Cassette problem (playback slows down/stops)

I'm having great trouble trying to play a cassette (transferring to CD for someone). It plays fine for the first few minutes then gradually slows down becoming a garbled mess. I've tried fast forwarding/rewinding through the tape several times but it has made no improvement. Sometimes if I fast forward and play somewhere in the middle it won't move at all and will just stop. I've put the tape in a new shell and this hasn't made things better either (after ripping apart the original moulded shell ). If I lift the cassette while it is playing (door removed) it plays faster but still does not sound like full speed.

But the weird thing is it plays fine on a newer (but lower quality auto reverse) deck, and every other cassette I've tried on the good deck I'm having trouble with (Teac V-1050) plays fine (even old junk 90 minute tapes).

Anyone know what's going on? Could it be a problem with belts slipping or the pinch roller? It's a two-motor, three-head deck.

 

The tape could be wound too tightly or the adhesive is sticking to the tape layers. Trying tapping the cassette on a hard surface a few times to loosen the tape. Also, clean the capstan and pinch roller on your preferred deck before playing.

 

check the other (passive) spindle it must be rolling with difficulties on its axis

 

If it's an older deck, I'd check the belts. When they dry out, they do weird things like that. On the other hand, if it's really only this one tape, and everything else plays fine, you have to suspect the tape by process of elimination. Sorry if this is too obvious....

 

I know this might seem like a waste of time, but have you tried re-winding it manually? (A pencil is a great tool). Sounds to me like the tape is stuck together in some parts..

 

This has all the earmarks of a dual-capstan deck and a 120-minute tape. (Wish they'd NEVER made those things!) If that is the case, and you can remove the door face or somehow get to the head, lift the pinch roller from the first capstan and the tape should play.

 

Thanks for the replies.

There was a lot of tapping and hammering involved trying to break apart the shell. The capstan is clean but I don't really have anything suitable for cleaning the roller, it looks a bit dirty but it's not caked in stuff either. Is there any product you can recommend?

I tried about ten other cassettes including old 90 minutes and pirate junk I bought when I lived in Saudi Arabia (legit tapes simply did not exist there!) and they all play fine. The belts don't look particularly perished or anything. I think the deck is from the '90s (bought on eBay).

I'll try that, thanks.

It's only a single capstan deck, and the tape is about LP length (EMI pre-recorded) which is why I thought it was odd that longer 60 minute and 90 minute tapes play flawlessly.

 

Here's something not mentioned yet; an old cassette could have been exposed to all kinds of longterm abuse, such as temperature fluctuations and dampness during storage, that can actually case the tape itself to become sticky, as some formulations of reel-to-reel tape from the 70s' and 80's have become. Some of this goo, wiping itself onto the play head during performance, can accumulate to slow or stop playback.

Pro studios sometimes have to resort to "baking" the tape to dry it out, and then only one pass over the heads is recommended. At the very least, consider letting your tape sit in a low-humidity, arid, room-temp environment for a few days, and then playing only short sections of the tape at a time, cleaning the play head frequently, until you have had a chance to dub the whole sequence.

 

In the distant past, I think I solved a problem like this by bending the pressure pad inside the cassette shell back a little bit, so there wasn't as much friction between tape head/tape/pressure pad.

You'd have to decide for yourself if that's going to affect playback negatively. Could it be that this particular (short) EMI tape is too thick to run smoothly through this machine?

 

Clean the head with Rain-X. This leaves a silicon lubricant on the head, that might just let the tape play. It doesn't last for very long, but you might get through a side with it. I use that on my reel machines.

 

This is a possibility, it is one of my grandfather's cassettes and their house used to get quite damp (they didn't have any central heating for years). It's been in my house for a few months though, so I guess it won't improve much without baking it (not really a viable solution for what it is). However I would have thought sticky tape would be leaving a lot of residue on the heads and capstan, roller, etc.? There is some but not really anything more significant than normal.

I have stuck some thin pieces of plastic on the bottom corners of the cassette so it rests a bit higher in the deck, I guess this is resulting in the same as what you describe (less friction from the pressure pad) but whatever's happening it is giving acceptable playback - still a bit wobbly sounding but it's good enough.

 

EMI cassettes!

The OP is having the same problem as I have on every single pre recorded cassette I have from EMI bar a couple. I have a NAD 613 cassette deck from the 90's - not had it too long - bought it from a second hand dealer near me who seems reputable enough. All the recordings onto blank tapes I made in the 80's are good, as are my non EMI pre-recordeds.

The EMI's - whether early ones, such as my "Gold" Beatles cassettes, or my 80's XDR ones (which appear to have been recorded with a really healthy signal) just play fine for a bit (a few secs) then become fluttery, then gradually slow until the tape comes to a stand-still.

I am a bit cack-handed, so don't want to transfer to new shells. The cassettes are moulded, rather than screwed anyway. Also, these are historical items, and even if EMI did muck up the order of the Beatles albums (plus a copy of Queen's A Night Of The Opera I have!), it would be a shame to not have the original tapes intact and in working order.

But I have tried all the whacking, fast-forwarding and rewinding etc till the cows come home, and there appears no salvation for these cassettes! I am informed (on Tapeheads.net) that baking the tapes is just a recipe for ruining them, and the deck playing them - it's not the same as a high grade studio baking the original 48 track masters of War of the Worlds, for example!

As a last resort, as I type, I have turned the volume down, and am playing ANATO from start to finish, wobbles and all, to get it through the machine. By the end of that sentence, it had stopped mid way thru side 1.

Well I think the fault is entirely down to EMI quality control. Well done them!

 

The back side of the tape is sticking to the little felt pressure pad. Auto parts store, powdered graphite. Dump some out and then with the edge of a razor blade, put a tiny little drop of the graphite onto the pressure pad and smooth it in. The tape will play.

Never bake a cassette.

 

JB, what is powdered graphite? I am from UK and we might call it something different. Is there a well-known brand name? Alternatively could I apply the TINIEST wee bit of something like vaseline?

 

NONONONO! No petroleum. Typically you will find it at an auto parts store, it is commonly used by mechanics to lubricate door lock cylinders. Or, you can try rubbing a soft pencil onto the pressure pad. To see if this is what is happening, hold the tape and press the tape with your finger at the pad, as if your finger were a tape head. Then see if you can turn the tape. I see a lot of that on old microcassette dictation tapes.

 

Cassette ageing issue

Well, I have to say I have tried everything to fix this problem (including light baking) but I am afraid the only way this issue will be resolved is for somebody in the scientific world to analyse the materials and come up with a chemical fix. It is very true (as mentioned earlier) that the EMI manufactured cassettes tend to be the worst. I think this is down to the fact both the tape and shells used are very consistent and both deteriorate significantly in damp/humid conditions. The shell liner sheets that are either side of the spools are made of materials similar to the tape itself and both appear to breakdown (go sticky) and cause resistance/friction right through the shell and tape path.
Light baking (and I mean light baking) does work for a couple of plays but it is definately not a safe or permanent fix.
I think, to be honest, unless their is a magical chemical cure, these cassettes are now useless. A damned shame but not a lot different to what some CD's have suffered over the years in the form of disc rot. All down to the fact that industry have abandoned cycle and endurance testing to save a couple of pence, and meet their cost reduction targets. A sad sign of the times!

 

I've had this problem recently as well, also while trying to transfer/archive tapes to cd. It has really irritated me, as it mostly happened to some of the ones I wanted to save the most.

I did end up tearing apart the shells of these troubled cassttes, and moved the tape to a better shell, with an extra large felt pad. While it worked great on some of the tapes a few were unsalvageable, and had to be discarded. It was really annoying as these would otherwise FF and FR perfectly with little if any noise, and I could hand spin them with virtually no resistance. Not all of these tapes had problems in the same area either. Some had it at the start, some the middle, and some near the end of the tape, but of course I was never surprised when it occurred near the end of long compilations.

I can only imagine that the built-in lubrication, on various parts of the tapes, had gone bad. I wish this thread had been around before I dumped all of the bad ones, as I might have tried some of the felt pad/head lubrication ideas. I could always go into the trashcan where they currently reside, but I really don't feel like separating them from the rest of the stinky garbage at this point, plus they are probably a long twisted mass of useless tape now.

That being said, the ones that were saved sounded entirely better overall in the new shell, even the parts that had been unaffected by the tape drag. The playback frequency response of these tapes was now generally much broader, and I noticed considerable improvement in not only the treble range, but with bass as well. I think the oversized felt pad was probably largely responsable for this as it would have provided more consistant pressure on the tape against the head. One particular tape whose sound balance had been slanted quite a bit to the right was perfectly balanced when played back in the better shell.

Afterwards I changed tapes from shells that I had not had any issues with, just to see if I could get any improvements out of them. I was exceptionally pleased with the results. Virtually all of them sounded significantly better. In fact I was able to engage dolby for a number of them afterwards, which really improved their overall sound. That ability really surprised me as previous to that I had only managed to be able to engage dolby on one or two of them with any success.

I ended up sacrificing a lot of tapes doing this, as I had to destroy all of the original shells to get the tape out in the first place, and then of course had no place to put the tapes afterwards, lol, but at least they are now archived safely, and really sound great. In my case they actually sound a bit better on cd than straight off the cassette deck, as I can use a straight digital feed to my receiver from the multi-disc player, instead of the long rca's required for my tape deck. It has been great nostalgic fun listening to all of these tapes as I archive them, and I look forward to listening to the music that was on them more frequecntly now that they are on cd.

 

I hope this thread is still active, because I'm having the same problem now (October 2, 2013). A friend lent me a precious pre-recorded Philips-style cassette I am to dub to MP3 without damaging it, but when I try to play it, it slows down erratically and stops, probably because the capstan is slipping on the tape. I've tried it on three (3) different cassette decks with the same sad results on each. A different pre-recorded tape plays perfectly on all three decks. My problem cassette easily fast-forwards and rewinds, and it also moves freely and easily when I advance it manually by turning a Bic pen in the take-up spool. The tape has been stored for years in a dry environment. What can I try next?

 

Try lightly scraping the pressure pad with a razor blade to "rough it up" a bit. Sometimes the pad develops a thin hard coating that prevents good tape travel. In 15 years I've digitized hundreds of cassettes, and only ever had one tape beat me, which was a Rosicrucian information tape. Nothing would play it. Nothing. Tried every trick in the book. I even sliced the pressure pad to make it thinner.

 

Just received an entire collection of USA Beatles cassettes. Having a similiar problem with warbly sound. Interestingly, they play best on my vintage Sony Walkman cassette player. On my JVC dual cassette recording deck, the tapes start screeching when the drag starts.

 

Slow and stop problem solution that worked for me:
fast wind/rewind did not help
Pushing a soft white grease (actually a soft wax Panef Corp GS-20 White grease - Amazon or maybe your hardware store) between the hubs and cassette body didn't help - However it eliminated squeaking on some other casettes.
Transferring the tape to a new cassette body didn't help

Solution was transferring just the tape to new hubs in a new body. I used hubs and body of a Sony HF60 - the hubs had small sections that snapped into the hub to hold the end of the tape/leader- be sure to squeeze on the ends, not the center, of these sections.

Unfortunately, I discarded the old hubs, so I'm not able to examine them to see what the problem is. It might be that some of the spokes are fat or otherwise defective and inserting the cassette pushed the hub against the side of the cassette body.

Screeching solutions that worked for me:
a. clean and demagnetize head(s)
b. Use just a little of the above-mentioned white grease forced into the cassette at the hubs.

 

Lot of great solutions here-- but so frustrating. I'm definitely on the side of crappy EMI cassettes. I got the Capitol "Sinatra Years" three-cassette set back in 1990 as a gift and it got me through some tough times -- until a Pioneer car cassette deck ate the first cassette ... and I retired the set in favor of the three-CD version. Fast forward to this year and in the midst of a move I came across the set in storage. Thinking it would be nice to have the complete set again, I ended up buying a new old stock set. The cassettes were all sealed but -- guess what -- when I popped the first cassette into my newly refurbished Kyocera D-811 deck, the tape got eaten. All my other cassettes -- pre-recorded and home recorded -- play back flawlessly (and sound pretty darn good to boot). The original Sinatra Cassette Two would either not play or would slow down and stop and start. The new-old-stock Sinatra Cassette Two -- fresh out of its wrapper -- did the same thing. Lik wise with the third cassettes. I even tried the Sinatras in a crappy Sony "boom box - to no avail. My conclusion -- the Capital/EMI XDRs do not age well (unlike me)

PS: I am very reticent of putting any lubricant -- silicone or graphite or otherwise -- into a cassette that might transfer guck to the delicate parts of my desk.

 

I have the same problem, also with EMI cassettes. I bought a couple of Iron Maiden tapes and all the 80's tapes have some sort of problem. Live after death slows down and stops, Killers sounds extremely muffled as do The Number of the Beast. Played some Vertigo tapes and a couple of newly released tapes and they play just fine. Quite sad since the XDR tapes from EMI sound good when they actually do play.

 

The only cassette that I have with this problem is Naked Eyes - Fuel for the Fire, which also happens to be from EMI.