This reel to reel mixtape has been preserved! It had sticky-shed syndrome which happens to certain brands of recording tape. The tape was sticking together and wouldn't roll off to the tape reel when played. We had to do a process called 'tape baking' where you dry out the tape to be able to play it, and transfer it, before it's gone for good. Even after the tape was 'baked', it clogged the heads 5 times while transferring it to digital. We had to record the tape in segments while cleaning the tape deck playback heads 5 different times. The whole process to save this tape took 3 hours of 'baking' the tape, 2 hours to cool it, 1.5 hours to transfer it to digital, and a half hour to edit the 5 segments back together to make the final audio file. There is one section where the EQ changes on the tape. This is due to the oxide coming off of the tape. We've preserved the tape to the best of our ability. There also my be some dropouts in the audio here and there.
When we tried to play the B-side of the reel for conversion, the tape started shedding everywhere, and the fildelity got really bad. We weren't able to save it after digitizing the A-side. At least we were able to preserve that!
