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I was working on an unrelated project at Columbia's engineering building and recall seeing Paul Simon sitting with an engineer in an editing booth, working on tapes. This was during the "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" period. I was told thy had been working on that tape for about a year so far. Given the amount of tape shuttling, it is possible that the final result was "born worn." Steve Smolian -----Original Message----- From: Tom Fine Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2015 9:04 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] More tales of woe from the tape vaults According to what was posted on the Ampex List, a former Columbia engineer had made personal dubs of some of the S&G tapes, and Sony was very happy to borrow or buy those tapes to make recent remasters, because the original 2-tracks were indeed worn out. -- Tom Fine ----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Pomeroy" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2015 8:53 AM Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] More tales of woe from the tape vaults >I remember seeing some of the Simon & Garfunkel master cutting > tapes at Columbia which were literally worn out from over use. The > tape seemed to have become very thin and the audio level diminished. > > > Doug Pomeroy > Audio Restoration and Mastering Services > 193 Baltic St > Brooklyn, NY 11201-6173 > (718) 855-2650 > [log in to unmask] > >> Regarding Robin's posting, I don't think there's any blanket "wisdom" >> about old tapes getting >> "dulled out," but I have heard stories about older tapes that were used >> to cut a lot of LP masters >> get so they don't Dolby-track well and other things related to certain >> frequencies falling off more >> than others over time. I think it could be that the tapes passed over >> slightly magnetized transport >> parts or heads here and there, or were exposed to weak magnetic fields >> for long periods of time, or >> even lost enough oxide for it to be audible just because they were played >> so many times. After all, >> playback is not a frictionless exercise. >> >> -- Tom Fine > >