A tape which no longer records, why ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter david winter
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david winter

david winter

Member
Hi there,

I've been doing an interview using my Nagra III recorder.
I first used a Maxell UD 35-90 tape and everything went fine.
For the second part I used a Maxell XL1 35-90B. This very tape would not record. The erasing head almost erased it with some minor residue of the previous recording, and the speech would not record over (well, a faint portion recorded but was barely audible at full volume).

I'd like to know how it is possible for a magnetic tape (supposedly from 1988) to no longer record.


Thanks !
 
Are you sure the tape isnt upside down? Could it have been rewound wrong?
 
Sure enough I did not verify this and I found that indeed some of the tapes were rewound upside down. Amazingly the earlier XL1 tapes (High Output) were correctly rewound whereas for some reasons the later ones (High Output Extended Range) were all upside down. All were originally recorded on a Tascam 22.2 machine but I guess some guy used the later ones on a different machine.

Anyway, thanks for your hint, I hope the back coated side did not wear the heads !
 
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