Re: [ARSCLIST] revisiting tape bakers

[Bob Olhsson <olh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
>From Tom Fine: "...Baking works, tapes that could not be played before
baking play after baking. Material can be 
transferred. That, to me, say all that needs to be said..."


I've baked dozens of masters and many hundreds of tapes in a sound effects
library including several of my own master tape copies three or four times
with no problems other than needing to redo splices before I learned about
using a food dehydrator instead of a convection oven. The tapes I baked
several times over the course of 15 years had a complete set of tones which
measured perfectly, showed no abnormal print levels and no audible
degradation compared to the earlier digital transfers.

My understanding of why Ampex patented baking was so that somebody else
couldn't patent it and then charge anything they wanted for the restoration
process which Ampex might ultimately need to pay in lawsuits from tape
customers.

The whole adventure demonstrates the utter folly of archival testing because
these defective tapes all passed such tests with flying colors. There's
simply no predicting the stability of complex media chemistry. What worries
me is that we in audio are the canaries in the mine, historically the first
to use magnetic media. Trust in both magnetic and optical media is seriously
misplaced because both are ticking time bombs due to their potential for
unexpected long term chemical instability.
	

Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
615.385.8051 http://www.hyperback.com    http://www.thewombforums.com