Actually true analog methods are alive and well. In the US nearly every mastering house has a 6 month backlog. Some projects are on digital files and some are analog tape. We have been seeing about 50/50 at our mastering operation.
Well Atmasphere you are correct atleast this email I pulled off the Ampex list supports your observation. I made my conclusion from talking to RE's that I know. I hope I am wrong and do greet this email with much excitement.
Following up on my June 16th post, I discussed this with Mike Guerra,
Technical Operations Manager at Ocean Way Recording in Hollywood. Here is
what he had to share:
"I’ve been talking to Dan LaBrie over at ATR Services the past few weeks
who has unearthed microfilm even he didn’t know still existed of the
regulator card schematics and board layouts for the ATR-124 and is having
prints made for me. Incredibly, the schematics were never published in the
service manuals or released to the public, only the silkscreen layout and a
list of materials. During those inquiries, the conversation invariably
drifted towards what remained of support stock for the ATR-124’s and, at
one point, Dan made the striking revelation that we were the sole
commercial entity on the planet still operating the transports (of which we
have four) and that virtually no ATR-124 parts or assemblies were retained
as a result. (Dan couldn’t say when this happened, but I’m guessing back in
the late ‘90’s, long after its commercial utilization faded from view.)
This year in particular, our machines have seen a remarkable spike in use:
we just finished a session that burned through in excess of 50 reels of 2”
tape in two weeks flat. (They would have used more but we depleted the
available stock on the west coast, for the *third* time this year, so they
wound up rolling over outtakes as a workaround.) We’ve easily hosted over a
dozen extended sessions on the 2” machines over the past year, one of which
required me to fire up one of the old Dolby SR racks for the first time in
over ten years! Go figure…
The ATR-102 2 tracks have witnessed a marked resurgence in use as well but
coming up with tape has proven to be a very tricky, recurring problem.
(Seems that both ATR and RMG are unable to keep up with the renewed and
unexpected demand for tape, in any format. Who knew such a thing?) For
instance, we just completed our second “live to 2 track” session this year.
A progressive jazz sextet cut an entire album direct to 2 track (two of
them simultaneously, in fact) burning through two cases of ¼” tape over two
days. No overdubs, no mixing, bang, there’s your record… I would
conservatively estimate that over 25% of our mixing sessions now wind up on
½” tape either as the sole format or in conjunction with a print back to
the digital domain.
In recent conversations with Bruce Marien, the former chief tech here at
Ocean Way, (he was a master at servicing the ATR-124’s) he confirmed that 7
ATR-124’s were in the old Western Studios building at 6000 W Sunset Blvd
when Allen Sides sold that portion of Ocean Way in 1999. All 7 machines
eventually fell into disrepair, were decommissioned, stripped down to the
frames and disposed of. Bruce says he knows of at least one other machine
operating in Southern California at a private studio. (Down in Orange
County, I believe.)"
Regards,
Steve Jackson
Pulse Techniques, LLC
