Reel to Reel?

I've been fiddling with the reel-to-reel some lately. I've played through both sides of 2 of the inherited reels, and one side of the other. So far they've been Jewel's mom, aunt, and one of their friends DJ'ing their own mix tapes. We found a real gem on one of the reels, the last ~15 minutes are the teenage versions of Jewel's mom, aunt, and a childhood friend named Ruth, all discussing their favorite bands of the time. Such important subject matters as, "Who's the cutest of the Dave Clark 5?" "Would Paul, and Jane's relationship last?" "Do you think any of the Rolling Stones are cute?" Apparently the answer to that one is an emphatic "Ewww, noway!" We played some of that for Jewel's mom when she was at our house this past weekend, she enjoyed it, but said she was embarrassed at the same time. She had forgotten Ruth, so it was a trip down memory lane for her.

I haven't tried recording from the Akai to a PC yet, when playing back the inherited reels, I've noticed a pretty constant, low, hum, so I ordered a ground loop isolator, assuming that is my issue. The isolator hasn't shown up yet. However, I found some reasonably priced "high quality," slightly used 7" Scotch reels on eBay, and they showed up yesterday, so I tried the record function of the Akai. I played lossless FLAC files from my laptop (Elton John's "Definitive Hits") and recorded them on the Akai. Recorded from the headphone out on my laptop to the line-in on the back of the Akai, at 7.5 ips. It didn't take all that long to adjust the levels, and it worked pretty good.  The play back from these "new" eBay reels is great, with no hum, so the hum I hear on the inherited reels may be recorded on them, and not a ground loop after all.

I love reel to reel. For years I had my Dad's old reel to reel and a bunch of tapes of folk music that he recorded off records. I think i lost it when I left it behind going off to college. A couple years ago I bought an older Akai unit I found at a Goodwill for $50. It's from around '68 and is a portable unit with built in speakers that still sound pretty good.

One note on the older Akais - some of the internal cams that are used to actuate all the mechanical linkages are made from pot metal and they like to esplode suddenly when using the deck. Like one day you turn the play lever and it goes CRUNCH and nothing else works. Be very gentle when turning the knobs - the clunky mechanism makes it very satisfying to snap them around quickly but avoid that temptation.

Sometimes you can find replacement parts online but I've started making my own replacement cams out of 1/4" thick aluminum flat stock. You just copy the old one after reassembling the bits.

Interestingly, this is one media that's not aging well at all. It's easy enough to find lots of home recorded tapes out there, but studio or release grade music is pretty rare. The tapes have a bad habit of deteriorating with age until the break or crumble when you try to play them.

I did just recently find a Buck Owens album in a box of stuff I hadn't gone through. Haven't tried to play it yet.

It's cool that you're working through recordings of your own family. Stuff like that makes me rethink the annoying relative that's always videoing.