4 Track Maintenence

[m. kong]

Does anyone have any info on 4 track cassette recorder maintenance?

I was going to give mine a bit of a clean and have been finding conflicting info on the net.

Is metho ok to clean the heads with? I've read that anything with a high percentage of alcohol is fine (metho has 97% from memory) but then I've read that you should use tape head cleaning solutions only.

Do you need to demagnetise the tape heads? I have a demagnetiser but have read that you don't need to use it on four tracks because there isn't enough magnetism created on the heads due to the thin tape and slow speeds used.

What is degaussing?

[ssscientist]

Degaussing = demagnetizing.

Once a year should do it for demagnetizing a cassette 4-track unless you use it every day -- then demagnetize it twice a year.

Be sure to use the demagnetizer far, far away from any cassettes you don't want to erase and store it far away too --- mine is on the top shelf of a back closet. When you demagentize, imagine that you are lifting a magnetic field off of the heads --- DO NOT touch the head with the demagnetizer, but sweep it slowly back a forth, then equally slowly pull it back as though you were pulling back an imaginary force field. Pull it back a foot or a foot and a half, then turn off the demagnetizer.

As far as cleaning the heads, I used high-percentage alcohol (NOT rubbing alcohol) and regular old Q-Tips. You can't over-clean, but you can over-demagnetize. I used to clean the heads before every time I sat down to record something. Remember, a cassette tape is only 1/8" wide so each track gets just 1/32" and a track that small can easily be adversely affected by even the smallest bit of oxide.