Reel to reel transfer of family tape recordings made between 1960-1965. The tape has been digitally cleaned of much of its hiss and hum, and crackles and loud microphone handling noises have been attenuated for a more comfortable listening experience. Although the  different dates of recording vary slightly in clarity, no equalisation has been applied. 

The transfer was recorded at 192hz and then simmered down to a 16 bit 48k Mp3 for upload to Soundcloud and subsequent ease of download if desired.

The tape heads were demagnetised and cleaned before transferring to digital but the tape has not been baked and is in excellent condition.  However, the recording would have been made on an inexpensive portable late 1950's design, and was transferred in January 2022 from a very recently serviced Revox A77. The tape speeds of the two machines match at 3.5 IPS, but with an approximate 5% difference, so the recording currently sounds a little fast, with the voices pitched higher, giving them a slight cartoon quality. Shortly I will upload a modified, speed- compensated version to make the voices sound more natural again.

Taken from a 62 year old tape stored in a cold garage for some 40 of those years, it’s not bad, I'd say.

Sunday 11th December 1960

Hampstead Music & Voice Studio is a well situated London recording studio offering a variety of professional recording services for production companies and individual voice artists and musicians. 

We accommodate everything we can, ranging from small classical ensembles and musical theatre, to hip hop artists and punk bands. We also offer competitive rates for rehearsals.

The studio offers both digital and analogue processing with valve and analogue modelling preamps,  plug-ins from Waves and UA and classic outboard. 

We also offer archive, sound design and mastering services. We can record to or from 1/4" tape, cassette, DAT and other older formats. 

The studio is for hire for long-term projects or for short one-off sessions and anything in between. Have a look at www.hmvs.co.uk and get in touch to discuss your project.