Record Company Vault Losses

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Remarkable read, Bob.

Whew! As this article was written in 1997 I wonder if any progress in digital/analogue archival restoration has been accomplished?

What really puzzles me is the shortsightedness of the record execs who apparently failed to follow the progress of recorded music (LPs> Open Reel> Cassettes, 8 tracks etc] which continually kept the recording industry on its toes. Even back in the day, recordings sold quite well....hardly like today's dismal sales figures.

And the even more puzzling haphazard storage of the label's archival material in [i.e.] earthquake prone California or leaving valuable masters in shuttered once famous recording studios [??????]. With global warming today even more of a threat where is a safe place to store all these priceless masters? New Jersey was hit with devastating Hurricane Sandy and it's estimated that most coastal cities [NYC included] will be underwater in 30~40 years.

And of course the insistence that any reissue studio worth its weight has to store and maintain recording devices from the 50's, 60's and 70's etc. in almost every conceivable format to properly play back these masters. And more frightening....having the 'trained' personnel to properly oversee these transfers...almost a lost art in itself.

And it's also brought a new reverence for the few reissue companies who take the time to actually locate the master tapes and meticulously transfer them to newer technologies.

No wonder a lot of artists prefer to record in analogue in deference to digital. And I wonder if all those classical labels who still record DDD are, in fact, backing up their recordings to analogue?

My BIG question: Is any recording medium archival? I've had Open Reels deteriorate and even though some have lasted since the advent of magnetic tape will they last 100+++ more years into the future?

There's an old saying: You don't miss what you don't have.....but seriously, folks, Marlon Brando's famous words [from Apocalypse Now]"The Horror' resonate in my mind when I think of all those billions of miles of tapes and precious acetates ruefully expunged from the annals of recorded history.

Let's just hope in this instance history doesn't repeat itself.
 
This article is 20 years old, and as I understand it there have been improvements - indeed the situation was already in the process of improving when the article has written. Especially nowadays, reusing tape isn't a thing people do - or need to do - anymore, and a record company's main asset is its back catalog - in an era of streaming the more you can offer the better you'll do.

Of course, what's lost is lost. But the situation (by and large) has been improving, as record labels understand they can't just ignore an asset.
 
Thanks for posting this. Discouraging, but at least some are trying to improve.

A friend of mine runs a recording studio and received a box of "blank" reels as a donation. He always makes a habit of spooling up such things to check them, and one particular reel came up as a master tape of a missing radio broadcast from a name most of you would recognize. We made a good clean transfer to circulate among collectors and then forwarded the tape directly to the artist for their archive. The collectors I trade with are principled, and this recording has never turned up as a bootleg for sale. The artist was grateful for the effort we made to deliver it to them.
 
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