I wanted to share with you my unforgettable experience at Mad Oak Studios on 10-27-09.  I had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to digitally transfer two of Madonna's biggest hits, "Lucky Star" and "Borderline", from their original 24-track master reel, into individual WAV files, for use with ProTools, Logic, or GarageBand.  Okay, Madonna wasn't actually there with me, but this was the next best thing!

Mad Oak Studios in Allston, Mass. where we transferred the reel.

What does this button do?

This all started back in April when I was lucky enough to get my hands on the original 2" Ampex Grand Master reel, that luckily escaped a pile destined for the trash back in the late 1980's.  The reel itself weighs a surprising 10 pounds, and is just under 27 years old (see photos below).  Of course, today's modern digital equipment would never know what to do with an analog reel like this.  So the first challenge was finding someone I could trust (and who wouldn't cost me a fortune) who had the equipment necessary to play this beast.  A very special thanks to my great friend Darrin for helping me with this.  As I always say, it's not what you know, but WHO you know.

After 6 months trying to coordinate a date and time where I could get this done, the project started at about 10:45 this morning at Mad Oak Studios in Allston, Mass.  They have a Studer A827 24-track console, which I was told by Joe (the sound engineer) is the absolute BEST 24-track 2" reel deck in the world (way better than the Otari MTR-90).  I had never seen a "remote" that was on 4 wheels before (see second photo below).  Joe threaded the machine, set Pro Tools to record, and the excitement began as we heard a voice say "Lucky Star, Take One".  However, the excitement quickly died after only about 3 seconds of music, when the tape slowed way down and came to a halt, much like a record player when you pull the plug.

This tape is nearly 27 years old!

The Studer A827 is the world’s best 24-track 2” reel console.  And who knew that a remote control would require four wheels?

It’s amazing how far technology has come since the early 80’s.

It turns out, there were three problems.  First, the original metal reel was slightly warped, and was causing too much tension on the machine, so we had to wind the entire tape onto an empty BASF reel.  Secondly, the rubber pinch roller on the deck was slipping, so it kept on stopping the tape and coming up with an error message.  And third, the tape was a bit dirty, and we went through a ton of Q-Tips and alcohol (rubbing alcohol, that is!) to keep the tape heads clean.

After about 4 hours of frustration, a phone call to a friend suggested that we try putting an unlubricated condom (yes, you heard right) over the pinch roller, to increase the pressure on the tape.  I was willing to try anything at this point.  It took about a half hour (going to 4 different stores) to find the unlubricated Trojan's that would hopefully save the day.  That helped a little bit, but the pinch roller started slipping again after about 10 seconds of play.  Back to the drawing board!  So the next step was to call in Beau, the "guy who knows the A827 inside and out", to work his magic.

The infamous pinch roller, which kept on slipping!

When trying to fix a pinch roller, be sure to use only UNLUBRICATED condoms!

See a short clip of the condom ordeal here:

Beau spent about an hour tinkering around on the deck, but even after all the adjustments, we still had to apply hand-pressure to the pinch roller the entire time the tape played.  Too much or too little pressure, and the tape speed would mess up, and we'd have to start all over again.  But it was all worth it.  The studio monitors reproduced the recordings beautifully; they sounded like they were recorded yesterday, even though it was nearly 27 years ago.  After 3 attempts per song, we finally captured perfect digital recordings of each 24-track master!

See a short video of the process here:

A vintage photo of Madonna in the studio, 1983.  Hey, maybe

that's my reel on the wall behind her!

Anyhow, about 7-1/2 hours, a half a box of Q-Tips, a lot of (rubbing!) alcohol, a hundred bucks (for Beau's time), and 3 unlubricated condoms later, we finally got both "Lucky Star" and "Borderline" successfully and digitally transferred into Pro Tools, each as 24 individual 192khz WAV files, along with a smaller but more "compatible" set of 44.1khz files (for all you computer geeks, that's about 14GB for 2 songs).  We started playing around with the mix a little bit, and discovered an amazing vocal gem in the "Borderline" scratch vocal track that never heard the light of day until today.  Madonna literally mumbling toward the end, like she didn't know the words, then asking "What?!?!?" to a recording engineer, then a few seconds later, saying "I can't hear you!".  It was a lot of fun!  Hear the infamous mumbling here:

Thank goodness the reel came with the original recall sheets.  With those, we were able to easily label each track file, and see how the song was assembled.  It was a day I will never forget!

UPDATE 11-23-09!!!

Here are links to two “acoustic” mixes of the songs that I made with Garage Band!