Reel 2 Reel - bottomless pit of faff, expense and hisssssssss

Well, …yes, suppose I am really.
Still think they’re shite though.:roll_eyes:

With each of these tapes I tend to stick a meter of leader tape on either end to make sure that starting & stopping isn’t too stressful for the potentially fragile 50 year old tape.

Needs a device for splicing, some leader tape, splicing tape (blue) a razor blade & perhaps some scissors

Tapes are clamped in the splicer & a diagonal cut is made across with the razor blade. The splicing block has a groove for the blade to follow.

A piece of the blue splicing tape is stuck across the join (usually more accurately than this drink assisted effort.)

Job done.

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A job on Blue Peter awaits.

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Why diagonal ?

I need to do this, I’ve got many tapes without leader tape.

I don’t really know what the reasoning is. At either end (where there’s typically no signal) it isn’t really critical. You aren’t exactly trying to make an inaudible, neat edit. It really is just to prevent the tape deck’s mechanics from shocking/breaking the tape on start up or when it runs out.

The splicer does also have a groove for neatly cutting across perpendicularly if you did want or need to do that kind of edit.

I’m guessing that the stresses on the joining tape whilst playing are over a larger area than if the magnetic tape had been cut across the shortest distance.

I might be talking bollocks though.

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I’ve copied all my collection onto wax cylinders for simplicity and ease of use.

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If it ain’t complicated and a massive faff, it ain’t HiFi.

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Moar correcterer

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Yep, even a simple one-source streaming computer audio system can go digital active and regain all the palaver that you left behind!

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can I splice some virtual leader tape to my FLAC files to prevent damage when they enter my DAC?

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:flushed: :heart_eyes:

:grimacing:

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How did they transfer of the master tape onto pre recorded tapes. I assume they had say fifty or so recorders on the go and upped the speeds? If so I wonder what standard they used for quality control as the master tape would wear rapidly compared to vinyl production. Or did they create the tape equivalent of a stamper etc.

I suspect there’d also have been further fiddling to make it into something a record lathe could cut (particularly at LF). Where I have like for like records & tapes the tape is usually much more dynamic (particularly noticeable on 7.5 ips classical)

Audio engineering summed up perfectly in one word :laughing:

Can’t stand Genesis so don’t mind missing out on this one…

I enjoyed listening to that album last week (although I wouldn’t want to make a habit of it) but I would like to hear the tape. There are some very complex arrangements particularly on the first side. Too much money though.