtubs, and other debris. The dead trees will be cut down and 6″ of top soil will be scraped from the burn area. Progress is slow but steady. A new house will emerge on our lot.