Whats the difference between a 2" master and a 1/4" master

[Alvarado6411]

I've been talking to a band and they told me they lost their 2" masters but they have their 1/4". Would this be good or bad?

[afterstasis]

so long as they can be transferred to a digital medium i don't see how the tape-size would matter.

[AKALink]

I guessing they use tapes. I don't know since I've never used tapes before. Why don't you ask them if the tapes have each individual track on them.

[Alvarado6411]

Ahh, so it's basically just a size difference?

[BillyBlaze314]

I don't know much about tapes, but I would guess that the 2" tapes have a higher sound quality. I would say just take what you can get as long as it doesn't sound really bad.

[justin19954]

Can we have a hint of the band, please?

[davidshek]

Ahh, so it's basically just a size difference?

Yes, it's a difference in the size of the physical tapes. But they can't use those for RB...they'll need to find a way to transfer them onto a PC in WAV format.

[HMXEnosity]

All master tracks need to be digital. the 1/4" tape needs to be converted to a digital format. Often times only a professional studio has the equipment to do this properly. The only problem that may arise from having the masters on tape (aside from the cost of conversion) is if the 1/4" masters aren't multi-tracked. If you can't split up the different instruments, they're useless for the game.

[esquehill]

My belief is that 1/4" analog tape will only have 4 separate tracks; no more.
2" tape... I don't know.

[PCTraitor]

2 inch tape is literally 2 inches wide and 1/4 inch tape would be a quarter inch wide. This has to do with how big each track can be on the tape. The tracks run side by side up the length of the tape. The more room for a track the better the sound quality. I believe it literally has to do with giving the sound waves more room. They must've for some reason bounced their 2 inch tape copies down to 1/4 inch which would result in reduced sound quality, but it would still be useable. As someone said before they have to convert them to digital.

I'm willing to bet that even though there is a loss in quality from smaller tape, through digital clean up, digital enhancements and compression/noise reduction we won't even know the difference by the time it makes it onto the game.

[PCTraitor]

My belief is that 1/4" analog tape will only have 4 separate tracks; no more.
2" tape... I don't know.

You may be right. I know that 2 inch tape could support 24.

[HMXEnosity]

Well if that's true, the tape might be OK for RBN so long as the Drums, Guitar, Bass, Vocals are each on their own track.

[HocusPocus]

To answer the topic question: 1 and 3/4 inches

[JasonBooth]

2 inch tape usually holds 24 tracks of audio, and 1/4 inch tape is generally used for a stereo mix (2 tracks). So you'd really want to get access to the 2 inch version and mix down stems.