Can we finally put Reel to Reel out of its misery? Put it to rest people.

"...do I really want to spend $500 - $100 for something to 'pretty up' my rack?"

Yes, you do.

Just think how you could fill an additional rack up.

Sony Elcaset.
Sony DAT machine.
Sony Minidisc.
Teac open cassette.
Pioneer 8 track.

The mind boggles at the living museum of obsolete technology/media you could create.

Yes that lot makes regular cassette and r2r seem almost mundane in comparison.

Glupson,

The links are to my scans of the tape labels. The Mary Chain is the original Jugoton distribution master, sent to the former Yugoslavia. As I know Alan McGee, Jim & William Reid well, they have signed my master. The George Michael is a safety copy from a CBS Netherlands distribution/production master.

If you look hard enough, you can find little gems. There are quite a few distribution/production masters in circulation. Don’t forget in the heyday of the vinyl LP, there were lots of countries with record pressing plants. They all needed a tape sent from the record company to cut the lacquer for their own market. When the record plants closed, many of these tapes survived.

Charlie

PS Sleepwalker - the George Michael tape is stunning. My friend Chalkie Davies was his tour photographer in 1982. He said that he was an utterly charming guy. Yes, it’s the polar opposite to the Mary Chain, but I happen to like lots of different music styles.

topoxforddoc,

I, kind of, figured out what that Jesus and Mary Chain tape was but, at the same time, am not sure what distribution master fully meant. If it is any kind of master that certain company (distributor in this case) got to work with, why was it given/sold away?

In the days when tape and vinyl ruled the roost, the record companies would send a production/distribution master tape to Yugoslavia, South Africa, Mexico or wherever, so that records could be pressed for the local market. In due course, they sent hard discs, and now it gets sent over the internet.

When the record pressing plants closed, as everyone went to CD, the tapes got put in a dumpster/skip, or alternatively people took them away. The record companies had no desire to retrieve all these tapes, as they had nowhere to store them. Anyway, the record companies already had the original multitrack and stereo mix down in a vault.