Re: [ARSCLIST] audio reel to reel - how bad is bad - or is this pre-cupping?

[Michael Biel <mbiel@xxxxxxxxx>]

Richard L. Hess wrote:
>  As Lou pointed out, acetate and polyester tape will behave 
> differently. This is usually more prevalent on acetate tape than 
> polyester--at least that's where I've seen it.

Of course there is the assumption that the mewbies know how to tell the 
difference between the two types.  Hold the reel up sideways to the 
light and generally there will be light glowing thru acetete tape but 
not thru mylar/polyester.   Sometimes you might even discover that the 
reel has both types intermixed. 
> Here are some winding articles from my blog...

Perhaps you might help out and put up a page illustrating this.

> Also, if the tapes are full-track mono, playing them with a full-track 
> head can work wonders -- it's a good rule to always match the head to 
> the tape.
>
> Also, here is a page discussing matching tracks to heads -- this is 
> the specific case of the very popular substitution of a DIN head for 
> an NAB head in two-track stereo.
Actually, I interpret your pages to indicate that it is good to compare 
the tape on several different type heads if you have them available.  
Damaged full track tape presents certain alignment problems that can 
often be solved by NOT playing it with a full track head.  When the tape 
has deformed even slightly it can present an uneven or irregular pattern 
that will cause phasing that can not be cured by any head azimuith 
adjustments to a head reading the entire width of the tape. A narrow 
track head might be better able to find a place on the tape where it can 
be aligned to -- and sometimes this will change during the reel. 


> Gettnig back to the effect of the possible damage, while the physical 
> damage certainly has a role to play, the "how bad is it" is as much -- 
> or more -- a factor of the recording speed and the track width. This 
> is crucial. A full-track 15 in/s tape that will play fine with a 
> certain amount of damage would be rather unlistenable at 3.75 in/s 
> quarter track, for example.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard

Right!  But what you got is what you got!

Mike Biel  mbiel@xxxxxxxxx


> At 07:15 PM 2009-02-09, Frances, Melodie wrote:
> > All,
> >
> > Forgive my newbie-ness but I am looking at a collection of reel-to-reel
> > audio tapes that we have and I have noticed that some of them have what
> > I would describe as kind of 'pre' cupping - that is, they aren't
> > drastically curved and don't look like pictures of real cupping that I
> > have seen, but they are a little bit curved, and when I look through the
> > clear plastic reel, the outer 1/8 - 1/4 of an inch looks different from
> > the rest of the tape - like it is not lying quite as flat.
> >
> > SO - how bad is this? Is there a word for this? I have looked around on
> > the web but mostly found stuff about true cupping.