Re: [ARSCLIST] Audio Material Assessment Survey

[Parker Dinkins <parker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

on 7/1/04 7:39 PM US/Central, Rick Taylor at rtaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
wrote:

> I'd love to hear from other people on this, as I'm just about to leave to do
> my third audio survey.  I realize that playing only a section of a tape and
> then fast-rewinding it can mess up the tape pack and stress the tape, but
> sometimes in a survey situation, you don't have the time or the equipment to
> do it the right way.

Properly playing unidentified 1/4" tape requires a certain minimum
expertise, together with some specific hardware resources.

It takes knowledge and equipment to properly diagnose tape speed, track
format and azimuth condition of 1/4" source material.

As Richard Hess stated, if the tape path on your player has residual
magnetism, then you could even damage the tape. Likewise, if your tape has
sticky shed syndrome, playing your tape without recuring the binder compound
risks smearing the oxide and losing high frequency response, often a
precious commodity in older tapes.

Although it's now somewhat out of date, the Sound Recordings Procedures
Manual issued by the National Archives and Records Administration (1993)
specifically recommends mounting 1/4" tape on slotless hub reels, and
further mandates specific leader tape requirements.

In the larger projects we have done with 1/4" analog source material, our
clients have asked us to work on 10% of the total tape count so they could
get a more reliable projection of total costs. Is a grant crucial to your
efforts? Not all institutions can even fund the 10% sampling effort.

But, the first step is to determine precisely what your destination
objectives are -

1) audio CD,
2) high resolution digital audio or 1/4" analog, and/or
3) MP3 for wider, distributive research purposes.

Then, based on your chosen objectives, you might contact a few service
providers, either to set you up to do the work yourself, or to outsource the
process. Most federal grants do not contemplate equipment purchases for your
use in this effort - the funding is generally directed at outsourcing these
services - but there are exceptions.

Successful public grants today increasingly stress the importance of making
material more readily available for public, research use.

These latter items are public policy issues. Professional service providers
who do this type of work pay federal and local taxes. They compete with each
other to provide the best services possible to the general public. Plus, the
funding services want to disseminate this material to a wide audience,
naturally with certain limitations.

---
Parker Dinkins
MasterDigital Corporation
CD Mastering + Audio Restoration
http://masterdigital.com
800.328.SYNC