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. >> > >