Danny Richard Posted July 1, 2017 #1 Share Posted July 1, 2017 Hey Guys I remember back in High School myself and two friends were doing a class exercise where we had to interview people from WW2 about their experiences. My parents had a Dictaphone / tape recording (Sony if I recall correctly) and we used that. However, the only tapes that we had had been used before so my dad suggested that we record over them for a better sound first before we used them. So we left the Dictaphone recording on its own in my room, then went downstairs to watch the football that was on TV that night. Hours later we came back up and played it back to check that it was clean, only to find that there were some muffled, very faint sounding voices. The weird thing was, every time we played it back it sounded clearer, to the extent that we could begin to make out what was being said. Now, we were pretty young and got freaked out and just left it (yes, I know, useless!) and didn't really talk about it much after. I wish that I'd kept the recording, but we used it the next day to do the exercise (we needed to do it to pass our class), and didn't experiment with it again. Is there a simple explanation behind this? Could it have just been the tape picking up radio signals / satellite transmissions? Or maybe even the audio from previous coming through? The one thing that we couldn't understand is why it sounded cleaner / louder each time we played it back. and the fact that it definitely sounded like it was from something nearby / in the room (could well have been young imagination playing wild, however all three of us definitely felt the same about it). Anyway, probably explained away very easily but it felt pretty uncanny at the time. Any similar experiences / thoughts / explanations would be brilliant. Cheers Danny 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rashore Posted July 1, 2017 #2 Share Posted July 1, 2017 Welcome to UM Danny Please, take time to read the site rules, check out some threads, and enjoy your time here on UM Ah, the good old days of using tapes. Recording and re-recording over stuff is something I've done a lot. You guys didn't "blank erase", like what one would do with a double tape deck- that is the best kind of erase, but depending on how much the tape was used, it could leave traces behind. You guys did a "run the recorder" erase, which could leave traces behind- and actively pick up noises from around the house. It was probably recording you guys catching the game. Why it kept sounding clearer is probably because once you notice a sound, you keep trying to hear it better or pay more attention to what is actually being said- it's kind of an audio pareidolia. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Richard Posted July 1, 2017 Author #3 Share Posted July 1, 2017 Ah brilliant thanks, knew that there must have been some kind of rational explanation! And thanks, happy to come onboard, the site and forums look fantastic! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acute Posted July 1, 2017 #4 Share Posted July 1, 2017 It is easy to capture radio/tv signals, and other sources of interference, onto magnetic tape. No amount of erasing will help, if the sound is laid down in the final pass. I had a recording of a neighbour's games console appear on one of my tapes! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acute Posted July 1, 2017 #5 Share Posted July 1, 2017 (edited) Also..... If a tape is recorded or erased on one machine, and later played on a different machine, you sometimes hear a trace of the previous recording, if the two players' tape heads are out of alignment with each other. Edited July 1, 2017 by acute . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acute Posted July 1, 2017 #6 Share Posted July 1, 2017 Last one.......... If a heavy (tightly wound) tape, or a thin tape, is unplayed for a long period of time, the magnetic data can be transferred slightly to the neighbouring loops on the reel, giving a delayed echo effect. It's called print-through. Ok..... I'll shut up now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Richard Posted July 1, 2017 Author #7 Share Posted July 1, 2017 1 hour ago, acute said: Last one.......... If a heavy (tightly wound) tape, or a thin tape, is unplayed for a long period of time, the magnetic data can be transferred slightly to the neighbouring loops on the reel, giving a delayed echo effect. It's called print-through. Ok..... I'll shut up now! Haha no it's all cool and really interesting... and confirms that we probably weren't visited from the other side! Although at the time the whispering voices did sound very eerie and like they were in the room, but probably childhood imagination! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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