Messages

1

Raw Tape / Re: tape orientation

« on: June 29, 2010, 04:31:04 AM »

The tape could well be wound on the reel incorrectly, wouldn't be the first time!  I have seen tape that is shiny looking on both sides which makes the 'norm' no longer the norm!  I do also have some Scotch tape examples here that are shiny both sides, kind of a rustic reddy brown colour.

Cheers
Marie

2

Prerecorded Tapes / Re: sticky shed on prerecorded tapes ?

« on: November 07, 2008, 08:24:41 PM »

You may find this of interest - http://richardhess.com/notes/2006/03/09/wet-playing-of-reel-tapes-with-loss-of-lubricant-a-guest-article-by-marie-oconnell/

Cheers
Marie

3

Prerecorded Tapes / Re: A story & a question for Marie

« on: August 15, 2008, 03:06:07 PM »

Great detective work there Steve!  I felt myself cringe when I read Ampex 456!  That tape stock, along with Agfa PEM 469 and Pyral give me an instant sinking feeling, but I do like the challenge of being able to not let them get the better of me ;-)  I would carefully unravel it a few rounds to see if you can see/feel any hint of SSS.  I have more often found that the real trouble starts further in and especially near the hub.  If it feels sticky right from the get go, then you ARE in for some trouble!  Do you have an oven or dehydrator?  Another thing to try on a non-favourite machine is to cover the heads with pellon and run the tape through for a bit at 3 3/4ips or 7 1/2ips (if that is your lowest speed).  Let it run for a few minutes and then stop to have a look at the crud on the pellon.  Depending on how bad it is make your decision to carry on or to stop and bake the tape.  I have had some 456 that has virtually not shed at all and was just a regular 'happy' transfer - this is generally not the norm!  Does the tape itself also have a kind of greasy look to it?  Sometimes I find that to be a good indictor too.  If when you hand unravel some of it and it appears to be 'peeling' itself off the backing layer, then ...........take a deep breath, bite the bullet and give it a shot!

Good luck! 
Marie

4

Tape Project Albums - general / Re: TP-02, 03, 05 and 08

« on: August 11, 2008, 03:42:47 PM »

Re: Nagras

I had two Nagra's when I was in Mississippi.  They are a work of art and made beautifully, plus they work like clockwork!  I also had 2 x adaptors which are very clever in that you fit them on to the back of the deck and can then play 10.5 inch reels.  These adaptors are extremely hard to get hold of and probably worth a bomb, but back in 2002 they were each about $1300US.  We purchased them from Location Sound but I have just looked and they don't appear to have any for sale.  I would encourage you to get in touch with them and they can always keep you on their books when any come in.  They came with warranties and were in tip top condition.
Cheers
Marie

5

Raw Tape / Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master

« on: August 10, 2008, 05:25:16 PM »

Paper tape was not widely used in broadcasting here in the 1950's.  We only have a small collection of paper and mainly from private collections.  With that said, I have seen photographs with a Sound Mirror featured being used by a broadcaster.  But as a general rule we went from lacquer disks to analogue tape in 1952/53 to coincide with the Royal Tour in that year. 

The squashed paper tape is like that due to the nature of the unique reels made, which ofcourse also include audio!  A double source!  Plus they were poorly stored and probably had a lot of uneven weight on them.  By the way, we stored everything vertically and not horizontally.

This project has shown me some of the fickleness of this delicate tape.  The paper backing has gotten wet or damp at some point and has then dried out making it extremely warped.  The first aim is to get it off the homemade reels and respool it onto 10.5 inch reels.  It will fit on two such reels.  Then, with careful library wind spooling I need to get the pack to flatten out as much as possible.  This will take time.  I'm using a defunct Technics SP 10 to hold the homemade real as I hand wind it on to the takeup reel on a Studer.  As it goes on to the takeup it is almost going into an egg shape due to the warping!  Patience, patience.

6

Raw Tape / Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master

« on: August 07, 2008, 07:13:40 PM »

Some stories of the little gems I come across as I preserve analogue tape -

We have many hours of Royal Tour broadcasts from 1952/53, 1956, 1958, 1963, 1970, etc.  They are quite telling in themselves as they were huge events and the Queen would visit cities and townships all over NZ.  The radio coverage was enormous with broadcasters dotted at locations all over each event so they could 'paint a picture' for the listeners of what the Queen and crowds were up to.  They contain plenty of actuality of crowd sounds, brass bands, descriptions of what the Queen is wearing, etc.  There are handwritten books which accompany the audio plus produced books of the Royal parties itinerary so the public could go to get a glimpse of her.  The language used is very colourful and highly descriptive so that you almost feel like you can actually see what is being told to you, plus with all the atmosphere involved.  Remember that the earlier tours were before television here and so it is radio at its best.  They are important historical recordings in that they show the style of broadcasting for its day, the NZ culture and the then importance of tours of this nature.  Some of these tours lasted 3 weeks and no expense was spared.

One such broadcast with the 1956 royal tour when Prince Philip visited for a 'working' holiday, he visits the Wairakei Geothermal power station.  The announcer describes the scene of what is about to take place when they will demonstrate for HRH a 'bore with its hat off".  In other words they are about to open the bore up.  There is much anticipation which is represented in the broadcaster's description.  The picture forms in your mind and then OFF it goes!  The sound effects of this bore going off would have almost blown any wireless to kingdom come and they play it for almost 2 minutes!  The joys of radio :-)

A gem I happened across was of another nature but hugely funny.  From the late 1960's we have a recording of a radio personality who is involved in a talent quest in a public forum.  He introduces a young woman and her friend and they are going to perform a song with one of them playing the guitar.  The song is 'I am a rock' and so you hear the sweet voice and guitar strumming away until you get to the bridge of the song..........all of a sudden I heard something which I thought I heard but wasn't sure until the reel was completed and I could go back to it.  I couldn't wait........at the bridge the girl who had been so sweetly singing says quietly to her non-singing friend - "sing, you bitch"!  It is hilarious because when the friend does start singing her voice isn't exactly in tune!  This would have gone out over air but back then was in AM and so most people wouldn't have even heard those words.  Now this is one of the reasons I love my job!

7

Raw Tape / Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master

« on: August 07, 2008, 05:21:19 PM »

Now to give you some background of the sort of recordings we deal with here at Sound Archives/Nga Taonga Korero (the Treasures of Speech).  Radio New Zealand comprises National Radio and Concert FM (music).  Up until about 15 years ago it also featured the commercial network which was sold off to private networking.

We are a radio broadcasting archive so our collections are predominantly programmes that have gone to air, even though we do have many tapes that are unedited raw interviews that a producer has used to compile the completed programme.  The types of programmes we have are news and current affairs, radio serials, radio comedy, World War II recordings, sport of many genres, New Zealand composer's collections, all kinds of music programmes, disasters, Maori programming, Parliamentary broadcasts, early Newsreels, etc.  This list could go on!  We do accession collections from private individuals to other radio stations and educational institutions, plus we actively record other radio stations around NZ on a daily basis to get a cross sample of the types of broadcasts people are listening to all our the country.

Our collections are used by all sorts of places from advertising agencies, journalists, schools, students, television to private individuals.  A journalist may use a short cut of historical interest to compliment their story or television may use our audio in a documentary especially if it pre-dates television here as radio WAS the only source of audio.  We often get requests from private individuals about a relative who performed on the radio many years ago and it's always nice to find those but, sadly, many of those went straight to air and weren't recorded unless they were quite famous!

Copyright is a big issue and we have to be very careful about supplying audio that contains music.  As a rule, anything that is commercially released we don't provide unless the client gets the correct permissions and clearances, which is a real process but can be done.

The Mobile Unit World War Two recordings are very interesting.  These were made overseas and feature soldiers messages home, entertainment for the troops, speeches from high ranking military, etc.  Because of the sensitive nature of war the soldiers messages would be written down and checked for security reasions.  They would line up and then make their recording which would be played over the wireless on a Sunday night once they got back to NZ.  However, before they went to air, they would be checked by the War Department to see if those soldiers were still alive.  If they had been killed in action then the family would be invited in to have a private listening and it wouldn't be played to the general public. We have a disk cutter which could have been the one used at the time, remembering these disks were cut as they were made.  There is a rather famous one made by Arch Curry, war correspondent, and he is describing the Battle of Cassino.  His voice is very calm and factual as he describes the big bombers going overhead, which you can hear and then the eventual bomb being dropped.  Interestingly, this recording was despatched by horseback (from what I am told) and made its way to the BBC and was broadcast with 24 hours of the battle.  Not like these days with the internet but amazing in itself.

An interesting project I am working on at the moment is rather unique in itself.  An ex-broadcaster donated his personal collection to us and in it were three "reels" containing paper tape.  The unique thing about these reels is that he used six laquer transcription disks to make three open reel reels!  He has drilled extra holes in the middle and made a wooden hub and bolted them together!  The paper tape (sound mirror) is brittle and full of splices and my challenge is to get them off his "reels" and transfer them to standard 10.5" reels.  They have been stored poorly and are all squashed down on one side making the tape very difficult to release itself freely from each layer.  It does have sound on it also which makes it even more exciting!

Next installment coming soon!

Marie

8

Prerecorded Tapes / Re: Tails Out ?

« on: August 07, 2008, 12:50:33 AM »

Those 4 million sheep who think they are human are us, the Kiwis!  The 36 million others, are sheep and they don't think that much, plus I wouldn't let them near any audio, could be one theme only - "Variations On A Baa"! multiplied by 36 million.  Mind you, I heard a doco yesterday about a woman who trains sheep here and apparently they are more trainable than dogs.  Wait for it, The New Zealand Sheep Orchestra could be famous soon!

9

Raw Tape / Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master

« on: August 06, 2008, 10:43:29 PM »

I was working in Mississippi at the time of Katrina so experienced the full force of it.  As I was closely involved with MDAH they sought my assistance with damaged tapes.  On a personal level I found FEMA less than helpful.

From this site you can download Sound Directions and a tool called FACET -  http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/projects/sounddirections/papersPresent/index.shtml
This, along with the IASA TC-04 document are the 'bibles' we work with in the archiving field.  At least now many archives have an international standard to work to so we can all be on the same page.  The FACET tool is a way of grading a tape or disk.  It gives points taking into account how at risk an object is and then a report so you can justify a decision of whether to preserve something.  It's very useful.

Here, we do what we call 'preservation on demand' (POD) as well as normal preservation.  PODding is when a client wants something and it hasn't yet been preserved in the digital domain.  They may only want 1 minute of audio from it but we preserve the whole item.  This could involve several tapes, being part of a series, so it can be very time consuming.  For example, the other day I had a client wanting about 4 minutes of audio but it actually took me 6 1/2 hours of digitizing so they could have what they wanted. 

Everything takes time and patience is the name of the game!  Before I even get to the actual digitization part there is all the preparation to do.  Fixing old splices and replacing them with archival grade splicing tape, changing or putting new leader on, getting it from a tailout position to headout, which I run at 15 ips (no FF or RW here!), checking tape type, does it need baking, is it acetate tape (if you hold it up to the light and you can see through it then it is acetate and NEVER bake it!).  Also I check the box and any slugs (announcer sheets) for acid content, analogue tape deteriorates more in high acid content containers.

When we get to the actual preservation part we record it flat at 96kHz/24bit NO FRILLS!  We don't fiddle around with EQ or de-hiss or anything at this point.  The only time we use the 'fun' toys is when a client wants it.  The reason for recording it flat is so in the future the next person won't have to try and figure out what we added and we want to leave a 'fingerprint', if you like.  We also document everything we do and note this in a database - tape type, speed, thickness, machines, software, splices, baked, styli, everything.

I have at my fingertips 6 x Studer B67's (one I have adapted as my Isopropyl Drip Machine, Richard Hess has the story and some pictures on his site) and 4 x Studer A807's, plus we have about 10 x Otari MX50-50's, some that have been specially by the RNZ tech's.  In storage we have a few gems, but I'll let you in on that at a later date ;-)  For cassettes we use Tascam 122 MkII and III i think.  We just managed to get 10 more so we can mass digitise the cassettes, we need to move as fast as we can to save our broadcasting heritage.   

We use Quadriga and Wavelab.....I could go on!

Cheers
Marie

10

Prerecorded Tapes / Re: Tails Out ?

« on: August 06, 2008, 05:04:24 PM »

I admit it, I do like the pointy tip of the Ronsonal can!  Even though there are 40 million sheep in New Zealand and 4 million of them think they're human we can actually buy Ronsonal here at the supermarket! 

Cheers :-)

11

Raw Tape / Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master

« on: August 06, 2008, 03:55:50 PM »

We store our collections here at 18 degrees celsius with a maximum of about 50-55% of relative humidity.  For storage in a home I would find a dry cupboard  that doesn't have fluctuations in temperature, so NOT in the attic or basement (unless you know the basement is dry and won't flood).

I have not personally used a food dehydrator but I know people who do and have great success, so as a cheap option I would say, go for it! 

I have seen tapes in all kinds of conditions especially when I was in LA.  Tape covered in cow dung (they were stored in the barn!), cat pee and vomit!  Plus, I was in Hurricane Katrina when I lived in MS and we had to salvage tapes from Biloxi that were submerged in water contaminated with sewage, dead shrimp, etc.  The smell was BAD!

12

Prerecorded Tapes / Re: Tails Out ?

« on: August 06, 2008, 03:18:06 AM »

As a rule, I never fast forward or rewind anything.  At the most with a tailout stored tape, I will play it through at 15ips to get it to headout,  with pellon over the heads to save wear and tear.  Studer parts are hard to come by :-)  If there are any splices I replace them as I go.  The method is this -
1) Ronsonol Lighter Fluid with Naptha. (I found it at selected tobacconists in the US when I lived there).
2) With a Q stick, put fluid on cotton. 
3) Remove old splice with a de-magnetised razor blade - it gets easy after a while :-)
4) Remove old glue with Q stick with fluid.
5) Check at least both sides of reel for remnants of other old glue, you usually can hear it as it is about to get to playback head, or even see it.
6) Remove that also with fluid.
7) Replace the splices with archival grade splicing tape, light blue and really press it in ans it doesn't want to stick that much, hence- archival!
8) After 109 splices in one 10.5 inch reel take a break and consider yourself a hero :-)
9) Ready for transfer at 96kHz/24bit (archival standard IASA TC-04).
Good luck!
Cheers
Marie

13

Raw Tape / Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master

« on: August 06, 2008, 01:41:26 AM »

Hi Steve

I believe in sharing as much info as possible as there aren't many of us around!  Our collections are on all formats, from wax cylinders to digital.  Our open reel tape collections range from 3" to 10.5 inch, plus cassette.  Given that, we have about 50,000 hours of analogue tape with more accessions coming in all the time (my figures are rough as I am at home and don't have the stats nearby). It gives me more than my lifetime of preservation work.  I really love the challenge of preserving something that others say can't be saved.  There are techniques I use which are perhaps, not the norm, such as my isopropyl drip machine, but at the end of the day I get results.

Feel free to ask me any questions and if I don't know the answer, I'll find it or invent something ;-)
Cheers
Marie 

14

Raw Tape / Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master

« on: August 05, 2008, 09:57:15 PM »

Hi Charles
Are you saying you purchased some moldy tapes?  Do they have any audio on them?  If there is no audio on them then, in my opinion for what it's worth, I would ditch them and keep the reels, especially if they are 10.5inch metal reels.  If there is valuable audio on them there are a few steps you must take.  Wear a mask and gloves, mold is hazardous to health.  This is one method I have used -
1) Keep these tapes away from any other tapes.
2) Don't play them on any machine that non-moldy tapes will be played on.
3) Remove the metal flange and carefully soak in some Hydrogen Peroxide (the flange, that is!)
4) Lightly vaccum with a Hepa cleaner the first side of the pancake.
5) Lightly soak a cotton ball with Hydrogen Peroxide or Isopropyl Alcohol (more than 91% pure) and lightly wipe the tape edges in a circular motion.
6) Repeat this on the other side.  You will have to use a spare reel whilst the moldy one is being treated.
7) Using a dedicated machine, cover the heads with pellon and run the tape through this, fixing any splices as you go. (you may need to take the machine out and away from other equipment, like in the garage).
8) This tape will require baking, the longer and slower, the better.
9) Put back onto original cleaned reel, ready for transfer.
Hope this helps a bit.

15

Raw Tape / Re: Ampex GM3600 Grand Master

« on: August 05, 2008, 07:28:41 PM »

Unfortuately this tape, as mentioned, is very prone to SSS (Sticky Shed Syndrome).  I think it is also only 1 mil thick making it not desirable for long term storage making it very prone to print-through.  1.5 mil is a professional standard, and remember to store it tailout.  Ampex 456 is particularly prone to SSS as is Agfa PEM 469.  I would recommend that you steer clear of these if you spot them for sale as you are in for disappointment, not to mention wear and tear on your valuable heads.  RMGI  (EMTEC/ BASF) is good tape stock, the extra money is worth it in the long run.

Cheers
Marie