Re: [ARSCLIST] Distance between staggered heads

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

At 02:35 PM 2007-12-31, Mwcpc6@xxxxxxx wrote:
> One format that has always puzzled me was the early Brush Soundmirrors that
> used a half track positioned in the middle of the tape. Was the idea 
> to reduce
>  the effects of poor tape guiding at the expense of fringe effects?

I'm not sure why it was thought up that way. I did mention it in my 
response to Scott's message prior to seeing your message. I actually 
used my 3-track NAB-cartridge head that I used for the Mullin/Cara 
recording to grab it, but I should have mis-aligned the wider-MaxTrax 
head to grab the precise centre (it's close, but not dead-on.

> A side effect of this is that when exploring a batch of paper based tape
> that had been reused on half track machines, I was able to recover 
> the original
> recordings, mostly McCarthy-Army hearings and radio dramas, by positioning a
> quarter track head to read between the two newer tracks.
>
> How often do archivists check for residual recordings of this kind on tapes
> of this vintage? There could be interesting stuff there.

Hi, Mike,

This type of exploration is fascinating and congratulations for 
finding it. I do come across this type of thing once in a while, but 
most of the time it's not all that interesting.

I think this is one instance where the magnetic viewer is a real plus.
http://richardhess.com/notes/2007/06/20/seeing-the-tracks-ii-an-improved-magnetic-viewing-system/

Usually it happens when you least expect it, and it doesn't happen 
when you hope it might save something.

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.