Mario Escalante is the head tape transfer engineer at Deep Signal Studios in Long Beach, CA, and a co-founder of the studio, which he owns and operates with Nick Dynice. He runs the transfer work itself — machine calibration, tape treatment, and the capture of analog and digital multitrack and two-track sessions.
Over the past 15 years Mario has transferred thousands of tapes — analog reels from 1/4-inch through 2-inch, cassettes, and digital formats including ADAT, DAT, and DTRS — across archival, reissue, and preservation projects by major artists and amateurs alike. That volume is the reason the work is routine here rather than experimental: identifying a tape and its track configuration, judging whether a reel needs baking or mold treatment before it is ever threaded, calibrating a machine to each individual tape, and capturing it flat.
He took the recording program at Long Beach City College alongside Nick, under instructors including Nancy Allen, Dr. George Shaw, Maurice Love, Tim Parsch, and Charles Gutierrez, training in audio theory and multitrack recording on 16-track 1-inch and 24-track 2-inch analog tape machines, along with digital recording on synced ADATs and Pro Tools. He holds a certificate in Recording Engineering from Long Beach City College and a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology from the University of Phoenix.
In 2016 he and Nick founded Deep Signal Studios as a commercial studio, which now operates over 50 media playback machines covering a wide range of audio, video, and data formats. His professional background also spans musical instrument and pro sound retail sales, consumer and pro audio technical support, and freelance and in-house A/V operations including video projection and live sound reinforcement.