Baking tapes?

tjcasey1 · Post by **tjcasey1** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 2:49 pm

No, not backing tapes, baking tapes.

My friend opened up some old masters, put them on the reel to reel, and they started falling apart.

He had mentioned baking the tapes and I told him he needed to ask you all for referrals to people who bake or otherwise restore/transfer tapes. (I pointed out that trying to bake it himself would be problematic, especially on plastic reels!).

Anyone know of anybody?

DrummerMan · Post by **DrummerMan** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 5:14 pm

http://www.sonicraft.com/

Super nice guy. Super professional.

drumsound · Post by **drumsound** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 8:14 pm

I'm about to get a dehydrator to do some tape restoration.

http://www.tangible-technology.com/tape/baking1.html

WillMorgan · Post by **WillMorgan** » Mon Jul 07, 2014 4:18 pm

EDIT *More* EDIT background on the dehydrator approach...

http://www.endino.com/archive/arch9-2.html

tjcasey1 · Post by **tjcasey1** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 3:40 am

Thanks all.

He's now looking at a closet full of tape and a very small budget. He probably doesn't even have enough time to do it all.

Some things go away permanently. He mentioned that at least digital files won't degrade with time. I mentioned that they won't degrade, but god help you if the industry abandons a file type and it happens to be yours (and you find out that it was abandoned five years ago) .....

Gregg Juke · Post by **Gregg Juke** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 5:38 am

Actually, they do. He should make sure that he has multiple copies/sources, and a hard-copy CD or two...

GJ

Seej · Post by **Seej** » Sun Feb 15, 2015 1:53 pm

Wendy Carlos had the same problem a few years back. Luckily she was able to recover the tapes in time for a quick A/D transfer for a remaster using the baking method. A very interesting read.

http://www.wendycarlos.com/newsold.html#baketape

drumsound · Post by **drumsound** » Sun Feb 15, 2015 9:10 pm

Always keep in mind that baking is temporary. You back and make the tape playable and TRANSFER it to digital, or even another analog medium if you choose, just don't wait too long.

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Baking tapes?

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