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Learning on the fly

— By Paul McGowan —
Yesterday's post Bleeding Music talked about what I refer to as Bleed Through, where a master tape can magnetize the layers of tape wound tightly around each section above and below, causing a post or pre-echo you can occasionally hear. I included an example of this in the post. That brought a lot of comments. First, apparently I misunderstood Steve Hoffman's original comments about 'bleed'. What he was actually referring to was microphone bleed in the studio. This happens in a multi-miked recording when each of the many microphones picks up sounds from instruments far away from that microphone in an unintended manner. So much for 'getting it'. Then, a number of you pointed out the more common term for 'tape bleed' is 'print through'. Well, I always say, one of the benefits of writing a daily blog is how much I actually learn. Then John Atkinson, recordist, engineer and editor of Stereophile taught me something else:
"What I find interesting about this example, (other than the fact that so many people aren't aware of it) is that the bleed occurs before the vocal entry. Normally, analog tape reels are stored "tails out," ie, the end of the music is on the outside of the pack, which means that any bleed occurs after the event and gets obscured by the music. But in this instance, the Shelby Lynne master must have been stored "heads out" at one time, so the bleed isn't masked by the music."
I do so enjoy learning. Thanks for all the help you give me and all our readers day in and day out.

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