Where do you store your tapes?

[TEMAS]

Obviously on top of a speaker would be unadvisable, but what else should I take into consideration to ensure the well-being of my tapes?

[6110c37]

You could try this site it has a bit on storage.
http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub...xpectancy.html

There seems to be a lot of different opinions on this, store upright/horizontal, in a sealed bag or not, just on a hub or on a reel.
Personally it does seem to matter what tape you are using, I have hade some very good quality tapes that have been stored in appalling conditions and still in playable condition. I think the most important is to store them in fairly low humidity, upright if well wound onto the reel, horizontal if not.
But I am open to correction, this should be an important discussion as tapes are not getting any younger or cheaper so we should be caring for what we have.

Martin

[Duke_Nukem]

A lot will depend on the quality of the original tapes.

When I were a lad [que Hovis music] in the 70's I used to record a lot of radio comedy. I'm quite suprised how well most of them have survived extremely well, the majority being TDK. Strangly all the Sony and Scotch ones which were stored with the TDK ones have degraded quite a lot.

They've been stored in a simple cassette box (cary-case style), sometimes horizontal, sometimes vertical. Never stored in the loft (the loft sees rapid and extreem temperature extremes) and never anywhere damp.

TTFN,
Jon

[arjoll]

The general rule of thumb I use is to store vertically. Also if they're only recorded in one direction (i.e. not 4 track/2 channel or 2 track/mono etc) then store them 'tails out' with a library wind, i.e. wind at slow speed to the end of the tape, don't rewind.

Saying this I've never really had a problem with tapes I've got here, most of which aren't stored in these conditions. If you've got any tapes that are recorded quite hot then storing tails minimises the negative effects of print through - it is a post-echo instead of a pre-echo so isn't as noticeable.

For cassettes, make sure they're wound to one end or the other (if they're 4 or 8 track then I suppose playing them to the end is best for the same reasons you'd store reels tails out).

Obviously keep them away from magnitism, and at low humidity and a reasonable temperature. Note that this won't prevent sticky shed on the likes of 80's-early 90's Ampex, 3M etc but it may slow it a bit.

If you've baked tape I've read that its best to store it sealed with some silica gel sachets, but not sure how reliable this is. With some important 1/2" 456 I had baked last year I put some sachets in with the tape anyway (couldn't hurt!).

[Superhet Si]

Mine are stored in a wardrobe where the temperature stays fairly cool.