Preservation on Reel-to-Reel Tapes in Bob’s Archives Begins With Help of GRAMMY Foundation

Audio Preservationist Seva Ball Begins Transfer of Archive Tapes With Help of GRAMMY Foundation Funding.

Seva setting tape for transfer

Seva David Ball, setting a tape for transfer

In March of 2008, the Bob Moog Foundation was awarded an $8,000 assessment grant from the GRAMMY Foundation to assess the physical, historical, and legal viability of over 300 reel-to-reel tapes in Bob’s archives. After months of study, three experts verified and prioritized 143 tapes to cleaned and transferred.

In the summer of 2009, the Foundation was awarded a $15,000 preservation grant from the GRAMMY Foundation to begin work on the prioritized tapes. Many of the tapes have been compromised by previous unstable storage conditions and the wear and tear of time; they will need mold remediation, baking, rewinding and re-housing on new reels before they are ready to be transferred to digital format. Audio engineer and preservationist Seva David Ball of Soundcurrent Mastering is heading the team who will complete the process on over 40 of the tapes.

Prioritized tapes include those of Roger Powell (Utopia), Chris Swanson (House composer for R.A. Moog, Co.), Harolde Bode (speaking about he Bode Frequency Shifter), Emmanuel Ghent, Sun Ra, William Hoskins and Bob himself (speaking at a variety of seminars around the birth of the prototype). Recently a very special donation was made to this collection from an early synthesizer pioneer– we’ll be telling you about it and sharing it with you next month.

The project is expected to take 6 months to complete.

Many thanks to the GRAMMY Foundation for their ongoing support! This project would not have been possible without them!