Help for old reel-to-reel tape deck?

[Merryband1]

Cool, Ern! If I still lived in San Diego, I'd carry it straight up there to LA! I think a lot of my tapes are Radio Shack. Can't recall if we have any Ampex tapes left (although I think we have a few from the cassette era). One was a Shamrock. Ummm. Audio Magnetics... Can't remember without going and looking at the boxes.

Anyway, about the tapes, and Michael's advice to put them on metal reels and bake them gently overnight: I think storing them in the attic for a couple of years may have saved ours. I thought it probably ruined them, but instead, it seems to have baked the coating on quite nicely!

My machine won't do 15 ips, so I'm still hoping our music director can get me one of his old ones from the radio station. That would be totally awesome. Of course, I'll have to get serious about creating some real studio room. Having all that equipment in the living room isn't cutting it any more!

Merry

[Len911]

[quote]I'll have to get serious about creating some real studio room. Having all that equipment in the living room isn't cutting it any more! [quote]

It's actually probably the best room in the house for recording!

[Tunesmith]

I love R2R. I have a TEAC 1040S 4 track and Fostex 8 track that I did tons of recording on in the 79's and 80's. I ran a small studio and recorded others. I mixed down in those days to a Sylvania stereo 8 head VHS using the audio section. I have a Teac half track now..I did use AMEX 456 on the 8 track and never had that problem..but I was always cleaning and de-magging. I actually am about to sign a publishing deal resulting from a forward thru TAXI for vintage recorded songs.

Right now I am in the process of upgrading to a software DAW as I have been using a Roland VS1680 with an Atari ST running the midi.

I agree about the warm sound..those fat 4 track tapes sound so good!!!!

"I'm just sitting here watching the reels go round and round..oh how I love to watch them roll!"

Best,
Linda C

[Merryband1]

Len, you could be right about the living room being the best room in the house for recording.

Linda, huge congratulations on the publishing deal for your vintage music!!!!! That's wonderful! Be sure to post where the music gets used, so I can look for it!

I did clean the heads on this one, but I didn't degauss it, because since we moved, I have no idea where a lot of our gear went. Could have been lost in the move, I guess. When I find the degausser, I'll do that. (If I even remember how...!)

There are a lot of good DAWs out there. I just upgraded mine. I was using Sony ACID 5.0. Sony sold their creative software department to Magix in Germany, so my new ACID 10.0 is labeled Magix. I ordered it from Amazon.com, along with Robin Frederick's book on songwriting for Film & TV. I'm having to get used to the differences, but it's basically the same program, and all the old tracks work fine, so I'm happy. Once it's saved to the new version, I won't be able to edit it with the older version, but I'm going to be removing 5.0 from the laptop and installing it in the tower that still runs Windows XP, where it should work just fine. Or, just remove it. Either way, I'm happy with the upgrade. I know other TAXI members use other DAWs, but ACID and SoundForge are the only ones with which I have any real experience. I did have what Magix had years ago, but never had much luck with it. I was afraid that they'd change the software once they got hold of the Sony creative software, but I'm very pleased with the results.

Merry