Bush, Alan

[ahinton]

My feeble memory suggests that I recorded the same Joe Hill performance on a Dolby cassette deck. Unfortunately, I suspect I used Sony’s Dolby C noise reduction. I desperately need a replacement tape deck but quality ones are as rare as hen’s teeth and Dolby C technology is even rarer. Perhaps, I should search my vast Cassette library in case someone wants to accept the challenge of rescuing this historic performance.

I know someone who might well be able to make such a conversion for you if you can find it; just drop me an e to sorabji.archive@gmail.com ...

[Bryn]

My feeble memory suggests that I recorded the same Joe Hill performance on a Dolby cassette deck. Unfortunately, I suspect I used Sony’s Dolby C noise reduction. I desperately need a replacement tape deck but quality ones are as rare as hen’s teeth and Dolby C technology is even rarer. Perhaps, I should search my vast Cassette library in case someone wants to accept the challenge of rescuing this historic performance.

I have a couple of Sony Cassette decks with Dolby B, C and S. The trouble with Dolby C is that it is hypersensitive to tape speed. In my experience, playing back on a player other than that which it was recorded on tends to lead to poor audio quality, though when played back on the machine it was recorded on can be a significant improvement on Dolby B. I should add that the better of the two Sony decks referred to is linked to an Alesis Masterlink for convenient transfer of cassette recordings to the digital domain at up to 96/24 definition, though with the drawback that it only burns to CD-R and CD-RW, (either at 44.1/16 up to 80 minutes or in Apple's AIFF up to 96/24 but in files of far shorter duration, (around 20 minutes per CD-R at 95/24). I really ought to use my Zoom F4 instead of the Masterlink but have not got round to it yet. More than happy to assist in transferring Joe Hill.

[edashtav]

I have a couple of Sony Cassette decks with Dolby B, C and S. The trouble with Dolby C is that it is hypersensitive to tape speed. In my experience, playing back on a player other than that which it was recorded on tends to lead to poor audio quality, though when played back on the machine it was recorded on can be a significant improvement on Dolby B. I should add that the better of the two Sony decks referred to is linked to an Alesis Masterlink for convenient transfer of cassette recordings to the digital domain at up to 96/24 definition, though with the drawback that it only burns to CD-R and CD-RW, (either at 44.1/16 up to 80 minutes or in Apple's AIFF up to 96/24 but in files of far shorter duration, (around 20 minutes per CD-R at 95/24). I really ought to use my Zoom F4 instead of the Masterlink but have not got round to it yet. More than happy to assist in transferring Joe Hill.

That’s kind of you, Bryn. I’m tied up this week with 3 concerts per day at the Buckingham Music Festival. but once that is finished, I’ll find my records which will give me a pointer to where I’ve stashed the cassettes in my basement reserve collection. I hope that the recordings were early enough to avoid the serious issues with Dolby C that you have delineated. My cassettes may be important to the historic ‘Record’, so I feel a duty to find out what can be retrieved.