>Okay everyone. It's the end of August and I need a good laugh.
>The last thread about wd40 got wondering what was the weirdest
>contraption you had to invent to get a transfer done in a hurry? Or
>get it transfered at all? Don't be shy, give us the details.
>Personally I wonder if Richard can top his own placing an A77 in the
>fridge.
>Let the stories begin.
>Shai
I'm sure everyone has done things like tape broken 78s together on
the backside to play, subsequently editing out the pops. I assume
that you all remember the big band reissues of the '70s that were
transferred to 30 ips tape and then given to interns with big boxes
of razor blades and splicing tape. The interns were expected to edit
out any clicks and pops, with minimal time loss. The transfers
sounded great, but I'm sure there were some interns that had
nightmares about editing for a long time after.
But this one is a little unusual. When a radio producer showed up
with a tape that someone had spliced by wrapping the splicing tape
around the recording tape, we had to find a way to play the tape
anyway. I trimmed the splicing tape to the edges of the recording
tape , and attempted to pull the tape from the oxide, which worked
pretty well considering that the "splicing tape" was really plain old
Scotch tape.
We now had a sticky mess, and a time deadline. At my suggestion, the
producer whipped out her compact and we applied face powder sparingly
to the splices and dubbed the tape. It was the only time i ever saw
a tape wearing Chanel cosmetics. There was some loss of quality, but
with a little judicious editing and EQ, it was as good as it was ever
going to be.
Then of course there was the dolt who threaded the tape oxide out and
just raised the record levels on the one mil tape until he got some
sort of recording. We had to invent a new EQ curve (inverted NAB?)
for that one.
It was hard to be a purist working in public radio in the '70s given
the material that came in over the transom every day.
Bob Cham
|