Researchers want to save old audio tapes with X-rays
Published: Monday, Apr 8th 2024, 17:20
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Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Villigen AG want to use special X-ray light to rescue old audio tapes. The first to be digitized using the new method will be a concert recording of blues guitarist B. B. King at the 1980 Montreux Jazz Festival.
The PSI said on Monday that only ten seconds of the 48-minute audio recording could be played back today. The chemical composition of the tape had already decayed to such an extent that any playback in a conventional playback device would only further destroy the tape. The digitization of magnetic tapes is a race against time, the PSI wrote.
The PSI researchers' new approach uses synchrotron radiation from the Swiss Light Source (SLS). In the ring-shaped SLS facility, charged particles such as electrons can be accelerated to almost the speed of light. When these electrons are deflected in such a ring, they emit so-called synchrotron radiation, which can be used in various wavelength ranges.
"Best possible copy"
The researchers are now directing such X-rays at the magnetic tapes. The information is stored on these in a layer of tiny magnetic particles. Similar to small compass needles that point either north or south, as the PSI explained. When the tape is played, its magnetic orientation changes. The audio information is therefore stored on the tape as an alignment pattern.
With the synchrotron light, almost every single magnetic compass needle on the tape could be measured. "We achieve something like the best possible copy," Sebastian Gilga, physicist at PSI, was quoted as saying in the press release. The digitization of the B. B. King recording is part of a collaboration between PSI and the Montreux Jazz Digital Project.
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