[Hidden-tech] audio cassette to mp3 or flac

[Will Loving]

You might want to go through and pick out your favorites to have digitized
now. There is a long-standing issue with the binder that holds the oxide to
the acetate base. Depending on the formulation, individual batch and age,
some binder goes bad in as little as a year while other tapes will last
decades. This is true regardless of the  brand or purported quality of the
tape at purchase time. When the binder fails, the oxide literally falls off
the backing or is scraped off by the tape heads as the tape passes by. My
father, who was an executive for Ampex in the late 50s and early 60s, said
they used to refer to some of it as Œjunk¹.

If you play an old tape and you hear a squealing sound, that¹s a possible
sign that the binder is bad and the oxide is being scraped off. There¹s is a
short term method of dealing with this which involves baking the tapes in an
oven at a very low temperature for about an hour. It will temporarily renew
the binder for about a month during which you can digitize the recording.
The Library of Congress has a team that deal¹s with this issue as does NPR
which has and enormous archive of tape recordings, a significant number of
which have had binder failure.

Here¹s an article on the Œbaking¹ method to temporarily restore tapes. It
indicates that the issue started in the 70s, and maybe there was a large
influx of badly formulated binder at that time,  but my father would tell
you that it has always been around.
http://www.audio-restoration.com/baking.php

Will

Will Loving, President
Dedication Technologies, Inc.


on 9/10/10 4:45 PM, Tom Adams ~ Reelife Productions & Folktography at
tomadams at gmail.com wrote:

>    ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>    ** If you did, we all thank you.
> 
> 
> 
> darn it. $8/cassette x 600 cassettes (collecting dust on my shelves) = $4800. 
> (until someone can get a robot to do it...i think the dust is going to pile a
> lot higher)
> 
> 
> 
> Regards, 
> 
> 
> 
> Tom Adams
> 
> 413.575.9707
> 
> Williamsburg, MA
> 
> Director/Owner
> 
> Reelife Productions <http://www.reelifeproductions.com/>
> 
> € cool digital media stuff €
> 
> € using technology to educate, entertain & enlighten since 1996 €
> 
> Folktography by Tom <http://www.folktographybytom.com/>
> 
> Tom's other Links <http://web.me.com/ReelifeProductions>
> 
> 
> On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 1:56 PM, Kiernan G-S <greenearthcomputer at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>    ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>>    ** If you did, we all thank you.
>> 
>> 
>> Matt,
>> 
>> I send all my business of this sort to some great local folks in
>> Florence  (your neighbors I guess).
>> 
>> Check out Memory Magic.
>> Fellow to talk to over there that I know is Bob Hannum.
>> 
>> Contact info:
>> Memory Magic
>> 15-17 North Maple Street
>> Florence, MA 01062
>> 413.582.5627
>> http://PreserveYourMemories.org
>> bobowill at comcast.net
>> 
>> Memory Magic guarantees lowest price, and they give some pretty
>> fantastic discounts for quantity.
>> 
>> I believe Bob is out of town for the weekend, but I am sure they can
>> help you out regardless.
>> 
>> Good luck!
>> ~Kiernan
>> 
>> Head Technician - Green Earth Computers
>> www.greenearthcomputers.us <http://www.greenearthcomputers.us>
>> greenearthcomputer at gmail.com
>> 413-282-TECH
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 11:39 AM, Matt Lampiasi <mattl at florenceit.net> wrote:
>>> >   ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>>> >   ** If you did, we all thank you.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Anyone out there doing this reasonably priced? Ive done a few myself but
>>> its seriously time consuming. I want to get rid of all these cassettes after
>>> ripping the best ones to 320kbps mp3.
>>> >
>>> > I would likely have a few dozen ripped if priced right. maybe up to 50 or
>>> 100 tapes. many are live, so autosplit software might not work so great -
>>> the ones ive tried couldnt handle it.
>>> >
>>> > also once im done ill have a couple hundred grateful dead shows, and a
>>> similar number of varied artists (60's, 70's,80's and 90's rock and jazz,
>>> mostly rock) on cassette available for free if anyone's interested.
>>> >
>>> > this does not need to be audiophile or professional grade. line out to
>>> line in with a good quality clean cassette deck and sheilded cables is
>>> completely good enough as long as i can get separate mp3's for each song and
>>> basic mp3 folder naming of artist/album.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > Thank you,
>>> >
>>> > Matt Lampiasi
>>> > Florence I.T. -    413-584-3239
>>> > I.T. Solutions:       florenceit.net <http://florenceit.net>
>>> > Hosting Solutions:florenceit.biz <http://florenceit.biz>
>>> > twitter -   newsletter -   linkedIn
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-- 

William M. Loving
Dedication Technologies, Inc.
7 Coach Lane
Amherst, MA 01002-3304   USA
will at dedicationtechnologies.com
Tel: +1 413 253-7223   (GMT ­5)
Fax: +1 206 202-0476

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