Re: [ARSCLIST] Reel-to-reel tapes: storage conditions and potential content retrieval

["Steven C. Barr(x)" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Lennick" <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> The point is that AudioTape claimed that its Mylar tapes would withstand the
> heat and humidity of the jungle. If so, they did better than Guiomar Novaes'
> lacquer discs from a Town Hall concert which I attempted to transfer some
years
> ago..they were so deteriorated (humidity plus storage in an acidy record
album)
> that only about half of each side was playable.
>
> If you want to hear about a tape that shouldn't have played well at all even
> when it was new, let alone 47 years later, I found a reel of Brand Five 1-mil
> acetate when I cleaned out my parents' basement last year. On it were two
> airchecks of concert broadcasts in Toronto by Sir Thomas Beecham, recorded by
> yours truly. 3 3/4 ips, quarter track mono, these two concerts on the outer
> tracks. No twists, no curl, and they played beautifully. And that was a brand
> we were told AT THE TIME was garbage.
>
Well, the message here is (IMHO) that if we plan to have our sound
recordings preserved forever (+/-) we should revive the production
of shellac-compound phonorecords!! I have shellac discs well over
a century old, which sound no worse than they ever did...!

Since we know that magnetic tape has a finite (or,often, less)
useful life...and that CD's and DVD's will return to their
totally-blank original state in one or more decades...we need
to:

1) save all extant sound recordings in the lateral-cut shellac-
discs format...AND...

2) Develop a method of saving digital data on shellac disc...!

Steven C. Barr