munched-up ADAT tape

B

BigKahuna

New member
so ... how do you be a professional when your client's ADAT master you've been working on for months suddenly folds over and gets damaged by your trusty LX20?
I know I know, how can a guy with an LX20 be professional in the first place? ;)
Seriously though ... the whole tape isn't ruined. It looks like the damage is limited to just a minute or less of tape. One side of the tape is folded over, though ... causing the deck to error out when reading the formatting data. It sounds bad when trying to play it too ... so this tape is not going back in the deck.
I'm not opening this sucker up to dink around with it, either. I wonder if a place that services LX20s would also fix this tape for me? I guess I should just call them and ask.
I don't know if it's a problem with the tape (Maxell Black) or the deck. I'm bummed out though. If anyone can give me a "yeah, man .. I've been there" I'll feel better about it.
Thanks
 
Yeah, I've been there - but naturally, I used the backup tape to dupe a new one....

You HAVE been making backup tapes of you clients stuff right? (that's the professional thing to do - especially when working with formats where there's a chance to fail mechanically - ie, any tape-based machine!)

Sucks dude... lesson learned - Murphy's Law ALWAYS applies........

Bruce
 
well, I guess there's professionals and then there's guys like me who can only pretend. In my defense, this is all just a hobby gone terribly awry. ;) I constantly resist taking on gigs for fear that people will be expecting more than I'm capable of. This is just a HOBBY, dammit! In fact, I rarely record myself anymore which is why I bought all this stuff in the first place. Between my day job and other people's sessions I never get to my own stuff anymore. Oh well, they want me to record them, so that's a pretty good situation and I shouldn't bitch about it.

I'd like to say that I had the foresight to regularly backup all of the work tapes, but sadly ... nope. I will from now on, however ... even though after having these decks for over 4 years I never once had a tape munched.
So, Bruce ... what do you think my chances are of salvaging this tape? If it's not possible, no biggie ... all we have to do is retrack all the drums. :eek:
"Lessons learned" is a nice way to say "you idiot!". Thanks for that. :)
 
Ouch!

Hey BK, I know where ya coming from man. I got about 15 tapes (of my own material) that got chewed up by an old black face:rolleyes: , dont ask me why I kept putting my life time of hard work in that damn machine.

I've since re-recorded a tiny few of the tunes, but I'll never be able to capture the "mood/vibe" that went down back once apon a time.sux. I'm backing up my back-up's these day's though:D ...if ya find out if a tape can be fixed though let me know please sir.
 
Can you use the tape except for the bad spot?
I've had luck in the past cleaning the frikin' grease off the tape and flatening out the creases. But, ya, it's a sickening feeling.
So far I'm not missing tape at all. (Knock,knock!) Now the adats are just used for the input meters mostly. Hard drives seem like so many fewer moving parts.
You probably should learn how to open them and clean them. It'll save you some money on service.
Which reminds me, I need to do some B/U buns!
Good luck.
 
BigKahuna said:
well, I guess there's professionals and then there's guys like me who can only pretend. In my defense, this is all just a hobby gone terribly awry. ;) I constantly resist taking on gigs for fear that people will be expecting more than I'm capable of. This is just a HOBBY, dammit! In fact, I rarely record myself anymore which is why I bought all this stuff in the first place. Between my day job and other people's sessions I never get to my own stuff anymore.
Click to expand...
Hey - that's a pretty good position to be in!

BigKahuna said:
So, Bruce ... what do you think my chances are of salvaging this tape? If it's not possible, no biggie ... all we have to do is retrack all the drums. :eek:
"Lessons learned" is a nice way to say "you idiot!". Thanks for that. :)
Click to expand...
Well... try uncreasing the segment of tape as flat as you can and getting a clean backup of it... you may be able to salvage some of it....

A salvage op is another studio experience - it did happen occasionally to a major's tapes - the ass't would have to spend hours salvaging from re-takes.... think of it as another notch on you bedpost!

Good luck.......

Bruce
 
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