Audio levels (and their cousin loudness) has been an ongoing area of confusion and annoyances from the 1930s on. Adding digital to the mix has done little to simplify the situation.

Here we discuss some of the background and the relationship between the VU Meter, the Peak Programme Meter, and digital meters reference to 0 dBFS (Full Scale). (more…)

This is the first of many guest articles here. Thanks to Marie for agreeing to share her wonderful work in playing tapes that did not respond to baking. SSS=Sticky Shed Syndrome, LoL = Loss of Lubricant –Richard

There has been a lot of interest in this issue recently and I’ve answered several people privately. Hopefully this location will make the work more accessible to all who are interested.

The general appearance of the Mark II. As you can see, I had the luxury of being surrounded by these great machines and so we sacrificed one with all the adaptations done by a great technician by the name of Noel McGinnity - we both agreed we still wanted it to look like an almost regular Studer! All the tubing has been adapted to withstand isopropyl alcohol and the IV drip bag does not leak.

I began working at Sound Archives/Nga Taonga Korero, which is a wholly owned subsidary of Radio New Zealand in 1994. My task was to preserve and digitize the entire NZ Composer’s collection to begin with. I was taught my skills “on the job” but was lucky enough to have the wisdom & know it all of several older broadcasting technicians at my fingertips.

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This is a general article to provide some information on the subject. More should follow.

There are multiple modes of degradation and it depends on the type of tape.

Acetate Tape

• Degrades through drying out (hydration has helped in some cases)
• Breakdown of the base through “vinegar syndrome” and possibly leading to total decompostion (although that has not been seen for tapes on any large scale)
• Damage from heat
• Damage from mold/fungus
• Loss of Lubricant is probably rare in acetate tapes. Few examples of it have been found.
• Freezing acetate tape (especially) is considered bad as many of the formulations included fatty-acid lubricants. Remember, this was from the 1940s and 1950s and one of the best lubricants of the era was sperm oil.

Polyester tape

• Binder hydrolysis (or sticky shed syndrome [SSS]) is the largest challenge faced with tapes from the 1970s-1990s. This can be partially reversed through incubation or heat treatment. While this link may not be complete, it is a great introduction.
• Loss of Lubricant (LoL) can be severe and can possibly be combined with binder hydroysis.
• Freezing is also not recommended for polyester tapes due to the potential of that tape also containing fatty-acid lubricants.

Obviously all tapes can suffer from mechanical damage and poor winds.

I expect to be discussing aspects of this in greater depth, but it is a complex subject and contradictory reports have been generated.

I made this chart to show how the different  standards and recommendations for media storage overlapped. Click [or save target as] for the full-size image.

This has been updated 2007-06. Please look here, but there is still good information, below.
Two ways of seeing tracks on a tape are listed here. We’re collecting more in the comments. (more…)

The 20 kHz bandwidth of CD audio media may cause truncation of some material. Here is an example of a small amount of energy above 20 kHz in a symphonic recording. It is interesting to note that this is a 7.5 in/s recording done on 1970s prosumer equipment. I’ve said in my presentations for some years, most 7.5 in/s tapes are well-suited to 44.1ks/s 16 bit transfers, but there are exceptions. This shows one. (more…)

Remember, this transfer that you (or I) are about to undertake may be the last time (and hopefully the best time) that the original is transferred. Here are some suggestions: (more…)

MINIMUM Tape Handling Requirements Checklist

This checklist is not a complete guideline. It contains only those items that experience and testing show will have an immediate or severe effect on magnetic tape. Failure to adhere to the items on this list may cause premature loss or deterioration of magnetic tapes and should be considered misuse of the medium. These are minimum handling requirements that summarize good practices. (more…)

As promised, I will respond to some questions that are asked via email by answering here in the Blog.

One of the things I’m most concerned with is the appropriate use of digital processing in transcription for cleanup or remastering of digital archival copies.  This includes both questions of when (if at all) processing beyond the actual A/D conversion is appropriate, and which are the techniques and currently available tools best suited to archival audio.

It’s a good question. To some extent, it depends on the client and the final use.

If the restoration/preservation reformatting is for an institutional client, then the first transfers should be as unprocessed as possible — at least the initial copies that are archived should be done that way. The main reason for this is that processing algorithms will always get better and they may hide some information that is useful to future researchers–information that today we consider “noise.” (more…)

I have made a variety of static pages for my tape restoration Web site, but thought it was time to add a more user-friendly, article-based location to discuss various topics, tools, tricks, and techniques that I have come across in various ways.

What is easier to use than ready-made BLOG software, so I guess Richard is finally Blogging!

I hope you like this and find it of interest. Please let me know of any changes or topics you might like addressed.

Enjoy!

Note: This post has been put in every top-level category because it appears that a post is needed in each top-level category if the sub-categories are to be visible.

Note 2: The Tips & Notes blog and the Formats & Resources static pages of this sub-site replace the Tips and Resources static pages on the Web site. And, there is integrated searching across both the blog articles and the static pages.