quote:

---

Originally posted by Zeugma:
I always use scissors to cut out the bad parts, and a very carefully cut and placed piece of scotch tape on each side. You lose the part you cut out, obviously, but the rest plays.

Maybe he's ready for an iPod and an Audible subscription?

---

Ack! I am cringing at this for two reasons:

1) There are special tools, which are intended to be used for tape editing, and special adhesive tape that will not bleed or jam the tape recorder mechanism. If anyone is serious about physical tape editing/splicing they really should consider using the correct equipment.

Incidentally, the adhesive tape should only be applied to the side of the tape that doesn't come in contact with the heads.

Cutting block
Splicing Tape


2) If you are cutting out a bad part on one side of a double sided tape you are inadvertently cutting out something else entirely on the flip side.

[ June 25, 2007, 01:04 AM: Message edited by: Steev ]
 

---

Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
 
Steev is right.

The editing materials aren't that expensive and are easy to use because they're designed for that purpose.


My experience with "messed up" cassette tapes, however, is that simply splicing is often not enough.

There was a reason it went bad in the fist place, and improper storage is probably not the culprit in most instances.

Bad rollers, binds somewhere...something in the player itself -- all can mess up a tape.

The other problem to consider is that if the tape is now kinked, it's likely to have problems again in going through the player's mechanism. It's probably also been stretched a bit.

This is a pain in the neck, to be honest. Splicing tape is the easy part. Getting it to work and not bind up if the cassette or the tape is damaged is the real pain.


I'm converting all my old cassettes to digital format with software I got from DAK online. There are probably freebie software solutions out there too. If you've got a way to hook your tape player up to the computer, you can just make the things into WAV files and not bother with cassettes anymore.

If you have to keep cassettes, my advice is to splice the damaged ones, make a copy, then use the copy from then on.
 

---

Posted by Shmuel (Member # 7586) on :
 
OMG. DAK is back?

DAK is back!

My day has just been made...
 

---

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
*blink* I knew there was something about that company that rang a bell! I remember their local going-out-of-business sales!
 

---

Posted by Steev (Member # 6805) on :
 
So, Bob_Scopatz,

That software you got from DAK? How is it really?
I have may own setup using pro-equipment and software so I don't need it but my mom was asking me about it and I didn't know what to tell her. Did you get that additional mixer box with it? The Mixer box seemed completely worth the price to me and if the software was good that's a bonus.
 

---

Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
You don't need pro software to record off of a cassette tape. If you record the tape in a high quality file, you'll just be preserving the poor quality of the audiotape you already had. Granted, low quality recording programs will decrease the bandwidth of the recording even more, but almost any free program can record at 44 mhz and 16 bits- that's really all you need. Don't go for the expensive frilly program.
 

---

Posted by Steev (Member # 6805) on :
 
That is what I was trying to tell my mom.

So then she started asking me if the DAK stuff was any good and I didn't know because I do all my stuff with the pro stuff because all I do is pro level stuff. Besides pro level stuff works great IF you already have it. But don't go out and buy it just for dubbing cassettes. The main reasons I ask is that I have run into some cheap consumer level stuff that was actually quite unusable even for a casual user. That's why I would like to know how good the DAK stuff is so when someone asks me I can recommend something that doesn't coast him or her $1000.
 

---