[78-L] half track tapes

[Sammy Jones]

In addition to Mike's method (but certainly NOT preferable to it), you can
play the tape with a stacked stereo head, and then shift one track slightly
using a computer audio editor.  It'll take some patience to figure out
exactly where the two sync, but it should work.

Does anybody know of another way to accomplish this on a machine that
doesn't allow you to install staggered heads, or change the record heads to
sel-rep?

Sammy Jones

> one of the things then to add to the ePewp list to look for :)
> 
> Thanks Mike, you, as always, are a font of information.
> 
> Brad
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Michael Biel
> To: 78-L Mail List <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> Sent: Sat, 8 Aug 2009 21:28:26 +0000 (UTC)
> Subject: Re: [78-L] half track tapes
> 
> As I noted in my posting a couple of minutes before, YOU DO have a
> player for staggerd track tapes.  Your Otari 5050 has the record and
> play heads at the correct spacing.  Put the lead track in Play and the
> other track in Sel-Rep which turns the record head into a play head.
> It
> will then play the tape!!!
> 
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
> 
> From: bradc944 at comcast.net
> 
> 
>  Another machine that has quarter- and half-track playback capability
> is
> the Otari MX5050. I have two in the garage, one in rack-mount and one
> in
> the floor-stand-with-casters arrangement. The switch is somewhere close
> to the playback head, seen if you flip up the head-cover.
> 
>  Another point about half-track tapes is that most were in-line (both
> tracks exactly the same place on the tape, readable by one head), but
> some were staggered so that two mono heads would play back the stereo.
> Unfortunately I don;t have a player for those.
> 
>  Brad