Michael Fremer tours World's Largest Vault of Historic Recordings | Universal Music Group

From Michael:
TrackingAngle's exclusive visit to Universal Music Group's Iron Mountain tape vault outside of Pittsburgh also includes a tour of Iron Mountain Entertainment Services' facilities. You'll get to go deep within the former limestone mine where Universal Music Group has one of its worldwide tape storage facilities and see how, with the help of Iron Mountain Entertainment Services, the company catalogues and keeps track of its vast audio and video tape holdings.
The visit also includes a ride through other parts of the labyrinthian, underground facility where governmental agencies we can't identify also store data, safe from natural environmental damage as well as from acts of war.
You'll see the process by which a licensee gets selected assets for a music album reissue, whether it's the tape for an all-analog reissue or a digital file for a digitally sourced reissue. You'll see the action from finding the tapes in the vast facility to cataloguing it and preparing it for reissue.
The visit was like going onto a science fiction movie set, only this was real! For most people this will be a first and only opportunity to see this facility in this almost two hour long presentation. Watch as much or as little as you wish, but if you don't watch all of it, you'll be missing out on some amazing footage shot deep within the mine.
UMG also prepared for TrackingAngle.com a series of displays showing existing master tapes that The New York Times claims were burned in the tragic 2008 fire atop Universal Mountain outside of Los Angeles including the Buddy Holly catalog, which did not burn-as anyone who's purchased Analogue Productions' AAA reissues cut from original master tapes of "Buddy Holly" and "The Chirpin' Crickets" knows still exists-I've seen pictures of the tapes used for the cut. The newspaper refuses to correct their mistakes.
The visuals UMG provided will appear shortly on The TrackingAngle.com website. Watch for the story!
Tracking Angle thanks Universal Music Group, Iron Mountain and Iron Mountain Entertainment Services for allowing us into the usually off-limit facility and for everyone's hospitality and cooperation. It was an experience I'll long remember!
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[@pervertedalchemist9944]

Universal Music Group's master recordings fire was a deliberate cover up on their end. It happened in 2008, yet wasn't revealed until over a decade later.

[@pittbrat7963]

Probably the most interesting movie on the 'net.... Thanks!

[@The_Music_Sanctuary]

That was really interesting and informative, thanks for the video tour Michael..cheers..✌

[@antonyharding5360]

Longest thing ive watched in years very interesting. Great work !!!.

[@sawsquaresinetube]

This is awesome, I haven’t had a chance to sit all the way through but bounced around enough times to see it twice lol. Thanks for making this!

[@salmorreale7900]

Thank you for posting.

[@SuperAgentman007]

All movie studios even use that ex mine facility to store their original Masters prints of movies like the original print of the Wizard of Oz is there

[@Kezleu]

Thank you, it’s an exceptional visit, Universal is doing a good job for us. I was following the archives of Frank Zappa, family and Universal music, you will manage as best you can.

[@f.troiani5937]

Oh Mikey this one sent shivers down

[@doobydub8363]

Could there be a cutting master of The Genius of Ray Charles that says "cut treble by 10dB at cutting"?

[@mazzysmusic]

Well done Michael. Who the hell dusts this place?

[@mondoenterprises6710]

I thought there was a fire and they lost everything?

[@manolokonosko594]

Not everything, but a significant amount. There are probably safety copies and other backups, but you know how those snobbish analog purists are.

[@trackingangle929]

@@manolokonosko594they lost less than what’s been reported. There’s a story on the Tracking Angle website about items said to have been lost but were not….

[@greatpix]

All I can think of is all that iron oxide flaking off over the years and the magnetic charge slowly dissipating.

[@trackingangle929]

Scotch 111 is essentially bullet proof and sounds about as good as it did when it was first recorded on. The proof is on any of the Tone Poet series Blue Note reissues. Other tape formulations do require baking before playing but tape is far less fragile than you suggest.

[@melbguy1]

MIke I don't think those albums are going to fit in your basement, lol

[@joeyveloso9124]

The amazing thing is that all that data I bet could be stored in a single storage device no bigger than a deck of cards. But that’s still the truth. Tapes ftw

[@flyingjeff1956]

When I was a freight pilot in the late 80s, I got paid $25 extra to deliver tapes to Columbia House in Terre Haute. I delivered Thriller to them.

[@lukeroberts3464]

Does universal music iron mountain tape vault has jackson 5 the jacksons and Michael jackson and new edition unreleased recordings too?

[@lawrence5368]

Very interesting. This is like watching a James Bond movie of the recording industry. An underground lab, control rooms with fancy equipment, top secrets and beautiful women. How cool is that?

[@cheapcheerfulrecordcollect8071]

So they don’t own any of those tapes ? They just store them for the owners. Then If they want to do a recording from original master tapes, they get the tapes from these guys ?

[@TheDoosh79]

What a dream job to work there!

[@burlingtonbill1]

A little long, but interesting!

[@TheRuffusMD]

i am so thankful the powers that be have done this

[@josephnessschmoe2864]

Johnny Carson's reels too

[@charlesgund4812]

I’m surprised they could bring those tapes out as they’re normally ‘too fragile to use’….well, unless someone like analogue productions pays a huge amount of cash 😅

[@mikehirsh1896]

SO IS THIS WHERE THE FRANK ZAPPA VAULT ENDED UP ...

[@charlesgund4812]

That thing about Adam Duritz from counting crows…i wonder if that was about recovering the satellites?

[@robbiedetroitstigermanviny8883]

Audiophiles are nerding out right now. Already over analyzing everything and leaving lengthy comments to show their intelligence about what they watched.

[@Ian-wh8ut]

far fucking out

[@joeycastillo1496]

Did not realize that they do service in the music industry.. I just deal with their data storage, cloud … something cool

[@Ian-wh8ut]

cgi or ai who can really say for sure?

[@lukeroberts3464]

New edition was on rca.

[@manolokonosko594]

Here's the conundrum: If a tape that is 40, 50, 60 years old stars to deteriorate, they would need to create a backup. They can either copy it to another analog tape, or they can digitize it. But when the album gets reissued in the future, no longer from the decayed original tapes, all audiophile purists will scream FOUL! to the heavens because it's "not the original tape". Worse still if its been digitized because "it lacks the warmth". In addition, it takes a lot of money, time and skilled people to back up those tapes.Who is going to pay for it?

[@terrywho22]

Cool story bro.

[@manolokonosko594]

@@cengeb absolutely true, but they can't throw out anything for a few reasons: (1) It's not theirs. (2) The tenant is sill paying rent. (3) Even if the tenant stops paying rent and they own it now, who's to know this may be worth a lot of money someday? (4) They trash it and then they get a big fat lawsuit, which they'll win but still end up with large attorney bills. Some of the albums shown on the original video (which is longer) are crap you still find in various thrift store bins all over the country, year after year. But who is really going to take the time to sift out the good from the bad? The only solution is to keep them in storage and someday when they all become public domain recordings, then they may be used by various small record labels to reissue that crap. I just don't see Universal reissuing most of that stuff now or ever, anyways.

[@rickhigginson8546]

Just, who is to decide what should be kept, what should be discarded? "One man's meat is another man's poison." Cost $ to have a temperature & humidity controlled vault. It's been lamented that, say in the `90's, some labels, perhaps many, thought that Digital was so great, they converted their analog tape masters to the then, existing digital technology, & jettisoned the original masters. Digital conversion technology has improved, & IS improving. Paul McGowan at PS Audio is a good reference for Digital, `State of the Art.' I've developed some techniques in regard to saving, `rescuing,' worn, damaged physical magnetic tape. The originals are likely to have the best detail, fidelity. @@manolokonosko594

[@Fluterra]

Digital sounds far worse than a great turntable or R2R. I have the best digital playback system available and it’s not really even close.

[@rickhigginson8546]

@@cengeb I'm going to TRY to be Diplomatic {In a way, we're both right, correct!} In the 60's, 70's, I collected a lot of the commercial prerecorded reel to reel tapes. Most were on Acetate tape, because it's inexpensive, but not all. {Some of these tapes I found, in thrift shops, were from the 50's, excellent sound!} At this writing, 1960 is: 63 years ago. 1970, `only,' 53 years ago. {It's important that almost all of these tape, but not 100%, were on, `Low Torque Reels.'} These hold up very well. I kept most of these, near the floor in a closet in the middle of my house, a good environment. Since 1980. No. it's not, `Iron Mountain,' but it's also not the Universal Storage, North Hollywood, which had the terrible fire! Somewhat unpredictable, but MOST have survived well!

[@FelizTheLifeguardMinion3]

More cellphone video....another headache

[@johnnyalegreworkplace8065]

Are they preparing for a nuclear holocaust? LOL

[@robertyoung1777]

Hard to watch. Shaky camera is inexcusable in this day and age. Send a proper camera and operator next time you do something as potentially interesting as this. Poor miking with excessive background noise. Bummer.

[@jbnavarrete]

Readers of the lost arch vault