Cassette Tapes

ThemeOne

Could anyone help me or point me to some help about cleaning cassette tapes please?

I have some tapes (prerecorded music) which are not playing well. In one case the tape will stop playing suddenly, yet when I wind it on manually there seems no resistance or drag in the spooling mechanism.

In two other cases the tape appears to suddenly lose speed, distorting the music and then stops. On inspecting the section of tape in one case there are dark patches visible on the tape, though in the other case it looks fine.

I'm assuming in the case of the tape with visible marks, these are the cause of the problems, but how to remove them?

I'm playing them on a Yamaha KX390 deck, which is not generally considered a bad bit of kit, though not one of the greats either.

baza52

you still play tapes lol.
Wind the tape from to start to finish then back again to make sure it is tensioned properly.
Have you tried another tape deck?

Its probably best you transfer/backup the audio to a digital format as soon as you can so you dont loose it if its important to you.

Neil_Jones

Nine times out of ten sticky tapes can be cured by as above, winding them to the end and back again.

The dark patches may be signs of the tape shedding its oxide or its binding which is pretty much terminal for these as it often means they're breaking down.

were

Some cassettes have the case sides screwed together. sometimes it is worthwhile undoing the screws sightly to lessen tape friction against the sides.

I listened to some of my tapes that i did about 40 years ago and the quality even to my now deafening ears was very bad.

another_casualty

Maybe the tape heads need cleaning and demagnetising .
Get some isopropyl alcohol from chemist and some cotton buds.
Clean the black wheel inside and heads. Best do this while pressing play button .
That will clean the cassette player. You may have done this already
Back in the day, I also had a demagnetiser , which was something plugged into the mains and pointed it at the heads of your cassette player.

As mentioned above, rewind and forward tapes before playing them .

were

Look at the picture below. When the tape comes to the end, the tape is made taught pulling up the white plastic lever to the right of the head just behind the spring, as per this pic
https://www.petervis.com/walkmans/Sanyo_M4440/Sanyo_M4440_Tape_Transport/Sanyo_M4440_Tape_Path.gif

or another view is and this is right of the head the black lever on the clear tape header https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Radiorekorder_Laufwerk_Wiedergabe_IMG_9069.JPG

the other reason, i it is not the cassette is that the drive is not spooling off and on at the same speed, and stretches the tape causing the lever to activate. Often a belt issue.

cookie365

Every time you play a cassette tape you damage it.


If it's a decent tape player no doubt it has a line out - what's stopping you from using Audacity or similar to make digital copies? You can even keep the analogue tape hiss.

googler

Don't clean the cassettes, clean the machine, as detailed above.

Fast forward and rewind before playing.

If the machine is scrupulously clean, and the tape sticks on playback, it sounds like the tape is breaking down permanently. The worst offenders in this respect are a certain vintage of Ampex tape.

esuhl

Personal tape decks (e.g. Walkman) always struggled to play old worn tapes because the tape would get "sticky" or become wound under tension, so you'd get the "wow and flutter" as the motor struggled to wind the tape.

Hi-fi decks also seemed to vary in the amount of torque they could apply. I remember our cheap all-in-one Sony "hi-fi" system -- not the best sound, but by god were those tape deck motors powerful. Fast-forwarding and re-winding a knackered cassette in that machine seemed to sort out the tension so it would play in other tape decks.

How old is your Yamaha? The "rubber bands" that connect the drive motor to the spools degrade over time and might need replacing if they've deteriorated and stretched.

As above, you want to clean the head and capstans with isopropyl alcohol. I'm sceptical about those de-magnetisation devices, though.

Heedtheadvice

Probably too late now, esuhl, but you should not be sceptical. A proper demagnetiser was worth it's weight in gold.....well almost!
All the ferrous and other magnetic materials (such as cobalt etc. ) that are in machines, over time with use get magnetised. That 'permanent' magnetism has a detrimental effect on the signals recorded on the tape producing partial erasure at each pass and thus reduced quality. Demag stops that!

Really does not make a sticky tape any better though. A couple of winds may help but in bad cases of breakdown of the binder with oxide shedding a tape can result in lots of dropouts or worse. I also agree about cleaning. A build up of oxide on the tape path increases friction (potentially further damaging the tape), causes speed issues and if on the heads reduces the high frequency response. Clean the tape path, static and moving parts and the heads as mention previously with cotton buds soaked in alcohol until cleaning shows no more residue being removed. With problematic tapes best done before and after winding prior to playing -and maybe even part way through!
Specialist companies that treat valuable tapes (but at great expense so not really MSE!) often involving very controlled heat conditions can have success in stabilising a tape but success is often dependant upon manufacturer and binding type. It is a short term fix and as written above the best action is to copy off to another medium as soon as possible.


Ah yes I remember the problems with those Ampex tapes especially the 1" ones!! I never saw the problem on the big 2" videos ones though (perhaps I was lucky!). Some 1" types were only available from them and a right pain in the derriere they were too! Ah the good old days:rotfl:

esuhl

Heedtheadvice wrote: »

Probably too late now, esuhl, but you should not be sceptical. A proper demagnetiser was worth it's weight in gold.....well almost!
All the ferrous and other magnetic materials (such as cobalt etc. ) that are in machines, over time with use get magnetised. That 'permanent' magnetism has a detrimental effect on the signals recorded on the tape producing partial erasure at each pass and thus reduced quality. Demag stops that!

But how do the demagnetisers work? How do they know the magnitude of magnetic flux affecting the tape head? How do they calculate the exact flux exposure needed to cancel any magnetic effect...?

I mean... do you remember, as a kid, making a compass by magnetising a pin or needle and floating it on water? Now imagine you have a dozen pins, some magnetised to varying degrees, some not. How are you going to use a magnet to uniformly demagnetise those pins?