Library Of Congress Receives Largest Single Audio Donation

[jostenmeat]

I was listening to the story on NPR yesterday. IIRC, they were saying that only 14% of the recordings before 1960 are even available today. A lot of these masters are not used because it is just not financially feasible. I put the below quotes out of order on purpose.

Good for Universal, and good for us. Too bad that Universal, to my knowledge, isn't known for classical or jazz, but I still think that this is pretty cool. Better saved than lost.

So far the Library has received about 50,000 metal masters — a tractor trailer load a week — since November.

"The majority of the [Universal] collection are the metal masters — about 200,000. Then there are going to be another 8 to 10,000 tape reels and probably twice that, maybe 15,000 lacquer discs," says DeAnna.

The lacquer discs were used to record in studios before the adoption of reel-to-reel tape. The final metal pressing masters were created from these lacquers.

It'll take about four months to get all of the material to Culpepper. Then DeAnna and a staff of 35 will begin the nuts and bolts work of figuring out what they've got; labelling it properly; deciding what needs immediate care and then digitizing it. The process will take years.

It's actually a negative — press it into wax and you get the grooves."

It has ridges instead of grooves. The Library is waiting for a shipment of special styli that DeAnna calls "saddle styli," that can track these metal masters by riding on top of either side of the ridges the way a single stylus rides inside the grooves of a 78 rpm disc or an LP.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2011/01/10/132803768/200-000-recordings-donated-to-library-of-congress