Telex Copyette 1-2-3 tape duplication help (crackling sounds)

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blankettruth

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HELLO! I run a cassette tape label called Lost Sound Tapes and I duplicate all of my cassettes at home. I've had a Telex Copyette for 2-ish years now and had absolutely no problems with it until last week. I've duplicated about 1500 tapes on this machine.

I have a new tape to dupe and the copies being produced are now crackly and scratchy sounding. They sound as if the master was from an old record, not a bad sound it's just not what the master sounds like! Most people probably wouldn't even notice as it is a faint sound, but it's driving me up the wall when I listen back. I even tried duplicating from a master I've used with no problem in the past and it has the same results. I've also tried duplicating onto different cassettes. The ones I've been using lately are the 731 series tapes from National Audio Company.

So I purchased a cheapo head demagetizer from ebay and ran that over the heads (it has a rubber tip on it to protect). Also, I got one of those head cleaner cassettes from radio shack but realized it probably wouldn't work right on such a high speed machine (16x playback). So I just put the cleaning fluid on a q-tip and swabbed all of the heads/capstans + let them dry.

Still I'm having the same problems and I have 6 different cassettes to dub 100 copies of! Yikes! Maybe the heads need to be replaced finally? I bought the duplicator used and the previous owner did use it some, so I dunno. Maybe y'all have had a problem like this in the past? Any help in the right direction would be very very much appreciated.
 
I serviced these Telex copiers for many years.

Can you upload a sample and place a link to it here? Much easier to identify the problem with an actual audio sample to go by.

Cheers Tim
 
Okay, I will upload a sample. Thanks for your help! I'll post it on here tomorrow.
 
Original cassette dub


New cassette dub with some crackling


Let me know if I should just get over this or if there's something I can do.
 
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Jon, the main difference I can hear between the two samples is an occasional subdued clicking or ticking sound on the second one.

I once saw a ticking problem with certain Maxell cassettes used in a Telex copier which turned out to be caused by static electricity buildup as the tape wound through. The solution was to change to a different brand of tape.

But for this one I'm not sure. Could be motor brush noise, static electricity, some sort of external interference getting into the signal etc.

I do notice the recording is quite muffled and lacking in highs. This means the ticking sound will be more prominent as there are no other "highs" in the music recording to mask it. High speed copiers used to get a beating and unless serviced regularly could get to sounding muffled.

Cheers Tim
 
It's noticible enough to be annoying and to want to do something about I think Jon.

I've got an old Telex Copier IV that's still operable. I don't use it much but I'll dig it out and put something through and see if there's any evidence of what we can hear on madeline2. When I got that old machine ($20 off eBay) it was as muffled and wonkitated as all heck but after some fairly agressive head cleaning, demagging and internal pot twiddling (in a manner that'd make Tim cringe I suspect), it doesn't do too bad a job now. Tim's point about static build up is interesting. I've never experienced that that I've noticed before. What length cassettes are you using?

Also, I take it you mean that the 'original cassette dub / madeline1' is one made on the machine before it developed the static problem?

Geoff
 
Yeah, the clicking and ticking is the problem I'm trying to fix. I'll admit that these tapes are not the very highest quality of tapes so the highs probably won't be very apparent.

So you guys think it sounds like a static issue?

The weird thing is that I've dubbed a few different tapes lately and some albums do it, some do not. They have all been from masters on the same kind of tape though and dubbed on the same tape deck.

Madeline 1 was indeed made on the machine before it developed any sort of problem.
 
I once saw a ticking problem with certain Maxell cassettes used in a Telex copier which turned out to be caused by static electricity buildup as the tape wound through. The solution was to change to a different brand of tape.
 
dshadasas said:
I once saw a ticking problem with certain Maxell cassettes used in a Telex copier which turned out to be caused by static electricity buildup as the tape wound through. The solution was to change to a different brand of tape.
Click to expand...

Hey this sounds interesting. I've never heard of that problem before...
 
The weird part is that the tapes I'm having a problem with and the tapes that are working fine are all the same brand and series.

Here's a better example (maybe) than the Madeline one.

This is another tape that is giving me fits... It definitely has more present popping and crackling.

Audio sample from a duplicated tape:


Source file:
 
Tried getting some different tapes from Tape.com and I'm having the same issue still!

GAH!

I'm pulling my hair out over here :(
 
Busting this back out to try and remedy after talking to Steve at National Audio Company.

He said that he's heard of this problem before and that it's definitely a static electricity build up. His suggestion was to rub the tape duplicator down with a dryer sheet (not the heads of course) and put a dryer sheet underneath the feet of the duplicator. Apparently that has worked for people he talked to in the past.

The other thing he suggested is to put the cassette tapes in the fridge over night to help regain a bit of humidity and then try after the first steps have been completed.

If all fails he said they could just duplicate those tapes for me.

...

So far I tried the dryer sheets trick and it didn't work. I currently have a box of 100 tapes chilling in my refrigerator.
 
Hope you get on top of it Jon. Did you ever try de-magging the duplicator heads?
 
Thanks jedblue. I have indeed tried to de-mag with the cheapo demagnetizer that I have. It usually seems to work but hasn't had any effect on this problem.
 
I've seen issues like that caused by a bad ground on the capstan/flywheel assembly.
 
hey i just have a quick question about the Telex Copyette 1 2 3 mono.
i got mine off eBay and started dubbing tapes but the copies come out really muddy sounding and nothing like the master tape, i don't know very much about these duplicators but is the reason it sounds this way because of the 'mono'? or do my heads need more of a thorough clean? if any of you have any suggestions/ideas it would be much appreciated.. Thanks!
 
Thomo.cchc said:
hey i just have a quick question about the Telex Copyette 1 2 3 mono.
i got mine off eBay and started dubbing tapes but the copies come out really muddy sounding and nothing like the master tape, i don't know very much about these duplicators but is the reason it sounds this way because of the 'mono'? or do my heads need more of a thorough clean? if any of you have any suggestions/ideas it would be much appreciated.. Thanks!
Click to expand...

You unit appears to be only compatible with normal bias type I tapes and operates at a very high rate of speed, 14X normal play speed while in copy mode. So those two factors right there are going to severely limit the sound quality of any full range master tape which has music on it as the higher frequencies above voice range are going to be lost due to the now extremely high frequencies being impossible for the recorder decks in this unit to capture. So really, this unit is only suitable for voice quality recordings only.

Here's another way to look at this. Full range music on cassette has a frequency range of 50-15khz approx. But when you play this tape at 14 times normal play speed, those frequencies get shifted upward well beyond 100Khz! The best tape recorders in the world don't record much of anything beyond 25Khz. So really, about the only things that could survive are voice range frequencies up to about 2Khz. And this is why your unit is a mono one because they never internded it for music copying.

Bottom line: If you bought this machine to duplicate music cassettes, you bought the wrong device.

Cheers! :)
 
Thanks for the info!

what would you recommend to duplicate music cassettes?
 
Thomo.cchc said:
Thanks for the info!

what would you recommend to duplicate music cassettes?
Click to expand...

The best quality transfers would be accomplished at 1x play speed. So basically any decent 3 head cassette deck with type II cassettes will yield the best results. And that's suitable if you only need a handful of copies made. But if you need hundreds or thousands made, you might consider shopping the job out to professional duplication services companies which may have multi-unit real time systems that can do larger jobs like this fairly cost effectively and quickly. If you live in a major city or close to one, there may be several companies ready and willing to give you a good deal and fast turn around. Check out your local business directory, (Yellow pages).

Is this a one time event? Or do you foresee yourself needing to do several different copy jobs? If its just one, hire it out. If it's several, only then consider buying your own gear. Either way, get a quote from a local duplicator to see which is more cost effective for you.

Cheers! :)
 
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