Help my friend hear her mom!
November 16, 2015 6:18 PM Subscribe
Outdated-tech-filter: need help possibly restoring two micro cassette tapes. It sounds like there's just nothing on them... are they degraded? Demagnetized? Is that even a thing, and can it be fixed?
My friend has two micro cassette tapes that her mother made for her when she was a child, before her mother passed away. They were kept in a metal Altoids tin inside a wooden box for many years. Being an audio person, I told her I'd transfer the tapes to MP3 -- I was hoping to use the headphone jack in the recording to output to my computer, and clean any distortion up in Audition.
The tapes, however, don't seem to be giving much. There's an audible hiss when you press "play" -- but the exact same sound when you press play with no tape in the player. No distortion, no fuzz, nothing. Nothing extra. I'm starting to think the player itself is a lemon -- I can't get test tapes or another player til next week -- but also the tapes themselves could be the problem.
If the tapes have degraded or demagnetized would they be wiped clean? Is there anything to be done about them if they have? I really want my friend to be able to hear her mother's voice again.
My friend has two micro cassette tapes that her mother made for her when she was a child, before her mother passed away. They were kept in a metal Altoids tin inside a wooden box for many years. Being an audio person, I told her I'd transfer the tapes to MP3 -- I was hoping to use the headphone jack in the recording to output to my computer, and clean any distortion up in Audition.
The tapes, however, don't seem to be giving much. There's an audible hiss when you press "play" -- but the exact same sound when you press play with no tape in the player. No distortion, no fuzz, nothing. Nothing extra. I'm starting to think the player itself is a lemon -- I can't get test tapes or another player til next week -- but also the tapes themselves could be the problem.
If the tapes have degraded or demagnetized would they be wiped clean? Is there anything to be done about them if they have? I really want my friend to be able to hear her mother's voice again.
yeah cassettes reasonably well cared for don't degrade that much that fast. Try another player.
posted by randomkeystrike at 7:18 PM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by randomkeystrike at 7:18 PM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
I agree with the above and to be on the safe side stop trying to play them in this player.
posted by deadwax at 9:39 PM on November 16, 2015
posted by deadwax at 9:39 PM on November 16, 2015
Not so sure about micro cassettes but here's a way this could happen with the regular variety: in the central square hole at the bottom-middle where you can see the tape, there's a metal strip under the tape called the pressure pad (Wikipedia Compact Cassette article has a naming-of-the-parts diagram.) This pad pushes the tape up against the read head. And it has a small, square piece of felt glued into the center, as a cushion. Over decades, that glue can fail and the pad detaches, and the tape is no longer pushed up against the head correctly, causing a muffled playback. Not your symptom, so yeah, get a different player.
posted by Rash at 10:57 PM on November 19, 2015
posted by Rash at 10:57 PM on November 19, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
They could be completely erased by spending some time in a super-strong magnetic field or something, I suppose, but even there--and even if it were done super-thoroughly somehow--you would expect to pick up some hiss or the like.
So my money is on a defective player--seems to me to be much more likely than every last vestige of sound behind removed from the tapes.
FWIW I have some micro-cassettes on hand that are over 20 years old now and they actually sound just the same as they did when they were new (which is to say--not all that well, but that's another topic).
posted by flug at 6:44 PM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]