No it's not one of the albums. We still have three or so weeks before we will see our custom reels. But we have some tapes to ship! This is our Tape Project Alignment Tape. It is of course 1/4", 15 inches per second and IEC (CCIR) equalization. It has been recorded at 250 nanoWebers/meter reference fluxivity.
The 5 minute tape contains 30 second tracks of sine waves at 1kHz, 10kHz, 15kHz, 90Hz, 60Hz and 30Hz, which were generated digitally for rock solid frequency stability and converted to analog thru a Pacific Microsonics model II A/D. This should allow one to properly align heads for max output, L/R balance and phase, and the more experienced users can use the lower frequency bands to compensate for head bumps.
The tape also has 1 minute of an asymmetric 1kHz sine wave and 1 minute of polarity pops. One can use these to assure proper polarity of your system, in order to get the best performance from your Tape Project tapes.
The tapes were recorded to RMGI SM468 tape on Larry, one of the ATR 102s we use for recording Tape Project Albums. Larry was carefully aligned using an MRL tape before recording. Why Larry, you may ask. Because the other ATR 102s in the duplicating suite are named Moe, Shemp and Curly. Using this tape will get you as close the alignment of our duplicating machines as possible.
I will be receiving fitted plastic bags for this first run of tapes on Thursday and we will begin shipping to subscribers as soon as possible. First year Tape Project subscribers receive the alignment tape for free as a thank you for your support. Retail price is $115.