But they can be baked and transferred. Guys like Steve Puntollilo (www.sonicraft.com) do it all the
time. Without having done one, I assume they need a convection oven and they need to be baked a good
bit longer than a 1/4" tape -- assumption based on the idea that drying out 2" height of tape pack
takes longer than 1/4" because there is more height (amount of sticky-shed surfaces) but the same
amount of edge (areas for evaporation or moisture transfer to take place). Assumption could well be
wrong -- I'm not a physicist.
Ironically, now is a golden time to digitize basic tracks. It's probably a safe assumption that,
given the cost of tape restoration, transfer and then remixing from digitized tracks, almost every
album gets just one shot at A-to-D from 2" tapes. Now, finally, we have high enough digital
resolution, good enough digital tools and high-fidelity enough analog front-ends to do this well.
Plus there's Plangent Process to fix the flutter. Alas, given today's budgets, there is no money or
interest in mass-digitization of surviving basic tracks.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Jacobs" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2015 3:18 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] More tales of woe from the tape vaults
> 2-inch tapes with sticky shed may not respond as well to baking as
> 1/4-inch.
>
> ~ Eric
>
> _________________________
>
> Eric Jacobs
> Principal
> The Audio Archive, Inc.
> 1325 Howard Ave, #906
> Burlingame, CA 94010
>
> tel: 408-221-2128
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Disc and Tape Audio Transfer Services and Preservation Consulting
>
>
>
>
> On 4/7/15, 8:44 AM, "Richard L. Hess" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>On 2015-04-07 11:09 AM, Eric Jacobs wrote:
>>> Do you think they are referring to the multitrack masters (probably on
>>>2-inch) or the stereo masters on 1/4-inch? I could believe the multi
>>>tracks unplayable.
>>
>>Why?
>>
>>While I will be the first to admit that I do not do 2-inch masters
>>(there are enough good restorers for that format out there, I never felt
>>compelled to step into that arena), but I have done my share of
>>"unplayable" 1-inch masters. Some were pretty bad, but we got good
>>fidelity. One project was particularly horrid and after I obtained the
>>best transfer I could, the dedicated album producer made hundreds of
>>micro edits to fix things that I could not in the transfer--and he knew
>>the music better than I.
>>
>>Cheers,
>>
>>Richard
>>--
>>Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask]
>>Aurora, Ontario, Canada 647 479 2800
>>http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
>>Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
>>
>
>
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