I have belatedly inherited a large quantity of reel-to-reel audio tapes that belonged to my father. Most of them were probably recorded in the 1960s and 1970s. They presumably include a wide range of material of interest to my father, including music, commentary, radio shows he participated in, lectures, soundtracks of slide shows he made for his courses, etc., etc. These are the larger style tape reels about, oh, I'd say about eight inches in diameter. I don't have any equipment to play them, let alone any way to transfer them to a more accessible medium. Even with the right equipment, would a tape made forty years ago still be playable today? Presumably magnetic media degrades over time. Any ideas or suggestions would be very much appreciated.15 responses total.
A couple of years ago, I used the original recording equipment to transfer reel-to-reel tape made staring in 1968 to mp3 format. The tape device had an RCA or mini (I don't recall) out and my computer has a mini line level input. The transfer was simple and effective. Suggestions: Avoid handling the actual tape media to the extent possible. Look for evidence of brittleness of the tape substrate or flaking of the media from the substrate before playing. Contact small regional or university radio stations, small theatres, or recording studios to see if they have the equipment available for use, or post an iten wanted ad.
If the tape is mylar, it's probably in fine shape, in which case you shouldn't have any problems (in theory). If it's cellulose acetate, it has very likely gotten brittle, and it might be more difficult to recover the audio. Given sufficient patience, it may still be possible. You might end up cutting and splicing the physical tape, copying it to digital form, then using software to remove the splices.
i have been doing an archive project exactly like this and it's nearly done. i would be happy to contribute my time and hardware to another such project. please contact at you next avail opprotunity. cheerrzz,ts
Send mail to goose (here on GRex) too. He'san audio guy with a taste for old tape equipment.
Bring it in to Kiwanis electronics dept. Sat 9-12 am. Usually there is at least one working tape player. We have donated tapes of this age there, and they still played fine. Bill (a grexer who volunteers there) likes to fix the older equipment. You could even buy a player and listen to the tapes at home and then donate player and tapes if you don't want to keep them. They can resell the tapes for reuse.
Having experimented some with older videotape, my advice is to be prepared to record the oldest tapes on their first playing. The binding agents that hold the iron oxide to the tape base can degrade with time and cause the oxide to shed off when the tape is played, degrading it quickly. This makes heads dirty, too. This would be less of a problem with audiotape, of course, since it isn't helically scanned.
Luckily the older audio tapes are apparently last longer than newer stuff, something to do with materials which later became expensive (Guitarist Deke Dickerson said "whale oil", which sounds a bit unlikely).
Larry, I would love to talk to you about this project. I suggest that you do not attempt at playing any of these tapes until you have them examined by a professional. You certainly can destroy the information on these tapes if they are not handled properly. Until they can be examined keep them in a moderate temperature, low humidity storage container. (those styrofoam coolers with a few packets of dessicant then tapes shut are a good cheap method) I would gladly volunteer my professional services, as I have a special interest in analogue media as well as preservation and restoration. Scott, I had heard the sperm whale oil tale for several years, and believed it too. The tale is that starting in the early 70's the killing of sperm whales was outlawed by international treaty, and sperm whale oil was an integral part of the binder used by all the major tape mfgrs. The various mfgrs then each formulated their own replacement to varying success. Some 30 years later the binders began breaking down (water was being absorbed by the glue actually) resulting in "sticky shed syndrome"...anyway, I've spoken to several friends who worked for a couple of the big tape mfgrs and they have comepletely debunked the sperm whale oil story. There were certainly problems with the binders, and they are somewhat correctable if dealt with properly, but it had nothing to do with whales.
Back around '96 I borrowed quite decent reel to reel
deck and transferred several r2r tapes I made
circa 1968-74 onto cassette, with a very good cassette
deck.
I was *astonished* at the quality.
I originally recorded them on my grandmother's
Wollensack, which evidently records at much higher
fidelity than it plays back.
I'm no pro. But I had the tapes in new boxes,
spliced on new leader, washed my hands before
handling the tapes, etc. etc.
Hours of fun.
.... lots of hours .. <heh-heh>
I've also been doing plenty of audio transfering. One in
progress right now.
goose, how can this unemployed guy get into such gigs? and
get paid for it also? tsty?
I just had been webbing into a site on restoration. High
grade professional audio restoration using a $2,500 software suite.
Something like $2 a minute. kenr.com I think.
Now, over 200 Dr. Demento shows moved from one media or another
to the PC and CDs (audio disks and .mp3 disks).
i'm not getting paid - labouor of love adn respect. goose gets paid, usually, he's deeeeep int the business.
Tim, now is actually a good time to do such things since the equipment and software have gotten cheaper. It does take years to develop the skills to use the tools well however. Specialization helps. For restoration a lot of folks seem to price based on the finished minute. It makes some sense, and I recently began charging some of my mastering clients by the project, rather than based on time, so I can try things and work a little more leisurely. I have much love and respect for the audio business, and feel blessed that I have been able to make a living at it (at times). I get to work so rarely with analogue tape anymore that I'm geeked to help Larry with this project.
yo wil be rewarded ... , po
who ,,, re.
You have several choices: