Kevin Gray interview

[mjzee]

Interesting interview with Kevin Gray in Stereophile:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/kevin-gray-vinyl-mastering-master

This stayed with me:

Matson: Are most of the Blue Note tapes in pretty good shape?

Gray: Yes. They have been so well archived and cared for. I can only think of one or two tapes that we've had to reject because there were problems. That's unlike a lot of other companies. The condition of tapes from the '50s and '60s is fine. The older tapes are in way better shape. Around 1974, you start getting problems with sludge. Ampex tape in particular—they changed the formulation. Ampex later figured out that you could bake the tapes to help. I have a convection oven, and all those kind of tapes from that era have to go in the oven.

[HutchFan]

Interesting.  Thanks for sharing.   

 

[Rooster_Ties]

I’m really wondering which “one or two”.

[Chuck Nessa]

Needle drop

Back in the late '70s my friend Mike Rasfeld at ACME Studios in Chicago contacted Ampex and eventually extracted the solution from them. Mike then wrote a piece for an audio journal to explain the process. We then proceeded to bake my Ampex tapes for cd production.

Edited July 12, 2022 by Chuck Nessa

[Rooster_Ties]

2 minutes ago, Chuck Nessa said:

Needle drop

Yup, and isn’t one of the Duke Pearson leader-dates one too?

[sidewinder]

2 minutes ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Yup, and isn’t one of the Duke Pearson leader-dates one too?

‘Sweet Honey Bee?’

[Rooster_Ties]

19 minutes ago, sidewinder said:

‘Sweet Honey Bee?’

That rings a bell.

[Daniel A]

The "problem" with the Sweet Honey Bee master tape is that it is lost.

[jcam_44]

I can’t remember where but I heard they used to leave tapes in the rear window of their car on a summer day to “bake” the tapes. I think it was for the Star Wars soundtrack but don’t really remember.