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Universal Vault Fire: HUGE loss to historical master recordings, including GN'R


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On 6/11/2019 at 6:12 PM, RussTCB said:

I get what you're saying but we're not talking about copies of copies. We're talking about the original master recordings of a massive slice in music history being lost forever.

Yes.

More on the subject, do we know what media these master recordings were done on, and if so, does that media suffer from any degradation that would render extracted audio being inferior to earlier copies on more robust media?

Edited by Sweersa
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19 minutes ago, Sweersa said:

Yes.

More on the subject, do we know what media these master recordings were done on, and if so, does that media suffer from any degradation that would render extracted audio being inferior to earlier copies on more robust media?

The short answer to all of that is "it depends" lol. However, in most cases the answer is yes. 

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13 hours ago, shotsfired cro said:

Theoretically speaking, my cd from '87, 95  or 2018 of AFD, could have been printed in LA, Austria, Tokyo, Sydney...you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.  Once it comes from label's 'master', that serves for all the reprints anywhere in the world.  From there on, they could make a reprint from my, your or Russ cd without any change in sound.

Now I know you're trolling. If the label sourced a reissue from a CD rip, I'm pretty sure you could tell the difference between that and the master tapes. If you actually were "in the music business" I would be quite worried, although it would explain quite a lot. :lol:

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1 hour ago, Azifwekare said:

Now I know you're trolling. If the label sourced a reissue from a CD rip, I'm pretty sure you could tell the difference between that and the master tapes. If you actually were "in the music business" I would be quite worried, although it would explain quite a lot. :lol:

:lol:I thought almost the exact same thing after reading that!

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Let's be realistic, unless you are a big audophile you won't difference too much the quality from the real master from a reel to reel copy. In terms of image it's more noticeable, but there are blu ray releases where the master tape was lost and they used a theather film reel. AC/DC's let there be rock:the movie wasn't realeased on dvd and blu ray until 2009, they said the master reel was very damaged and don't know what they did in the end.

Yes, it's true that if someday we have the technology to improve in a great way audio fidelity of the recording, the master tape should be the source used, but for me it's not a so big lost.

Edited by fanfzero
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22 minutes ago, fanfzero said:

Let's be realistic, unless you are a big audophile you won't difference too much the quality from the real master from a reel to reel copy. In terms of image it's more noticeable, but there are blu ray releases where the master tape was lost and they used a theather film reel. AC/DC's let there be rock:the movie wasn't realeased on dvd and blu ray until 2009, they said the master reel was very damaged and don't know what they did in the end.

Yes, it's true that if someday we have the technology to improve in a great way audio fidelity of the recording, the master tape should be the source used, but for me it's not a so big lost.

You honestly don't think that the master tracks being lost for all of these amazing moments in history is a big deal? Take the fidelity aspect out of it and think about the multi tracks alone. I don't know much about the UYI recordings, but let's say the original master tapes for UYI are gone. That would mean that instead of the original, 32 track recording where everything is separated into individual tracks, all we're left with is a mix down. It's along the lines of what I explained earlier in the thread with regard to "At Last" by Etta James 

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1 hour ago, RussTCB said:

You honestly don't think that the master tracks being lost for all of these amazing moments in history is a big deal? Take the fidelity aspect out of it and think about the multi tracks alone. I don't know much about the UYI recordings, but let's say the original master tapes for UYI are gone. That would mean that instead of the original, 32 track recording where everything is separated into individual tracks, all we're left with is a mix down. It's along the lines of what I explained earlier in the thread with regard to "At Last" by Etta James 

In that case yes, it's a big loss, had not read that, but hey, something as important as the uyi multitracks should be digitalized. And yes, it has historical importance, but I doubt any of us have seen or would have ever seen the rock around the clock master tape with his own eyes, they weren't exposed to the public

Edited by fanfzero
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I'm assuming none of the original masters were backed up digitally so this is a massive loss. As others have said any alternate takes and possible alternate versions of songs are probably lost as well. If the multitracks weren't backed up we can say goodbye them as well. This in particular is a bummer because if you wanted to do a remix it is impossible beyond subtle changes via EQ.

Edited by Jw224
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3 hours ago, RussTCB said:

You honestly don't think that the master tracks being lost for all of these amazing moments in history is a big deal? Take the fidelity aspect out of it and think about the multi tracks alone. I don't know much about the UYI recordings, but let's say the original master tapes for UYI are gone. That would mean that instead of the original, 32 track recording where everything is separated into individual tracks, all we're left with is a mix down. It's along the lines of what I explained earlier in the thread with regard to "At Last" by Etta James 

Some people just don't get it unfortunately :facepalm:

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1 hour ago, Jw224 said:

I'm assuming none of the original masters were backed up digitally so this is a massive loss. As others have said any alternate takes and possible alternate versions of songs are probably lost as well. If the multitracks weren't backed up we can say goodbye them as well. This in particular is a bummer because if you wanted to do a remix it is impossible beyond subtle changes via EQ.

You would hope that there would be some copy of any unreleased material in GNR or UMGs possession, although nowhere near as good as the masters hopefully a copy still exists

Does anyone know if this is where the pro shot footage was stored? 

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3 hours ago, fanfzero said:

In that case yes, it's a big loss, had not read that, but hey, something as important as the uyi multitracks should be digitalized. And yes, it has historical importance, but I doubt any of us have seen or would have ever seen the rock around the clock master tape with his own eyes, they weren't exposed to the public

And that's where the big loss lies: things like that SHOULD have been backed up, but even then that would mean it's a second generation and not the original. Having said that, what record companies should do and what they actually do is two totally different things. 

If they'd backed up everything they should have, I would imagine they would have come forward on their own when the fire happened as opposed to having the NY Times inform us of the actual amount of stuff lost 11 years later. 

3 hours ago, Lim666 said:

Well, we noramally would never have listening pleasure for UYI multitracks and doubtfully are supposed to have ever. So we wouldnt miss anything at all for ourselves as fans.

You're still not getting it. It's not a matter of if we would ever hear those multi tracks. It's a matter of what could be done with them in the future possibly. Any possibility is completely gone now for anything that was lost in that fire. 

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On 6/13/2019 at 12:31 PM, shotsfired cro said:

ot many, but ALL albums have a 'master copy' stored by the label that is untouched, but that is the reel that goes in the archive. It can be a 100th copy of the master that Russ is talking about.

Theoretically speaking, my cd from '87, 95  or 2018 of AFD, could have been printed in LA, Austria, Tokyo, Sydney...you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.  Once it comes from label's 'master', that serves for all the reprints anywhere in the world.  From there on, they could make a reprint from my, your or Russ cd without any change in sound.

Maybe, but also maybe not in terms of whatever was lost in GNR land via the fire, was not the 1st gen tapes.  The trouble with this fire is that there was, without a doubt, many master 1st gen tapes that were destroyed with countless bands and artists being affected - GNR potentially being one of them.  

And sure, digital to digital once a CD is printed is identical when copying.  But losing a 1st gen master tape, be it a 1st gen mixdown flat transfer of the original mix or the multitracks, again would be a huge loss - because as high quality digital transferring has gotten, still nothing beats first gen analog tape from just the perspective of what contains the most information and what is still the best objectively in terms of archiving the most amount of sonic information possible

Edited by WhazUp
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28 minutes ago, RussTCB said:

You're still not getting it. It's not a matter of if we would ever hear those multi tracks. It's a matter of what could be done with them in the future possibly. Any possibility is completely gone now for anything that was lost in that fire. 

Yes very true - even with those multritracks, if indeed they were gone, losing the ability to make a high quality digital transfer of the original 1st gen tapes, and instead resorting to higher gen tapes to make new mixes such as surround sound mixes for a potential UYI, would be not as sonically ideal.  

 

And in terms of high quality digital backups made from the original analog tapes, another article quoted the number at only 12,000 actually backed up from the UMG Vault which means for a lot of these recordings destroyed in a fire, will from now on have to rely on non-1st gen tapes to do the job for them from now on

Edited by WhazUp
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3 hours ago, Ratam said:

Apparently recording artists preparing for a legal battle about the master tapes. But sadly with it they never will recuperate the master lost  :cry:

There was something like this with Def Leppard some time ago

3 hours ago, donny said:

and the master copy of the Perfect Crime documentary ? 

Maybe it's dead, but a copy should exist, marc canter saw a bit of it, he said it began with it's so easy

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7 hours ago, fanfzero said:

There was something like this with Def Leppard some time ago

Maybe it's dead, but a copy should exist, marc canter saw a bit of it, he said it began with it's so easy

Def Leepard is too in the lost Universal fire❓ i not was know it. But, the legal battle isn't  will to solve nothing, just put in evidence the Universal horrible  behavior about it important lost.

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11 hours ago, Ratam said:

Apparently recording artists preparing for a legal battle about the master tapes. But sadly with it they never will recuperate the master lost  :cry:

Dammit. That's yet another aspect I didn't think of.

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The recording industry hasnt quite learned it's lesson yet. Decades, 1900-1920's, of film has been loss due to the same issue. I believe that digital copies have probably been made, look at Bohemian Rhapsody mini documentary, where every track was saved digitally in high fidelity copies. Surely this was done for most of these

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8 minutes ago, UsedYourIllusion said:

The recording industry hasnt quite learned it's lesson yet. Decades, 1900-1920's, of film has been loss due to the same issue. I believe that digital copies have probably been made, look at Bohemian Rhapsody mini documentary, where every track was saved digitally in high fidelity copies. Surely this was done for most of these

Also Queens music label is owned by UMG (I think), so hopefully they have similar business practices, so hopefully digital qualities have been made

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19 hours ago, RussTCB said:

And that's where the big loss lies: things like that SHOULD have been backed up, but even then that would mean it's a second generation and not the original. Having said that, what record companies should do and what they actually do is two totally different things. 

If they'd backed up everything they should have, I would imagine they would have come forward on their own when the fire happened as opposed to having the NY Times inform us of the actual amount of stuff lost 11 years later. 

You're still not getting it. It's not a matter of if we would ever hear those multi tracks. It's a matter of what could be done with them in the future possibly. Any possibility is completely gone now for anything that was lost in that fire. 

Well, as i said, we need a list of what is really lost and NOT backed upped properly. It's all coming down to that. Then, and not before, we can cry or party, whatever.
And no, i get it, loosing masters is surely a no go and there have to be consequences, yeah. But again....if it has been backed up in high end quallity, it doesnt matter at all. You would never get analog multitracks for your listening pleasure as consumer, they are all digital releases coming from "back ups in 24/384 and/or DSD" (or so). So, as bad as all this is.....it's about what has been backed upped digitally from the best possible sources.

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22 minutes ago, Lim666 said:

Well, as i said, we need a list of what is really lost and NOT backed upped properly. It's all coming down to that. Then, and not before, we can cry or party, whatever.
And no, i get it, loosing masters is surely a no go and there have to be consequences, yeah. But again....if it has been backed up in high end quallity, it doesnt matter at all. You would never get analog multitracks for your listening pleasure as consumer, they are all digital releases coming from "back ups in 24/384 and/or DSD" (or so). So, as bad as all this is.....it's about what has been backed upped digitally from the best possible sources.

I'm sorry but there's just a lot more to it than that. 

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