What an Interesting Noise

[billroper]

The power cords for the 4-track deck arrived today. I powered up the deck, found the right tape, and started transcribing. The very last song on the tape (which is, of course, one that I need) is suffering from a bad case of sticky shed and is unusable.

Well, there's always the 2-track DAT master.

Comments

[ex-erikvolso370.livejournal.com]

If you stopped before the shed got very bad, and you want to gamble to try and save it, the one thing I've know to safely break open tape is, well, Windex. Soak for 10 minutes, unreel, hang to dry, dupe, clean, dupe again.

Note the "dupe" before "properly cleaning tape."

The biggest save I know that Windex made was _Boston_, where Tom Scholz pulled the track tapes to remaster for CD, and found them firmly stuck. Everything he could think of failed, and he was debating if he'd just use the LP mixdowns (which, having the LP biases in them, would have been very problematical for CD) or just not release it on CD, since he couldn't make an acceptable master for it, when someone said "Hey, try Windex, what else have you got to lose?"

It worked.

Obviously, do this *only* when you think that tossing the tape will be your only option. I've heard that Isopropyl Alcohol works as well -- but it eats some tape base films and some oxide glues, test first, or you might have a lovely oxide cocktail.

Not So Joyous Noise

[sexybass.livejournal.com]

Hi Bill,
Sorry about the tape problems. Hope you and Gretchen had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. Check out my Log to see how mine went.
Take Care,
Hugs,
Tom