ancient tape squeak

[Michael Peters <MPeters@compuserve.com>]

Technical advice needed.

I recently dug up my ancient Revox A77 and I'm planning to salvage a number
of old tapes (some of them more than 20 years old) and copy them to DAT.
The tapes carry recordings of my first jam sessions, looping experiments,
and compositions - musically not of high value but I love them anyway of
course.

Unfortunately, some of the tapes (cheaper brands such as Shamrock and Sony)
have a tendency to rub off their coating very quickly. The effect is a very
high pitched squeaking noise which begins faintly and gets louder and
louder. The squeaking can also be heard on the recording - the music gets
modulated and distorted and is unusable.

Cleaning the tape heads and tapes helps only for a couple of minutes. The
squeaking noise comes back. Especially on long pieces (and I did a number
of very long pieces) this is very annoying.

If anyone has found a remedy for this problem, please let me know.

Michael Peters   
mpeters@compuserve.com
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mpeters

HOP - Fractals in Motion ..."the only screen saver you'll ever want"
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