I tend to subscribe to more magazines than I have time to read.  Yesterday I was going thru some old professional audio recording magazines and came across an interesting article from EQMagazine titled “The Secrets of Home Tape Baking” [March 2008] by Jonathan Stars.  I was intrigued by the idea and though I don’t currently have a need to try it myself, I do still have my own collection (gathering dust in the garage right now) of some audio reel-to-reel masters that such a trick might prove useful for down the road.   Basically the author talks about a way you can literally “bake” your precious analog tapes at high temperature using a food dehydrator as a way to prevent the iron oxide coating from sticking to the tape heads on playback. 

The phenonem is known as “sticky shed syndrome”.  Analog tapes are made with an iron oxide coating (this is the part that is magnetized and records your audio information for playback) along with a glue that makes it stick to the backing.  It is this glue that absorbs moisture over time and can become undone.   Not only does this result in really poor audio playback (like popping noises and losing the high end), but as you can imagine, it can ruin your precious tapes!  The author describes the worst symptom was when “bits of the tape got stuck to the heads (and anything else the tape touched along the path between the reels), and literally peeled off — sometimes, in little flakes, and, sometimes, in string-like shavings up to an inch long.”  YIKES! 

This technique is not a cue for all situations, however.  Jonathan does caution to watch out for tapes with splices as they do tend to break or acetate tapes for that matter as heating will actually make the situation worse.  And don’t even think about trying this trick out in your kitchen oven, etiher.  The thermostats just aren’t accurate enough.  Instead, Jonathan recommends using is the Nesco American Food Harvest Snackmaster Pro FD-50 Food DeHydrator [$80 from nesco.com].   Check out Jonathan’s article in the March 2008 issue of EQ Magazine for more dos and don’ts about baking your old tapes.