Re: [ARSCLIST] Some advice on cassette decks?

[Craig Breaden <breaden@xxxxxxx>]

Tom, Parker, all,

Thanks for the detailed responses.  They are very greatly appreciated,
particularly since it's my first time posting to the list after monitoring
it for the last year.

Regarding the content of my cassettes, it is all material related in one way
or another to politics (and given we're in Georgia, much of it is civil
rights related), and except for some dubs of campaign songs, it is all
spoken word.  The cassettes come from a variety of places, from the Georgia
General Assembly to home recordings to user dubs made by my archive in the
70s that in some cases are in better shape than the original reels, to oral
histories made in-house. There is a great variety.

I've been given a budget to create what I believe is a good signal path for
a digital transfer program that also includes reels.  From my analogue
sources I'll be balancing unbalanced signals through an impedance interface,
sending from there to a switcher, with one (variable) out to monitors and
one (fixed) to my A/D converter.  I plan to capture at 96/24 .wav, with a
three-tiered backup system that includes Mitsui Gold DVD (as a copy master),
external hard drive, and LTO tape.  Listening copies will be rendered to
gold cd directly following transfer.  This is what is viable within our
budget, and yes, all original tapes will be rehoused and cleaned as
necessary.  If you see any missing pieces, I'd appreciate a heads up.

Thanks again,

Craig

Craig Breaden
Media Assets Archivist
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Main Library
The University of Georgia
Athens, GA  30602-1641
706-542-5782 (phone)
706-542-4144 (fax)
www.libs.uga.edu/russell/russell.html


-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tom Fine
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 9:30 PM
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Some advice on cassette decks?

If money is no object, Richard and Parker are advocating as close to perfect
systems as you can get for cassettes. I'm talking more real-world where
money is tight, the pile of cassettes is high and we make choices based on
the original material. I'll stick to my guns on one point -- a little
azimuth drift vs. the original recorder will make zero to very little
audible difference in a near-untelligable poor recording of, for instance,
an interview. You're going to have to employ many tools to get usable audio,
most of them EQ and dynamics filtering. So you might want to make sure
there's budget for an excellent chain beyond the cassette player (and, in my
experience, it's usually somewhat costly analog tools that solve the problem
better than digi-plugins which tend to leave audio-degrading artifacts).
But, as I said, bottom-dweller cassette machines and beat-to-hell junkers
found on ebay are a wrong choice, too. As usual, I advocate a cost-effective
middle road.

I don't recommend Nak decks now because you can't buy a new one. If you find
an absolutely trustworthy reseller of restored/calibrated/aligned decks,
well OK but you still takes your chances vs. an iron-clad manufacturer's
warranty. One argument for that costly but very full-featured deck that
Parker recommended is that the company seems to have a profitable niche. I
could see Tascam, for instance, abandoning cassettes (although Teac keeps
parts around for a very long time -- I just bought a new belt for an
original 122 and two years ago was still able to buy a record head for a
circa 1975 4-track reel to reel deck, both from Teac Parts in California).
Cassettes are a submerging medium, sinking fast. So all that will be left
for a for-profit company soon will be the transfer/restoration niche.

But, bottom line, we still don't know what the content in question is, the
original thread question. 
If it's high-quality music recordings, perhaps musical performances from a
music school or visiting professional musicians, I'd lean more toward the
no-expense-too-much quality level because you're going to need to squeeze
out every ounce of good that landed on those little tapes to end up with
something that stands up in the high-rez digi-world. But if it's something
like lectures, public speakers, interviews, etc, I'd weigh budgetary
concerns and consider just how much the Tiffany solution is liable to
improve usability and audibility. Keeping a conservative budget usually
means more content can be made more widely available or preserved, which is
the end goal after all.

-- Tom Fine


----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 7:58 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Some advice on cassette decks?


> At 02:55 PM 8/31/2006, Tom Fine wrote:
>
>>I think these questions will decide your cassette deck. I will argue that
you do not need an 
>>audiophile/azimuth-adjusting deck like a Nak Dragon if you have a bunch of
recorded spoken-word 
>>tapes that were made on decent equipment. A little azimuth drift will not
have nearly the bearing 
>>audibility as the original recording technique (ie a built-in mic on a
boomy table just won't 
>>yield a very good recording, whereas a feed off a decent lecturn mic will
be audible whether or 
>>not there's a little azimuth misalignment).
>
> Except...the closer the tape is to unintelligible, the less you want to
risk adding any additional 
> distortions during the transfer project.
>
>>Finally, what are your input parameters? Do you have a balanced pro-level
system? If so, you'll 
>>probably want a balanced-output/+4 nominal level cassette machine.
>
> Aphex 124 and other Balance Boxes are available fairly inexpensively. I'd
select cassette deck 
> independent of this parameter (he says with four Aphex 124s wired to his
jackfield, along with 
> four Dragons.
>
> I think Parker's reference for Dragons is a good one - I bought most of
mine via ePay and one via 
> the Nak lists. My only negative on eBay was a retaliatory one over my
giving the seller a neutral 
> on the second Dragon. Dragon 3 was via eBay and Dragon 4 came from the
same seller. One of those 
> needed the pressure roller arms relubricated (goo, arms didn't move).
Dragon 5 came as a swap (via 
> eBay but refurb'd) for a Studer A807, Dragon 6 came from the Nak list as I
was planning on driving 
> right by the guy's house.
>
> Dragons #1 & #2 (and #5) were refurb'd by TAP electronics in So. Calif -
#1 before it was put on 
> eBay, #2 at my expense (making an $800 machine cost $1350), #5 at the
buyer's expense -- before 
> the swap. I had #4 done here at a service depot that has some great
people. #6 had been refurb'd 
> before the sale by someone else. #3 worked fine out of the box (as did #1,
#5, and #6 when I got 
> it) Only #2 and #4 needed work when I got it. While I was fussing with #2
-- 
> which actually received a whole new mechanism -- I found that TAP had
another all new mechanism 
> which I purchased at that time, to be safe, so I have 6.5 Dragons, really.
>
> I also have an MR-1 which is good, but you can tell the loss of the
azimuth control.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard
>
> Richard L. Hess                   email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Aurora, Ontario, Canada       (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
> Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
> Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.