The following are basic requirements: Neither the magnetic tape nor any part of the machine that comes into contact with the tape should fall below the dewpoint temperature. All tapes must be acclimatised before use, so they can be brought into line with the ambient temperature and humidity. Always make sure that large deviations in the tape's temperature and humidity are not caused by the conditions in the work area.

Before use, the tape should be acclimatised for a few hours if the temperature of the tape deviates by more than ± 5°C or its relative humidity by more than ± 10% from the conditions in the work area (studio).

Keep all parts of the tape drive mechanism that come into contact with the tape free of debris and other contaminant. All parts of the machine that come into contact with the tape should be cleaned with a suitable cleaning agent (e.g., methyl alcohol) at least once a day.

The tape tension of the machine must correspond to the manufacturer's prescribed values. A regular check is recommended not just to keep head wear as low as possible, but also to achieve the most careful treatment of the tape possible. Winding the tape too tightly causes marking of the magnetic coating by the matt back coating and indentations by foreign objects that are wound into the tape. Winding the tape too loosely leads to slipping of individual windings (cinching) and creation of folds when tape-wind is accelerated.

To prevent any additional warming, tapes should never be placed an other machines that are switched an. Warming often leads to stronger print-through. Weak magnetic fields also encourage the print-through effect.

Because of the danger of contamination, tapes should not be brought into contact with tobacco smoke or foods.

Sweat from the fingers contains salts, fats, and other chemicals that can damage the magnetic tape. For that reason, touching the tape with bare fingers should be avoided.

Moreover, fingerprints can cause strong deviations in sound level.

Never press spool flanges together. Replace any spools having bent flanges with undamaged spools. To prevent damage to tape edges, tapes should never run against the flanges.

Magnetic Tape in the Archive

A tape archive should be provided with functioning air conditioning. At the least a Thermometer and a hygrometer should be permanently installed in order to have a running check of the climate in the archive. In cleaning the room, no substances should be used that emit acidic components into the air. In regions with heavy industrial air pollution, appropriate air filters must be available. Steel shelves are preferable to wooden ones. Wood stores dampness and produces heat energy and harmful gases in the event of a fire.

Tapes that are used for archiving must have even winding surfaces. Tapes that have been exposed to different operating modes exhibit different . pressure distribution during winding. To generate equal pressure distribution, it is necessary to rewind the tapes, possibly in "library mode".

In practice the climatic conditions in a studio and in an archive are not the same, To allow it to acclimatise itself, the tape to be used for archiving should lie in the archive for several days (protected from dust) before it is packed into a polyethylene bag and placed in an archival holder for final archiving.

Magnetic tapes should basically be stored vertically. Tapes an a hub must be fixed on the hub support.

Audio magnetic tapes should be stored "tail out". This forces a rewind procedure before reuse, whereby the magnetic print-through effect is significantly lessened.

If boxes other than the originals are used, they must be mode of acidifier paper, since acids act as catalysts in the decomposition of certain bonding agents.

Temperature cycles cause expansion and contraction of the tape, and lead to uneven pressure distribution in winding and harmful effects on the magnetic layer and base film. In archives with temperature deviations > 4°C, regular rewinding (every two to three years) is necessary.

Transport of the Magnetic Tape

Magnetic tapes should be subjected only to permissible conditions in transport as well.

Precautions must be taken to protect against dirt, dampness and physical damage.

After Transport the tapes should also be acclimatised before archiving and u-se.

Magnetic fields in General present no anger, since field strengths strong enough to erase the recording are present only in the immediate area of a magnetic pole. However, weak magnetic fields do increase the print-through effect.

From the official recommendations for professional users:

EMTEC Magnetics GmbH
Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse 52
67059 Ludwigshafen - Germany