How to Trade Tapes - Before You Trade

Last Updated: Wednesday, 30-Oct-2002 01:36:16 EST

There are several things that you should do before you get involved in serious tape trading. You don't need to do any of this to trade tapes, but if you want to trade with serious tape traders, this is good advice.

Again, divided into three sections, here are the tips:

• Obtaining Quality Taping Equipment
• Maintaining Your Quality Taping Equipment
• Compiling an Informative Tapelist (Without grade inflation!)

The first rule in tape trading is to use the best tape decks that you can afford. Ideally, these would be two separate, single-well, three-head decks made by respected manufacturers.

Two separate tape decks enable you to set the recording level of the tape you are making. This is probably the greatest factor in preserving as much sound as possible from one generation of tape to the next. Recording or input level is a kind of volume control for what is getting recorded on to the tape. The higher recording level you tape with, the louder the sound on the tape will be. This is important, because it preserves more music from one generation to the next. More will be said on the important process of setting levels in the next section.

If instead of using two separate decks you use a dubbing deck (i.e. a dual-well cassette deck), you will be unable to set recording levels when taping from well A to B. It will be done automatically for you, and possibly done incorrectly. This will add unnecessary hiss to the tapes you are making and every person who ever gets copies of those tapes will suffer as a result. Instead of sharin' in the groove, you'll be sharin' in the hiss. Doesn't that weigh heavily on your conscience?

Single well (i.e. one tape) decks are also of higher quality and reliability than dubbing decks, because they have fewer moving parts and are manufactured to higher standards.

Before answering this question, let me explain what a tape head is: a magnetized piece of metal in your tape deck that interacts with the metal particles on the tape in some scary way devised by electrical engineers.

There a three types of tape heads in a three-head deck (surprised?). One is the "erase" head. The erase head, astoundingly, erases the tape that travels by it when activated by the tape deck before it is recorded onto. The second type of tape head is the "record" head. The record head rearranges the metal particles on the tape so they can later be read by the "play" head. The play head reads the magnetic particles on the tape and sends signals that are translated into music by the tape deck. The heads are arranged in this order for a very logical reason: as the tape starts to move to be recorded, it first passes by the erase head, which erases the tape (regardless of whether anything is on it or not). The tape then passes by the record head, which places the music onto the tape. Next comes one of the most important features of a three head deck: the tape passes by the play head where the music that was just recorded onto the tape is played. This is called "monitoring." Monitoring allows the person making the tape to make adjustments to the levels if they hear a problem with the tape. It also confirms that the tape is actually being recorded on (good to know).

In a two head deck, there are only an erase head and a play/record head. This means that you can't monitor your recording. Two head decks are still decent however, and much better than the lowest of the low, the evil one head decks. These one head decks are only (usually) found in dubbing decks (like you might have on your mini-system). One head does it all: erase/play/record. The cliche "Jack of all trades, master of none." definately applies to tape heads. The more functions the tape deck piles on to a single head, the less proficient at each function that head will be. A dedicated record head is much better at recording than a erase/play/record head, just like a cardiologist is much better at diagnosing heart problems than a general practitioner.

Respected manufacturers include: Nakamichi (generally seen as the best), Sony, Aiwa, Denon, JVC, Yamaha and Onkyo. Outside of this group you will probably have trouble finding a three-head deck at all, and I would be wary of the quality and reliability if you did. (However, if you have had a good (or bad) experience with another brand besides these, let me know.)

Three-head tape decks by respected manufacturers are not very easy to find. Generally, your big retail superstores won't carry anything but dubbing decks, and by now we all know to stay away from those infernal machines. So basically there are two options: mail order and audiophile stores. I don't really see this as a good place to support one company over another, but many people, including myself, have had good luck with J&R Music World. Used decks are another option if you can trust the person you are dealing with.

I won't say that three head decks aren't expensive (between $220 and $600, generally), because they are. But they are well worth the money. If you can't afford two three head decks (I know I can't), just buy one, and use your present tape deck as the playback deck that supplies the input signal directly to the three head. Do not pass the signal through your receiver, this just degrades it and will result in lower quality tapes (i.e. use this set-up: Old Tape Deck-->New Tape Deck-->Receiver/Amplifier). Having an excellent record deck is much more important than having an excellent quality playback deck, although two excellent quality decks would make better tapes. (This is for recording purposes only; of course you would play tapes with the three-head when listening for pleasure.)

Now that you've made a substansial investment in at least one high quality tape deck, you want to take good care of it. The most important maintenance you can perform on your deck is cleaning the heads.

To clean your tape heads, follow these steps:

1. Obtain cotton swabs (Q-tips or equivalent) and the highest percentage alcohol you can find (and buy). For those of you who can do it, get 95% Ethanol (sold as Everclear, or maybe some cheaper generic stuff, look for 190 Proof) in a liquor store. If the liquor store is not an option, get the highest percentage of Ethyl Alcohol that you can get in a drug store. Radio Shack also makes a pre-mixed head cleaner that some people rely on. The reason for the high percentage of alcohol is to facilitate fast evaporation and reduce the amount of corrosive water that comes in contact with the tape heads. The higher the percentage, the better. Isopropyl ("Rubbing") Alcohol will dissolve the glue holding your tape heads together. Unless you want this to happen, avoid it.
2. Open the door to your tape deck.
3. Look inside your deck for shiny metal objects. These include: the tape heads (1,2 or 3 depending on the deck) and the capistans (2). The tape heads look like small, rectangular pieces of metal that are at the bottom of the tape well (where a tape would touch them if it were in the deck). The capistans look like small metal pins that stick out from the back of the tape well (they go into the small holes in the bottom of a tape).
4. Moisten a cotton swab with your alcohol of choice and thoroughly wipe the metal objects that you just located. If the swab is dirty, you aren't cleaning your tape deck enough.
5. Look inside your deck again for the following objects: the pinchrollers (2), which look like small rubber wheels, and the tape guide (1 or maybe more), which is a piece of plastic or metal that presses against one of the pinchrollers when the deck is in play position.
6. Clean these items in the same way. Do not use too much alcohol if the part is rubber (like most pinchrollers) as it could dry it out and make it crack over time.
7. Rejoice in the fact that you know have a clean set of tape heads (and a clean tape transport method as well).
8. If you had trouble with my descriptions of the parts in your tape deck, consult your manual. There should be a diagram in the maintenance section of the inside of your deck.

How often should you clean your tape heads? The generally accepted time period is once every ten hours of use, this may be more often than necessary. A general rule of thumb is if you see a lot of gunk on the Q-tip when you clean your heads, you probably aren't doing it enough. If you are trading a lot, cleaning the heads before you make the tapes is a nice thing to do. Just be sure that you let the alcohol evaporate before you start to tape.

The other regular maitenance that is often suggested for tape decks is tape head demagnetizing. There are several conflicting opinions on how often you should demagnetize, however, and given this, I can't really make a suggestion one way or another. I would consult your owners manual. If you do it wrong, you can really mess up your deck. Whatever you do, don't buy one of those cheap $20 demag. cassettes with all of the flashing lights and gears inside. You should buy a demag wand at Radio Shack (or wherever you can find one) and follow the instructions included with it.

Some people advise that you should take your deck to a repair shop around once a year for general maintenence. They will make sure everything is working right, demagnitize and clean your heads, and grease things up if they need grease. A side benefit of this is that if a shop has been getting your steady business once a year, when something does go wrong with your baby they will treat you right. Other people are decidedly against this, saying that your tape deck will "never be the same again." I would suggest maintainence if and only if you notice your deck beginning to suffer from wear and tear (speed changes, loud noises, increasing hiss, etc.)

Having an informative, well written tapelist is of vital importance if you expect to trade tapes with serious traders. And they are the ones with the best tapes, so it is in your best interest if they take you seriously. Charlie Dirksen, in a post to rec.music.phish, outlined what an informative tapelist is better than I could do it, so I've excerpted part of his post here (the entire post can be read here):

This is a portion of the tapelist of someone who wants to be taken 
seriously as an analog trader:

Date      City and/or Venue   Gen     Length Sets Grade  Mics/History

[Name of Band]
12/06/96  Las Vegas           DAUD-1    270  123   A     Schoeps MK4's
12/28/96  Phili Spectrum      AUD-1     200  1,2   A-    NAK 300 'guns
12/29/96  Phili Spectrum      DAUD-1    180  1,2   A-    AKG 463's
12/30/96  Fleet Center        DAUD-1    180  1,2   A-    AKG 463's
12/31/96  Fleet Center        DFM-1     270  123   A     FM>DATMaster>a


AUD-1   =   analog master made at show (an AUD0) > analog cassette
DAUD-1  =   DAT audience master or clone > analog cassette
DFM-1   =   FM > DAT > analog cassette
SBD-1   =   analog master sbd made at show > analog cassette
DSBD-1  =   Dat Soundboard > analog cassette
cDSBD-1 =   analog cassette master soundboard > DAT > analog cass.

Some of this stuff might seem a bit confusing, so here is a little guide:

Gen

This is the Generation/Source information for the tape. The Generation in the above example is the number following the abbreviations such like AUD. A tape's Generation is how many copies away from the master (which is the tape made at the show) the tape is. A 3rd Generation tape, for example, has this lineage: Master-->Copy1-->Copy2-->Copy3.

The Source of the tape signifies what type of tape the Master is. If the Master is a Digital Audio Tape (DAT) made with Microphones at the show, the source is written DAUD. Here is a quick listing of the accepted abbreviations and what they mean:

Abbrev.	Meaning	Type of Master
DAUD	DAT Audience	DAT from microphones in the tapers' section
DSBD	DAT Soundboard	DAT from soundboard patch
DFM	DAT FM Broadcast	DAT from FM broadcast
DFOB	DAT Front-of-Board	DAT from mics in front of the soundboard
cDSBD	Cassette DAT Soundboard	DAT from analog tape from soundboard
AUD	Audience	Analog tape from microphones in the tapers' section
SBD	Soundboard	Analog tape from soundboard
FM	FM Broadcast	Analog tape from FM broadcast
FOB	Front-of Board	Analog tape from mics in front of the soundboard
CD	Compact Disc	Illegal* Bootleg CD of unknown mastering

*Usually

Length

This is the total length, in minutes, of the tapes that the show is on. It is not the exact length of the show. Some people advocate putting the exact length, but in my experience it only leads to confusion. In the above example, the 180 signifies two 90 min. cassettes, the 200 signifies two 100 min. cassettes, and the 270 signifies three 90 min. cassettes.

Mics/History

This column lists the microphones used to master the DATs that the tapes were copied from. This information is important because many traders have specific preferences as to which microphones sound best and will favor tapes made with those mics over others. The history refers to the lineage of non-audience tapes, like the DFM-1 of 12/31/96.

Grade

This might be the most important item on a tape list (Although, without the date and venue, you might have some trouble getting trades ;-). Grading your tapes shows the person who wants to trade with you which of your tapes sound good and which sound bad. If you grade too high, once someone trades with you, they will never do it again, because they will be pissed about the sound quality of the tapes you sent them. There is nothing worse than getting tapes that the person you are trading with calls "A" but rank on your scale as a "B-." Everyone's ears are different, so no tapelist would be complete without an explanation of the grading system. Here are two examples of grading system explanations (please do not cut-and-paste these explanations into your list, it's probably better to come up with your own system):

Example 1:

Grades:
A+=No one in their right mind would be disappointed with the sound quality of 
these tapes. Usually SBD.
A=Still very high quality, little hiss. Usually SBD or low-gen AUD.
A-=A little more hiss (i.e. low levels) and/or a slightly unbalanced sound (i.e. too much bass
or treble).
Still very listenable.
------ There is a large gap between A- and B+ on my list, and I don't recommend tapes below A- ------
B+=More hiss. Instruments less clear and distinct. 
B=I don't really suggest it, unless the tape is rare. Just doesn't sound that good.
B-=Even worse.
NWR=Not worth rating. Really bad.

Example 2:

I'm VERY selective when it comes to quality, and I grade accordingly.  I 
consider myself to have *really* high sound standards (I only keep around half
 of what I get due to quality), but grades are of course subjective.  
Soundboard (sdbd) and Audience (aud) tapes are graded on different scales, 
but each equally critically.

The (+) or (-) after a grade refers to a higher or lower degree of that grade
 (Example: a tape graded B+(+) sounds better than a tape that's a B+, but not
 quite as good as a tape graded as an A-).

Both are good examples of the respective grading systems that each author uses. There are a million ways to grade tapes. Just be sure you explain what your criteria are; if you don't, you may find that people don't trust your system. Whatever happens, don't succumb to grade inflation just to get tapes. If your tapes just don't sound that good, grade them accordingly. You will gain more respect from other traders if you are a tough grader.

Now, you've done everything you need to do to prepare yourself, your decks, and your list for some serious trading. It's time to start trading, and time to visit the next section.

Let the trades begin...

Please see the sources for this document. © 1998 Dan Mielcarz

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