Old reel to reel recordings versus cassette recordings

O

Orbit23

New member
Hi all,

I inherited a number of reel to reel tapes, from my ex partner who sadly passed away over a year ago. The tapes are mostly Ampex 465 and Maxwell 35-90B. However, the tapes are in a right state, very dusty and rough in appearance-the boxes and the tapes. (They have been stored in very unhygienic conditions). Many of the songs are either mine ,or have been co-written with my ex, who had kept the reel to reels.
My question is: Most of the songs on the reel to reels, are also on cassette and the cassette versions are playable and not in dirty/dusty state. Do I really need to keep the reel to reels when the cassette versions were taken from the reel to reels?

I want to clear the reel to reels out , but am worried that the reel to reels may be more important to keep than the cassettes.

Thank you in advance ,for any advice.

Orbit23
 
There isn't an easy answer to this.

The general rule is that a tape copy (whether to cassette or another reel) of a source will not be as good as the source itself.

But in your case, it's possible that the source itself has been compromised so that your cassette copies would actually be better.

The only way to find out, if you want to go to the trouble, is to find a tape recorder and see how the tapes play.

The next step would be to digitise either cassettes or tapes and store them on computer.
 
Gecko's right. A reel to reel tape at 7 1/2 or 15ips would be far superior to a cassette at 1 7/8ips for fidelity. If there is a chance that the tape is playable, then the first thing would be to digitize them, then you can store them anywhere, like the cloud, on CD or flash drive without fear of them being lost.

If you just want to keep a copy for sentimental reasons, the I would first transfer the cassettes to digital. I've had far too many tapes go bad for various reasons (both video and audio). Once they are digital, you can make copies in whatever format you want, or multiple formats if desired. Then you can try to find someone who can check the reels to see if they are salvageable.

Converting to digital is very easy. its just time consuming since it has to be done in real time.
 
Thank you for your reply, Grumpy Mod. This is really helpful. I will digitise the cassettes then check the reels.

Much appreciated. :)
 
Thank you for your reply, Dedicated Member. This is really helpful. I will digitise the cassettes then check the reels. Then, I will feel that I have done all that I could.

Much appreciated. :)
 
The reels are going to be retrievable given the right treatment and will be far better quality than the cassettes. The reels are also likely to be playable for far longer than any digital media that you transfer them to so, if you get rid of the reels, you'll need to revisit the digital files every few years and transfer them to whatever the current favourite digital media happens to be.
 
Orbit23 said:
I will digitise the cassettes then check the reels.
Click to expand...

Don't wait too much longer...even cassettes can crap out...if not the tape, then the transport mechanism, from age...and you get weird screeching an drubbing.
Get them transferred to digital if you want to archive them (reels and/or cassettes) considering that the tape is already deteriorating.
Otherwise...if the tape had been of decent quality, none of the sticky/shed stock, and it was properly stored...I would bet the tape could outlast some digital formats.
 
I don't know about those specific kinds of tape, but you should do some research about handling of older tape. Some kinds can get to a state where they will shed the oxide off so easily that you won't get anything usable, and they'll be ruined after the first pass. There's a "baking" process that is required to deal with this. Anyway, if it's important, I would find someone that's done this before.

P.S. I had acquired some old band tapes from the 70s and probably lost about half of one before we realized what was happening. Luckily it was not anything critical, and the baking allowed the rest of the tapes to be transfered. A few songs were actually worth it!
 
If they are of high sentimental value to you, you can have the reel to reels transferred for you. I sent off a 24 track master tape to a recording studio called 1979 and they transferred the multitrack song to individual tracks on a flash drive for $50. I believe they even bake the tape as part of the process and it may cost less for a single two track stereo song. Look them up or a similar place and have the pros do or you may risk damaging the tapes for good. Good luck.
 
FYI, there are a number of programs that can reduce "his" and also let you enhance tones, etc. A free one is Audcity. Some time spent after digitizing may produce some great results.
 
All of the above. However, don't regard certain sorts of digital storage as 'eternal'. For starters, there's only two sorts of hard drive in the world: those that have broken, and those that haven't broken yet. Nobody knows how long 'flash media' like USB sticks and SD cards will actually last, and the same applies to burned CDs / DVD from your computer; an informed guess could be as little as 15 to 20 years, or even less if the CD was burned at high speed in the first place, in which case the binary code representing your music may not be very deeply etched onto the CD information layer. By contrast, we already know that correctly stored reel to reel tape can still be fine after 60+ years; and that's a conservative estimate which assumes reel to reel has been around only since about 1950. Finally, whatever media you use for storage, you will also have to have the machinery to play it back years and years from now. A reel to reel or a cassette tape both need obsolete technology: will these machines be around for very much longer? Equally, a CD is useful only if there are computers around able to access it
 
Duncan Hutchins said:
A reel to reel or a cassette tape both need obsolete technology: will these machines be around for very much longer? Equally, a CD is useful only if there are computers around able to access it
Click to expand...

There are still quite a few people like me keeping old reel to reels alive - the technology is reasonably amenable to DIY servicing.
 
Orbit23 said:
Thank you for your reply, Grumpy Mod. This is really helpful. I will digitise the cassettes then check the reels.

Much appreciated. :)
Click to expand...

LOL. His name isn't Grumpy Mod. It's gecko zzed. Member names are in blue. ;) Also, welcome.
 
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