Paper backed recording tape?

[The Red Bladder]

Someone told me the following in an email -

"As you know when editing dialogue (Nagra, Studer, Bias London, levers Rich days) you always used white paper-backed tape, easy to write on and mark mistakes. The first tape recorder 1939 used paper tape. It changed to vinyl in the late ’40s. Even up to the 1990s editing was still done using paper backing. There was white vinyl tape available but vinyl stretches."

I have never seen paper-backed tape in my c.a. 60 years of playing with tape recorders and I have never heard of such stuff and nobody I know has either. I know such stuff existed as an experiment in Germany in the 30s, but that's about all I know.

Can anyone throw some light on this?

[Hugh Robjohns]

New one on me!

I never came across paper-backed tape or paper-based editing (sticky) tape in my 15 years of BBC tape editing.

I'm intrigued to learn more...

[The Red Bladder]

As I suspected, he talking gibberish. Just some old geezer rambling - that couldn't happen to me, now could it?

[allebaug]

FYI

https://thegreatbear.net/audio-tape/pap ... n%20solved.

and

https://obsoletemedia.org/soundmirror/

[Tim Gillett]

Paper backed tape was used in the early days of tape recording. I have some live recordings here recorded in Dorking around 1950. I'm told they're quite rare these days even in archives.

In the late 1940's the US Brush Soundmirror recorders but also licensed to Thermionic Products for manufacture in the UK, used a paper backed tape. I believe these were the first domestic tape recorders available. The tapes were noisy because of the roughness of the paper backing and the low energy coatings used at that time. The machines also used DC or permanent magnet erase heads which only made matters worse. Poor high frequency response on the samples I have. They were superceded by plastic bases such as acetate and polyester.

Details and photo of Brush Soundmirror recorder and tape:

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/brush_bk401.html

The radiomuseum entry incorrectly states that the recordings were full track. Actually they used a centre track, about 3.5mm wide, possibly to avoid the dropouts and dirt closer to the tape edges, but also probably because of differential expansion of the paper base, azimuth stability in full track even at 7.5ips would have been atrocious with terrible comb filtering on playback. It's bad enough as it is. Good transfer engineers capture the mono centre track in stereo, time align with a digital azimuth align tool and only then sum to mono.

[Tim Gillett]

FYI

https://thegreatbear.net/audio-tape/pap ... n%20solved.

Good photo allebaug of the paper tape on a Sound Mirror steel reel, and the info on the
excellent Philips site.

[The Red Bladder]

Thanks Tim - on a minor correction note to that website, Radio Frankfurt was in Bad Nauheim. There is no Bad Bauheim!

[Hugh Robjohns]

FYI

Yes, I know paper-backed tapes were used in the early years of tape recording. But I've only ever seen it at EMI's archive museum.

So I certainly don't dispute the quoted comments about the use of paper tape in the 40s and 50s.

What I would query, though, is the claim that:

Even up to the 1990s editing was still done using paper backing. There was white vinyl tape available but vinyl stretches

That just doesn't match my experiences of tape editing in the 70s (as an amateur), 80s and 90s (as a professional). I wonder, perhaps, if there's some confusion or misunderstanding creeping in?

We generally used matt-backed tapes which were easy to mark with Chinagraph pencils, and a white adhesive joining tape for the edits... I wonder if that's what he's referring to with his 'white vinyl tape'?

[Mike Stranks]

FYI

Yes, I know paper-backed tapes were used in the early years of tape recording. But I've only ever seen it at EMI's archive museum.

So I certainly don't dispute the quoted comments about the use of paper tape in the 40s and 50s.

What I would query, though, is the claim that:

Even up to the 1990s editing was still done using paper backing. There was white vinyl tape available but vinyl stretches

That just doesn't match my experiences of tape editing in the 70s (as an amateur), 80s and 90s (as a professional). I wonder, perhaps, if there's some confusion or misunderstanding creeping in?

We generally used matt-backed tapes which were easy to mark with Chinagraph pencils, and a white adhesive joining tape for the edits... I wonder if that's what he's referring to with his 'white vinyl tape'?

Quite so! My experience matches yours precisely.

I'd heard of paper tape for recording before, and the infamous steel ribbon and wire recorders... infamous because if you got caught in the backlash of one of those reels breaking then it was a hospital trip to have the cuts stitched...

[Tim Gillett]

...We generally used matt-backed tapes which were easy to mark with Chinagraph pencils, and a white adhesive joining tape for the edits... I wonder if that's what he's referring to with his 'white vinyl tape'?

I have some old magnetic tapes onto which are spliced white paper leader and tail tapes on which is written in ink the programme recorded on the tapes. Maybe that's what he means.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Possibly, yes.

I'm sure different institutions have different practices, and maybe some found it useful to write on leader tapes... But that sounds very fiddly to implement, to me and not very helpful since the labelling would be invisible once the tape was laced up! Not a problem if you only have the one machine and the one tape, but a nightmare if you have six tape machines in front of you with a stack of thirty tapes to play into a programme!

We (as in the BBC) used peelable adhesive labels on both the tape reels and boxes (or when speed was of the essence, sometimes wrote straight onto the reel in chinagraph!).

And we used different coloured leader tapes (white, yellow, green, blue) to indicate various key things. This varied a bit with different departments but typically indicated whether the tape was mono or stereo, or whether it was 7.5 or 15 ips. Important details to know in advance when throwing a stack of tapes onto machines in a hectic live programme!

Yellow was often used between items if the tape had multiple sections -- common in news programmes. And red leader always indicated the tail of the tape.

[The Red Bladder]

He says he has boxes of the stuff and will forward details. I shall keep a candle burning in the window for that.

[Tim Gillett]

Possibly, yes.

I'm sure different institutions have different practices, and maybe some found it useful to write on leader tapes... But that sounds very fiddly to implement, to me and not very helpful since the labelling would be invisible once the tape was laced up! Not a problem if you only have the one machine and the one tape, but a nightmare if you have six tape machines in front of you with a stack of thirty tapes to play into a programme!...

It couldnt have been too fiddly otherwise it wouldnt have been done as on the 1/4" examples I have here.

It allowed people to identify what was on the tape without a machine to play it.

Tapes could become separated from their original reel and perhaps original box. The programme ID remained with the tape, independent of the reel or the box.

With mono two track it identified each programme side which immediately followed the respective leader.

Unlabelled recordings are a curse. Recordings have been throw away due to no visible indication of their contents. It's easy to assume that an unlabelled tape is a blank tape. With film we at least can hold it up to the light. With discs we can see the pattern of cut grooves.

[Tim Gillett]

He says he has boxes of the stuff and will forward details. I shall keep a candle burning in the window for that.

Does he mean paper leader tape for labelling, or paper backed magnetic tape? The latter could be an interesting find as they could be recordings from the late 40's to early 50's.

A couple of years ago Ted Kendall transferred some early live radio broadcast recordings of Kathleen Ferrier recorded onto metal discs by Kenneth Leech who had his own disc cutting lathe at his home. Apparently he made many recordings of other live radio performances as well (probably not recorded anywhere else) and many have survived.

This is the Ferrier CD:

https://www.somm-recordings.com/recordi ... emembered/#

[Hugh Robjohns]

It couldnt have been too fiddly otherwise it wouldnt have been done as on the 1/4" examples I have here.

Is this the 5-minute pointless argument, or the full 30 minutes?

I didnt say it was impossible, just that it sounds too fiddly for me -- with the background context of a broadcasting environment.

I can do lots of fiddly things... But where there is a quicker and easier solution I generally choose it unless there's a very good reason not to. I'm sure I could write quicker and more easily -- not to mention more legibly -- on a label than on leader tape.

It allowed people to identify what was on the tape without a machine to play it.

Sure.... And I'd do that by looking at the box and/or the label on the reel -- and I could still use those methods to tell me what the tape is even when it's laced up...

Tapes could become separated from their original reel and perhaps original box. The programme ID remained with the tape, independent of the reel or the box.

True, but its still not foolproof. The leader tape can get damaged, break or fall off when the splicing tape dries out. All things that can happen just as easily as the tape getting removed from its original reel.

Given good operational practices, though, a tape shouldnt get separated from its reel or box, of course. And if the tape isn't being used with good practices, all bets are off anyway!

So each to their own, and all that, and I'm not suggesting writing on the leader is a bad idea... Just that I'm not personally persuaded to adopt or recommend leader-scribblng as a better technique over the other, arguably more conventional, methods mentioned.

Unlabelled recordings are a curse.

I'd certainly agree with that!

[Mike Stranks]

Hugh: am I right that standard BBC practice was to store tapes with end-leader (as it were) outermost - ie you had to rewind before playing - or is that a misremember or something from somewhere else?

Thinking back, I'd have been trouble a few times if that had always been the case... etched in my memory are the occasions that I walked very briskly into the cubicle with a just-edited tape as the cue was being read live on air.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Hugh: am I right that standard BBC practice was to store tapes with end-leader (as it were) outermost - ie you had to rewind before playing - or is that a misremember or something from somewhere else?

Generally yes, and certainly tail-out for archiving. However, tape inserts for news programmes -- usually on 5-inch reels -- were often front-out, though, simply to minimise the loading times.

...etched in my memory are the occasions that I walked very briskly into the cubicle with a just-edited tape as the cue was being read live on air.

Yes... Always thrilling...

[The Red Bladder]

Ah-ha! Found the damn stuff! Paper tape was indeed used and manufactured until 1945 by 3M under the 'Scotch' brand. It was apparently dire stuff, sounded dreadful and broke all the time.

[Tim Gillett]

Ah-ha! Found the damn stuff! Paper tape was indeed used and manufactured until 1945 by 3M under the 'Scotch' brand. It was apparently dire stuff, sounded dreadful and broke all the time.

Yes the paper tapes I transferred broke easily (one tiny tear at the edge easily widened to a complete break) so multiples splices were often needed before a successful transfer could be made.

But in my experience they've been less of a problem than some of the recordings made a few years later onto acetate tape which over the many years has buckled and twisted dreadfully. The acetate sound quality was better but just getting the tape to physically play without wildly twisting and refusing to wind onto the take up reel was quite a job. Compared to those problems I'd choose paper tapes for repair and transfer any day.

[The Red Bladder]

I've got a large box full of old acetate tapes that I have not touched for about 50 years! Old logging tapes and things I recorded in my teens!

[MOF]

Ah-ha! Found the damn stuff! Paper tape was indeed used and manufactured until 1945 by 3M under the 'Scotch' brand. It was apparently dire stuff, sounded dreadful and broke all the time.

Until 1945? I thought magnetic tape started to be used from 1945@ when the first tape recorders were taken back to the USA from Germany after the war and further developed by Ampex.

[Tim Gillett]

I've got a large box full of old acetate tapes that I have not touched for about 50 years! Old logging tapes and things I recorded in my teens!

The acetate tapes may be fine. Hard to be sure from here. Acetate tapes when held up to the light let the light through.

[ken long]

Horrible stuff, terrible freq response.

As for writing on the back of leader, I've seen this often enough on tape comped from field recordings. But never on paper.

[Tim Gillett]

Horrible stuff, terrible freq response.

Yes not great, but at the time (late 40's) the Soundmirror paper tapes had some advantages over the existing disc recording formats: longer uninterrupted record time (over 30 minutes on a 7" reel), splice editing and of course erasing and reuse.

I have a special connection with such magnetic paper tapes. 18 years ago I had just placed an advert for an audio tape digitising and editing service. My very first customer threw me in at the deep end when she brought me five 7" Soundmirror paper tape reels of a live oratorio concert (Messiah) in which she had been the soprano 48 years earlier in England. The retired singer went on to employ me for many years digitising and editing many other old live recordings she had kept.

Before this recording, from 1948, the musicians had been paying contractors to record their live concerts onto multiple 12" acetate 78 RPM discs of 4 minutes per side, using two disc cutting machines. One of the disc recording engineers was a young Michael Gilliam whom I think went on to work for the BBC.

The early paper tape recordings had noisy background, very limited highs, perhaps nothing higher that 5kHz, and dreadful azimuth wander. But overall well recorded and listenable.

In my enthusiasm but also naivety I worked out the dimensions of the unusual centre track tape format and custom modified a half track tape head to read it, only to find the comb filtering due to azimuth wander unbearable. Reading the full width of the track with unsummed tracks 2 and 3 of a quarter track head gave a much better result, which I later learned was the standard way to transfer these Soundmirror paper tapes. The customer later gave me acetate tapes recorded on the same Soundmirror machine with the same centre track format.

Years later I learned about software Azimuth Correctors and was able to time align the "stereo" capture of the centre track before summing to mono, a much better result with the paper tapes.

[Tim Gillett]

Someone told me the following in an email -

"As you know when editing dialogue (Nagra, Studer, Bias London, levers Rich days) you always used white paper-backed tape, easy to write on and mark mistakes. The first tape recorder 1939 used paper tape. It changed to vinyl in the late ’40s. Even up to the 1990s editing was still done using paper backing. There was white vinyl tape available but vinyl stretches."

RB it occurred to me this "someone" may well know a lot more about the paper tape he was talking about and how it was used back then that all of our knowledge combined. Is he still around?