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Tape Trail Reel to reel, cassette and other analogue tape formats. |
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Tape Trail Reel to reel, cassette and other analogue tape formats. |
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In Reply to: What I do... posted by DaveInVA on February 15, 2007 at 08:47:13:
If I'm not mistaken, Scotch 111 was an acetate backed tape. Acetate tapes become brittle and are subject to breaking if the machine's transport handles them poorly. They won't stretch, they just break. "Sticky shed" is not the issue with these old tapes, brittleness is.Enter mylar backing. These tapes will stretch (or snap if stretched enough) if the transport handles them poorly. Fortunately, at 15 ips, the stretch generally affects less than a tenth of a second of music (less than about an inch of tape). Unless you're really unlucky (e.g., a run of sixteenth notes being damaged), or are very critical, after repairing it the missing inch may go unnoticed.
Enter high output oxides with unstable polymer binders. Sticky shed city. These tapes began to appear around 1970, and finally went away 10-15 years later, depending on the manufacturer.
So, sticky shed is a problem which is specific to certain tape types, just as brittleness and breaking is.
Polyester (Mylar) -backed tapes can be baked to draw the moisture out of the binder, giving it a temporary window of stability for transferring. Acetate-backed tapes cannot. How do you know if your tape is acetate or Mylar? Hold a reel up to a fairly bright light and look through the tape "edge on". If it appears brownish and is somewhat transluscent, it's probably acetate. If it appears grayish and doesn't allow much light through, it's probably polyester. Of course, if you know it's construction based on the "model number", then you know.
If you suspect that the tape is a high output polyester tape from the 70's or 80's, DO NOT, repeat DO NOT, rewind it. Fast, slow, rotating guides or not, DO NOT wind it. You are risking damaging the tape even further. Rather, just play maybe 30 seconds or a minute of it (even if it's tail-out.) Look at the residue on the heads and stationary guides. If it's an unusually large amount, you should bake it first. Rewind the played section directly from one reel to the original, bypassing all heads and guides.
See "Baking Audio Tapes" at www.youramerica.net for more information about baking tapes.
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Follow Ups
- Re: What I do... - Inmate51 10:37:34 02/20/07 (0)
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