One of the many reasons that digital media became and so popular and so quickly was its near-indestructability. Open reel tape, on the other hand, needs a bit of tender loving care. Think of your tapes like vintage photographs, commencement edition books or original artworks.

Here are a few basic essentials for keeping them in tip-top nick.

A treasured possession needs TLC!

Keep 'em make clean

Shop and use magnetic record in a clean, smoke-free, food-costless environment. Avoid contamination with clay, dust, fingerprints and airborne pollutants.

Cleanliness is important considering minute droppings can reduce the quality of replay by interfering with the intimate contact necessary between the tape's surface and the playing caput (and if you're recording, the aforementioned principle applies).

Run a clean automobile

Keeping a clear head: your essential kit

As well as keeping your tapes free of contamination it's vital to go along your deck debris-free. A regular cleaning routine is essential to go on the record path spotless, not only to ensure tip-superlative sound quality but besides to prevent potential impairment to both machine and tapes. During use, tapes will shed tiny particles of oxide leading to a build-up of deposits. Oxide build-up on tape guides and heads can do more than just dingy the audio, it can play havoc with your deck's tension sensors etc, and ultimately pb to a machine malfunction. Onetime tapes in particular can shed at a higher rate. So the heads and guides must be kept scrupulously make clean otherwise these deposits will detect their way around the deck and your tape collection.

Fortunately you don't need a raft of specialist tools or materials. A pack of lint-free cotton wool buds will do the task, which you'll dip in some isopropyl alcohol. Since you lot're going to be getting into some small areas and tight corners, a good light source and a minor portable mirror can come in handy besides. Unwaxed dental floss can too exist useful for getting into the edges of the tape guides. Needless to say you need to take care. If yous're new to the job, the beginning step is to familarise yourself with your machine's tape path. You'll need to identify every role of the machine that comes into contact with the tape as information technology plays, since each of these volition need to be cleaned. If in doubt, check with a qualified tape engineer and/or (if possible) consult the service transmission for your item machine.

How oft should this cleaning be washed? Some sources suggest daily! The rambler does information technology at the commencement of every review-oriented tape listening session and otherwise at least every ii to iii times I turn on the tape deck. Normally, I just employ one cotton fiber bud to requite everything a wipe and information technology comes upward almost clean. Just if I go out information technology for as well long, or if I've played a shedding record, it tin take many cotton buds' worth before they come up clean i.eastward. the cotton bud, later wiping everywhere, is clean and hence there are no more deposits nowadays. This is what you're aiming for – don't just make clean until the used cotton bud is 'less dirty', continue going until it is completely clean.

Beware magnetism

To avoid stray magnetism, keep tapes abroad from magnetic fields. Never shop them (or even place them) on summit of electronic equipment or near to televisions, mechanism, etc.

If you're travelling with tapes, watch out for luggage screening detectors since some of them use powerful magnetic fields. Walk-through metal detectors, on the other hand, tend to use smaller fields and and then should be fine. Nosotros've rarely had problems with tapes shipped internationally, simply equally a precaution a skilful recommended level of protection for shipping is 50mm / 2 inches of nonmagnetic fabric all around. It may not be strictly necessary, but better to exist safe than sorry.

It's also a good idea to demagnetise the tape heads and guides from time to time (as well known as 'degaussing'). If they become too magnetised this tin prove upwardly sonically as a dulling of the audio and a loss of detail. Worse all the same, it can partially erase your precious record, then the 'loss of particular' becomes permanent! A hand-held demagnetiser won't set you dorsum a great bargain but should be used with intendance, since it's possible to cease up magnetising your machine by error instead, which could impairment your tapes. Again, if in doubt, accept a qualified record engineer show yous the ropes first time around. Professional studios would probably do this daily (or at least weekly). The rambler does it before using a calibration tape or calibrating for recording, and otherwise perhaps every two to four weeks. Some people say every six months is sufficient and I'm not 1 to debate, but 'ameliorate safe than sorry' seems like a good policy to follow.

Gently at present

Take care not to drib tapes or bailiwick them to any other like shock.

A temperature and humidity gauge is a useful gadget

Cool & dry

Tapes don't similar likewise much heat or wet and are all-time not subjected to rapid temperature changes. Shop them in a absurd, dry area. Avoid straight sunlight, radiators and other heat sources. Avoid damp or boiling conditions.

Avoid contact with water.

Easily off

Minimise handling of the record itself. Avoid touching the surface of the tape or the edges of the record pack unless absolutely necessary. If yous do demand to bear on the record, wear lint-free gloves.

Quality kit

Apply good quality reels, boxes and accessories and always return tapes to their containers when not in utilise.

Stand upright

Store tape reels on terminate, in a vertical position, not lying apartment.

Don't get wound up

Take intendance when winding and rewinding tapes. Tapes perform best and are to the lowest degree vulnerable to impairment when they're smoothly and evenly wound. Both excessive and bereft tension are to be avoided.

Conscientious storage keeps tapes in superlative nick

Master tapes are best stored in a 'tails out' position. Call up that we're talking nigh two-track/half-track tapes that have just one side; 'tails out' is the 'played' position. This helps to keep the tape pack smoothen and evenly wound – more than so than if information technology'south but been rewound or fast-forwarded. And then when you come to play the record you'll need to beginning past rewinding it, and when you lot've finished playing, don't rewind earlier putting it away.

If tapes are to be unused for a long flow information technology'due south advisable to rewind them periodically (at to the lowest degree once every three years is recommended, depending on tape and storage conditions).

Ditch the glitch

Don't use tapes with any wrinkling or surface scratches, or with nicked or dented edges or other impairments, every bit they volition leave behind debris that risks dissentious both your tape deck and other tapes.

Cutting off whatever damaged leader/trailer ends.

Another useful piece of kit: concord down tape is especially fabricated with a low tack adhesive to concord the stop of your tape in place, keeping the pack from unravelling.

A word on the dreaded 'glutinous shed syndrome'

Over the years magnetic tape tin can endure a type of deterioration known as 'sticky shed syndrome' which is a serious problem every bit it renders the record unusable. It's caused by the assimilation of wet by the record's binders (the compounds that demark the magnetizable coating to the physical tape and/or the back-coating on the outside of the tape). Sticky shed syndrome became a major problem for the recording manufacture in the 1980s and 90s due to the binders used in many master tapes. Fortunately it was discovered that careful 'baking' of the tapes could bulldoze out the moisture and render the tape playable, at to the lowest degree temporarily, which allowed a new copy to be made. Which was lucky, otherwise who knows how many masters may take been lost forever!

By the early 90s, tape manufacturers and recording studios had learnt their lesson and folder formulations were changed, so all of the primary tape copies being made now are fabricated onto new tape stock which doesn't endure from the dreaded syndrome.

But heir-apparent beware: if you discover a collection of old master tapes for sale at a great price, think on. They may well be genuine masters but they may as well be unplayable. And don't imagine that you tin can merely shove them in the oven and all will be well. 'Blistering' is a high-precision business organisation using laboratory quality equipment for exact temperature control and timing. Not one to try at abode!