listening to old analog tapes after 12 years

jmorris

jmorris

New member
Im transfering some 1/4" tapes from 1974 to cd. I was never a real big believer of the HUGE difference between the to. However, since listening to these tapes, man ,I hear it now. I have been without tape for 12 or 13 years. These tapes are old, not very well recorded and could probably use some baking but they do sound cool. Drums in particular. Most of the stuff is live from local clubs. Sounds like off the board. I9m just transfering them for a client. I have for a while thought about getting back an tascam 38 or 48 8 track to track drums with then dump those tracks into digital world. Shit!, can you still but tape? I know the main manufacturer is out or going out of business.
Jim
 
muwahahaha.

yes, you can still buy tape.

the manufacturer did not go out of business. in fact, there is a new manufacturer so now there are two.

good luck.
 
Exactly how do you "bake tapes " to make them playable. I've heard this mentioned, but never any specifics. What is the process??

chazba
 
tubesrawsom said:
What does it mean to bake tapes?
Click to expand...
you put the reel of tape in an oven, yes a regular oven at something like 150 degrees( cant remember the exact temp but I think that is close to the money) and you simplky bake the tape for....uh...heres the part again I dont remember...maybe an hour or two, like Glen said Goggle it! It makes old tapes, and I think in particular poorly stored tapes usable again if only for 1 or 2 passes. There is a process that happens to tape over time. Cant remember much more. Someone else chime in with more exact facts please. :p I did read in mix that Quantigy went out of business :confused:
 
you bake the tapes because they go sticky..but that problem was solved in the early nineties; so its only older tapes that go sticky. I believe quantegy went into bankruptcy and was bought out. don't quote me on any of this..I don't remember exactly.
 
FALKEN said:
you bake the tapes because they go sticky..but that problem was solved in the early nineties; so its only older tapes that go sticky. I believe quantegy went into bankruptcy and was bought out. don't quote me on any of this..I don't remember exactly.
Click to expand...
yeah, thats sounding familiar. wasnt it memorex that had the problem with what was called "stickion"...man check spelling
 
When I was doing work for King Biscuit we had to bake nearly every 2" tape since the recordings were 10 years old or more. I used a convection oven at 130 degrees. Time varied according to the size of the tape, offhand I forget the number of hours.

After baking it's essential to transfer the tape to a new one or to another form of media. Baking only restores playability for a while, and it's not a good idea to bake more than once.
 
Brackish said:
Does baking apply to cassette tapes, too?
What about the cassette plastic tape case?
Okay in an oven?
Click to expand...

Yikes, never did them but I would say yes. Anytime there is tape shred the tape would be in need of baking. I would remove these from the plastic shell, not sure if the plastic hub would also be an issue.

You should try this on a tape that you don't care about before committing to a good tape.
 
So, from looking at the tape it would be
apparent that it needs baking, with
the surface flaking off?
Or, how does one know if it
needs baking?
 
Brackish said:
So, from looking at the tape it would be
apparent that it needs baking, with
the surface flaking off?
Or, how does one know if it
needs baking?
Click to expand...

The tape squeaks on rewind/ff and in it's worse case simply stops playing. Also you can look at the heads. If it looks like someone wiped their ass on the head after playing, that's shred.
 
Tape Baking:

The easiest method is to get your hands on a conventional food dehydrator such as an American Harvester Snackmaster or equivalent. Set the temp for roughly 130 Deg, F, and if you have a probe thermometer, insert it wherever it will fit.

A 10.5" reel of 1/4" 456 or 226 will need about 24 hours of baking, minimum.

Please contact me directly if you need more info. I'm on EST time.

Oct 09, 2010 Neil Muncy
 
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