What's the story with the Antichrist Superstar master tapes, anyway? Very confused.

From what I understand from this whole saga:

It started from an interview in 2012:

Question: Have you considered re-releasing any of your older albums with remastered tracks, b-sides, and other goodies? Antichrist Superstar turns ten years old next year. Is there any possibility of fans getting to hear an improved mix of this milestone album in the future?

Manson: I'd like to say yes, but there’s a legal matter pending that I can’t say too much about. It’s very hard to believe this, but representatives from Nothing Records have indicated that they are not able to find, or have lost the master recordings to my first three records. It's not something that you would ever let happen in musical history. I would imagine something like that could only be intentional. If not intentional, it would have to be done only through complete disregard. Now that Nothing Records doesn't exist, I think there’s only one of two people responsible for that. Out of those two people, there's only one that really has an opinion of me that is voiced very often.

So for years, it was implied that Trent destroyed the tapes to be a dick. Then in 2017, we get the Howard Stern interview with the whole story:

https://www.howardstern.com/show/2017/09/19/marilyn-manson-talks-pilates-his-next-music-video-johnny-depp-and-how-he-and-trent-reznor-became-friends-again/

“He was a great producer and he made that record happen, ‘Antichrist Superstar.’ No doubt about it,” Marilyn said on Tuesday.

But during an in-studio scuffle, Trent supposedly took the hard drive that had been recording the album’s tracks and smashed it. “For many years I thought that the masters for ‘Anitchrist Superstar’ were destroyed,” Marilyn explained. “I just felt heartbroken and mad and just never wanted to talk to him again. Because I just thought, how would you destroy something that you also made?”

So what happened???

There was a fight between Trent and Manson in the studio (don’t know which session) where it ended with Trent taking a hard drive that he claimed had the masters to the first three Manson albums and smashing it with a hammer. Manson believed all these years that it was the only copy of the masters, which is why he stopped talking to Trent.

It was later revealed that wasn’t the case and Reznor was still in possession of copies. So what was on that drive? According to Manson mixes he didn’t care about (I’m assuming roughs or early mixes).

So in short - the masters are not lost and Trent’s kind of a dick.

So where are the multitrack/masters? Despite DAW being a thing in the 1990’s, albums were still recorded to multitrack tape. For editing and samples they would have used software like Pro Tools (or CueBase), but given then power of PCs in the mid-90’s, typically, you’d still be exporting edits and samples to tape as you wouldn’t be mixing a 48 track song in the box back then. Think about it - a top end PC back then was a Pentium, with a 2GB hard disk, and 32MB of RAM (64MB if you wanted super power!). A hard drive with 2GB of storage isn’t really enough for multitracks for one album (even at 16/44.1) let alone three!

So it’s likely bounce downs wav files were stored to hard drive, as well as any sampling work done in a DAW. For a major label release like Manson’s albums, they’d be backups of the stereo mixes on 2-track analogue, 2-track DAT and even good old CD-R. The analogue master tapes may be with Manson’s camp now Nothing is no longer a label.

I assume they weren’t sent to UMAs vault. Although Nothing went defunct in 2007 and the fire happened in 2008, Manson’s interview was in 2017 so it would seem they weren’t caught up in that.

Manson probably has the tapes now but he thought the master tapes were destroyed by Trent when they had a fight in the studio where Trent smashed bunch of computer discs; he thought those were the masters and they are destroyed by Trent, but by 2016/2017 Manson contacted with him again through Tyler Bates and realized that the masters are fine.

Also 1 year ago this sub had someone posted a screenshot or something proving Manson is working on the ACS boxset again so he PROBABLY has the master tapes

Marilyn Manson must have the tapes because he fucking announced that he's releasing an Antichrist Superstar Box Set some time in.. uhh... 2016

A few years back in an interview on Howard Stern, Manson said Trent ran into Tyler Bates somewhere and then got Manson's number from him and gave him a call and I think Manson is in possession of them now.

Fred durst has the tapes😂

I read there a long time ago that Pogo on his delirious Facebook responded to a fan that he had the AC masters and used them as coasters, despite being a joke he left me thinking that it is a valid possibility

I only identified three facts in your statement, despite the two of them being my favorite musicians and human beings of all time, they are as follows:

1. Trent Reznor is a dick

2. Marilyn Manson is an irresponsible reckless maniac

3. The mix is timeless and perfect the way it is

All jokes aside though I've always been super interested in how involved trent was in the record, that's some shit that can keep me awake at night. Coming off the tail of broken and the downward spiral, and Manson confessing that antichrist was inspired by several dreams and comments having been made that he wrote most of those songs several years prior as poems really makes me question how much trent did with ACSS to make it into what it was. Something that indicates that trent had more to do with ACSS than anyone would like to admit is the cut opening track heavan on the brain. That instrumental is the most blaitently NIN track I have ever heard under the MM title, I know he also has specific credits in the creation portion of Dried up Tied up and the reflecting god, which in the former, i hear it lound and clear in the weird synth part after he yells "you shove your hair down my throat" and god only knows what else trent had his fragile little hands in...