But doesn't tend to spread its gunge across the backing.
I've got a few boxes of AGFA editing tape in 'stock' liberated after a company I once worked for closed down. And loads of once used 1/4" tape which was going to be junked - you couldn't even give it away then. Could have had several thousand 2" 2400ft reels too. But sense prevailed. ;-)
So have I - I use it as low-tack sticky tape.
I was given it on the express condition that it never go near any audio tape that the original owner might ever need to play back. Apparently the stuff is untrustworthy after some years of storage and will either lose its stickiness, or will begin to ooze it sideways. Either is a good reason for using the stuff within its shelf life.
I turned down the offer of a Steenbeck film editing desk at the same time. Lovely piece of kit, but I'd already moved one of them recently and I know just how big and awkward they are.
Edits often 'spread' over the years if the tape has been played often. However, it's easy with Agfa editing tape to simply replace it - some other brands went 'hard' with age, and won't peel off. I used some of my
10 year old + Agfa recently and it still seemed ok.Yup. Best bit of kit I rescued from a skip was a mint Nagra 4 which had lived its life in a transfer suite so completely undamaged. Has pride of place as an object of beauty on a shelf...;-)
I have often spliced those tapes without using a block, despite having
Never use sellotape or parcel tape, the goo is a bugger to get off the heads, and gets smeared onto the front of your tapes, creating endless trouble. Rarely I've come across tapes that deposit goo on heads, and have always binned them pronto.
When I ran out of editing tape I tried a few different tapes, and what behaved perfectly was a pack of metallic christmas fancy tapes. As long as adhesive overlap doesnt stick to metal under light pressure, and it doesnt lose its grip, and the tape thickness and strength are ok, then all is well. ISTR editing tape being very expensive for what it was.
8 tracks are a tougher problem, as you need metal conductive tape. I often used to get round that by putting the editing tape join on the front oxide side of the tape.Ethanol works as well as IPA for head cleaning, so surgical sprit is fine.
You wont need it now, but idler wheels can always be given another year of life by fitting a rubber band round them. Stationery bands only last a year or so.
NT
I've got two working 8 track recorder/players - including the last of the breed - a Wollensack that has Dolby B and uses chrome tape. Quality at least as good as a decent 7 1/2 ips open reel. I've also got a reel of the conductive tape to make it change tracks. You simply splice in a bit with ordinary edit tape. It was used before 8 tracks for auto reverse 1/4" machines.
Very fancy. My 8 track sounds like sht, but (thank god) it does fast forward. Are you sure its Dolby B and not A? I thoght B was tailored to cassette, not faster tapes, and came after the compact cassette, which initially used DNL.
With hindsight I'm a bit surprised no domestic cassettes used noise gating, or a softer form of it. It would have been very simple to progressively back the replay gain down when signal output was heading into the noise, thus giving the appearance of 1/4 the background hiss.
NT
Dolby A is a pro version and *very* different from B - and too expensive for domestic use (in those days)
Well, 3 3/4 ips of the 8 track is still a slow speed. ;-)
You'd hear it working? Noise gates can work on some microphones as part of a multi-mic balance, but sound awful on just the one signal.
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