http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk SEPTEMBER 2019 HI-FI WORLD 65
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T
here was a fire in Los
Angeles. Now there is
ire in Los Angeles – and
around the world. In that
fire an estimated 10,000
music master tapes went
up in flames, destroying the original
recordings of an astonishing number
of major artists, old and new. The
fallout from that fire back in 2008
- over a decade ago – is now gather-
ing pace with a group of artists suing
Universal Music for their loss and
others likely to join in a class-action
case if this is granted under U.S. law.
I spotted the first investigative
report by the New York Times last
month – and it was almost too
much to comprehend. They allege
Universal Music sought to cover up
the disastrous fire by not contacting
those whose music master tapes had
been destroyed, explaining why there
was no fall out at the time. Only on
publication of this report in June
2019 have artists around the world
become aware of what has happened.
“It was the biggest disaster in the
history of the music business – and
almost nobody knew” the headline
said.
You can find this report at http://www.
nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/
universal-fire-master-recordings.html. It’s
one long read and there has been a
follow up as more information filters
out. There were so many tapes from
so many artists, no one quite knows
what was there and what was lost.
In an interview with Bryan Adams
recently he claims years of original
studio tapes were lost – and he knew
nothing about it until this report
appeared. He did however find some
mix-down masters in his home,
illustrating just how complex this
whole issue of a master record has
become.
Master and mix-down master?
Original masters capture the artists
in the studio, in live performance on
what historically was a multi-track
professional analogue tape recorder,
these days digital. In most cases
the record company, not the artist,
owns the original studio tapes and
the rights to edit, distribute and sell
the music on them. The artists do
not walk away from the studio with
a tape under their arm, something
Taylor Swift is complaining about
right now it seems.
The original master tape is the
raw performance, warts an’ all. But
it is still the primary record – what
actually happened at the time in
unadulterated form.
It seems that original masters
were lost in the fire, but perhaps
subsequent edited tapes too. There
were just so many, gathered at
studios not just in America but
outside as well, including UK artists,
that no definitive record exists either
of the tapes, their nature or their
content. There is now an ongoing
attempt to compile this information,
in so far as possible.
This event again raises the whole
issue of primary record and how it
can be preserved. Something we have
covered repeatedly and know about
from speaking to – er – Universal
Music! I have been visiting Abbey
Road Studios – now owned by
Universal Music – since the 1980s
and have seen the master tape
recorders and been told about the
difficulties of trying to preserve any
primary master record in a form that
can be stored and accessed for ever.
How do you store music for ever,
such that it remains accessible to
future generations – in original and
un-degraded form? It seems that at
present we do not know – or cannot
agree – on how to do this. Amazing!
What a conundrum – but one
we all face when storing data. In
the early 1990s I bought a series of
camcorders, the early ones recording
to tiny DV digital video cassettes.Realising at the time these things
were fragile I carefully stored every
camcorder so as to be able to play
back these tapes. But will they ever
work again after years of storage? If
not could I or anyone ever fix them- probably not.
The music business is suffering
this problem big time. Primary
record means (historically) the
original tape, but for it to be
readable you need the original tape
recorder – and studio recorders are
monsters – be they old analogue
machines like those from Revox
or, in the USA, 3M who produced
the 79 Series I talked about in my
column last month. Recorders like
this are so large and heavy they sit
in a console. To store them and keep
them in good working condition is
both difficult and expensive.
It may be that we now have
solid-state disc drives (memory) able
to last indefinitely without failure.
And 24/96 PCM seems a pretty
good storage code to me. If I assume
turning the world’s back catalogue of
music to 24/96 PCM and storing it in
solid-state memory or – better – in
the cloud (data warehouses), then
someone – like Universal Music –
must run tens of thousands of tapes,
through restored tape recorders - analogue and digital – to produce
a primary copy-record. The scale of
an operation like this is immense.
The fire in Los Angeles was
tragic. There’s no excuse for losing
primary record of our collective
musical heritage. But at the same
time it is an issue that perhaps
should not be left to the record
companies. There are competing
claims for ownership here. The
world at large claims ownership, the
recording artists claim ownership
but Universal Music has it – legally
and physically. Music master tapes
have become a big issue. That fire
started a lot of others.
Noel Keywood
"There’s no excuse for
losing our collective
musical heritage"