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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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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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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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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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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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:
Vertrauen has had the FidoNet node number 1:103/705 since 1992.
Norco, CA WX: 84.8­F, 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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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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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:
Big bottom, big bottom / Talk about mud flaps, my girl's got 'em!
Norco, CA WX: 64.7­F, 45.0% humidity, 5 mph E wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs

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

$ The Millionaire $

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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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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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