Re: [ARSCLIST] Leader tape

["Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:52 PM 2007-11-20, Michael Biel m.biel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> At 07:29 PM 2007-11-20, Eric Jacobs wrote:
> > FullCompass shipped me 10 reels of paper leader on October 5, 2007
>
> Although mastering studios required paper leader for tapes sent for
> disc mastering, if I remember correctly the ARSC AAA archival
> guidelines manual disapproves of paper leader for archival storage.
> Hydrolysis and expansion/contraction was the reason.  It especially
> shouldn't be used at the core.  Any AAA members here remember
> specifically?

I certainly would not use plastic leader at the core...too many reels 
have had the oxide on the first turn get pulled off onto the plastic leader.

It's a bit of being caught between a rock and a hard place. I have 
played a large quantity of tapes with paper leader and other than the 
splices failing after a baking on the paper leader, I can't recall 
any damage that I attributed to the paper, but I've seen 3M, Maxell, 
and Ampex all deposit oxide on the plastic leader. The Maxell were my 
masters which really ticked me off as it had otherwise been an almost 
perfect tape. Fortunately I had a safety and edited it together. I 
had to fix an Ampex reel with plastic leader, but I fortunately there 
was a repeat of the opening phrase a few measures in, so I copied it. 
The client was happy.

Please don't use plastic leader -- at least not the 3M stuff.

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.