 Australia's first 16-track recorder was installed at Armstrong's Studios in Melbourne in 1971; Festival installed Australia's first 24-track recorder at its Sydney studio in 1974.During the 1970s, 16, 24, and 32 tracks became common in professional studios, with recording tape reaching two and three inches (5.08 cm - 7.62 cm) wide.The so-called "golden age" of large format professional analog recorders would last into the 1990s when the technology was mostly replaced with digital tape machines, and later on, computer systems using hard disk drives instead of tape.