#1
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Tape baking gone bad
I've spoken of baking tape on the forum before, HERE and HERE. The basic issue is that tapes are self-destructing and the only way to resurrect them is to literally bake them at low heat (130') for three hours. The fellow who has been doing my baking for me has been having trouble with the fumes from the baking process asphyxiating him so he bought a toaster oven so he could bake the tapes out on his veranda. Here is the result of his first run on a tape with a plastic reel:
Lovely, huh? Like that upper flange? I've just transferred the tape. There's lots of creasing and warpage to the tape causing wow. flutter, and scrape flutter. The creasing could be ironed out (if I had the time and this was a priority job) but the warping is causing major vertical mis-tracking across the head stack and I don't know of any way to remedy that. Bob
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"It is said, 'Go not to the elves for counsel for they will say both no and yes.' " Frodo Baggins to Gildor Inglorion, The Fellowship of the Ring THE MUSICIAN'S ROOM (my website) |
#2
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Warping -- as in, the tape used to be straight but now it's curvy, so it slides up and down over the heads? Never heard of that.
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#3
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AFAIK a convection oven is the correct tool for baking old tape. That’s what we used when I worked at a mastering facility. Never had a problem.
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#4
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Yup. Hold the tape up in a line and it looks a little like a snake. I assume it is from contact with the near-molten "fronds" that developed from the upper flange. This is the thinner, long play Ampex 406 tape. I wonder if the thicker, sturdier Ampex 456 mastering tape would have done it?
Incidentally, this about our fiftieth project in the series. That's pretty good odds for rescuing forty year old tape but it's a shame nevertheless. Bob
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"It is said, 'Go not to the elves for counsel for they will say both no and yes.' " Frodo Baggins to Gildor Inglorion, The Fellowship of the Ring THE MUSICIAN'S ROOM (my website) |
#5
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But if you want that savory browning and bubbling, you need the toaster oven if not a full-on broiler.
Last edited by Brent Hahn; 01-02-2019 at 01:41 PM. |
#6
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Sounds to me like the tapes have been wound too tight and sat too long.
I advise rewinding tapes periodically and wind them slightly loose. If wound too tight, you can also get two problems, layer to layer transfers, and layer to layer adhesion. Neither is good. If you can't push on the edge of the wound tape and compress it slightly, it's too tight. I know smooth wound flat sided reels of tape look cool, but they are not always wound right and can be troublesome. Ed
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"Quote The Raven, NEVERMORE !" |
#7
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Quote:
Ed
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"Quote The Raven, NEVERMORE !" |
#8
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Quote:
Bob
__________________
"It is said, 'Go not to the elves for counsel for they will say both no and yes.' " Frodo Baggins to Gildor Inglorion, The Fellowship of the Ring THE MUSICIAN'S ROOM (my website) |
#9
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Quote:
They also were excised from a tape library after twenty years and thrown away, only to be saved by an obsessive librarian apparently, and chucked into casual storage. Fifteen years later they were offered for archive, and I am getting the results - untouched probably since recorded in 1978. Quote:
Honestly, I wish I were working with the Ampex ATR102s I used to work with instead of Sony APR5003s. Due to having all servo motors and a servo lock system they handled tapes better. But these are excellent Sony console professional mastering machines. Bob
__________________
"It is said, 'Go not to the elves for counsel for they will say both no and yes.' " Frodo Baggins to Gildor Inglorion, The Fellowship of the Ring THE MUSICIAN'S ROOM (my website) |