Jamie Howarth on Extracting Hidden Tape Modulation | The Plangent Processes Playback System

Halfway through the second day of T.H.E. Show 2022, our reporting team and I were lounging in the Hilton’s downstairs restaurant as we waited for the lull of the afternoon to pass. As we strategized the rest of our day, Michael Vamos of Audio Skies, a North American Distributor of brands such as Larsen, Gamut, and Ideon, leans over from a neighboring table: “I have your next interview. You gotta listen to this guy…”

Michael’s hitchhiked-thumb directs our gaze to the man sitting across from him, who unassumingly introduces himself as Jamie Howarth.

Jamie is the founder and president of The Plangent Processes Playback System, “a hybrid hardware/software package combining state of the art contemporary analog electronics coupled with unique digital signal processing… [which] provides the archival mastering and preservation community a level of playback quality never before possible.“

From Jamie’s website: “Every analog magnetic recording starts with a motor dragging a rusty strip of plastic over rollers and guides, across scraping metal parts. Unfortunately, every inconsistency in the speed of the tape as it traces this obstacle course distorts the music being recorded. The transport’s various imperfections create an ever-changing matrix of speed variations, slow or fast, subtle or severe. At worst, this results in the familiar warps and warbles known as “wow” and “flutter.” It can even (as in the famous case of Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue”) cause a perceptible tuning change over time…”

Jamie has restored master tapes for Queen, The Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen, and many more. In fact, he won a Grammy in 2008 for Best Historical Album for his work on The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949. His impressive resume boasts feature films as well, such as: West Side Story, Young Frankenstein, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and more.

Listen in as Jamie describes the creation of The Plangent Processes Playback System, the importance of tape restoration, and the accidental discoveries he made along the way.

Excuse the less-than-ideal audio during this interview. Perhaps I can blame our late lunch gorging or the pervasive dreamy jazz which spilled endlessly from the showrooms; whatever the reason for my somnambulistic state, our wireless microphones’ receiver  weren’t properly connected to the camera, forcing us into a tedious transcription process. I am now indebted to him not only for his time and graciousness but a future, clearer-sounding, interview.