http://richardhess.com/notes Working with audio media (mostly tape) restoration Sat, 10 May 2008 17:56:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It has become obvious to me that there are good ways and bad ways to pack equipment for shipping. There are some basic goals that one needs to achieve in the packing. Protect the equipment from excessive shock and vibration Keep the equipment solidly centred within the outer box(es) Keep the equipment safe from ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2008/05/10/packing-equipment-for-shipment/ If you ever worry about a bit error happening to your files and not finding out about it, you should use MD5 checksums (or some similar method) to be able to verify that the file has not changed. The general theory behind a checksum (or "Message Digest" = "MD") is that ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2008/05/04/md5-checksums-bring-peace-of-mind/ 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 ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2008/04/15/a-solution-to-reduce-spoking-in-old-acetate-tapes/ 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 ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2008/03/06/tape-project-audio-tape-digitisation-workflow/ 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 ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2008/03/04/digital-storage-file-systems-and-topologies/ My friend Susan Kitchens blogged about the history of the electret as in electret condenser microphone. It's an interesting piece of history. I added a little primer to the post on microphone basic types. Look here. http://richardhess.com/notes/2008/02/25/who-invented-the-electret-and-some-microphone-basics/ For the last several years, I have been involved with sound reinforcement and recording at my church. I have upgraded the PA system and we're in the midst of final editing/mastering for an upcoming Christmas CD. In the process of doing this work, I have learned a few things which might ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2008/02/24/headworn-microphones/ There has been some discussion recently about the 4-channel cassette recorders that were used for court reporting and other logging- or court-reporter-type applications. It seems that the players only have one output and can select any combination of one or more playback channels into that one output. This monitoring topology is ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2008/02/23/slow-speed-4-channel-cassette-digitization/ In 2006, I wrote a blog post (here) called "Let Sleeping Tapes Lie: What to do with poorly wound tapes". For years, tape experts have been suggesting that it is not as good an idea to rewind tapes as was originally thought. This was partially based on the fact that ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2008/02/15/winding-tapes-for-long-term-storage/ My friend Susan Kitchens and her brother took their parents to the StoryCorps recording session in Los Angeles a few weeks ago. She blogged it here. One of the neat things is that between her article and the discussion she and I had in the comments, we have a good ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2008/02/03/storycorps-experience-including-equipment-discussion/ The question of how to format hard disks (i.e. what file system to use on them) for easy interchange is another FAQ. A recent experience brought home the fact that it is more complex than one might hope. The computer industry is headed towards universal readability, but it is not ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2008/02/03/hard-disk-formats-for-interchange/ The discussion of what bias frequencies were used over time keeps recurring. Special thanks to Jay McKnight of Magnetic Reference Lab, Tom Fine, and Brian Roth for input to this list. I posted this to the ARSC list, but wanted to include it here as well. This knowlege is useful for ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2008/02/02/tape-recorder-bias-frequencies/ 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 ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2008/02/02/aligning-a-tape-recorder/ 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. Well, this is not a good idea. The machine uses ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2008/01/09/using-the-proper-toolsand-dont-try-this-at-home/ 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 ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2008/01/07/magnetic-tape-splicing/ 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. The article also heralded this as ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2007/11/26/rca-sound-tape-cartridge-and-quarter-track-reel-introduction-date/ 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 ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2007/11/26/cross-point-screws-take-two-jis-vs-pozidriv/ 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 ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2007/11/21/how-to-play-4-track-1875-ins-tapes/ A simple, 5-sided box solves two problems:    --Protection of the Studer A80    --Providing more work surface I have two Studer A80s that I use for high-quality master tape transfers. They are not equipped to handle the speeds and track formats found in most of my oral history work. As I delve into a ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2007/11/19/studer-a80-covers-%e2%80%94-protection-and-more-work-area/ I spent days trying to get Shamrock 031 to play without much success. Since this is an Ampex factory budget brand (probably non-spec premium tape) I thought that it might be suffering from Sticky Shed Syndrome. I baked it for 12 hours and it still squealed. I then tried my ... http://richardhess.com/notes/2007/11/08/success-with-squealing-shamrock-031-tape/