Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!yale!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!info-high-audio-request
From: jj@alice.att.com (jj, like it or not)
Newsgroups: rec.audio.high-end
Subject: Re: "LAST" tape/head treatment: SG gets a surprise
Message-ID: <6868@uwm.edu>
Date: 10 Oct 90 13:06:46 GMT
Sender: news@uwm.edu
Lines: 27
Approved: tjk@csd4.csd.uwm.edu

In article <6840@uwm.edu> Steve_Graham@ub.cc.umich.edu writes:
>
> 
>Many of my reel tapes were recorded on stock made in the 70s, which
>recently has been found to squeal.  Because I had been having problems with
(just leaving in the first line for context)

Sounds to me like Steve has demonstrated the definitive
version of "scrape-flutter".  This is a mechanism where the 
irregularities in the tape's passage over the head introduce
sidebands (well, a blecherous form of FM modulation) into the
recorded signal.  It's one of the absolutely WORST subtle tape
defects (it's on ALL tapes to some extent).  Furthermore,
some people LIKE it.  Oh, sigh.

In any case, the reason things may have sounded better while
the conditioner was on the head could well be that the
scrape flutter was quite lowered, ergo things did sound better.

The squeal is indeed an awful form of scrape flutter, that's audible
from the periodicity of the change in tape speed due to some dynamic
contraint or other.  
-- 
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