Should I buy used Tape or not?

burn · Post by **burn** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 6:57 pm

I have the opportunity to buy used 1" tape for cheap (I have a 1" tape recorder) and I'm wondering if I should buy it or not.

Until now I always worked with new tape, so I need to know if there is noticeable loss of quality working with used tape, after how many recording pass a tape will have noticeable degradation?

Justin Foley · Post by **Justin Foley** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 8:00 pm

Two things.

Avoid buying tape with splices.

Avoid buying tape manufactured before 1996. J. McKnight from MRL Labs reports a significant drop in alignment tape returns due to SSS for tape manufactured post-96. The obvious conclusion is that someone figured out the solution to the problem around that time. Different brands and formulas before this date have varying degrees of reputation in terms of their stability, but I don't know much about that.

= Justin

honkyjonk · Post by **honkyjonk** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 10:59 am

Well,

Another thing to think about is you're a member of the tape community. What would be really cool is if all of us tape users bought new tape for a couple years so RMGI and ATR (if they ever get tape out. Updates?)could stay afloat.

I worry about their future, as does everyone I guess, who uses tape. On top of that, I worry about the 1" format. I have a 1" machine too, and if they narrowed down the sizes they offered, I'm sure 1" would be the first to go.

Anyway, that said, do what you gotta do. I'd say look for Quantegy after 96 but before the scare a couple years ago.

drumsound · Post by **drumsound** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 4:45 pm

I've used mostly used tape over the years. I keeps in my clients budgets much better. If the tape has been stored and treated right you should be fine. I've hd really good luck with 3M 996 from TapeTape.

burn · Post by **burn** » Tue May 01, 2007 6:46 am

I got more informations about the used tape.

It is between 10 and 15 years old and was used for 3-4 sessions. Should I stay away from that?! it is pretty cheap, 10$/reel... but if it is useless, there would be no use to buy that...

EarlSlick · Post by **EarlSlick** » Tue May 01, 2007 9:02 am

So long as the tape is in good physical condition, you can reuse it as many time as you want with no loss of quality.

Bart

jayro_rockola · Post by **jayro_rockola** » Fri May 04, 2007 10:02 am

+1 on the tapetape.com reccomendation.

eh91311 · Post by **eh91311** » Fri May 04, 2007 12:37 pm

Best way is to buy one reel of the 10 year old stuff, try it, buy more if the test reel is OK. I'd stay away from the older stuff, especially if it's Ampex.

drumsound · Post by **drumsound** » Sun May 06, 2007 9:56 am

eh91311 wrote:Best way is to buy one reel of the 10 year old stuff, try it, buy more if the test reel is OK. I'd stay away from the older stuff, especially if it's Ampex.

Great advice

jamesp · Post by **jamesp** » Wed May 09, 2007 6:14 am

burn wrote:I got more informations about the used tape.

It is between 10 and 15 years old and was used for 3-4 sessions. Should I stay away from that?! it is pretty cheap, 10$/reel... but if it is useless, there would be no use to buy that...

If it is Ampex then I'd stay away from it. Even Ampex tape that appeared to be good from the early 90's is now starting to need baking before it can be played. Ampex supposedly fixed their problems in the mid 80's but it has become apparent that they did not fix the problems properly. I'm not even sure that I would trust the newer Quantegy tapes - they're just not old enough to show problems yet but it seems likely, given the company's track record, that problems will show up in time.

For my own personal use I'm using mid 90's 3M 966 on my Otari MTR90 which seems OK so far. I haven't done a commercial session on analogue for many years.

Cheers

James.

getreel · Post by **getreel** » Thu May 10, 2007 1:51 pm

I've got tons of used tape and never had any problems. I do agree that we should support our remaining manufacturers and buy new tape sometimes at least. All the light blue logo Ampex 456 I have has been fine as has all the Quantegy 456 and GP9 I' ve bought used. I bought a lot of it here on TOMB Buy/Sell/Trade so even though I wasn't supporting the tape manufacturers, at least I was supporting TOMB members

lancebug · Post by **lancebug** » Thu May 10, 2007 6:23 pm

I've never bouhgt used tape but I've bought used tape-op before and it turned out great.

Fletcher · Post by **Fletcher** » Fri May 11, 2007 11:53 am

You should make sure that the tape you're buying used was stored in a "cool dry place". If tape is exposed to heat it breaks down the binder between the oxide and the backing... same thing with tape around 10+ years old... the binder will break down and the oxide will fall off.

You can reset the binder by baking the reels in a convection oven at 120? for like 10-12 hours... it'll buy you about 30 days [and you can bake the tape as many times as you like... the quality doesn't suffer].

Best of luck with it!!

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