Reel-to-Reel to Digital: What Is on Those Open Reels

Reel-to-reel tapes are the ones people are least sure what to do with. There is no cassette shell and no label on a spine, just a spool of brown tape in a cardboard box, and the machine that played it was the size of a small suitcase and left the house decades ago. They are also, in many families, the oldest sound recordings there are. Before the cassette took over in the 1970s, an open reel recorder was the only way to record a voice at home, so the reels in the loft can be sixty or seventy years old. Getting reel to reel to digital is a slower, more careful job than any other tape, and this guide explains why, and what to check before a reel goes anywhere near a machine.

It belongs alongside the guide to getting cassette tapes to digital, which covers the other audio format that usually shares the same box.

What a reel-to-reel tape is

An open reel tape is a length of magnetic tape, almost always a quarter of an inch wide, wound onto a plastic or metal spool with nothing enclosing it. It threads by hand through a recorder and onto an empty take up spool, which is why the format is called reel-to-reel. The tape is the same idea as the one inside a cassette, only wider, thicker and running faster, which is why a well made reel recording from 1965 can sound better than a cassette from 1985.

Spools came in a few sizes. Three inch reels came from portable and battery machines and hold around fifteen minutes a side at the slowest speed, less at faster ones. Five inch reels were the standard for domestic recorders from Grundig, Philips, Ferguson, Akai and Sony and hold half an hour to an hour a side depending on speed. Seven inch reels were the serious home size, and 10.5 inch reels came from professional or semi-professional machines such as Revox.

Speed is the other variable. Domestic machines recorded at 1 7/8, 3 3/4 or 7 1/2 inches per second, and the slower the speed the more fitted on the reel and the poorer the sound. Many home recordings switch speed part way through a reel because somebody changed the setting to squeeze more on. There is also a track layout to identify: a reel may be half-track mono with one recording in each direction, quarter-track mono with four, or stereo in either layout. None of this is something you need to work out. It is something the lab works out before capture, and it is why a reel costs more than a cassette to transfer properly.

What is usually on old reel-to-reel tapes

Because the format predates cassettes, the recordings on open reels tend to be the oldest and the most formal in a family's collection. The common finds are a grandparent or great-grandparent speaking, recorded by a relative who had bought a machine and wanted to try it, and children from the 1950s and 1960s singing or reading. There are weddings and parties recorded from a table in the corner, church services and choirs, amateur dramatics and local bands. There are also radio programmes taped from the Light Programme or the Home Service, sometimes the only surviving copy of a broadcast the BBC itself no longer holds.

There are also tapes sent through the post between relatives, which were a common substitute for letters in families split by emigration, and recordings made by somebody's work: interviews, lectures, dictation, and the occasional very early home demo.

How to identify what you have without a machine

Do not thread anything or unwind the tape. Everything you need is visible with the reel in its box.

The box often has a printed grid on the back where the recordist noted contents, speed and date. Treat those notes as the most valuable thing in the box and keep them with the reel. The spool size tells you roughly which kind of machine made the recording. The tape colour and thickness give a rough age: older tape is usually a lighter reddish brown and thicker. Very old tape from the 1950s and early 1960s is often on an acetate base that has gone brittle, lets light through when you hold the reel up to a window, and may have a faint vinegar smell. Tape with a dull black coating on the back, mostly from the mid 1970s onwards and common on professional reels, is the kind most prone to the sticky problem below.

If a reel has a leader, the coloured or clear plastic section at the start, it was probably made on a better machine by somebody who knew what they were doing. If the tape is wound loosely, with visible steps in the pack, it has been through a few fast rewinds and will need gentle handling.

Sticky shed syndrome: why a tacky reel must not be played

Sticky shed syndrome is the thing to check for and the reason to leave open reels alone until they reach a lab. Many tapes made from the mid 1970s onwards used a binder that slowly absorbs moisture from the air. Over decades it turns gummy. A tape with sticky shed looks shiny or slightly tacky, and squeals the moment it moves across a playback head, shedding its magnetic coating onto the machine as it goes. One play in that state can take the recording with it.

The remedy is well established. The reel is baked at a controlled low temperature for several hours, which drives the moisture out of the binder and stabilises it for a window of a few weeks, during which it is transferred. It is not a repair, and the tape goes sticky again afterwards, which is why a reel is only baked when it is about to be captured. The same decay affects video tape, where it is a smaller part of the story, as how long VHS tapes last explains. On open reels it is the one fault that decides whether a tape can be played at all.

The older acetate tapes have the opposite problem: they go brittle rather than sticky, and can snap under tension. They are played slowly on a machine with a gentle transport, and nothing is forced. A reel that has already snapped should still be sent as it is, in its box, rather than taped back together at home.

How reel to reel to digital works at the lab

Each reel is logged and photographed on arrival and inspected before it goes near a machine: pack condition, splices, smell, and the shine test for sticky shed. Reels that need it are baked. Each reel is then played on a Revox or Studer machine, the decks studios and broadcasters relied on, after the speed and track layout have been identified and set. The capture is made at 24-bit 96kHz, well beyond what the tape can hold, so the file keeps everything the tape still has. A reel whose speed or track layout changes part way through, which home machines allowed, is captured at the right settings for each part.

Every reel goes through the same inspection, capture and quality control sequence as every other format we take, laid out in how we digitise your tapes. The difference with reel to reel tape conversion is that the identification step is longer and the handling slower, and both are built into the price.

What you get back, and what it costs

For each reel you receive a WAV file at full resolution for archiving and an MP3 for everyday listening. The WAV is the copy to keep, and the MP3 is the one to play on a phone or send to a relative. The files come on a USB drive, by cloud link or both, and the reels come home in the same box. The sequence from ordering to delivery is described in what happens after you order.

Open reels are £35 per reel, whatever the spool size or running time. A USB drive is £10 and cloud delivery is £5. You add the reels on our calculator, secure tracked 3-way shipping is added, and you pay once at checkout. Turnaround is typically 2 to 4 weeks from when we receive your media.

How to post reel-to-reel tapes safely

Reels are more fragile in the post than cassettes because nothing protects the tape edge. Keep each reel in its box, and if the box has gone, wrap the reel on its own in bubble wrap. Pad the parcel so nothing can slide or rattle, because a reel that shifts in transit can step its pack or bend a flange. The paid order includes a reinforced Media Box with a prepaid tracked return label, or you can use your own packaging and tracked postage. Packing tapes and reels for the post has the details.

If the reels are part of a larger inheritance of tapes, film and photographs, it is worth sending it all together, with the reels and anything that smells of vinegar at the front of the queue. Sorting that kind of box is covered in where to start with a box of old home movies.

If you have a reel and no machine, leave it in its box and send it as it is. The reel-to-reel to digital service page has the calculator and the details of the machines.