dumb question #4 -- are you sure none of tapes are sticky-shed and thus
gumming up the works?
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Lennick" <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2007 12:31 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Need help with a Revox A77 [?] in Chicago
Dumb question #1: Have you cleaned the heads?
Dumb question #2: Did Herr Gefixmann replace the heads? May be just an
alignmnent problem.
Dumb question #3: Any chance that the tapes (or some of them) are
being threaded with the oxide out instead of in?
dl
Paul Tyler wrote:
Hello,
I'm hoping someone can help an electronic ignoramus. Here's the
story. I have a hundred and fifty open reel tapes I recorded twenty
five years ago that I've been trying to digitize. Most are field
recordings I made on a Nagra on loan from the American Folklife
Center or on a Revox B77 (I'm unsure of the exact model number) owned
by a then brand new public radio station in Fort Wayne. The restof
the tapes are the 26 one-hour radio shows I produced using my field
recordings. After that gig ran it's course, I was left with the
tapes and no machine. The original field recordings are in the
Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University, and what I have
are earliest copies dubbed on the ATM's Ampex decks.
Fast forward twenty years and I bought a Revox A77 on eBay and
started dubbing my field tapes in my spare time. Somewhere along the
way my preschool daughter filched a light bulb out the Revox--I don't
know what you call it but it was for a light activated shutoff. I
took the Revox to 20th Century Stereo on the north side. The elderly
European-accented proprietor ended doing $300 worth of repairs and
adjustments. This was two years ago, and I'm just now getting back
to dubbing my tapes. But they don't sound the same. I don't have
the technical vocabulary to describe the sound difference. The
clarity is gone. It sounds like my recordings have gone through some
sort of filter that distances the sound. Another description: the
loss of clarity sounds like what happens when you dub cassettes on
cheap portable decks from 1980.
Can anybody offer any help? Like what kind of words I should use if
I take it back to the old German guy. Or do you know any other good
repairman (or woman) in the Chicago area I could consult. Thank you
Paul Tyler