Interesting and kind of sad. Interesting to note that the recording process is moving to all digital and sad to note the same.
I was in a band in college, and we recorded two records. We recorded on to 2 inch reel to reel in the session studio and then went digital to do mixing and post-effects. It's interesting to note that whiel we ended up buying only to plate (to make extra cds) we did not buy the reel to reel tape. Our mixign engineer actually preferred to use the old tape over and over again. He said that as the tape gets used more, the magnetic portions actually even out (due to the constant flexing and unflexing of the strip due to the magnetic pull, etc.) and the sound gets smoother.
So, he found that he used the older tapes to get a cleaner sound - something which at the time seemed completely backwards. Granted, there is a point of diminishin returns, where the tape actually starts to degrade and pull apart. Artists obviously won't want to reuse these old reel to reel tapes (for posterity reasons - and so they can make new masters of the records in the future if they want).
Anyway, interesting post. Thanks for sharing.
