EQ Magazine - May 2008 - (Page 6)

SOUNDING BOARD HOME COOKING “The Secrets of Home Tape Baking” article [03/08] seems to cover the topic pretty well. But when a tape squeals, check to see if the debris coming off is sticky. If not, the squeal may be due to loss of lubricant (silicone), e.g., Scotch 175 and Sony PR-150, do not benefit from baking! Also, it is beneficial to exercise the tape by rewinding and then playing it all the way out for a flat wind before baking, as there are often stresses within the tape pack which develop when tapes have been in storage, unplayed for many years; the rewind eliminates the areas of stress (the trick is to rewind and play out the sticky tape while avoiding contact with any stationary tape guides—this is easy on some Studers, but requires some creative workarounds on other machines). Doug Pomeroy (via email) EQ first broke the story a number of years ago that certain open reel tapes from the ’70s and ’80s were developing what would become known as “sticky shed syndrome”—a situation where the oxide binder absorbs moisture from the air and breaks down into a gummy mess. Someone then tried baking their tapes in a warm oven, discovered that such would dry the tapes out enough to play back, and hence a whole new niche in the audio archival industry was born. Your article about tape baking in the 03/08 issue covered this practice nicely. As an audio archival services provider, I would like to add a few notes that were not in the article: • Sticky shed syndrome seems to be confined to tapes made in the late ’70s to late ’80s. Early 1980s vintage Ampex professional tapes seem to be the most1 affected, especially their “Grand Master” series. I have also seen RCA Red Seal and Realistic, Radio Shack, and Concert Tape affected. The problem seems confined to formulations with black oxide, not the older types with brown oxide. Moral: Don’t bake tapes unless you know they are sticky. Needless baking to unaffected tapes can worsen print through and high frequency losses. • If your old tape squeals, fast winds very slow, or the playback sound quickly turns muddy, STOP! Further playback or fast winding can peel the oxide goo right off the backing. The tape must be baked to save it. • The Nesco Food Dehydrator is perfect if you have a large number of tapes to rescue. However, if you only have a few affected reels, you can bake them in an electric kitchen oven provided you are very careful, and you don’t exceed 120 degrees Fahrenheit. I suggest only using the type of oven that has a “keep warm” feature. My Maytag oven has this, and the temperature can be adjusted from 140 to 170 degrees F. With the door open to the first stop, the warming feature set to 140 degrees, and the rack set near the top, the temperature at the rack is right around 120 degrees. The heat flows nicely around the reel and out the open door. Rotate the reel half a turn every half-hour, flip the reel every hour, and bake for a minimum of three hours in this manner. Halfinch, one-inch, and two-inch tapes may need up to eight hours. After you’ve baked, cool the tape in the open oven for at least an hour before attempting playback. • Once you have baked your tape by either method, you have roughly 24 hours in which to play it back and transfer it to digital. After that it will absorb moisture again and become gummy. Baking is not a permanent fix to the problem. • The heat may be responsible for some self-erasure of high frequencies. I have found baked tapes need a little help with a boost in treble EQ, but just a small amount in tapes recorded at 15 or 30 ips. • Don’t throw your baked tapes away after transfer! If you ever need to go back to the original for material and the tape has become gummy again, it can be re-baked and will still playback afterwards! I hope this helps save some classic recordings! Brent Jessee (via email) LOVE IT LOUD I thought I was the only one who knew about Blue Cheer [02/08]. I saw them four times during the late sixties, when they were opening for bands like the Grateful Dead and Country Joe. Those bands were playing through un-miked Fender Twins, but Blue Cheer would hit the stage with six full Marshall stacks. This was really pushing the envelope back then. You really knew you were in for something different when they would nail Paul Whaley’s bass drums to the floor! When they played, everything else just came to a complete stop. The sound engulfed you. Yes, they were loud, but there was an indescribable beauty to it. Marshalls full up direct to open air in a cavernous space—nothing beats that. Their music was liquid; it seemed to flow and fill every part of your body. The band should have been huge. What happened? Their first album, Vincebus Eruptum, sucked. It didn’t come close to capturing their live effect. It wasn’t their fault; the performances are there. But the technology of the time simply couldn’t translate that much power down to a groove on an LP. Outsideinside, their second album, was simply great. Unfortunately, almost nobody ever heard it. In my opinion, the production quality of the first album doomed them. Thanks for giving some press to this band. They were truly pioneers. Steve Montague (via email) Got something to say? Questions, comments, concerns? Head on over to www.eqmag.com and drop us a line in our Letters to the Editor forum, send us an email at eqeditor@musicplayer.com or snail mail c/o EQ Magazine, 1111 Bayhill Dr., Suite 125, San Bruno, CA 94066 for possible inclusion in the Sounding Board. Note: Letters may be edited for length and/or clarity. Direct correspondence by EQ editorial is not guaranteed. All submissions become the property of EQ magazine and can be published in any medium. 6 EQ MAY 2008 www.eqmag.com http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/newbay/eq_200803/index.php?startid=46 http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/newbay/eq_200803/index.php?startid=46 http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/newbay/eq_200802/index.php?startid=48 http://www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - May 2008

EQ Magazine - May 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Jamie Lidell, What the New Model of Record Deal Means to You, Part II, Andrew W.K. Tool Box Aerosmith Fast Tracks Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet DigiDesign Pro Tools LE 7.4 Cakewalk Sonar 7 Line 6 UX8 Studio Projects CS5 Art Tubefire 8 Jazzmutant Dexter MCDSP Emerald Pack Overloud Breverb KRK Exposé E8B Mackie MR5 Blue Sky Exo Monitor System Big Fish Audio Around the World in 80 Raves East West Fab Four Virtual Instrument Sony Matt Fink- Starvu Session Keys Room With A VU

EQ Magazine - May 2008

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