• Baking tapes

    From Digital Man@VERT to All on Mon Aug 18 21:11:36 2014
    I'm working on restoring Steve Deppe's old Dresden (and other) recordings on 1/4" and 1/2" reel to reel tape and cassette tapes. Restoration, is initially just digitizing the audio but later remixing, mastering, and possibly replacing
    or adding tracks to bring up to modern standards.

    Anyway, has anyone here heard of issues with Ampex and other reel-to-reel tapes
    of the 70s and 80s having issues delamenating when played back or even re-wound? This is a well known issue (called "Sticky Shed Syndrome" and other names) you can read about here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky-shed_syndrome

    The popular, but temporary fix, is to "bake" the tapes before playing or re-winding. Here's a good web page about this technique: http://www.tangible-technology.com/tape/baking1.html

    I bought a food dehydrator and plan to begin the baking and restoration process
    soon, but some of the tapes appear to need to be re-wound first (evenly) to avoid overbaking the tape edges.

    I was just curious if anyone else here had been through this process and had tips. Thanks,



    digital man

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  • From Analog Kid@VERT to Digital Man on Wed Aug 20 21:57:45 2014
    Re: Baking tapes
    By: Digital Man to All on Mon Aug 18 2014 05:11 pm

    I bought a food dehydrator and plan to begin the baking and restoration proc
    ess
    soon, but some of the tapes appear to need to be re-wound first (evenly) to avoid overbaking the tape edges.

    I was just curious if anyone else here had been through this process and had tips. Thanks,

    Cool! Sounds like a most-worthwhile endeavor. Best of luck with this.


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  • From Digital Man@VERT to Analog Kid on Thu Aug 21 22:15:36 2014
    Re: Baking tapes
    By: Analog Kid to Digital Man on Wed Aug 20 2014 05:57 pm

    Re: Baking tapes
    By: Digital Man to All on Mon Aug 18 2014 05:11 pm

    I bought a food dehydrator and plan to begin the baking and restoration proc
    ess
    soon, but some of the tapes appear to need to be re-wound first (evenly) to avoid overbaking the tape edges.

    I was just curious if anyone else here had been through this process and had tips. Thanks,

    Cool! Sounds like a most-worthwhile endeavor. Best of luck with this.

    It has been. Here's a vlog of my efforts so far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPn3Gop2h1A

    Now, the first few reels I've played/re-wound after baking still had shed. So I'm re-baking some tapes longer and seeing if that helps.

    digital man

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  • From Dimitri Papadopoulos@VERT/CANADA to Digital Man on Wed Nov 5 00:30:32 2014
    I was just curious if anyone else here had been through this process and
    had tips. Thanks,

    Let us know how it will go. I heard that once you bake an old tape, it's good only for one playback, after which the tape is destroyed. I don't know if that's true or a rumor.

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  • From Digital Man@VERT to Dimitri Papadopoulos on Tue Nov 11 20:50:57 2014
    Re: Re: Baking tapes
    By: Dimitri Papadopoulos to Digital Man on Tue Nov 04 2014 07:30 pm

    I was just curious if anyone else here had been through this process and had tips. Thanks,

    Let us know how it will go. I heard that once you bake an old tape, it's good only for one playback, after which the tape is destroyed. I don't
    know if that's true or a rumor.

    From my experience, that's not true. Many of the tapes I've baked I've had to play through and wind several times to get completely digitally-preserved. The bad tapes do continue to "shed" during this process, but they're not destroyed.
    And from what I've read, after about 30 days, the tapes would need to be re-baked before they should played again (though I have no plans to do that).

    digital man

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  • From The Millionaire@VERT to Digital Man on Wed Feb 12 20:14:44 2020
    I'm working on restoring Steve Deppe's old Dresden (and other) recordings on 1/4" and 1/2" reel to reel tape and cassette tapes. Restoration, is initially just digitizing the audio but later remixing, mastering, and possibly replacing
    or adding tracks to bring up to modern standards.

    Anyway, has anyone here heard of issues with Ampex and other reel-to-reel tapes
    of the 70s and 80s having issues delamenating when played back or even re-wound? This is a well known issue (called "Sticky Shed Syndrome" and other names) you can read about here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky-shed_syndrome

    The popular, but temporary fix, is to "bake" the tapes before playing or re-winding. Here's a good web page about this technique: http://www.tangible-technology.com/tape/baking1.html

    I bought a food dehydrator and plan to begin the baking and restoration process
    soon, but some of the tapes appear to need to be re-wound first (evenly) to avoid overbaking the tape edges.

    I was just curious if anyone else here had been through this process and had tips. Thanks,

    digital man

    Synchronet "Real Fact" #80:
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    Norco, CA WX: 84.8°F, 47.0% humidity, 16 mph ESE wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs


    Are you using 456? Then you have to bake it for sure.

    $ The Millionaire $

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  • From Digital Man@VERT to The Millionaire on Thu Feb 13 21:49:41 2020
    Re: Baking tapes
    By: The Millionaire to Digital Man on Wed Feb 12 2020 03:14 pm

    I bought a food dehydrator and plan to begin the baking and restoration process
    soon, but some of the tapes appear to need to be re-wound first (evenly) to avoid overbaking the tape edges.

    I was just curious if anyone else here had been through this process and had tips. Thanks,

    Are you using 456? Then you have to bake it for sure.

    Yes, did that.


    digital man

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  • From The Millionaire@VERT to Digital Man on Fri Feb 14 00:40:21 2020
    Re: Baking tapes
    By: The Millionaire to Digital Man on Wed Feb 12 2020 03:14 pm

    Yes, did that.

    digital man

    This Is Spinal Tap quote #30:
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    I was told you can bake it only once then transfer to media.

    $ The Millionaire $

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  • From The Millionaire@VERT to Digital Man on Fri Feb 14 00:45:08 2020
    I was told you can bake it only once then transfer to media.

    $ The Millionaire $


    We used Ampex 456 2” 24 track analog tape for our school course that I had enrolled in the mid 80’s.

    $ The Millionaire $

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  • From Digital Man@VERT to The Millionaire on Fri Feb 14 15:37:46 2020
    Re: Baking tapes
    By: The Millionaire to Digital Man on Thu Feb 13 2020 07:40 pm


    Re: Baking tapes
    By: The Millionaire to Digital Man on Wed Feb 12 2020 03:14 pm

    Yes, did that.

    I was told you can bake it only once then transfer to media.

    Likely. That's exactly what I did, so I don't need to play them again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPn3Gop2h1A

    digital man

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