My band and I were toying with the session estimate calc to see if there's any humanly possible way we could afford to record here. It struck us that the tape costs are almost as substantial as the rest of the services combined given our needs.

Two of us work in the a/v related departments here on campus and might be able to, ahem, "borrow" some tape.....and we know tons of folks who work with pro audio and might be able to slide us some tape at "friend" prices.

So my question is, can clients bring in their own tape? Is there any specific brand/type we need (I'm not exactly an expert on these topics, so I'm not sure if specific kinds are needed for specific machines) or is it just standard 2" tape? If that's the case I'm fairly certain we can save an assload of money by scrounging up our own.....

This might be informative - I didn't re-read it to see what they prefer at EA, I assume they can use anything. but-

http://www.electrical.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=64

You can bring your own tape.
I would recomend that it is higher output tape (quantegy 499, GP-9, Emtek 900), no older than 4 years, and has been stored properly. Otherwise you might suprise us with a bummer.

greg wrote:You can bring your own tape.
I would recomend that it is higher output tape (quantegy 499, GP-9, Emtek 900), no older than 4 years, and has been stored properly. Otherwise you might suprise us with a bummer.

Sorry in advance for a potentially stupid question: but what's wrong with using new tape which is older than 4 years? I am just curious.

What about once a brand new tape has been recorded on, how long will it last?

Humphrey Bear wrote:What about once a brand new tape has been recorded on, how long will it last?

the answer to this is, of course, forever. so don't fuck up.