Warhol's private tape is ready to roll...in public!

[Kill Mick]

The box is marked 402 and the tape pictured 401. Is it possible the 2 tapes are here?

I think so. Aside from the two numbers the picture could show two boxes - it could be we are seeing the lid and back of the same box, but isn't it also possible we are seeing the front of one box and the back of another, with the tape from one of them? Also, a small thing, but in the article the caption says "Master Tapes", not "Master Tape". To me it all strongly implies there are 2 boxes, each featuring one side of the acetate. That doesn't explain why the tracks from tape on the 45th are a mix of side one and two, but the box for 402 also says "There is another tape to... cutting(?)..." - maybe that refers to the tape used for the 45th?

[Mark]

You could be right. The front of the tape box has sticky tape on it which you'd expect to reach round to the back, but it's nowhere to be seen on the other part of the box that we see. Which supports two different boxes.

And the original Warhol press release states tapes - emphasis on the plural: https://press.warhol.org/press/the-warh ... ound-nico/

[rnranimal]

I visited the exhibit. They have both tapes (both tapes and boxes are on display and on the playback) and together they make up the acetate version of the album. I do believe these are the mixdown masters for the acetate. The tape sourced tracks on the 45th came from multitrack tapes which would've been used to mix down to these Warhol tapes. They could only find some of the multitracks.

The tape boxes say to use different tapes for cutting 45s. On display is also a 1969 letter from Columbia saying they are returning the tapes but it lists more than these 2 tapes. When I looked up the code used for the numbers of the others, it says that was Columbia's code for 45s. So there were more tapes returned but I've heard no mention of them. It's possible they weren't found. It seems this version of the album was considered finished at this point and even had tapes for singles prepared. I wonder if any of them were different mixes to the 2 main tapes.

[Sheila Klein]

Via Richie Unterberger, who recently gave a presentation there on the recording of the Banana album, I've been asked to post this statement from the Warhol Museum staff:

A staff member from the Warhol Museum told Velvet Underground biographer Richie Unterberger, "We do believe the tracks on the Scepter tapes are the same takes on the Dolph acetate. As you've heard, the tapes are of far superior audio quality than the acetate. The quality of the audio on the acetate makes it difficult to make out the nuances of each mix but their similarities make us certain they came from the tapes."

Alas, no context was offered for posing a followup question on the possibility of an official release from these tapes.

https://www.warhol.org/events/richie-un ... ound-nico/

[Kill Mick]

Can anybody who's heard the tapes confirm that they are the same edits/lengths as on the acetate, i.e. that the 10:20 min timing for European Son and 8:48 min timing for ATP written on the box are errors?

[rnranimal]

Can anybody who's heard the tapes confirm that they are the same edits/lengths as on the acetate, i.e. that the 10:20 min timing for European Son and 8:48 min timing for ATP written on the box are errors?

I heard nothing different from the acetate and timed European Son to confirm it is the same length as the acetate. Also, once I got a look at the boxes in person, I could see that ATP clearly states 5:48.

[Kill Mick]

Thanks for clarifying.

[MartinVU]

And how was the sound quality? I assume it's hard to compare listening at an exhibition and at home, but i'm interested in your impressions of these tapes vs the acetate.

[rnranimal]

Hard to judge sound quality in the exhibit vs home with the acetate, but the tape was clearly superior fidelity to the common bootleg of the acetate (which was also what was used on the 45th for the non-tape tracks). Aside from lacking all the surface noise, the tape had high end detail not heard on the common bootleg, but I think that is more of an issue of that particular transfer or the acetate condition because a sampler of the better condition acetate (the one sold at the flea market) also has this superior high end.

[Kill Mick]

One thing I do hope is that if they do release the tapes they leave them in their original 1966 mixes. Personally I don't know why they felt the need to give them a new mix for the 45th set, I'd much rather they just left them as they were.