Re: [ARSCLIST] Need help with a Revox A77 [?] in Chicago

[Paul Tyler <ptyler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have a few tapes with sticky-shed problem and knew enough to stop the minute I heard that clicking noise.  At least that's the warning signal I know about.

And I'd like to find a way to try to rescue what's on the problem tapes.  

Thanks,
Paul

Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: dumb question #4 -- are you sure none of tapes are sticky-shed and thus gumming up the works?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Lennick" 
To: 
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
>>
>