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Re: [ARSCLIST] Risk assessment tool--off brands
I tried sending this last week, but the university had changed our posting
addresses from a dot after the initial to a dash. Changing the list
subscription might solve the problem, so let's have another go at it.
One addition to what I wrote last Friday is the confirmation of one recent
poster's feelings that Newark Electronic's tapes were from AudioDevices. That
was my recollection also. The ones I remember had a red sticker tab with no
writing, and that fits the description I gave below.
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Funny the list should be discussing this right now, because last Tuesday I was
about to post about what had happened to me that afternoon. I had been playing
back materials in an archive collection that contains lacquer discs, films,
and
tapes, mostly recorded by profession air-check studios in the 50s and 60s.
Most seem to have survived quite well except two Transco discs which have
leached badly but will clean up nicely. I threaded up a 5-inch reel that
contained about 100-feet with a badly recorded excerpt from the 1956 EMMY award
program. 3-3/4 IPS home recording. About a minute into the tape I looked away
for a few seconds and suddenly my daughter frantically told me to look at the
machine. The oxide was peeling off in long strips leaving clear base. As I
hand-wound the reel back, some oxide was O.K. but some was loose from the base
but had stayed with it, and some was showing little spikes starting to peel at
the edge because the tape was no longer the curved shape it had been in for the
past 49 years. The oxide that had left the base was staying together in the
shape of the tape. Could probably take regular adhesive scotch tape and
reattach the oxide to it if we REALLY needed to play it. Since none of the
tapes in the collection are in original manufacturer boxes, there's no telling
where the other 1100-feet are--if that's all there was.
A few months ago Max Schmid of WBAI told me about some of the earliest Jean
Shepherd programs from that same mid-50s era which were trapped on tapes which
would do the same thing I just described. I thought he was crazy, but now I'm
a believer. Max replied to my question about the tapes that they were no-name
tapes from some music store with no identification other than perhaps a rubber
stamp.
Earlier postings mentioned specific brands, but remember, the boxes might not
correctly identify what the actual tape inside it is. Kodak, of course, did
back-print their brand info onto the tape like some European companies, so we
can at least know for sure when we run across a reel of that crap. In addition
to all that has been mentioned about Kodak tape, just about every reel of it
that I have come across in the past couple of years (three reels) smell of
vinegar. So beware!!! (East German Orwo tape is also prone to vinegar
syndrome.)
Early on in my career I made a point of sticking the tape reel label onto the
inside cover of the tape box. This is partially helpful when I look at
whitebox tapes in my own collection. Those from the Irish/Ampex Opelika
Alabama plant usually have three numbers in different shaded boxes on the tabs.
The first digit is Ampex's series quality number, and in whitebox is always
zero. The second digit is the thickness indicator. So 031 is 1 1/2 mil, 041
is 1 mil, and 051 is (heaven forbid) 1/2 mil. Concertape, Emerald, Shamrock,
Irish -- it was all the same, except it was all different. In the early 70s
when I was still in the Chicago area I used to go to Olson Electronics main
warehouse and was allowed to go thru their factory cartons of 50 reels Shamrock
and look at each reel and select which ones I wanted as long as I eventually
bought 50. Of course I always selected the backcoated black oxide.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEECH!!!!! In every carton of 50 there were always three other
types: black oxide non-backcoated, brown oxide non-backcoated, and brown oxide
grey graphite-lubricated backcoated for continuous loop cartridges like
Fidelipac and 8-track. The ones I have of these three types are still just
fine. And I was making sure I DIDN'T get those! In Radio Shack stores the
Concertape boxes were shrinkwrapped so you got what you got. Opening the boxes
was like scratching off the numbers on a lottery card. That's why I started to
go to Olsen because their Shamrock was not shrinkwrapped. I thought I was
winning the lottery.
I also found that whitebox tapes which had a solid red or blue tab with no
printing were from the AudioDevices factory. Someone mentioned AudioTape type
51 as being their favorite. In the early 60s it was my favorite also, and I
used a lot of reels of 1251. But about 15 years ago one of the instructors in
the music department had a carton of a dozen ancient reels of 1/2-inch 51 type
on 10 1/2 inch reels and gave them to one of my students. One day I walked
into our recording studio and found our Otari 8-channel deck powdered all over
with brown dust. We were using Ampex 456 then (YIKES!!) so where did this
brown oxide come from? When the culpret fessed up I told him that although I
had loved the stuff 30 years earlier, it had to be outlawed from our machine.
I then checked a few of my reels at home -- 1/4 inch, of course -- and these
seemed to still be fine. So I don't know what happeded to those 1/2-inch
reels. By the way, remember that AudioTape was practically the only tape that
came in a plastic bag inside the box.
I have some reels of 2400' 1/2 mil acetate (!!) tape from Ross Radio stores in
Chicago (later taken over by Rose Records) which later absorbed so much
moisture in my basement that the tape pack dished so much that they cracked the
reel flanges! I had a free carton of these and had used them for my Apollo 11
overnight recordings -- and in two weeks they wore out the heads of my machine
even at the slow speed of 1 7/8. (Long tape, slow speed, only had to wake up
every 4 hours, not much happened overnight on the moon anyway.)
Whose life were these tapes guaranteed for, anyway?
Mike Biel m.biel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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