The Count Basie Orchestra High Voltage Master Quality Reel To Reel Tape (2Reel)

This item not eligible for any further discount offers!

When in January, 1970 Count Basie entered the studio with his 17-piece big band to record High Voltage, he ushered in the last full decade as bandleader of his Orchestra. The Orchestra had left its imprint on the sixties by recording with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. There would be more great albums with star vocalists in the seventies, but the band's purely instrumental works, which had begun 1965, would also continue. Back then Basie had engaged acclaimed Cuban composer/arranger Chico O'Farrill to arrange the music for such concept albums as Basie Meets Bond and Basie's Beatle Bag, transforming them into crossover gems. On High Voltage O'Farrill demonstrates his affinity to Basie's big band sound, this time with a repertoire of standards. For this album, Basie specifically chose pieces the band had never recorded in their more than 30-year existence. This is sayin something, since the band covers such an impressive span of jazz history.

- Stefan Franzen

DOES HORCH HOUSE DO ANY KIND OF REMASTERING DURING THE COPYING PROCESS?
Absolutely not! Why mess with the best? The whole point of what they do lies in capturing the magic of the original analogue master tape in its purest, most faithful form possible.

'Remastering' can be compared to using computer software to edit an original photograph. The benefits are that you can remove unwanted marks or noise, clean things up, remove distortion and boost clarity. The downside is that in doing so, you often lose the natural essence of the original and the result can seem rather synthetic, lacking in real life character.

The unfortunate fact is that tapes, like photographs, do tend to age over time, and most analogue masters are now between 30-80+ years old.

So Horch House undertake a painstaking 'soft refurbishing' process, which is key to recapturing the original quality of a master tape.

CAPTURING THE MAGIC OF MASTER TAPE
How exactly does Horch House translate an original analogue master tape into faithful copies on reel-to-reel tape and vinyl records?

They use a process that's been meticulously researched and developed by their expert team of sound engineers, with input from some of the world's leading specialists.

The first step is to carefully assess the sound quality of the original master tape, which their experts do in great detail. The unfortunate fact is that tapes do tend to age over time, and most analogue masters are now between 30-80+ years old. What they're looking to do, therefore, as an integral part of their copying process, is to restore the sound quality back to its original level. They want you to hear exactly what the first sound engineers heard (and indeed the musicians themselves), on the day that the original recording was made. This is in stark contrast to any kind of 'remastering', which they most definitely do not do! They're not looking to 'improve' the recording in any way, but rather to return it as closely as possible to its full original beauty.

They call this their 'soft refurbishing' process.

HOW CLOSE ARE HORCH HOUSE COPIES TO THE ORIGINAL MASTER TAPES?
Horch House believe that they're as close as it's possible to get - not simply to the master tape in its current condition, but to that master tape's original condition. Thanks to their detailed 'soft refurbishing' process, their master tape copies could, in a sense, now be considered as better than the current originals because they've been lovingly restored to deliver the same sound quality that the originals had on the day they were first recorded.

WHAT ABOUT COPYRIGHT? ARE MASTER TAPE COPIES LEGAL?
All Horch House master tape copies are fully authorized, licensed and approved by the relevant record label/music publisher.

** It is standard practice in all recording studios to keep the tape "tail out". This reduces "pre-echo" and it means that the tape should be placed on the right hand side of the recorder, re-wound and then played.