We charge £100 excluding VAT for each hour of conversion. Discounts are available if you require several tapes to be converted.
Costs for transferring cassette tape to digital media
For a single C60 (60 minute overall length), both sides, price is £100 excluding VAT
For a single C90 (90 minute overall length), both sides, price is £130 excluding VAT
Equipment used
Studer A710 cassette deck with Dolby B and C
Revox B77 Mk 1, 4 track 1/4 inch stereo open reel recorder at 3 3/4 and 7 1/2 inches/second taking up to 10.5 inch reels, NAB equalisation.
Revox B77 Mk 1, 2 track 1/4 inch stereo open reel recorder at 7 1/2 and 15 inches/second, IEC equalisation.
Sony PCM-7040 digital audio recorder (DAT) 16-bit, 44/48kHz with time code.
Mackie 24bit 96kHz Analogue to Digital converters are used to convert the analogue to digital, using firewire to a host computer. All analogue leads are of high quality, and lead lengths are kept short as possible to prevent any noise pick-up.
Dedicated audio PC host computer. All equipment connected to uninterruptable power supplies (UPS) for power conditioning.
Processing
We realise that you may only want to convert a specific part of a tape to reduce cost. We can "sample" sections and email you snippets so that you can then give us the go ahead for proper conversion of a section.
We convert all analogue recordings through high quality 24bit analogue to digital converters at 96kHz per channel. For comparison, the CD format is at a lower quality at 16 bit resolution at 44.1kHz per channel. We can also transfer back to open reel tape and cassette tape as required. We will provide you with a computer disk of the original digital master transfer (at 24bit 96kHz in wav format) and a down-converted audio CD format.
If your tape has mixed speeds, we generally prefer to record at one speed (3 3/4 inches/second) then if requested, we can up-sample or down-sample the digital master to correct the speed of playback.
In the case of a reel, if your reel is split then we will happily put the tape on a new reel free of charge to give maximum protection. We will then wind the tape onto our metal NAB hubs, with new leader tape as necessary so the tape can be played back reliably. If the recording is double sided, we will play each side once only, with no stops (to minimise stress and tape wear) as so to extract the stereo image for each side of the tape. Once the transfer is complete and audio checks of the digital image are made, we will wind the tape back onto your shipped hub, or if this is damaged, onto a new plastic hub, free of charge.
Tapes, as you will know all suffer from various degrees of background noise such as hiss or motor noise which can be to the detriment of the recorded material. We can reduce or mask many of these noise types by using commercial computer software tools. All our tools are single ended (i.e. do not require pre-recorded encoding such as compander noise reduction units). Note: we presently do not support Dolby A or DBX decoding of material, but if interest follows, we will investigate this. Note: All enhancements are carried out in software, and not on the original master tape; the tape is only used to transfer the original image.
Mono tapes are completely compatible with our open reel tape player. If the tape is 2 track then half of the tape will be used for each channel, or if the tape is 4 track then alternate tracks are used to play each side of the tape in stereo in order to double the play length of the tape.
If the tape is of reasonable age (20 years.+) there is a small possibility that the tape binding has deteriorated and become sticky causing problems when run through the play back machine. Whilst damage is unlikely, the tape speed will not remain within the correct operating parameters. The only known solution to rectify this problem is to heat the tape to a carefully controlled temperature over a period of time which re-actives the binding and so therefore reduce the stickiness. This procedure will cause no lasting damage to the tape, or any degradation of the audio recorded on to it. However, we will only perform this process once we have consulted you on this issue and seek authorisation from yourself. Note: we won't charge for this extra process. If for any reason we cannot play back your tape, we will send you back your tape at no charge with an explanation of why we could not perform a transfer. However, very old tapes (30 years.+) are fortunately made with a formulation that does not deteriorate in this manner and so do not suffer this problem.
Privacy policy
The customer has full ownership and rights to all recording media whether physically or digitally stored and we will not disclose, pass on, mislay or discard any data in any shape or form to a third party.
Tape dispatch
We will only collect and return tapes ourselves for maximum peace of mind and security, and if in a 50 mile radius of GU52, free of charge.