I am copying some 20- to 25-year-old cassettes into a digital form. They are
one-of-a-kind interviews and were recorded in mono on, I think, a Sony TC-142. I
want to get the very best sound out of the tapes and have borrowed a Marantz PCM222
"professional" cassette player. The advantage, I hope, of the PCM222 is that it
appears to have an adjustable play head. There is a small spring-mounted screw
adjacent to the head; I _think_ this is where I match the original tracking by
turning the screw till I get the best sound. Am I right in this? Are there some
less-than-obvious dangers here I don't know about? (Like turning too far and never
getting it right again...)

Does anyone have any sage advice for me regarding this matched tracking business and
the adjustments on the PCM222?

Philip Hiscock philip at mun.ca

In article ,
Philip Hiscock wrote:
I am copying some 20- to 25-year-old cassettes into a digital form. They are
one-of-a-kind interviews and were recorded in mono on, I think, a Sony TC-142. I
want to get the very best sound out of the tapes and have borrowed a Marantz PCM222
"professional" cassette player. The advantage, I hope, of the PCM222 is that it
appears to have an adjustable play head. There is a small spring-mounted screw
adjacent to the head; I _think_ this is where I match the original tracking by
turning the screw till I get the best sound. Am I right in this? Are there some
less-than-obvious dangers here I don't know about? (Like turning too far and never
getting it right again...)

Does anyone have any sage advice for me regarding this matched tracking business and
the adjustments on the PCM222?

As far as I know, all cassette decks allow you to adjust the azimuth this
way, and you basically need to do that for any tape transcription work.

You will want a scope and a test tape, though, to align it back again
after you've finished the job. If you are riding the azimuth by hand,
the scope can also be helpful to adjust for each tape, too. Especially
mono tapes where you just have a lovely pattern on the display that you
can adjust for a flat line.
--scott


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

Wind and rewind each archive beforehand to liberate any jammed layers.
Was there a NR system in use? Can you match and complement it? Does the
pitch of the voices via the newer deck seem natural?
*Gently* adjust Marantz spring-loaded screw and *gently* angle it back
again, using a 'scope to optimise stereo (twin) tracks' azimuth - failing to
have such kit, listen for best hiss /treble when playing back.
Cassette tapes, even mono, were notorious for going out of azimuth,
especially between takes in some hand-helds.
So, even if you easily manage to match the original's verticality on your
repro deck, it may need tweaking again after a halt or when rolling a fresh
tape or its flip side, or whenever.

"Philip Hiscock" wrote in message
...
I am copying some 20- to 25-year-old cassettes into a digital form. They
are
one-of-a-kind interviews and were recorded in mono on, I think, a Sony
TC-142. I
want to get the very best sound out of the tapes and have borrowed a
Marantz PCM222
"professional" cassette player. The advantage, I hope, of the PCM222 is
that it
appears to have an adjustable play head. There is a small spring-mounted
screw
adjacent to the head; I _think_ this is where I match the original
tracking by
turning the screw till I get the best sound. Am I right in this? Are
there some
less-than-obvious dangers here I don't know about? (Like turning too far
and never
getting it right again...)

Does anyone have any sage advice for me regarding this matched tracking
business and
the adjustments on the PCM222?

Philip Hiscock philip at mun.ca

if the tape is recorded in mono and you are making a mono recording,
you may want to use stereo playback into a scope for adjusting the
azmuth as Scott described, but you may want to use only the L or only
the R channel for recording your copy. If you sum the L and R the
azmuth setting will be more critical but you will gain 3 dB of signal
to noise ratio.

So you have to evaluate, is the azmuth and high end rolloff a bigger
problem in which case us only L or only R, or is signal to noise ratio
a bigger problem in which case you may want to sum the L and R.

Mark

Thanks for the advice -- it's exactly what I needed to get on with it. - Philip

On Sat, 3 Sep 2005 00:17:40 +0000 (UTC),
(Philip Hiscock) wrote:

Thanks for the advice -- it's exactly what I needed to get on with it. - Philip

Do check that the owner of the deck is happy for you to make these
adjustments, and equipped to reset them. He may not be getting quite
optimum results from his own tapes at present, but he'll be getting
better than he will after you've messed with it :-)

Philip Hiscock wrote:

I am copying some 20- to 25-year-old cassettes into a digital
form. They are one-of-a-kind interviews and were recorded in mono
on, I think, a Sony TC-142.

OK, first question: how does it sound now, is there any need for trying
to tweak the last bit of treble correctness out of the tape?

Does anyone have any sage advice for me regarding this matched
tracking business and the adjustments on the PCM222?

In this context, IF the machine recorded on was near to its ex works
adjustment - ie. had not been misaligned by a servicing - and IF the
machine you play back on is aligned correctly with respect to a standard
test tape, then the need for tweaking - the programme material
considered - may be none whatsoever.

Also, you have BORROWED a machine, do check that you are at all entitled
to touch ANY setting of any kind on it. Adjusting a tape deck that
matches somoones drawer full of tapes may not be wise nor popular.

Finally, if you need to ask, then you need to learn how to do it. A
borrowed machine is not the proper choice for learning to make critical
adjustments.

My advice to you is to do nothing and to equalize your way out of
trouble, if any, digitally. Frequency response on old cassettes seem to
be all over the place anyway, and with mono the issue of head alignment
is imo not a major one.

Philip Hiscock philip at mun.ca


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

--
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