Does Anyone Here

[Mark7]

Actually fill up a whole reel of tape in one session? Because the way I work (apart from painfully slowly) is to concentrate on one song at a time. Which means that at the moment I'm about 10 minutes into a reel of 457 (one song finished, one frustratingly close).

This leads me to another question. Which is: if one has only used 10 minutes of an 1800 foot reel (which is about 40 minutes at 7.5 IPS) is there any point in storing tape tails out. Given that one has to play the tape for another thirty minutes to reach the end, thus wearing out the heads for very little return?

 

[The Ghost of FM]

Print through is different on different tape formulations and is also dependent on how hard you hit the tape, signal wise.

If you are using dbx, print through is less of a concern then running a NAB calibration that hits the tape hotter and with out noise reduction to keep the heavy peaks from leaping from one layer of tape to the next.

It is also dependent on how long you will be storing the tape between uses.

The longer the tape sits, the more time you give it to leach through and cause the ghosting effect.

Common sense will tell you if your needs merit the regiment.

Cheers!