Finally getting around to a project I’ve been putting off for years- restoring the Ampex 3-track machine! It basically works, but not up to snuff. I’ve been working on the tape transport and finally had a chance to play this Ella Fitzgerald and Frank DeVol 3-track master tape from 1964 that I got from a junk deal ten years ago (this was in a box of headphone boxes that came from TTG studios in LA, so there must be a story there). Anyway, the 3-track master came to life, Ella’s voice ringing out of the center channel, and it was…magic. Nothing sounds more three-dimensional to me than real, proper 3-track L-C-R stereo recordings made from the late 1950s through the late 1960s. Hopefully I’ll be making some new magic with this recorder (originally owned by Buddy Merrill, the guitarist from the Lawrence Welk show) soon. It’s time.
