Reel to Reel How To?

[mrlynn]

Re JoeM and baking the tape: As I recall, needed for Ampex tape from the '80s, where the binder turns gooey; not needed for other tape. But there you need to worry about oxide flaking off and tape breaking, especially fast-forwarding/rewinding.

Best to have someone look at the playback heads, which could be worn to the point where they don't contact the tape properly.

/Mr Lynn

[decay]

I have a long, interesting R2R story missing some details, but I'll try to summarize it.

An older friend of mine is from the NY area. When the Beatles were popular, he was playing in a band that covered their songs.

A friend of HIS worked in a studio or pressing plant - not sure which.

He borrowed a test pressing or acetate and they dumped it to R2R tape. It was a Beatles album.

We talked about it a couple years ago. He still has the tape and R2R machine. He loaned both to me and I captured the tape for him and burned a CDR.

It's one of the Glyn Johns Get Back sessions.
http://www.beatlesource.com/bs/mains/aud...intro.html

[JoeM]

mrlynn wrote:
Re JoeM and baking the tape: As I recall, needed for Ampex tape from the '80s, where the binder turns gooey; not needed for other tape. /Mr Lynn

Actually no. While most pro tapes affected with sticky-shed syndrome come from the 70's and 80's and are Ampex, other manufacturers tapes such as 3M, Sony and Agfa experienced the problem as well. I had a 7 1/2" reel of 1/4 inch consumer tape from 1957 that exhibited the gooey shedding. Also there are various opinions regarding "baking' vs. changing the environment to lower the humidity.

Here's some info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky-shed_syndrome

Again, there's plenty of info on the topic on the interwebs. And while some problems appear similar, sticky-shed syndrome is only one of the problems reel to reel tape might exhibit.

[decay]

http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/index.php/mu...?showall=1

In most cases the original tapes were used but 'Please Please Me' was starting to shed oxide so a new analogue ‘transfer master’ had to be made for safety’s sake. A new tape was also made to compile the two 'Magical Mystery Tour' EPs and Mono Masters, because no LP masters for these titles existed. Magical Mystery Tour has only appeared on CD as an album in 2009, and Mono Masters was also created in 2009 for the mono CD box set; neither has been on vinyl before in this format.

From these tapes and the originals, audio from the A80 was run through the mixing desk you can see in our studio shots. Equalisation was applied in real-time as the tapes ran, as done in the past. The signal was then cut to an acetate; Sean said they had not heard a metal master that sounded as natural as an acetate and, in any case, a DMM would destroy the authenticity of this release.