Tape baking estimate

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Pro Audio

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Hey guys -

I have a client who has hundreds of multitrack and master tapes from the
70's and 80's, and wants me to work up an estimate on how much it would cost
to have them all baked and digitally archived. The job may be big enough to
justify buying the various tape machines and headstacks needed, but I wonder
if any of you with experience in this would give me some figures I can take
to him. Basically, if any of you were to perform this service, how much per
tape would you charge for the various formats? The vault is still being
inventoried, but so far we have quarter and half inch two tracks, half inch
four track, one inch eight track, and two inch sixteen and twenty four
track, at both 15 and 30 ips. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Jim

Reply to Anonymous

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 17:45:10 -0500, Jim Klein wrote
(in article <BDAC26A6.5CC8%jim_klein2004@comcast.net> ):

> Hey guys -
>
> I have a client who has hundreds of multitrack and master tapes from the
> 70's and 80's, and wants me to work up an estimate on how much it would cost
> to have them all baked and digitally archived. The job may be big enough to
> justify buying the various tape machines and headstacks needed, but I wonder
> if any of you with experience in this would give me some figures I can take
> to him. Basically, if any of you were to perform this service, how much per
> tape would you charge for the various formats? The vault is still being
> inventoried, but so far we have quarter and half inch two tracks, half inch
> four track, one inch eight track, and two inch sixteen and twenty four
> track, at both 15 and 30 ips. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jim
>

Jim,

Thanks for relighting this string. As it turns out I have just acquired a
convection oven. I think that was the preferred device.

Regards,

Ty Ford

-- Ty Ford's equipment reviews, audio samples, rates and other audiocentric
stuff are at www.tyford.com

Reply to Anonymous

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <BDAC26A6.5CC8%jim_klein2004@comcast.net> jim_klein2004@comcast.net writes:

> I have a client who has hundreds of multitrack and master tapes from the
> 70's and 80's, and wants me to work up an estimate on how much it would cost
> to have them all baked and digitally archived. The job may be big enough to
> justify buying the various tape machines and headstacks needed, but I wonder
> if any of you with experience in this would give me some figures I can take
> to him.

How much is your time worth? You can bake a couple of ovenloads a day,
and how many tapes you can put in the oven depends on the size of the
oven and the size of the tape. If you want to invest in a lab oven
(they show up as surplus now and then) you can bake a large number of
tapes fairly efficiently. I'd just charge by the hour. There's no
reason to charge more for one format than another since you probably
can't get away with charging more for a tape that's in the oven for
twelve hours than for one that's in the oven for six other than
perhaps to cover the cost of electricity. You might charge an hour's
labor to load and unload the oven and figure what the electricity
costs to add it in.

Copying would be real time of course. You'll need to check for splices
and will probably need to replace most of them before copying. Once
the tape is intact, you can probably just run it, but unless you have
something else to do, you'll want to charge for your real time. Also,
to do a good job, you'll want to touch up the head alignment for each
tape, and if there are calibration tones, set up the playback deck to
match the tones.

Hours are hours. Dollars are whatever your client will bear, but not
less than you can bear.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers - (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Reply to Anonymous

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On Mon, 01 Nov 2004 17:45:10 -0500, Jim Klein
<jim_klein2004@comcast.net> wrote:

>Hey guys -
>
>I have a client who has hundreds of multitrack and master tapes from the
>70's and 80's, and wants me to work up an estimate on how much it would cost
>to have them all baked and digitally archived. The job may be big enough to
>justify buying the various tape machines and headstacks needed, but I wonder
>if any of you with experience in this would give me some figures I can take
>to him. Basically, if any of you were to perform this service, how much per
>tape would you charge for the various formats? The vault is still being
>inventoried, but so far we have quarter and half inch two tracks, half inch
>four track, one inch eight track, and two inch sixteen and twenty four
>track, at both 15 and 30 ips. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Jim
--Wow, what a job. I'd enjoy doing it {albeit the firest dozen or two
<g>}. Now, for bringing that amount of tapes to back to shape, I'd
consider a preogrammable precision over or clima chamber. They should
be programmed to reach the top temperature in the programmed time, and
cool tapes off slowly during a programmed time as well, drying and
dehumidying the air. The result should be tape(s) in, turn on the
program, forget about it and when it rings, get the perfectly baked
tape(s) out. Without any hassle, that is.

Edi Zubovic, Crikvenica, Croatia

Reply to Anonymous

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <BDAC26A6.5CC8%jim_klein2004@comcast.net>,
Jim Klein <jim_klein2004@comcast.net> wrote:
>Hey guys -
>
>I have a client who has hundreds of multitrack and master tapes from the
>70's and 80's, and wants me to work up an estimate on how much it would cost
>to have them all baked and digitally archived. The job may be big enough to
>justify buying the various tape machines and headstacks needed, but I wonder
>if any of you with experience in this would give me some figures I can take
>to him. Basically, if any of you were to perform this service, how much per
>tape would you charge for the various formats? The vault is still being
>inventoried, but so far we have quarter and half inch two tracks, half inch
>four track, one inch eight track, and two inch sixteen and twenty four
>track, at both 15 and 30 ips. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

In our university studio, we have a surplus lab oven that holds maybe a
dozen 1/4 reels at a time. I simply put a timer on it and run it
overnight. The next day, the tapes are ready to begin restoration, which I
think is the time consuming part; repacking each reel and
inspecting/repairing the splices, checking the program and looking for
peaks so the A/D conversion goes OK, then the actual recopying.

The baking itself is the least of my worries. All I need is an overnight
delay. I don't typically do outside jobs, but I would bill all hourly
restoration time actually used, and I do sit and listen carefully as the
tape plays into the converter. This may be the last chance that tape has
at restoration. I think charges should be higher for this expert
restoration than a simple copy or copy to digital.

Reply to Anonymous

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Jim Klein <jim_klein2004@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>I have a client who has hundreds of multitrack and master tapes from the
>70's and 80's, and wants me to work up an estimate on how much it would cost
>to have them all baked and digitally archived. The job may be big enough to
>justify buying the various tape machines and headstacks needed, but I wonder
>if any of you with experience in this would give me some figures I can take
>to him. Basically, if any of you were to perform this service, how much per
>tape would you charge for the various formats? The vault is still being
>inventoried, but so far we have quarter and half inch two tracks, half inch
>four track, one inch eight track, and two inch sixteen and twenty four
>track, at both 15 and 30 ips. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The baking is easy. Getting the azimuth and setup for each tape is hard.
A lot of it depends on what sort of tones were laid down.

I would not take any of this stuff except on a time and materials basis,
and I would tend to start with twice the tape running time as a beginning
estimate and go up from there depending on condition.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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