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Hey all,

So here I was, struggling to clean up my vinyl copy of The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie, when something occured to me.

We know that master tapes get misfiled in all sorts of hilarious ways. When they're not misfiled, they're generally under lock and key in a vault somewhere.

But what about pressing masters? EQed-for-vinyl sub-masters? Tapes that're sent out to pressing plants? What happens to them?

More specifically, why don't they ever leak? I doubt that the Sire records album by the Beckies was in print for very long, but surely there were one or two copy tapes made that were sent to pressing plants. Why don't these ever surface, and become the source for at-least-it's-not-from-vinyl fan-reissues?

I recall that someone auctioned off a CD production master tape of Zappa's "Ship Arriving Too Late" on eBay a few years back. AFter my initial surprise had faded, I got to wondering why we don't see MORE of these. Surely these artifacts must exist!

Thoughts?

Snarky as this may seem, I personally think that they just get trashed. Record companies have been known to be careless with the masters, so why not just junk the submasters as well.

The reason you probably don't see more of these out there might just boil down to the fact that people who have these tapes come into their possession just don't want to give them up or they just don't know what they are sitting on. Someone might find a LP submaster for a Ramones LP with no discernable art or notes and might think it's just a dub of the record.

Also, if someone does go public with one of these tapes, couldn't the record company get legally involved since it is their property?

Probably any of the following:

1) They stay in the vaults.

2) They get trashed in favor of the actual masters.

3) The connections don't exist betwen those with the tapes and those wanting to put out a bootleg.

Do these masters ever get erased and reused by a frugal record company?

Perhaps. It just feels like they should be lying around somewhere, waiting for someone to discover 'em.

What makes you think they aren't just in the vaults along with everything else?