Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1512678
82 W I N T E R 2 0 2 4 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y That's because acetate shards under stress, or becomes brittle and breaks, correct? It can be brittle, but they both will stretch to a point and break. Most polyester-backed tape will stretch and deform into a string before it breaks. Acetate tends to just snap cleanly. So, you can, maybe, wind it a little faster and not worry because you can always put it back together! Whoa, I didn't know that! Thank God I didn't find out the hard way! That leads me to another question. When did the acetate backing fall out of fashion and the polyester backings become the norm? I have literature dated from 1969 that compares the two. I think by then almost everyone had made the switch to polyester, but I don't know when they stopped making acetate. For film, for instance, it lasted quite a bit longer. Until folks found out that you could burn a building down with it! Right! However, the nitrate film was the really dangerous one. You actually have to have a special license to project that stuff. I certainly didn't know that! Getting back to audio, what is your day to day? Are you dealing with 2-inch, 1-inch, ¼-inch? Mostly ¼-inch, compact cassettes, a few micro cassettes, and disks of all kinds; transcription disks, 78's, 45's, LP's… What kind of playback systems do you have set up for vinyl? We have two rooms here, and the one I am in is only set up for LP's and 45's. It's a Denon, and it's a pretty nice turntable! What is your chain coming out of all these analog machines? I see a Studer 2-track there in your room. Are they all similar or the same? It's pretty straightforward. We try to do as clean a transfer that is as faithful to the original as possible for the archival Steinberg SpectraLayers