MP3 players

I'm fully aware of how many "modern" pop recordings are made, the varying fidelity notwithstanding. I also know that all the big time mastering engineers still archive on 2 inch analog tape. My assertion was that you'll not see it appear for free on the internet en masse. What you have is taken from a CD (sometimes an SACD perhaps), and not any sort of "master" that was used upstream of the process to make the the PCM redbook CD, or the SACD. That's what I meant. Don't get so defensive already...

Carl, sorry if I sounded defensive, I didn't mean to be. Most people just don't realize how much music is actually recorded and mixed on computers and optical drives. The price of 96/24 equipment for computer is incredible anymore. You can get a killer home studio for the fraction of the cost of a "real" studio. Obviously most audiophile recordins aren't done this way, but more and more popular music is being done this way all the time. Hell, even most of the big studios do quite a bit of mixing and editing on computers because it is easier and more flexible than tape could ever be. They can pick and choose which take they want and mix it how they want over and over until they have it right without having to time-sync tape machines and swap tracks back and forth between them. I agree that you won't see master quality en masse for a long time, but it could happen sooner than we think. I read an article some time back in Sound and Vision about Joe Gastwirt(mastering genius) and in it he said that almost all of the master tapes were 1/2 inch at eithter 15 or 30ips, not 2" tape.

That's Joe Gastwirt. What about Bob Ludwig and all the rest of the big timers? I distinctly remember him and several others mentioning the 2 inch tape in an article in Mix. I'll look for it sometime............I know it's better to edit on a DAW, that has nothing to do with what's available on the internet in MP3. I also know that pop music is big on compressor/limiters and panning a flat 2 dimensional stereo "image"...and short on concerns of "fidelity to the original", especially if there was no original to begin with. They like to make it "translatable" to car audio with the top down at 80 mph!................The DAW world is great for musicians that want to get their music composed and into the market place. But nearly all audiophiles like minimalist recordings done in a real acoustic space with no compression/limiting, no digital sound space processing, etc. IMHO, the best recordings ever made were done in the golden age of stereo, with 3 omni mics spaced only a little bit apart, and direct to tape (more or less). Once you've heard one of these, you'll know what I mean. Not that I don't like modern music, but it certainly is fatigueing to listen to, even on the best/most musical systems.

Carl, I think you need to re-check your information about 2" tapes. If you would like, go to Gatewaymastering.com. As I am sure you are aware, this is Bob Ludwig's Company. The master of mastering. I will quote word for word what it says on the site. "Reel to reel tape is the most popular format for sending audio to Gateway Mastering Studios. It has a different sound quality than digital formats and is preferred by many engineers. 1/2" and 1/4" sizes are used for mastering. Mastering facilities only use stereo (2 track)machines, NOT multi-track tape(i.e. 24, 16, 8 or 4 track)." I was positive I was right becuase there is no possible way for a tape head to accurately reproduce a signal over such a wide gap(1 inch). Imagine the voltage and bias that would have to be used, they have enough problems with 1/4" gaps. The voltage required would probably blow the magnetic particle right off of the acetate. You might as well try using a MIG welder. When I said "popular music" in my last post I really meant to say "modern music" because obviously more than just the "pop stuff" is being done. I have an incredibly wide taste of music styles, so please don't think that is all that I listen to. I am 29 years old and have been listening to Sheffield Labs and other great dirct to disc stuff since before I can remember. But that's not the only stuff in the world to listen to. Have you ever listened to Dead Can Dance? I guess they could be considered popular music, although they still are a bit underground still. Most of their last recordings involved computers, and Stereophile has had a coulpe of their recordings listed in the R2D4 list. Another good mention would have to be Planet Drum, Mystery Box, and Superlingua, all by Mickey Hart. These are perfect examples of what can be acoomplished.

I have both "Into the Labyrinth" and "Planet Drum". They're good percussion discs, but sound "processed/mixed", and are. Look, I know full well that 2 inch reel tape is not 2 channel tape, but I guess I need to look that article up. They were likely referring to archiving pre "mixed down" 16 or 24 channel master tapes, obviously. The point was that they didn't feel that any digital format was sufficient for archiving. That will probably change in the next year or two, though; who knows? Anyway, I'm not as uninformed as you might think. And Gateway does a few things wrong, I didn't mean to pronounce them as "almighty".