Had the worst week for tape recordings last March

I was working on a mix for a friend's birthday and had three tapes in a row get chewed up by my old Nakamichi deck. One was a rare live recording of a local band from 1988 that I had traded for. The deck ate the tape on that one so bad I had to splice it three times just to get it playing again. What made it worse was I had spent the whole weekend picking out songs and recording levels. Has anyone else had a deck go rogue on a specific tape or am I just cursed with bad luck?

2 comments

2 Comments

claireg8111h ago

Oh man, "ate the tape" gives me flashbacks. I read somewhere that old Nakamichi decks have a known issue with certain tape formulations from the late 80s - something about the lubricant breaking down over time. I had a similar thing happen with a DAT player once, it just decided to mangle one specific tape out of nowhere. Total nightmare.

butler.brian7h ago

That's exactly the kind of thing that makes you paranoid about gear. lol It's like these old machines just develop their own personal grudges against certain tapes. Makes you wonder if there's a bigger pattern though, like how everyone's got that one drawer or closet that just randomly breaks stuff for no reason. You can put ten identical things in there, and it'll pick one to destroy while the rest are fine. Total gremlin energy.