Restoration

Makoché Studios recently completed the restoration of over 1500 audio cassette recordings for the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Tribes. The recordings date back to 1973 and contain thousands of hours of MHA Tribal Council meetings. The cassettes were recorded on a specialized system that is no longer manufactured, making listening to the tapes impossible for tribal members. What was 26 boxes filled with cassettes became a small, cataloged hard drive of accessible audio files.

According to Makoché Studios President David Swenson, the project took nearly six months to complete. “We have a dedicated room at the studio to handle these types of transfer and restoration projects”, says Swenson. “Tapes of this age deteriorate with time. They will not last forever.”

We live in a digital world but much of our important audio documentation originated in an analog one.

When you consider recording tape, think of it as a piece of plastic with iron oxide dust glued to it. The iron oxide holds a magnetic charge and as the glue deteriorates over time the magnetic signal loses its strength. The oxide “sheds” from the tape. It’s a brilliant system, but it does not last forever. Vinyl recordings and acetate discs don’t suffer the same type of deterioration, but they do become worn and scratched with each playback.

For decades our studio has worked with the restoration and preservation of these types of recordings, and the digital world we live in now offers some almost magical restoration techniques. We’ve worked on everything from 8-tracks and family cassette recordings to homemade acetate discs and museum restorations to thousands of hours of Tribal Council recordings. We recently added a vinyl record ultrasonic cleaning system for transfer and restoration of vinyl records of all types. If you have a recording you are interested in preserving call us or contact us with your questions.