Q8 Tape Restoration

[Q-Eight]

I didn't know where exactly to post this, but I thought this would be the best spot.

I have two Q8's that, somewhere in the past, somebody decided to record over the original music. The worst part is... they didn't record very much of anything. On my Chuck Berry Q8, it's 1minute, 25 seconds of a Ronald Regan Speech (which I may save to an mp3 just for fun) but my Guess Who Wheatfield Soul album (one of my faves) has 40 seconds of someone recording the radio... so it's mostly 10 seconds of static until a station is found, then 30 secs of commercials and the beginning of a song.

So, I was wondering, that since I actually own the original recordings, would anybody be willing to donate a good, clean DTS copy so I could restore my original Q8's? Maybe at the same time I could fix the channel cock-up on the Berry tape.

If this kind of thing is not allowed though, my bad. Just thought I'd ask.

 

[JonUrban]

It's OK with me! Anyone out there that can help? I don't have either of those titles as a conversion.

If anyone can help out, send PM to Q-Eight.

I once got a Chuck Berry Q8 on eBay (paid about $35), and it had 5 minutes of "Best of Bread" in it, and that was that. A real hack job.

eBay can be fun!

 

[Q-Eight]

I thought I'd ask just to be sure. Didn't wanna open up a can of worms like I did when I asked how to copy a disc! LOL

I was choked about the Guess Who tape.... it's their first Album and it has the song "Lightfoot" on it. This is the song that's missing a 40 second chunk.
First time I played the tape, I grabbed my guitar and started playing along, only to get to the fun parts and have the music drop out!


In a related topic, I recently received Elvis in Memphis off ebay, somebody definitely re-recorded that one. It sounds AWESOME, everything is perfectly crisp with very little hiss, but if you crank up the volume during the quiet parts, you can hear the old recording down low maybe 4-5 seconds out of sync @: Neat stuff.

So, anybody? Bueller? Bueller? :banana:

 

[Dylan Berichon]

I thought I'd ask just to be sure. Didn't wanna open up a can of worms like I did when I asked how to copy a disc! LOL

I was choked about the Guess Who tape.... it's their first Album and it has the song "Lightfoot" on it. This is the song that's missing a 40 second chunk.
First time I played the tape, I grabbed my guitar and started playing along, only to get to the fun parts and have the music drop out!


In a related topic, I recently received Elvis in Memphis off ebay, somebody definitely re-recorded that one. It sounds AWESOME, everything is perfectly crisp with very little hiss, but if you crank up the volume during the quiet parts, you can hear the old recording down low maybe 4-5 seconds out of sync @: Neat stuff.

So, anybody? Bueller? Bueller? :banana:

If you decide to rerecord the tape, it might be a good idea to use a bulk tape eraser and totally erase the old tape before recording on to it. It will get rid of the problem you describe above of the "bleed through" of the old recording.

 

[Q-Eight]

If you decide to rerecord the tape, it might be a good idea to use a bulk tape eraser and totally erase the old tape before recording on to it. It will get rid of the problem you describe above of the "bleed through" of the old recording.

10-4 I have an eraser just for that specific reason. After many years of recording 8-tracks and having old recording bleed thru, I felt the need for a bulk eraser.

Thanks for the tip, though! Gives me good reason to go dig thru my junk and actually find it!!

 

[dr8track]

would anybody be willing to donate a good, clean DTS copy so I could restore my original Q8's?

So, now I'm wondering, how exactly would you do this? Since the dts is a recording that must be decoded to unlock the discrete channels, how would you get those discrete channels out of your system and into your Q8 recorder? Maybe the obvious is escaping me. On my system the only separated output when playing back a dts cd would be from the speaker outputs, which wouldn't work as a source for the signal to re-record.
Somebody walk me thru this. I may have need to do this sometime also.

 

[Q-Eight]

I have a Technics SH-AC500D DTS decoder. My DVD Player is Plugged into that. The Technics unit then has it's connections plugged into my Pioneer QX-9900. I have a Technics Q8 recorder deck plugged into the 9900. Both ins and outs are plumbed in properly.

Play DTS Disc on DVD Player --> Decoder sends signal to 9900 receiver --> Receiver outputs to Q8 Recorder.

I've done it once already on a test cartridge to even see if my deck still recorded properly (it does, btw). I've also recorded DTS to Quad Reel.

*Edit* The Milennium 2.4.6 DTS Decoder also has RCA outputs to plug into an older Quad system. The two units mentioned are really good for using in conjunction with an Older Quad unit with them using RCA connections and also BOTH can be configured to Mixdown to 4.0

 

[JonUrban]

Any DVD-A player with an internal DTS decoder and the 6 channel discrete analog outs will work just fine as well.

 

[Obtuse]

Reminds me of what happened to my (pretty rare) record club only 8 Track copy of Talking Heads-Speaking In Tongues. And this time it was my fault . Didn't realize I had the record button pressed on me Akai CR-80D-SS......Doh! 15-20 seconds of silence. So instead of completely destroying the old tape, I re-recorded the album on to a blank NOS Realistic Supertape (carefully replicating the tape change fadeout/fade up), spliced it to the proper length, and put the Supertape guts inside the original tape case. I ended up with a very excellent sounding result...plus I can return the tape back to original (minus the silent portion) if need be. Thankfully I later found another (better) copy of the original tape, but you can bet If I ever find that elusive copy of "Stop Making Sense" on 8 track, this will never happen again.