Mondo Knows Facts
Every analogue tape copy loses quality
Hiss and distortion build up with each generation away from the master Copying a tape means recording one machine's playback onto another, and each pass adds noise, flutter and a little distortion. A third-generation copy of a session tape was noticeably duller than the original. That is why archives now transfer original masters at high resolution and keep those files as the working copy. It sits in Mondo's music collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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More facts like this
Tape made editing possibleEngineers cut and rejoined tape with a razor blade to build a takeDolby put hiss reduction in the homeThe system boosted quiet high frequencies on record and cut them on playbackEight track cartridges rolled the tape in one loopThe end of the tape simply joined the start, so it played for everTape speed wobbles have two namesSlow drift is wow and fast tremble is flutter, both audible as pitch waverSafety film replaced nitrate in the 1950sAcetate stock burned slowly, though it decayed into vinegar over timeThe Academy keeps its own film archiveIts collection holds thousands of titles for preservation and study
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Tags: tape, archives, preservation
Every analogue tape copy loses quality: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Hiss and distortion build up with each generation away from the master. The figure is taken from Library of Congress, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a music fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Music shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.