Reel to reel tape recorder

Ainsley1

Anybody know if it is possible to hire (or even borrow) one of these machines?

I have several 1/4" tapes that I would like to transcribe onto CD. I had thought of buying a used machine but all the decent (and working ones) are such a high price on sites such as ebay that I could not justify the spend.

It seems that as they are old they seem to be' vintage' and 'collectors items' so the price rockets even though the audio quality is not a patch on a CD or other digital methods- all that wow/flutter/distortion/noise.......the risk of buying something with poor quality reproduction is great and I guess many sellers do not know how good or bad they are given the comments about cosmetics and little about performance!

marleyboy

Still love my old Reel2Reel (now at my Brothers house), back in the days we would experiment with an array of mixers,keyboards, samplers etc. All of which we would hook into the reel2reel to add an authentic echo or reverb. Something a digital audio device could not replicate.

They are pretty difficult to find nowadays, but you might find the odd one in second hand music stores.

phoneguy

These folk: http://www.taperecorder.co.uk/

Used to rent out Revox - may be worth asking if they still do it.

Rodders53

You can find people that will do this for you - but it may not be cheap. Google is your friend.

Reel to reel tapes can and do have all sorts of problems if not stored correctly (and sometimes even if you do store them right!).

googler

How much do you want to spend on the project, and how many tapes to be done?

Mr_Toad

Ainsley1 wrote: »

Anybody know if it is possible to hire (or even borrow) one of these machines?

I have several 1/4" tapes that I would like to transcribe onto CD. I had thought of buying a used machine but all the decent (and working ones) are such a high price on sites such as ebay that I could not justify the spend.

It seems that as they are old they seem to be' vintage' and 'collectors items' so the price rockets even though the audio quality is not a patch on a CD or other digital methods- all that wow/flutter/distortion/noise.......the risk of buying something with poor quality reproduction is great and I guess many sellers do not know how good or bad they are given the comments about cosmetics and little about performance!

How old are the tapes and how long since they've been played?

I ask because my Dad has a B&O reel to reel that's still in perfect order. I was poking about in a cupboard looking for something or other and found a stack of tapes in boxes. They all looked to be perfect but when I put them on the machine the tracks were all blurred into each other and badly deteriorated.

I did a bit of research at the time and it's recommended that tapes are rewound a couple of times every year or so to stop them deteriorating.

I know the recorder is fine because I found an unused tape in there too. I rewound it a couple of times to sort out the tension then used it to record a CD and the sound quality was superb.

You may be lucky, the recordings might be OK but I wouldn't invest a lot of money to find out.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

HoofeHearted

That's why in the 'old days' of Mainframe Computers and reel-to-reel backup tapes, you had to frequently refresh the tapes so that the backups would still work.

getmore4less

I think I have one(part of the stuff collected from dads loft) if local enough could be borrowed,

pm rough location if interested, if local enough I can dig it out to see if it works it's down the list of things getting sorted ATM.

chances are it needs, refurb(belts?)

Ainsley1

Thanks for the help guys.

Yes I expect a lot of print through as they have been poorly stored hence I was hoping to do the job for under £30 (but I expect it would cost more so think I might have to abandon!) so I agree with you Masonn! I forget how many tapes but probably abot 10 in various formats (mono/stereo/quarter/half track on 5" to NAB reels.)

Have now contacted http://www.taperecorder.co.uk/ thanks phoneguy.

But yes may just need to keep my eyes open in second hand stores!

Mr_Toad

Ainsley1 wrote: »

Thanks for the help guys.

Yes I expect a lot of print through as they have been poorly stored hence I was hoping to do the job for under £30 (but I expect it would cost more so think I might have to abandon!) so I agree with you Masonn! I forget how many tapes but probably abot 10 in various formats (mono/stereo/quarter/half track on 5" to NAB reels.)

Have now contacted http://www.taperecorder.co.uk/ thanks phoneguy.

But yes may just need to keep my eyes open in second hand stores!

My dad told me I could have his B&O if I wanted it but as much as I like it and fancy having it about the place I can't help feeling that it would only be a novilty.

I have CD and DVD recorders, an iPod, a DAT recorder and two Minidisc recorders!

All of them are smaller, easier to use, offer excellent if not better recording quality and whatever is recorded can be accessed randomly and instantly on all except the DAT.

googler

Ainsley1 wrote: »

Thanks for the help guys.

Yes I expect a lot of print through as they have been poorly stored hence I was hoping to do the job for under £30 (but I expect it would cost more so think I might have to abandon!) so I agree with you Masonn! I forget how many tapes but probably abot 10 in various formats (mono/stereo/quarter/half track on 5" to NAB reels.)

Have now contacted http://www.taperecorder.co.uk/ thanks phoneguy.

But yes may just need to keep my eyes open in second hand stores!

If you have a mix of half and quarter track you'll need access to two machines, as it was very rare to have both formats on one. I assume they're at various speeds too, which complicates your task even further...

If you have any Ampex brand, you may have troubles with the tape gumming up the recorder, depending on vintage - google'ampex tape baking' for more background.