Two dumb questions

[James HE]

1) how would I go about repairing a cassette tape that has been severed? what kind of tape do I use to tape the tape back together?

2) How would I know if a tape head was damaged (i.e. if it has been permanently magnetized) and could it be replaced? (just kinda curious about this one)

[Evgueni]

1) Radio Shack sells tape splicing kits for both cassette and reel-to-reel tapes. Those consist of the thin tape the width of the magnetic tape, the alignment unit and the blade. Cost a few dollars.

2) I don't know of any exact methods, but subjectively it should be somewhat more noisy with some loss of high frequencies.

BTW, you may actually demagnetize the head and thus eliminate guesswork :-) If you suspect there was severe magnetization then it would be better not to use the "demagnetizing cassette", but something stronger. Radio Shack's "bulk tape eraser" could probably work here, but there exist the special tape head demagnetizing units, too.

[hixmix]

1) Yeah! The Radio Shack splicing kit is a good deal. A couple of dollars. I went to this "pro" recording supply place and they wanted about fourty dollars for the same thing!

2) Play the tape on two different machines and compare. A magnetized head will actually erase the high frequencies on the tape. BE WARNED THOUGH!!! I've heard that if you play a tape on a machine with a severely magnetized head, and then play that tape on a machine with a good head, the tape will magnetize the good head.
If you, decide to demagnetize(degauss)the head yourself it's easy but dangerous. Before degaussing......READ, REHEARSE AND FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS to the letter.

If you problem is tape heads out of alignment, you'll have to have your unit serviced by a technician.

[James HE]

I have a demagnitizer, so that isn't really the issue. I was under the impression however that if heads were demagnitized improperly, It could do permanent damage. I'm asking cause I bought this older four track and I'm questioning the quality of the playback head. If i record somthing on it and play it back on my Tascam it sounds OK. if I play it back on the same machine it sounds really bad-real hissy and sputtery.

[hixmix]

Yes, improper degaussing can cause permanent damage if:

a) you slipped and let the degausser shut off suddenly in the middle of degaussing.

b)you forgot to shut off and unplug your tape machine before degaussing.

[This message has been edited by hixmix (edited 02-16-2000).]

[bnewsom]

If you head is permentally magnetized it won't work at all. In my experience residual magnatizum on the heads or other metal parts in the tape path affects the tape hiss first, even before any significant dropoff of highs. If not properly demagnitized the hiss will sound really grainy and eventually will become louder than normal. This will happen if your bias is wrong also. What a lot of the time people don't tell you is that you really have to be close in, around an eighth of an inch, to actually demag anything well and the tape guides and capstan are a lot harder to demag than the heads. Also the tascam demagnitizer thing usually is only strong enough for cassettes or small format reel to reels and have a really hard time demag'n tape guides. For serious demagnetization check out r.b. annis, but you will have to be more careful with their demagetizers since they are much stronger and can possibly overheat in operation, permentally screwing up your heads. Also by the time heads to be magnetized enough to screw up your previously recorded tapes everything will sound like crap anyway, but make sure everythings cool anyway before you put on those lost Beatles' masters.