Current options include, but are not limited to: The fix involves hardening the magnetic coating of the tape, and/or reducing friction between the tape and everything it touches during playback. Unfortunately there is no straightforward fix for a tape exhibiting loss of lubricant.
Squealing tapes that do not respond to baking In the decades since proposing this remedy, other methods for fixing a tape have been employed, but baking/dehydrating remains the industry standard method. Ironically, the treatment violates the terms of warranty one enjoyed when first purchasing an Ampex tape. Ampex patented this process, but it has lapsed in the U.S.A. Tape baking is a process first proposed by Ampex engineers upon learning of SSS. 55 degrees celsius (+/- a few degrees) with an incubation time of 8-10 hours is a good place to start. Dehydrating the tape in a food dehydratorĬooking times and temperatures vary, and can depend on the severity of the hydrolysis.Removing moisture from the tape pack will get the tape to a playable state for digitization, which can be achieved by: There are methods, however, to prevent the squeal from occurring during playback. If the squeal makes its way into a digitized file, there is no solution at this time to correct the frequency modulated of the desired signal. This is confusing as tapes which squeal and do not respond to incubation have been shown to be carrying a normal lubricant load. In broad terms, LOL has been used for tapes that do not respond to incubation. Loss of lubricant (LOL) may not be entirely accurate when describing non-SSS tapes that squeal, since lubricant is likely not the issue. Playback in this condition will damage the tape. If a tape suffering from SSS is played back, the heads and guides will quickly accumulate deposit, reducing high frequency response and often producing an audible squeal. 3 SSS can be tested for prior to playback by slowly unravelling the reel, and seeing whether the tape comes cleanly off the pack or if it sticks. Open reel polyester tapes with back-coating manufactured since the 1970s commonly suffer from binder breakdown due to the absorption of moisture (hydrolysis). Is your tape squealing? Hess has been documenting stock with known issues on this blog. The stick-slip action that causes squealing as the tape moves across the playback head, believed to be caused by a soft binder, is symptomatic of both SSS and LOL. Soft Binder Syndrome (SBS) is a term suggested by Richard Hess to describe the type of media degradation that has previously been called Sticky Shed Syndrome (SSS) or Loss of Lubricant (LOL).