The Fire Ant Gazette - A Midland, Texas Blog

Recording History
Category: Music... Tech...
Posted Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 11:11 AM [GMT-6]

Look what I came across while unpacking yet another box following our move (hey, it's only been eight months!):

This Viet Nam-era artifact is how we old-timers used to capture music: 1,200 feet of 1/4" silicone lubricated, Tenzar® (whatever the heck that was) backed magnetic tape on a 7" reel, good for up to 4 hours of recording at 1 7/8 inches per second (which yielded audio quality approximately equivalent to a stringed tin can or an 8kbps mp3, depending on your technological chronological bearings). And we could carry our music with us, provided we had a wheelbarrow or dolly capable of transporting a 60 pound playback unit.

The inside of the box contains instructions for "making tight, noise-free splices" (tip: do not use magnetized scissors or razor blades as they will cause a 'click' or 'pop' at the splice).

What's especially interesting to me about this is that I never owned a reel-to-reel tape deck, and I have no recollection how I came to possess this tape reel. But it was mine, as evidenced by my handwriting on the back cover:

If nothing else, this confirms my eclectic musical tastes at a particular time in my life. Part of the tape allegedly (I have no way to play it back to confirm) contains our high school band's 1969 Christmas concert, while the rest of it holds Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition* and Black Sabbath's War Pigs. My guess is that I must have transferred these songs onto the tape at the radio station in Fort Stockton where I was a weekend DJ; that's the only access I would have had to a deck.

There's no logical reason for me to keep this memento, but I hate to throw it away. Vinyl's making a comeback, so you never know...reel-to-reel might be the Next Big Thing.

I'm sure some of you have some good reel-to-reel memories to share. Perhaps you can also explain the arcane magic associated with such advanced features as sound-with-sound and sound-on-sound.

*OK, I confess that it's not the classical version, but the classic rock version, by Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

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Comments

That's funny. When I worked at my college radio station in the late 80s our classical programs were all on reels. The rest of our programming was on VHS tapes.

Posted by: jen at November 13, 2008 12:28 PM

Tenzar was a special polyester blend that was supposed to resist stretching so you would get less wowing.

Want to ask me about Saticon vs. Plumbicon camera tubes?

Posted by: Phelps at November 13, 2008 12:51 PM

If you want to try to recover your High School Band Christmas Concert, you can get tape transfered onto CD at your CostCo.

Posted by: Lynellen at November 13, 2008 12:51 PM

Jen, we had a few public service programs on tape at the station, as well as some religious programming on Sunday mornings ("The Hour of Power!"), but most of the public service programs were on vinyl. Our big tech breakthrough was 8-track, used mostly for commercials. VHS hadn't yet arrived on the scene.

Phelps, I had even forgotten the term "wow." Wow.

Lynellen, I've actually got all of our high school band recordings on vinyl. I'm not sure why this particular concert ended up on tape. (Anyway, the nearest Costco is 300 miles distant.)

Posted by: Eric at November 13, 2008 01:15 PM

Can't say I know anything about Tenzar but we are big fans of New Orleans and its music (and food of course!). I always jump at the chance to promote the city in any way and your post brought this up. There is a NOLA based banded called Bonerama made up of trombones and other horns and they cover War Pigs. With horns. It's awesome! They also do Led Zeps "the Ocean". Good stuff if you aren't over your 70's music days. :)

Posted by: Sherry at November 13, 2008 01:53 PM

A trombone version of "War Pigs"...now that's entertainment! ;-)

Posted by: Eric at November 13, 2008 02:01 PM

Blood, Sweat & Tears!

Yyyyyyyoooooouuuuuuu made me so... very happy!

Yyyyoouu made me so very happy baby

I'm so glad you caaaammmmmme...

Intoooo myyyy liiiiife....

LSD is like, so overrated, when all you need is a little Tenzar®.

Posted by: Bret at November 14, 2008 12:07 PM

Lemme guess: a band nerd?

Takes one to know one. ;-)

Posted by: Eric at November 14, 2008 12:44 PM

Lemme guess: a band nerd?

We preferred the term "musically precocious."

It's amazing how much free time on Friday and Saturday nights that will get you.

Posted by: Bret at November 14, 2008 01:08 PM

Yeah, our PSAs were on 8-track.

Posted by: jen at November 14, 2008 01:38 PM

It's amazing how much free time on Friday and Saturday nights that will get you.

Au contrare. Some of my fondest memories are from long rides on dark band buses following out-of-town football games. And I ended up marrying the Band Sweetheart!

Posted by: Eric at November 14, 2008 02:25 PM

The word around town is that you still have an 8 track tape deck in your car too!!

Posted by: Wallace at November 14, 2008 11:24 PM

That's not true. I have two 4-track decks!

Posted by: Eric at November 15, 2008 09:41 PM

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