Hello,
I have to transfer to digital two old cassettes from 1967.
I don't know how they have been stored in the last years.
I am worried about playing them through my usual cassette player since I
don't want to ruin them...
Can you please give me some suggestions on what to do and on what not to do?
Should I bake them? If yes, what is baking tapes about?
Thank you
Plock

plokmichael wrote:
Hello,
I have to transfer to digital two old cassettes from 1967.
I don't know how they have been stored in the last years.
I am worried about playing them through my usual cassette player since I
don't want to ruin them...

Either they are ruined or they are not ruined. Turn them by hand and make
sure they turn freely. Make sure the pressure pad is intact. Then put
them on any cassette deck with variable azimuth and roll tape.

Can you please give me some suggestions on what to do and on what not to do?

Relax. Use your eyes and ears.

Should I bake them? If yes, what is baking tapes about?

Baking tapes fixes a problem with backcoated mastering tapes made in the
seventies and eighties. It is not appropriate for cassettes.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Baking tapes fixes a problem with backcoated mastering tapes made in the
seventies and eighties. It is not appropriate for cassettes.

Although I have plenty of cassettes "baked" in the car. Tough little
buggers, those.

Joe Sensor wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote:

Baking tapes fixes a problem with backcoated mastering tapes made in the
seventies and eighties. It is not appropriate for cassettes.

Although I have plenty of cassettes "baked" in the car. Tough little
buggers, those.

And the scary thing is that the expensive high-precision styrene shells
get ruined in the car, but the cheap black and white ones seem to hold
up fine.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott Dorsey wrote:
plokmichael wrote:
Hello,
I have to transfer to digital two old cassettes from 1967.
I don't know how they have been stored in the last years.
I am worried about playing them through my usual cassette player
since I
don't want to ruin them...

Either they are ruined or they are not ruined. Turn them by hand and
make
sure they turn freely. Make sure the pressure pad is intact. Then
put
them on any cassette deck with variable azimuth and roll tape.

Can you please give me some suggestions on what to do and on what
not to do?

Relax. Use your eyes and ears.

Should I bake them? If yes, what is baking tapes about?

Baking tapes fixes a problem with backcoated mastering tapes made in
the
seventies and eighties. It is not appropriate for cassettes.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

I've gotten some older cassettes but not quite that old but I gave it
some thought. Scott says they can't be baked but I am not sure they
don't have a similar problem to sticky shed or print through. But I
think the can end up with binding probably because of stretching. So I
would think what you are up againsts if more stretching and possible
breaking of the tape. Breaking in and of itself wouldn't be much of a
problem but if it is because the tape gets stretched out then you are
screwed for that portion of the tape.

I'd try moving whatever side of the tape has the most tape on it first
and then reel in the slack to the other side in order to see if you can
get it rolling okay. If you have a tape machine with a slow speed I
wonder if trying to just run it through one time on the slow speed
might be a good idea to loosen it up. You also might try taking a newer
mechanism and swapping the tape from one to the other in case the age
of the mechanism itself is a factor.

Mike http://www.mmeproductions.com

transmogrifa wrote:

I've gotten some older cassettes but not quite that old but I gave it
some thought. Scott says they can't be baked but I am not sure they
don't have a similar problem to sticky shed or print through.

They will have print through. There is nothing you can do about that.
Baking makes print through worse.

They may shed a lot.... but they shed dry material, and not sticky white
gum the way tapes with sticky shed do. If they are shedding oxide, there
are a number of lubricants you can use.

But I
think the can end up with binding probably because of stretching. So I
would think what you are up againsts if more stretching and possible
breaking of the tape. Breaking in and of itself wouldn't be much of a
problem but if it is because the tape gets stretched out then you are
screwed for that portion of the tape.

Binding is usually caused by the cartridge itself deforming. This is
very common. If the tape starts wandering and making funny noises, or
isn't running at speed, take it out and transplant the tape inside into
a new cassette. Stretched tape is usually the _result_ of the cassette
being deformed, not a problem that happens by itself.

and then reel in the slack to the other side in order to see if you can
get it rolling okay. If you have a tape machine with a slow speed I
wonder if trying to just run it through one time on the slow speed
might be a good idea to loosen it up. You also might try taking a newer
mechanism and swapping the tape from one to the other in case the age
of the mechanism itself is a factor.

Don't try and loosen it up if the tape is binding! Swap it into a new
shell!
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott Dorsey wrote:

They may shed a lot.... but they shed dry material, and not sticky white
gum the way tapes with sticky shed do. If they are shedding oxide, there
are a number of lubricants you can use.


Such as?



--thanks

Kurt Albershardt wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote:

They may shed a lot.... but they shed dry material, and not sticky white
gum the way tapes with sticky shed do. If they are shedding oxide, there
are a number of lubricants you can use.

Such as?

LAST makes an expensive tape head lubricant which consists of some kind
of silicone volatiles.

But I find the silicone fuser oil for Xerox copiers works well too. Much
thicker so it doesn't evaporate... I don't know if that may result in some
damage to the tape fifty years down the road.

I think Radio Shack sells something similar. And you can get something
similar from GE Silicones in bulk if you're willing to order a lot.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"plokmichael" wrote in message
...
Hello,
I have to transfer to digital two old cassettes from 1967.
I don't know how they have been stored in the last years.
I am worried about playing them through my usual cassette player since I
don't want to ruin them...
Can you please give me some suggestions on what to do and on what not to
do?
Should I bake them? If yes, what is baking tapes about?

You almost certainly won't need to bake them, but you should transfer the
tape into new, decent shells. Buy a couple of good-quality cassettes in
shells that assemble with screws, and transplant the tape into them. If
these are really important tapes, rent a Nakamichi from someplace. Tweak the
azimuth for maximum treble output with the two channels summed to mono.
Leave the Dolby off, since tapes in 1967 didn't use Dolby.

Peace,
Paul

Paul Stamler wrote:


Leave the Dolby off, since tapes in 1967 didn't use Dolby.

A quick check in this show that you are correct. Dolby b was
incorporated into reel to reel decks in 1968 and cassette decks in 1970.

http://www.dolby.com/about/who_we_are/history_2.html

The first consumer product to incorporate Dolby B-type noise
reduction, under an exclusive license lasting until 1970, was an
open-reel tape recorder brought to market by KLH in 1968. While this
unit offered high performance, it nevertheless stuck with the
cumbersome open-reel format, which never enjoyed wide consumer
acceptance. Dolby had already realized that if tape was to do so, it
would be with an easy-to-use cartridge format.

In the summer of 1970, the first cassette recorders with Dolby B-type
NR—all built by Nakamichi, at that time an exclusively OEM
manufacturer in Japan—were introduced by Advent, Fisher, and Harman
Kardon. The concept met with instant acclaim, and four more
manufacturers were licensed by the end of 1970. Dolby acquired the
necessary expertise early on to deal effectively with manufacturers
in Asia, which has been critical to the success of Dolby's licensing
program. Today the company has its own licensing liaison offices in
Tokyo, Shanghai, and Beijing to serve its many Asian licensees.

On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:27:30 -0500, Joe Sensor
wrote:

Paul Stamler wrote:


Leave the Dolby off, since tapes in 1967 didn't use Dolby.

A quick check in this show that you are correct. Dolby b was
incorporated into reel to reel decks in 1968 and cassette decks in 1970.

http://www.dolby.com/about/who_we_are/history_2.html


Interesting! -- That Harman Kardon CAD-5 seems to me quite similar to
a (later) Dual 901 I had in 1977. A good deck, autoreverse but a lot
more stable than recent flip head ones. A few years ago I saw one at a
local band's stage, for background music during pause times, it has
been still working good.

Edi Zubovic, Crikvenica, Croatia

Although I have plenty of cassettes "baked" in the car. Tough little
buggers, those.

And the scary thing is that the expensive high-precision styrene shells
get ruined in the car, but the cheap black and white ones seem to hold
up fine.


Remember those Loran cassettes, that supposed were more resistant to
that problem than others?

Scott Dorsey wrote:
I think Radio Shack sells something similar.

If you're talking about a silicone microsphere lube -- I believe Radio
Shack's "precision oiler" used to be of that variety. (We used it for
lubricating mechanisms which would fail again if the lubricant caused
dust to adhere; the idea is that carrier fluid evaporates away leaving
an extremely light dry/powder coating.) I have no idea whether they
still sell that product or if it's still the same material.

Some of the locksmithing lubricants are similar, but I'm not at all
convinced I'd trust them not to attack the tape.

My own approach so far for my own transfers has just been to clean the
heads early and often -- and to make sure they've had time dry again
before I run more tape past them. But I'm also deliberately learning on
my least valuable/most forgiving tapes.


(Hm. Pyro comes with a media-noise reduction plug in. Since it's a VST,
I can invoke it from Sonar... It isn't in Soundsoap's class, but it
seems to work pretty well on some of my older spoken-word stuff; noise
floor is definitely lower and I'm not hearing a difference in the
signal. On the other hand, I'm not at all sure my ears are as good as
they once were and it's late at night...)

Joe Kesselman wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote:
I think Radio Shack sells something similar.

If you're talking about a silicone microsphere lube -- I believe Radio
Shack's "precision oiler" used to be of that variety. (We used it for
lubricating mechanisms which would fail again if the lubricant caused
dust to adhere; the idea is that carrier fluid evaporates away leaving
an extremely light dry/powder coating.) I have no idea whether they
still sell that product or if it's still the same material.

No, it's not a microsphere at all, but a silane polymer fluid. Radio
Shack used to sell a "tape lubricant" for dealing with this sort
of thing.

My own approach so far for my own transfers has just been to clean the
heads early and often -- and to make sure they've had time dry again
before I run more tape past them. But I'm also deliberately learning on
my least valuable/most forgiving tapes.

You can't clean your heads too often. I like the Head, Red, and Roll
cleaner that Precision Motor sells... it seems to be as close to TF as
you can get today.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article , Scott Dorsey wrote:
plokmichael wrote:
Hello,
I have to transfer to digital two old cassettes from 1967.
I don't know how they have been stored in the last years.
I am worried about playing them through my usual cassette player since I
don't want to ruin them...
Either they are ruined or they are not ruined. Turn them by hand and make
sure they turn freely. Make sure the pressure pad is intact. Then put
them on any cassette deck with variable azimuth and roll tape.

I'm going through a similar project and I'm wondering if it's recommended
to fast-forward a cassette to the end and then rewind it prior to playing,
as it is for some other types of tape?

-- Adam

Adam Goldman wrote:
In article , Scott Dorsey wrote:
plokmichael wrote:
Hello,
I have to transfer to digital two old cassettes from 1967.
I don't know how they have been stored in the last years.
I am worried about playing them through my usual cassette player since I
don't want to ruin them...
Either they are ruined or they are not ruined. Turn them by hand and make
sure they turn freely. Make sure the pressure pad is intact. Then put
them on any cassette deck with variable azimuth and roll tape.

I'm going through a similar project and I'm wondering if it's recommended
to fast-forward a cassette to the end and then rewind it prior to playing,
as it is for some other types of tape?

If it's not deteriorating too badly, it's probably a good idea. Either it
will even the tape pack out, or it will make it worse, and if it makes it
worse you know you need to transplant into a new shell.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."