Do you have recordings of people sounding like chipmunks? This is typically a problem of differentiating tape playback speed. When a tape is played back at a speed that is faster than what it was recorded on, you will get the chipmunk effect. If the opposite happens, then you’re recording will sound slooooooooow with lower tone. When transferring your own media, you may soon discover that not all devices include an option for changing playback speed.

Sometimes just transferring to your computer is only the first step to restoring your precious old recordings. Thankfully there exists some great free tools that can help us out when recordings decide to be difficult. One tool, which I’ve mentioned in the past that we use quite often in our facilities, is Audacity. Audacity is a free open-source audio editor. Although a light program, it’s packed with great features you’d normally have to pay an arm and a leg for, and it does them pretty well. In order to change the speed of a recording it first must be transferred to your computer via cassette to cd transfer or reel to reel to cd. Once you have the audio file, open it up with Audacity.

Once it’s loaded onto the timeline, you can now begin to edit the audio. To change the speed of the recording we first must select where we’d like it to take effect. If the file you’re working with is of a consistant speed throughout, you can simply press Ctrl+A to select the whole recording. If there are scattered breaks of different speeds, you’ll need to select only the parts of the audio that need a speed change.

Once you have determined where to place your speed change, you’ll need to click on the effect->change speed menu item at the top of the program.

You will now be presented with a box that you can input values of how much you’d like to change the speed by percent. Putting 50 in the box will increase the speed of your recording by 50%. By inputting -25, you will slow your recording down by 25%. Below that is a convenient vinyl record conversion box which will take care of correcting your vinyl record speeds. Once you determine the correct percentage, click preview to test it out, and then OK to apply the change. Once you are finished with all of your speed changes, you can easily save a new audio file by clicking on File->Export and then selecting your audio type.

We offer audio transfer services such as cassette to CD, Vinyl to CD, and reel to reel to CD in San Diego and Irvine.

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Technorati Tags: audio, audio fix, audio restoration, cassette to cd, chipmunk effect, reel to reel, restore audio, speed change

Dealing with an audio tape repair is similar to the “How to Fix a Video Tape” guide I posted earlier. To make things easier, the tools I used were splicing tape, a small flathead screwdriver, and a new blank cassette tape.

The first step is to inspect what type of damage your cassette has, the most common types of problems are either a break in the tape, the tape creased and flipped somewhere. This guide will detail how to fix a cassette tape that has been pulled off one of the reels. This is a pretty common example of a damaged audio cassette, so in most cases the steps are the same.

After you have discovered the source of the problem, you're going to need to open up the cassette. Your cassette tape will either be glued, or held together with screws in each corner. If you are attempting to repair a tape that has been glued together, you literally have to break the casing in half in order to attempt any sort of repair. You can easily accomplish this by sticking a flathead screwdriver into one of the small openings at the bottom of the cassette, and prying it open that way
.

Be careful not to lose the parts inside as you break the casing apart, as sometimes they can go flying onto the ground.Once the cassette shell has been opened up, you can now get to work. For many cassettes, especially older ones, the tape will have pulled itself off one of the reels.

When the tape is pulled off the reel, it can be difficult to thread it back through the reel, and even if you do manage to do it, chances are that it will not last for long. The recommended fix for this problem is to purchase a blank cassette at your local electronics store that we can use for parts. *Make sure the new cassette you buy has screws and not glued together.

We're going to open up the new cassette just like we did with our damaged tape.

Take the reel from the new cassette and cut the tape about 1-2 inches from the end of the leader tape. This will give you a brand new reel, and a nice piece of tape to splice the broken tape onto.

Remove the old reel from your cassette, and replace it with the reel you just cut from the new cassette. You now have enough room to easily splice the two ends together with a piece of splicing tape. You want the ends to meet as flush as possible, with no overlap of tape. This is possible without a splicing block, just keep in mind you're going to be working with pretty thin tape, so it may take some patience and steady hands.

After your tape is spliced together, we need to set it back in the casing the way we found it. You can look at the picture below to see the correct layout. It's easier to thread the tape through the notches with a small screwdriver or tweezers.

Screw the casing back together again, and use a pencil or something similar to make sure the reels turn correctly and don't get stuck. After these steps, your audio cassette should be ready for a cassette to cd transfer or just plain listening again!

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10. Ease
With the advancement of technology at the consumer-level, it’s now cheaper and easier than ever to get your old video tapes converted to DVD, photos scanned, and film digitized. Nearly all work is now captured directly into a computer’s hard drive, which allows for relatively easy manipulation of your video, images and audio with no quality loss from the original. You can now think about adding chapter markers and interactive menu screens for your kid’s birthday parties instead of sifting through 2 hours of raw footage.

9. Production and Editing
With advancements in technology propelling us to the ‘digital era’, producing quality media from the comfort of your own home or office is now a reality. Once your media is digitized, nearly anything is possible from putting together a new scrapbook, creating a graduation slideshow for your children, or even a new commercial for your business. People no longer have to pay outrageous production fees in order to create a viable video for them.

8. Celebrating a Special Event
Do you have a special event planned in the near future? Would you like to create a San Diego custom slideshow or video montage to incorporate into an event? For the next party or get-together, instead of dusting off the old slide projector, you can show off your fully-edited custom slideshow movie for everyone to enjoy. This is a great way to show off you latest product or idea, while getting everyone in attendance involved.

7. Portability
The newer they are, the smaller they get. This can apply to most media throughout history. Just think about how much easier it would be to do a little bit of 35mm slide scanning, and condense your 35 carousels of slides into a single disc. With video, for instance, VHS tapes were the standard for several years until laser discs and DVDs hit the market. As many people know, the more VHS tapes you owned, the more storage space you needed to allocate to them. When digitized however, you can save a remarkable amount of space. Instead of holding onto hundreds of old VHS tapes, you transfer them to some easy to maintain DVDs or even to hard drive to save more space.

6. Entertainment
Reflecting on past events can be entertaining as well! It’s always a treat to catch a glimpse of your vacation from years ago, and re-live the time you spent there. This is also great for family get-togethers or parties especially if multiple people attending are featured on the video! If you decide to go with a video transfer to hard drive, you can do some simple or advanced editing to create a new video for everyone to enjoy.

5. Reconnecting With Lost Friends
15 Years ago, you and your friend may have taken a video camera on that awesome trip to Europe. As time goes on, people change locations, and connections are missed or often lost. Without watching that video today, you may never ask yourself, what happened to this person? Where can I find them? Not only is it much easier these days to transfer your media, it’s also become much easier to find and locate people! Sometimes a little reminder is all you need.

4. Family Time
Everyone has busy schedules with school, work, football practice, church, etc. and often, time spent with your own family is overlooked. Once your media is digitized, it provides a great opportunity to spend and share time with family or close friends. People can relate to what they’re watching and can spark up some interesting discussions of the past, and connect with new friends.

3. Technology Changing
Technology is constantly evolving into “smaller” and better things. A closet full of old videos can now be placed onto a plastic drive the size of your thumb and your desk drawer full of photos can now be replaced with archival-grade DVDs. Now that most of the older formats are obsolete and often difficult to see or watch, it’s best to get them digitized sooner than later. As time drags on, it will only start to get more difficult to obtain the equipment needed to perform the video transfer, or image scanning that is right for you.

2. Degradation and Deterioration
During the 80′s and 90′s, most of us were under the assumption that our precious memories stored onto magnetic tape would be safe forever. Recently, however, more and more people are realizing that this is simply not the case. Magnetic tape is great for short term play back of our fondest memories, or to relive a historic event. Video tapes deteriorate every year even if you don’t view them. Your precious memories painstakingly caught on tape WILL someday be unplayable. Most VHS tapes, with proper care, can last up to 20 years with only minor degradation issues. However, since VHS tapes have been obsolete for nearly 10 years now, the timeline is running thin! If you want these images to last, it’s best to get the VHS transfer to DVD done now, before it’s too late. DVDs can last you hundreds of years with absolutely no degradation, as the laser never makes direct contact with the disc itself. I’ve seen where people have, unfortunately, waited a bit too long to get their tapes transferred, and as a result they’re left with a fraction of what they once had.

1. Archiving/Preservation
Archiving your family’s media should always be in the back of your mind. Older media types, such as slides and video tapes, were never designed or meant to last forever. It has now become much easier to archive your tapes and images by simply capturing them to a hard drive or DVD. While most consumer DVDs typically last anywhere from 5-10 years, there are a few high-grade brands that will last you 100 or more years with proper care. Virtually all recordings from the last 40 years are in jeopardy, whether it be unique mastered audio recordings or news broadcasts. No tape is safe from the multiple threats that range from physical loss due to disaster, accidental erasure, or the increasing disappearance of equipment needed to play them back. Realistically, most of the inventory of tapes are duplicates of other materials, but many others are originals, masters, or unique content that cannot be easily duplicated. The amount of tapes needed to be restored is so huge, that it would take decades, even if facilities, techniques, and funding were readily available.

If you have any questions regarding the media transfer service, give us an email: info@dvdyourmemories.com

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