New Wave Outpost Forum

I'm doing a project of restoring my old 80s cassettes collections into digital formats. Of the 500 plus albums, the only one which I missed is an album from a Dutch Band "Boy Commandos" called "Buwala"

https://www.discogs.com/Boy-Commandos-B ... se/1460941

Prefer it in FLAC. Thanks.

I've decided to clean my 30+ year old tape and ripped it. Only minor defects on one or two songs (Example the start of track 1). Else the overall quality is acceptable.

Those who are interested to give it a try, they sound like the early Police or The Sheriff

In FLAC:

https://mega.nz/file/hrQHUYjT#xUq5miJbk ... Ht8JYznkz8

Thanks. How do you go about cleaning a cassette, or deciding if it needs cleaning?

synthwavefan wrote:Thanks. How do you go about cleaning a cassette, or deciding if it needs cleaning?

When you play the tape and the sound quality is bad (as the tape head is easily filled with deposits), then the tape needs to be cleaned.

Just follow these tutorial on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFn4d3doPSs

Instead of rewinding the tape with a pen, I use a manual tape rewinder:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/935520717/ ... a=1&gao=1&

80rulez wrote:
When you play the tape and the sound quality is bad (as the tape head is easily filled with deposits), then the tape needs to be cleaned.

Since my childhood years, I, like millions, was sure that it is the HEAD that needs cleaning when the sound is becoming worse.

The more you live, the more you learn.......

Yeah me too. I have the same set of screwdrivers but it takes someone very brave and with very steady hands to take apart what's inside. My answer when a tape breaks is to get it back on the spool and digitise immediately because chances are you will get one play out of it. Never seen a tape that dirty inside though.

Uvox wrote:

80rulez wrote:
When you play the tape and the sound quality is bad (as the tape head is easily filled with deposits), then the tape needs to be cleaned.

Since my childhood years, I, like millions, was sure that it is the HEAD that needs cleaning when the sound is becoming worse.

The more you live, the more you learn.......

Yup, just found out that tapes can be cleaned recently.

To be honest, I never touch my collections for over a decade. As a sales guy, I was on the road 80% of my time. Due to the pandemic and WFH arrangement, I decided to fix my CD Players & Tape Decks. I left all of my cassette collections at the attic of my old home. Unfortunately the roof was leaking and the moisture causes fungi to grow on some of the tapes. That's when I searched Youtube on how to clean a tape.

eddie wrote:Yeah me too. I have the same set of screwdrivers but it takes someone very brave and with very steady hands to take apart what's inside. My answer when a tape breaks is to get it back on the spool and digitise immediately because chances are you will get one play out of it. Never seen a tape that dirty inside though.

Agree, most of the old tapes don't even have screws. They were sealed with adhesives. Need to be extra careful to break it open. Digitise is the way to go.

Dirty tapes can be cleaned, but old player can eat tapes due to bad pinch roller. If the tape is badly twisted, then you have no chance to fix it.

But then again, I saw on youtube that someone use an iron to fix a chewed tape. Well...