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Looper's Delight
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> Another question related to the A77. I recently put on some app. 20 ys. > old masters to transfer the music to computer. I properly cleaned the > heads, but horror, it sounds like the head make big noisy scratches on >the > magnetic surface. I am afraid that I may have lost a lot of precious > information on the old tapes, and I am afraid to put more original master > tapes onto it. Is this a problem with the heads, or is it the tape age? > The tapes seemed to leave quite a lot of residue. If it is the tapes, > what is the procedure of baking tapes? > > Cheers > > Frank Carvalho Frank - You likely were using Ampex 456 or 406 and around 20 years ago, they were switching formulas from one that used a whale-oil based tape-binding agent to a more humane one. It took them a while to get the replacement formulas working well and many/most tapes from that era suffer from your problem. You are on the right track - the tape will have to be 'baked' at a very stable 55 degrees (Centegrade) temperature for about 24 hours to drive out the humidity and then transferred to another medium - hopefully in one pass, though I've read that the treatment will last for months if the tape remains in very low humidity storage. Incubators and suitably sized food dehydrators can do the job. A friend of mine reported success with his gas oven, though the tape was beginning to smoke - so that's not recommended! No microwaves either. Good luck. Cheers, Scott M2 http://www.dreamSTATE.to ambientelectronicsoundscapes http://www.THEAMBiENTPiNG.com