i've recently been transfering surviving casette demos of my old teenage years hippy-punk band [1976-81 vintage]
direct to a good quality standalone 16 bit CD audio recorder.

one thing i realised too late,
was that all my old in-depth 1980's knowlege
of tape technology has now mostly evapourated from my memory..

so, whereas years ago i knew everything necessary about tape bias/eq,
noise reduction, etc..

tape head de-magnetising

and most importantly..
the 'pro' dodges & workarounds for getting the best results
out of diferent combinations of tape types [ferric/chrome/metal]
and related recording machine settings..

[hmmm.. was one of 'em..
always record metal type tape on ferric setting with noise reduction switched off..????]

buggered if i can remember now!!!???


so now when faced with a box of demo tapes of different types
all with inconsistently anotated lables
rarely indicating if they were recorded
with or without dolby [B or C or whatever the other ones were.. S ???]
or the rival noise reduction processes..

and with the added stress that some of the tapes are so knackered
i might only have a one shot chance to play them back
before they disintegrate or wrap and knot around the
playback heads !!

therefore.. i just resorted to the pragmatic simple decision

of playing back all tapes with noise reduction switched off

and on the tape type settting that yeilded to my ears
best subjective treble response and clarity ..

and if some tape hiss/sibilence became a little over emphasised
due to lack of dolby compensation..

bugger it..!

its easier to filter out a little over-brightness & hiss in audio edit software

than it is to regenerate treble and clarity from muddy
over-noise-reduced audio transfers..


what do you guys think ???


[there was also that rival noise reduction dbx ??
that produced weird compression 'pumping' artifacts..]


also.. does anyone know if any of the major audio software progs
have settings that can replicate various
dolby etc settings..???