I was having slightly intermittent connections on one head assembly on a Sony APR-5000 and was concerned as to the cause because the 78-pin head connectors are essentially unobtanium and a headache to change.

As I installed and de-installed the head, I got to thinking that the connector might not be positioned correctly (i.e. perhaps the wrong hardware had somehow found its way into the connector mounting system.

When I measured the bottom (oriented as if the head were mounted in the machine) face of the connector mounting flange referenced to the bottom of the mounting posts (using a straight-edge across two of them), I discovered that, indeed, this connector was recessed about 25 mils (0.025″) further into the head assembly than several other ones. Adding a 25-mil thick washer should solve the problem.

This is posted in case you’re scratching your head with a similar problem. This is something I wouldn’t have immediately thought of. I don’t know if this was caused by aftermarket work or if it perhaps represents a manufacturing error.

I recently received two 7-inch reels of Kodak Type 31A Triacetate tape (1250 feet, Durol Base) that smelled of vinegar even before I got the envelope open.

These tapes were badly warped due, most likely, to the vinegar-syndrome induced differential shrinkage. Other factors may have been poor winding during long-term storage (I had received them after several attempts to play them on another machine). (more…)

I was interested in the progression of the Scotch/3M tape boxes over the years, especially after someone contacted me because his father was in the picture on some of the 1960s tape boxes.

(more…)

I received an email from Andrew Pearson of the British Library providing some hints in reducing noise during playback on the Studer A807 tape machine. He would be interested in hearing from people who had other ideas and people who had either successes or failures attempting his techniques. (more…)

For a current list of degrading analog tapes, click here.

Teaching people how to identify tapes that are suffering from sticky shed syndrome is often difficult.

I would like to propose that a careful inspection of how the tape comes off the pack may be a good way. Please provide comments as to how it’s working for you.

The tape should come off the tape pack at a precise tangent to the tape. If the tape starts to adhere and not pull off straight, that is a sure sign that the tape needs baking.

Of course, don’t bake acetate tapes even if they show this indicator, but on the last batch of questionable SSS tapes, I’ve been looking at this and it’s a fair indicator, and it seems to show at the outer edge of the pack.

More than one “test” or “factor” is needed to be sure, but this one is looking good.

Another almost sure sign of SSS is brown oxide and black back-coat.

My paper on “Tape Degradation Factors and Challenges in Predicting Tape Life” that was published in the Fall 2008 issue of the ARSC Journal is now available online. Click here.

About two years ago, I asked the EBU to make available a copy of their historic document, Review of existing systems for the synchronisation between film cameras and audio tape-recorders and they complied, making it available on their website.

I asked the National Association of Broadcasters about their Cartridge, Cassette, and Reel tape standards as well as their Disc standard and they gave me permission to post these standards at my website.

These five standards plus some other articles of historic interest are available here in the history portion of this website. I hope that you find these of use in unraveling some of the challenges that old media present.

I received a phone call today asking if I knew where to get DCC blank tapes. The person had purchased a used DCC machine on eBay or someplace like that because he “heard that they sound good.”

Audio mythology is growing. DCC is a perceptually coded format with bit reduction. Like MP3. Like the ATRAC system used on Minidisc. Not as advanced as MP3, probably (it’s older). Not as advanced as Windows Media (it’s older). (more…)

I received an email asking me to discuss tape splicing. Most of my work is now repairing old splices so I try and butt them together as best I can in an Edi-Tall block and use the blue Quantegy splicing tape (which will become harder to find with Quantegy exiting the business). I will not be evaluating a replacement for several years as I bought a large supply a few years ago. (more…)

One way of loading C-0 cassettes is to unscrew the shell and drop the old tape into the new shell.

I have found that reloading using a modified cassette machine is much faster and easier. The following images should explain the process:

Splice one end of the original tape into the C-0:

(more…)

A client phoned me and said a cassette he was playing started to shed in his machine and he stopped and took it out. He sent it to me and as I pulled a little bit of clear leader out of the middle of the tape, this is what I found:

Notice how the complete strips of oxide exist on their own, independent of the clear “leader” to which they previously were attached. (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…)

There was an off-line discussion about VHS-Hi-Fi tracking and breakup in Hi-Fi playback and how to correct it. I brought Jim Wheeler into it, and he agreed to write this article. —Richard

I invented the automatic tracking system in 1976 but it is pricey. If you want to pay about $2,000 for a pro-VHS machine, you can get true auto-tracking. Manual tracking works for most tapes. If not, there was a problem with the recording VCR. Alcohol is not good for cleaning heads and tape guides. I always use Xylene and you can buy Xylene at hardware and paint stores. Do not use Xylene on a pinch roller! Have your window open when you use it. I sniffed Xylene for over 30 years and am still okay–okay–okay….I recommend using Xylene for cleaning all components in the tape path except the pinch roller. I recommend Isopropyl alcohol for cleaning pinch rollers. [Some of us are using Formula 409 on pinch rollers—it depends on the pinch roller and its application—Richard] (more…)

It seems some people new to tape are confused over how to align a tape recorder. This is the abbreviated version.

If you want to record on a tape recorder (and I do not recommend doing that these days as you’re just generating more tapes that will need to be transferred later) the first thing to do is get the playback correct.

1. CLEAN the machine. (more…)

With budget limitations, it appears that oral histories are being recorded with little thought to their long-term preservation. While this appears to have been the case in the past as well, with purchasing agents buying the cheapest white-box tape that they could find, continuing this into the digital age needs to be reconsidered.

The cost savings in using bargain-basement digital speech recorders are offset by the labour required to reformat these files upon their receipt by an archive and also the fidelity of the recording suffers, and with fidelity, intelligibility also suffers.

DSS was an industry standard agreed upon by Olympus, Grundig, and Philips in 1994. (more…)

The format page for 0.15 inch wide tape has a drawing (click for large version) that clearly shows that mono cassettes have one wide track and stereo cassettes split this track in half and add a small guard band. Most mono cassette recorders follow this format. It turns out that the mono Marantz PMD201 uses a two-channel head and records dual mono. Most other mono recorders seem to follow the standard.

While this is a theoretical problem, few if any good mono recorders are available for reproducing these tapes anyway, so most of us in the domain transfer field use good quality stereo machines for all cassette transfer work. (more…)

Once again, an interesting post on Jill Hurst-Wahl’s Digitization 101 Blog. She started by discussing tape backup issues. In the comments, I discussed my solution of using multiple spinning disks. Another commenter, Ike, provided an extensive review of file system options and his opinions on what works (and doesn’t) for long-term storage. Ike’s comment is fascinating and has lots of food for thought. Here is the post. (more…)

The Training for Audiovisual Preservation in Europe (TAPE) Project has just published an excellent Audio Tape Digitisation Workflow document here. It is authored by Juha Henriksson of the Finnish Jazz & Pop Archive and Nadja Wallaszkovits of Phonogrammarchiv, Austrian Academy of Sciences. It is aimed at the newcomer but still addresses all of the major points without being overwhelming. (more…)

It appears that many old acetate tapes when played on high-quality audio recorders will suffer spoking when left in a play wind condition. I have discussed this problem here. Since posting that, I have taken one of my Racal Store 4DS recorders and removed the heads to save them from wear and now use that to re-spool any tape that shows spoking when played on a Studer A80, Sony APR-5000, or Studer A810. (more…)

Often a tape comes in for restoration that has been poorly wound or poorly stored. Here is an example:

One of the interesting things about this particular tape was it had been recently wound on a constant-tension professional machine prior to shipping to me.

We think that the entire tape had not been re-wound, allowing the higher tension wind to compress the inner core slightly, causing this cinching. After transferring the tape (which didn’t show much ill effect for its cinching), we still found it difficult to get the tape to wind smoothly on the reel.

Therefore, our current suggestion is if you find a tape like this, do not rewind it and attempt to clear up the cinching unless you are also ready to transfer the tape, as there are no guarantees that it can be wound better after unwinding.

Please see this post for an update (2008-02-15).

I didn’t think I needed to write this post, but it appears that someone purchased a Racal Store 4DS Instrumentation Recorder at least partially because I mentioned it, hoping that it would work as a four-track recorder for creating music. (more…)

David Dintenfass kindly sent me an article from the October 1959 issue of Popular Electronics which says, in part, that RCA plans to have 65 titles in the stores in their new cartridges by Christmas 1959. Other manufacturers were shown to be making compatible players. (more…)

I received the following in an email from a person only identified as Ross. I thank him. He sent me the following in reference to this post. concerning Philips and PoziDriv screws as used on Nakamichi Dragons and other Japanese equipment. I, too, have a set of Hozen drivers which I obtained from www.escience.ca (more…)

I received a query from a gentleman in Europe about 1.875 in/s 4-track tapes. He was frustrated in finding a good machine for transferring them. Apparently, they have many of these tapes. Here are my suggestions.

Perhaps the easiest answer is to find a Studer-Revox C274 with low speed options. They were made.

Two other options. (more…)

I receive many tapes that use very creative methods of securing the end of tapes to reels. Some don’t do it at all. Most 1/4-inch tapes are secured as shown below. Sadly, the superior Zebra tape is no longer available. This is the traditional crepe-paper type of tape sold for the application. The picture below should explain all.

The question seems to regularly arise on mailing lists and chat rooms about Dolby and dbx plug-ins. I don’t think it will happen and I added that comment and some hopefully helpful operational hints to my noise-reduction page, here.

In several instances, we have seen binder adhesion to the back of next layer in the tape pack. When the tape is unwound, a portion of the the binder adheres to the layer it was resting on, and is pulled off the layer it was supposed to be on. It looks like this when held up to the light:

There are many possible causes for this adhesion (or pinning, as it is sometimes called). For this tape, we believe moisture intrusion and poor storage conditions contributed to the problem. It is often a problem with plastic leader tape.

Slow unwinding has reportedly helped, as has cold, dry storage for an extended period.

This tape   (Melody 169) also squealed, but we finally got an acceptable transfer. Fortunately, this was recorded on only one track, and it wasn’t the one with all the holes in this picture.

While the Ampex Mastering Equalization is well documented on this site and at the MRL site, and standard equalizations are detailed at the MRL site on page 3 of this document, I am always amazed when I discover additional, supported tape equalizations. Certainly there have been proposals for alternate equalizations. Jay McKnight has published a paper (here) about this. This post is about something different.

Teac Corporation, with their X-2000M reel-to-reel tape recorder included a button called “Extra Efficiency” to be used with then-new tapes that had double the coercivity of standard reel-to-reel audio tapes. This changed the recording equalization (and the bias and possibly the reference levels) to better make use of the new tapes to improve the overall sound.

What was fascinating here is not that they used the IEC standard equalization of 35 μs at 15 in/s, which was standard in Europe, but that they also invented their own standard and used 35 μs at 7.5 in/s as well! Not content with that, they invented yet another standard of 50 μs for 3.75 in/s.

The NagraMaster and StellaMaster equalizations are also non-standard and were probably the most widely adopted equalizations after AME, but who knows how widely used this Teac EE equalization was and who knows what tapes are in archives that had this equalization incorrectly applied.

I have been informed that it was only intended for the consumer market.

I received a cassette from a client and he complained that the previous recording was audible as well as the new recording.

There are several ways this can happen:

• The erase head can be dirty—this usually leads to high frequencies being erased and lower frequencies still audible
• The erase head can be misaligned—this often provides a partial erasure, but careful use of track selection can find a section of track with less crosstalk.
• A similar problem occurred on quarter-track reels with misaligned record heads where recordings from the opposite direction would invade the tracks for the forward directions. Again, a specially adjustable narrow head usually solves this.
• A completely non-functioning erase system—this is what we suspect happened with the current project. There were no track dissimilarities nor any other way we could find, including looking at the tape with the 8-track cassette recorder to separate the underlying, unwanted recording from the wanted one.
• A totally unrelated mechanism that may sound the same is if the microphone or tape recorder picks up a broadcast or other radiated signal and records that along with the desired signal.

We opted not to proceed with any noise gating as it would not improve the overall audio quality for listening and may actually impede transcrption.

While not a success, we were able to confirm to the client that there was no way that could preserve the fidelity of the desired sound and remove the undesired sound. The desired interview was completely intelligible and could be transcribed. It was just distracting to listen to.

Demagnetizing tape heads and recorder parts is a ritual of magnetic recording. If any part that touches the tape is magnetized beyond a certain level it will begin degrading the tapes played on it.

While early machines may have had an issue with magnetization, most late-model machines rarely become magnetized. The source for real information on this is Jay McKnight’s Magnetic Reference Lab Web site. (more…)