I Found A Tape

Yugoslav war cassettes are some of the rarest tapes on the planet, due to their limited production, disposal after the war, and lack of search efforts globally. Some of these tapes take years to find, and if you've found one, you're going to want to take good care of it.

Analog media like cassettes, VHS and vinyls play video or music as a series of magnetic pulses, or groves pressed into a disk, not as a data stream like FLAC, MP3 or on a CD. This means a lot more can go wrong during storage and playback, and it can lead to degradation of the tape's contents. Digital content rarely degrades and only really does so when the storage medium (Hard drive or SSD) is damaged or misconfigured. Usually a digital file will either work or not work.

In contrast, analog media will degrade in different, sometimes unexpected ways, instead of failing all together. This is a blessing and a curse, because where a good sound file will be perfect studio quality (if it works) a cassette tape will still play, but much work would need to be done in post production to get it sounding good. High frequencies will fade, songs will not always play back the same, your player could eat the tape (though this is rare), or the pitch could be completely off from what it should be.

You must take proper care of a tape when you find it, because they definitely don't make these anymore. Some of these issues can be avoided or mitigated by storing the media responsibly. This article will only cover tapes, because CDs are rarely subject to the same degradation, and wartime vinyls are extremely rare because cassette was the dominant format at the time.

Where was the tape stored?

This is the most important (controllable) factor with analog media, second only to how the tape was recorded. Really, it's just like any other object. A bass guitar found in a maintained display case, versus a bass guitar found in your buddy's shed will be of two completely different qualities when they eventually end up in your hands, even if both guitars are 50 years old. Likewise, if your tape was found in a good environment (and remained there for a long time prior), it will likely be in better shape, and you'll hopefully get better sound quality out of it.

As soon as you find the tape, look around and see if the environment it's in is suitable for tape storage. Here are some things to avoid.

• High humidity (This will cause the physical tape to degrade and shed).
• Temperature fluctuations, even from being in sunlight (This could potentially degrade the quality of the songs on the tape).
• Magnetic fields, even ones from some electronics (This could erase things from the tape all together).
• Liquids (It's like humidity but much worse).
• Crushing hazards and pressure (Because a broken tape is a nightmare).

High humidity is the most common cause of tape degradation and its effects are very hard to treat without proper equipment. Make sure that you store the tape in a dry environment, with a temperature around 20°C (68°F). Advanced storage techniques will be detailed in "How to store a tape".