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Author Topic: Playback speed  (Read 3280 times)

Offline Willyfufu

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Playback speed
« on: October 19, 2011, 07:53:42 PM »
I recently got my brothers old 3 inch reel tapes he sent from Viet Nam instead of writng letters. I tried playing them on my Dokorder 7140 at 3.75 IPS. They sounded like Alvin and the chipmonks. Is there a slower playback speed other than the 3.75 any help would be gratly appreciated.
                                             Thanks,
                                             Tommy Kirl

Offline ironbut

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Re: Playback speed
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2011, 08:26:42 PM »
Hi Tommy,
Welcome to the forum.

In answer to your question, a fairly standard speed that was used for consumer reel to reel is 1.875 ips. It was very common on small machines during the 60's and 70's and was meant for exactly the application that your brother used it for,.. dialog. In fact, the 1/4" tape on 3" reels was used extensively for "audio letters" before the cassette dominated consumer tape use.
My parents gave my sister a little Sony that could play 1.875, 3.75 and 7.5 ips and accepted a 5" reel max.
After I begged and pleaded (and generally made their lives miserable) I was given a smaller Akai that would play 1.875 and 3.75 ips but only used 3" reels. Probably a wise move since I took it apart a couple of weeks later and never got it to work again.

If you wish to hear these tapes, you may be able to find a local library that still has a reel to reel that will play 1.875 ips but be aware, those tapes could very well be acetate and very brittle. If these are important to you, you might be better off getting someone who knows what they're doing to do a digital transfer for you.

There is another alternative to getting them transfered for you. If you were able to play them at 3.75 ips, you can always transfer to digital and slow the speed of the playback in the digital domain. There are numerous editing programs that can do this and you should be able to find one for free.
steve koto
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Offline Willyfufu

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Re: Playback speed
« Reply #2 on: October 20, 2011, 08:13:15 AM »
Steve,
   Thanks so much for the information. I think there is a guy here in Tyler that does digital transfer. He will be my next stop. Again Thanks so much
                                                                  Tommy

Offline steveidosound

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Re: Playback speed
« Reply #3 on: October 20, 2011, 08:43:50 AM »
Hi, If you are at all technically interested, you might want to read my post in the beginners section regarding track formats for reel to reel here -
http://www.tapeproject.com/smf/index.php/topic,595.msg4619.html#msg4619

Your Dokorder was designed for 4 channel 4 track record play. Your brothers tapes are almost certainly 1/2 track (also called 2 track) mono, which means they have 2 sides, each covering half the tape width and you flip the reels and go back the other direction for the other half of the tape. If you play them on a machine like your Dokorder or on any 1/4 track stereo machine you will hear backwards audio from  one of the channel outputs as it is playing the other side of the tape.

BTW, though rare, there was an even slower  15/16 ips tape speed!
Steve Williams

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