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Old 12-22-2016, 01:27 AM
CRJCapt CRJCapt is offline
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Default Museum of Magnetic Recording Sound Recording Tour

I was in Austin Texas on Tuesday and stopped by the Museum of Magnetic Sound Recording.

Martin Theophilus is a great guy and has the most impressive collection of tape machines I have ever seen. His knowledge of the history of tape and tape machines is really impressive. He has everything plugged in and set up is probably the most impressive part. He's hoping to have everything in a permanent museum in the near future.

Thanks to Martin for being so gracious on such short notice. Chris

I didn't take a lot of still pictures but shot video instead. Videos are linked at the bottom.




A short history of the collection from Martin himself.

I began recording commercially with analog recorders in 1964. Produced albums for Austin Custom Records in the late 1970's early '80's. My wife Chris and I began managing musicians in the late '80's and early '90's using our analog equipment to promote. Dropped the analog audio equipment in the mid '90's and promoted using video.

In 1997, I began building web sites and found virtually no resources on the internet about analog recording, so I created Reel2ReelTexas.com to provide information about tape recorders. It now has 16,000 items on the site.

In 1999, following a gift of an Edison Cylinder player from my wife Chris, I began re-purchasing all the recorders I'd worked with over the years. It was a collection of 25 recorders. Then we began having the opportunity to acquire more significant machines and the collection grew to over 100 machines. We built a home studio and it started filling up with more tape recorders, mics, mixers and all the support documentation. We were never looking for quantity, but concentrating on those machines that were important to musicians who were developing their music and which were innovative recorders in their design and function.

In 2010 we acquired one of the original Ampex 200As (#33 of only 214 built) which belonged to Capitol Records in 1948 and then acquired by Leo De Gar Kulka Golden State Recording in San Francisco (remembered for his recordings of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, among others) where it mastered songs included "Tequila." At some point it was converted to four track and demoed some of Asleep At The Wheel's early recordings.

Subsequently the collection added more historically valuable recorders including: Willie Studer's first T-26 Dynavox; the first Teac pro recorder still in its original crate; the first Sony recorders, etc. Then we began adding what were the last analog recorders built by these companies and a few of the others that showed more about the evolution.

In 2012, we decided the collection needed a permanent public home. This was based on the fact that while there are many museums dedicated to the preservation of the musicians and their histories, there are few museums that preserve the analog recording evolution, the persons who invented the magnetic recording technology, the manufacturers and end users (engineers and producers). So the non-profit Museum of Magnetic Sound Recording (MOMSR) was created.

One major goal was documenting the pioneers of the analog recording history, so we began preserving histories about the early companies from every source we could find. Many of these folks began their magnetic recording endeavors immediately after WW II and were in their 90's. MOMSR has produced video interviews of some of these folks before they passed. We plan to produce more as we are able.

In 2013 MOMSR won a poll conducted by the City of Austin to determine the usage of a city building on the Colorado River that had been abandoned. While we won the vote, we did not have design drawing available to complete with large architecture companies. Austin still has not moved forward on their plans for the facility.

However that vote attracted the attention of the Bob Bullock State History Museum and they have been an ongoing mentor supporting our efforts. The Bullock planned to expand their coverage of Texas music and we hoped some of our collection might be included, however they decided there would be more visitors drawn to the history of Austin City Limits and other Texas musicians.

In the Spring of 2015 a University of Texas School of Architecture Interior Design class made MOMSR their project. So eleven students worked to produce plans for the museum's interior. This gave us a much more focused approach,but still did not generate any funding sources. One student did submit her design to a national competition and won a $30,000 scholarship.

MOMSR is now entering its fifth year. We have experienced many successes and still have not been able to evolve the permanent facility. Our current space which now takes up all our studio is full to capacity.

MOMSR's web site continues to expand and now averages 10,000 visitors per month with 1.5 million hits. We respond daily to requests for resources about vintage recording equipment, their repair, value, manuals, etc. We respond to everyone as best we can. The Museum has no paid staff and no budget. We rely totally on volunteer time. Very few donations are forthcoming.

Our frustration is that we've had many opportunities, but without a permanent location, some of the more significant ones could not be acted upon. That includes support recently offered by the Teac Corporation in Japan, who eventually decided since we did not have a public facility, they could not participate at this time.

The Museum has been given the archives of EditAll, Magnecord, Roberts Recorders, Stephens, among others. Much more was offered, but without a permanent facility we could not act on them. These included the Marvin Camrus archives from ITT (formally the Armour Research Foundation), a 24 track Lyrec recorder; some of Les Paul's recording equipment (Rusty Paul was a supporter); Early recorders used by Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison and Norman Petty documentation; a large Nagra collection; and a collection offered last year that would have doubled our current holdings.

We believe our collection is unique in that while it may not be the largest collection of vintage recording gear, what we have is of significance in the evolution of magnetic recording. We display the recorders with an effort to have most of the 225 tape recorders operating and running through playback systems. The 100 plus microphones are displayed and include Neumann's, RCA's, Sennheiser, classic Shure's, Electro Voices, Turners and more. The collection has all the Allied, Lafayette, Radio Shack and other catalogs from the 1930's through the end of their publication. Also most of the tape recording magazine issues. Most of this has been scanned and added to both the Reel2ReelTexas and MOMSR wed sites and is made available to everyone at no charge.

We believe that our collection needs to be combined with other related collections and possibly evan an active secure recording facility. We have a design by our Board Member architect Lloyd Cates that includes all the items we envision for the permanent facility.

We know to create a world class museum that preserves this history, plus the pioneers who created and built the equipment, will take significant donations, or maybe a benefactor who believes the technology is worth saving for future generations.

We deeply appreciate everyone's support and welcome all recommendations that will enable us to make this permanent museum facility a reality!

Cheers!
Martin
Martin Theophilus
MOMSR Executive Director
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If our information was helpful, please consider supporting our efforts to preserve recording history.
The Museum is an approved 501(c)3 non-profit and donations are potentially tax deductible.








Some short videos of the collection........................................ ...................

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FmVBxwjJtE&list=PL-L3dPqLq3OB4NRmGE4Db8EmHAo7L_Xjs[/ame]
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