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Why would a tape play backwards?

Earlsays

Earlsays

Well-Known Member
My brother in law has an old tape (cassette) which is playing the audio backwards on both sides. I tried it on two different decks, same result. It is a commercially pressed cassette which is molded together, so there is no unscrewing it to open it up. Any insight on what would cause this? Both tape decks are in good working order, other tapes play fine....anybody know?

Earl
 
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It was recorded on an Auto Reverse deck that was malfunctioning. Or the demonic thing, maybe.
 
If the tape looks really shiny compared with any other cassette you've ever seen, and the sound quality is also really muffled as well, the answer is simple: the tape was loaded into the cartridge wound the wrong way--oxide facing in, rather than oxide out. I have never seen a cassette that started out with the oxide wound correctly that would have gotten a half-twist in its length someplace that would result in this. Though 35 years ago (when I was 7 years old) I briefly had a Ross brand C-120 cassette ('Made in Mexico from USA Components', it said) that recorded really muffled and had this shiny-looking tape. (All the other Ross tapes were quite dull.) I pulled out a short loop of it to look at the other side of it, and there it was--the dull side that should have been facing the heads. It was quickly exchanged for replacement.
 
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I didn't even think of that....I did have a tape years ago that got a twist somewhere in the reel....I fixed it but that involved taking it apart, rolling it out quite a bit, untwisting, cutting, splicing, rolling back up, putting back together....worth it? no. probably no other way to un-twist it....it's my brother in law's tape, he says it played right for quite a few years, and yes, the sound is muffled.
 
A twist in the tape would not make the sound play backwards (and by the way, you would have to have a twist and a "untwist" somewhere if it started out correct), but loaded wrong at the factory would.
 
A twist in the tape would not make the sound play backwards
Click to expand...

Sure it would...

The twist would have the effect of having Side 1 of the recorded tape playing back on the channels normally occupied by Side 2 , which would ordinarily be sliding by on its return path, as it was recorded traveling in the opposite direction. Think of the tracks as four approximately one sixteenth-inch wide bands running parallel the length of the tape, two tracks per channel. From top to bottom, let's call them A,B, C, and D. Normal playback would have the tape reading tracks A and C on side one, and tracks B and D on side two. A twist in the tape will have side one reading tracks B and D, which would play the recording in reverse. :thmbsp:

Oh, and btw, the twist may have started as a simple slip upon loading, maybe caught by a finger or part of the deck itself. Once that inch of tape containing the twist was pressed up against the heads and played or even rewound, the two ends of the twist could arrive at opposite ends of the tape.
 
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old_tv_nut said:
A twist in the tape would not make the sound play backwards (and by the way, you would have to have a twist and a "untwist" somewhere if it started out correct), but loaded wrong at the factory would.
Click to expand...
The twist makes tracks 2 and 4 play instead of 1 and 3. Since they are recorded in the reverse direction, they do play in reverse.
 
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