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Richard Hess has always been a reliable and generous source of info to me, and I have successfully dealt with Soft Binder Syndrome by using his suggestion of putting tape deck and tape in a refrigerator.  Big kitchen fridge worked better, I believe because smaller 3 cu ft just didn't have the strength to keep up with deck heating up and even brief door openings easily letting out much of the cool air.


http://richardhess.com/notes/2007/03/21/soft-binder-syndrome-and-sticky-shed-syndrome/


I love Nakamichi CR-7A decks for a number of reasons, but one of them is that I don't have to fix cassette pressure pads that fell apart.  That deck, and at least the CR-3A as well, push those pads out of the way anyway, and instead rely on the dual capstans to better maintain the right pressure between tape and head.


Karl Fitzke
Audio/Visual Specialist
214 Olin Library
Ithaca, NY 14853

607-255-5521
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________________________________
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Dan Gediman <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 12:57:44 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ARSCLIST] Question about baking cassette audio tapes

Folks,

I am a documentary radio producer working on a project where I need to digitize a half-dozen consumer cassette tapes of interviews conducted in the early 90s. I have not yet seen these tapes, but I�m trying to prepare ahead of time for likely problems I might encounter with trying to play these old tapes, which have been been stored in anything like optimum conditions (they have been in a shoebox in a closet without even plastic boxes to protect them). The main problems I have had in the past with old pro-quality cassettes of my own has been mechanical (the pads dry out/fall out and I have at times needed to transfer the tapes to a new shell). But I have also encountered tapes that are completely jammed and won�t play at all and also high-pitched squealing on playback. I have been following the recent discussion about various kinds of problems that befall RTR tapes, but my question is do the same problems happen with cassette tapes from the post-70s era and are the remedies the same (baking in a dehydrator for a TBD amount of time)? I�m assuming there are some unique problems dealing with archival cassettes, and I�d love to know what what symptoms to look for, and what is the state of the art in terms of how to deal with them. I�m sure this has been discussed in the past. If anyone can direct me to any articles online or previous posts on the subject, I would be greatly appreciative.

All the best,
Dan

Dan Gediman
502 299-2565
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Dan Gediman<http://www.dangediman.com/>
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Dan Gediman is a long-time public radio producer whose work has been heard on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Marketplace, Jazz Profiles, and This American Life. ...