Audio Conversions - Inclusions & Timeframes

Audio Cassettes Clean+Convert Service:

This is our basic conversion service which still uses all our professional equipment, but is largely "as is", with the exception of removal of extended blank passages, and audio volume normalising.


What you receive:

• Price includes a physical pre-transfer cleaning of the tape itself, so your tape is transferred in it’s best possible state. Tape cleaning can mean the difference between success & failure when saving your memories. This is why we have the highest transfer success rate in the industry.

• Conversion service as above to your choice of high-quality, tested, brand-name USB or CDs.

• 6 months FREE backup of your digitised media with RetroMedia's 3VAULT triple redundancy archiving service is included with ALL transfers. This helps form part of the 6 month warranty on your transfers.


Not included but available:

• Audio enhancement - hiss/hum reduction, compression, equalisation etc.

• Click removal.

• Repairs to tapes that come in broken, or which break during handling, preparation or conversion process. We can repair most types of cassette breakages, including snapped tape, and missing pressure pads.

Repairs that require us opening the shell are priced at $44. This includes most tape snaps, broken leaders, broken reels.

If we need to replace a missing pressure pad, that will usually be $22.

We don't get involved where there are small orphaned pieces of tape. It's not always possible to know where they go (especially if there are multiple pieces) or to get them the right way around, or in the right order.

We may opt not to repair a tape where:

• upon opening the tape it "explodes" our of the shell, due to deterioration

• where is has swollen up inside the shell & it pressing against the insides of the shell casing. The only possibility here would be to place into 2 shells, digitise both & join together digitally. This would need to be quoted on.

• where the tape is twisted. If we were to take this on, it would need to be charged out at hourly rates, as where the twist occurred, and how far through hand unwinding the reel before we locate the spot/s where this occurred, is very time consuming & not able to be known in advance.

• Tracks Splitting - We will supply a single track for each side of your cassette (unless side is silent). We can also split the track into individual songs if required at extra cost.


Audio Cassettes ULTRA Conversions:

This is our enhanced conversion service which uses all our professional equipment, and adds enhancement processing.


What you receive:

• Price includes a physical pre-transfer cleaning of the tape itself, so your tape is transferred in it’s best possible state. Tape cleaning can mean the difference between success & failure when saving your memories. This is why we have the highest transfer success rate in the industry.

• Conversion service as above to your choice of tested, selected, brand-name USB or CDs.

• Audio enhancement as required - including hiss/hum reduction, click removal/reduction, compression, equalisation.

• 6 months FREE backup of your digitised media with RetroMedia's 3VAULT triple redundancy archiving service is included with ALL transfers. This helps form part of the 6 month warranty on your transfers.


Not included but available:

• Repairs to tapes that come in broken, or which break during handling, preparation or conversion process.

• Tracks Splitting - We will supply a single track for each side of your cassette (unless side is silent). We can also split the track into individual songs if required at extra cost.


MicroCassette, Mini-Cassette or Steno-Cassette Economy Conversions:

This is our basic conversion service for analogue dictaphone tapes. Resulting audio file is largely "as is", with the exception of removal of extended blank passages, and audio normalising. We record at the speed at which the tape commences.


What you receive:

• Conversion service as above to your choice of tested, selected, brand-name USB or CDs.

• Single-speed recording per side of tape, done at the correct speed as at the start of the recording on that side. NB: We do not do speed adjustments within the body of the content with the digitising service.

• 6 months FREE backup of your digitised media with RetroMedia's 3VAULT triple redundancy archiving service is included with ALL transfers. This helps form part of the 6 month warranty on your transfers.



Not included but available:

• Audio enhancement - hiss/hum reduction, click reduction/removal, compression, equalisation etc.

• Speed adjustments within the body of the content - speed adjustments can be applied, but are not included in standard rates. This work is charged at hourly rates.

• Repairs to tapes that come in broken, or which break during handling, preparation or conversion process. (Limited repairs only available with this format)

• Tracks Splitting - We will supply a single track for each side of your tape. We can also split the track into individual songs/tracks if required, at extra cost.


MicroCassette, Mini-Cassette or Steno-Cassette ULTRA Conversions:

This is our conversion service for analogue dictaphone tapes, with added enhancement processing included.


What you receive:


• Conversion service as above to your choice of tested, selected, brand-name USB or CDs.

• Single-speed recording per side of tape, done at the speed of the start of the recording on that side. NB: We do not do speed adjustments within the body of the content with the digitising service.

• Audio enhancement - hiss/hum reduction, click reduction/removal, compression, equalisation etc

• 6 months FREE backup of your digitised media with RetroMedia's 3VAULT triple redundancy archiving service is included with ALL transfers. This helps form part of the 6 month warranty on your transfers.


Not included but available:

• Repairs to tapes that come in broken, or which break during handling, preparation or conversion process. (Limited repairs only available with this format)

• Speed adjustments within the body of the content - speed adjustments can be applied, but are not included in standard rates. This work is charged at hourly rates.

• Tracks Splitting - We will supply a single track for each side of your tape. We can also split the track into individual songs/tracks if required, at extra cost.



Reel-to-Reel Audio Tape Economy Conversions:

This is our basic conversion service for analogue open reel tapes. Resulting audio file is largely "as is", with the exception of removal of loud clicks, removal of extended blank passages, and audio normalising. We record at the speed at which the tape commences. NB: We do not do speed adjustments within the body of the content with the digitising service.


What you receive:

• Price includes a physical pre-transfer cleaning of the tape itself, so your tape is transferred in it’s best possible state. Tape cleaning can mean the difference between success & failure when saving your memories. This is why we have the highest transfer success rate in the industry.

• Conversion service as above to your choice of tested, selected, brand-name USB or CDs.

• Single-speed recording per side of tape, done at the speed of the start of the recording on that side. NB: We do not do speed adjustments within the body of the content with the digitising service.

• 6 months FREE backup of your digitised media with RetroMedia's 3VAULT triple redundancy archiving service is included with ALL transfers. This helps form part of the 6 month warranty on your transfers.


Not included but available:

• Repairs to tapes that come in broken, or which break during handling, preparation or conversion process. Tapes can be brittle or degraded at this age. Some may not be transferrable at all due to problems like:

• de-lamination (the oxide comes away from the plastic tape base)

• hydrolysis problems (tape path stiction/friction, tape squealing, aka "sticky shed syndrome"),

• stretched tape,

• deformation (the tape deforms in a ruffle-like, sprung-open state & can neither be effectively played nor rewound), and

• brittle-ness of the tape

Where we can repair tape breakage, or failed tape splices, we will repair one instance of breakage per tape side at no charge. Beyond that we charge $7.70 per repair. If we encounter more than one splice failure/breakage we will pause the job & seek instruction.


Audio Enhancement/Restoration Services:

For reel-to-reel formats, because of the content length can vary so greatly, we offer enhancement/restoration at hourly edit rates. Click here for further information.

• Audio enhancement - hiss/hum reduction, click removal/reduction, compression, equalisation etc, as required.

• Speed adjustments within the body of the content - speed adjustments can be applied, but are not included in standard rates. This work is charged at hourly rates.

We record tapes at the tape speed determined to be correct at the beginning of each side of the tape. Our decks are maintained to be dead accurate on playback speed, but many domestic decks of the past were not, so there may be instances where the recordings we transfer for you are not reproduced exactly at true "Concert C" pitch, or where voices may not sound exactly as you're used to hearing them, or in fact at the exact correct pitch. This can be dealt with in post production editing if needed.

Depending on the habits of the original recordist, a tape may be one consistent speed throughout, or may change speed once or twice. In some cases many speed changes can occur. If a tape exhibits multiple playback speeds throughout its length, then digital editing will be required to correct this. Once again, editing is not included in our transfer service.

Our approach to this problem is that the client first takes home the digitised versions of the tapes & then notes if/where any speed changes occur. This is so they are not paying labour charges for us to sit & listen intently through long tapes checking for the possible occurrence of speed changes, something that would cost more than most people would be happy to pay. We won't be held responsible for any instances of incorrect speeds occurring within the transfer. We undertake, as part of the transfer/conversion process only to get the playback speed correct at the start of each side of each tape. The client, or a family member, may be able to adjust this in software such as the free Audacity program, or we can correct this for you. Extra editing charges would apply for this, as it falls outside the scope of our offered transfer service, which is basically to clean your tapes so they play back at their best, and to migrate your audio from tape to a digital format (mp3 or WAV files on USB).

• Single Sided/Double Sided - If it is unknown whether or not there is material on both sides, the only way we'll know for sure is to play through & record both sides. "Both sides" rates above apply whether the reverse side has material or is blank. If the entire tape is blank we will issue a $10 part credit, because all the cleaning work & the play through labour is the same, regardless.

• Tracks Splitting - We supply a single track for each side of your tape. We can also split the track into individual songs/tracks if required, at extra cost.


Reel-to-Reel Audio Tape ULTRA Conversions:

This is our conversion service for analogue dictaphone tapes, with added enhancement processing included.


What you receive:

• Price includes a physical pre-transfer cleaning of the tape itself, so your tape is transferred in it’s best possible state. Tape cleaning can mean the difference between success & failure when saving your memories. This is why we have the highest transfer success rate in the industry.

• Conversion service as above to your choice of tested, selected, brand-name USB or CDs.

• Single-speed recording per side of tape, done at the speed of the start of the recording on that side. NB: We do not do speed adjustments within the body of the content with the digitising service.

• Audio enhancement - hiss/hum reduction, click removal/reduction, compression, equalisation etc, as required.

• 6 months FREE backup of your digitised media with RetroMedia's 3VAULT triple redundancy archiving service is included with ALL transfers. This helps form part of the 6 month warranty on your transfers.


Not included but available:

• Repairs to tapes that come in broken, or which break during handling, preparation or conversion process.

• Speed adjustments within the body of the content - speed adjustments can be applied, but are not included in standard rates. This work is charged at hourly rates.

• Tracks Splitting - We supply a single track for each side of your tape. We can also split the track into individual songs/tracks if required, at extra cost.




Audio Records (Vinyl/Acetate) Economy Conversions:

This is our basic conversion service which still uses all our professional equipment, but is largely "as is", with the exception of removal of loud clicks, removal of extended blank passages, and audio normalising.


What you receive:

• A Wet Washing process for your vinyl record before conversion. NB: Vinyl only - Not suitable to fragile acetates.

• Conversion service as above to your choice of tested, selected, brand-name USB or CDs.

• 6 months FREE backup of your digitised media with RetroMedia's 3VAULT triple redundancy archiving service is included with ALL transfers. This helps form part of the 6 month warranty on your transfers.


Not included but available:

• Audio enhancement - click/crackle/pop reduction

• Tracks Splitting - We will supply a single track for each side of your record. We can also split the track into individual songs if required, at extra cost.

Not included and not available:

• It needs to be accepted that we can't necessarily do anything about scratches deep enough to cause track skipping or repeating. We can do a secondary run-through with added cartridge weight (which may or may not fix the problem). This second run-through may attract a surcharge of 50%. In the case of repeats, we will edit them out. Please note that this editing is not seamless.


Audio Records (Vinyl/Acetate) ULTRA Conversions:

This is our enhanced conversion service which uses all our professional equipment, and adds enhancement processing.


What you receive:

• A Wet Washing process for your vinyl record before conversion. NB: Not suitable to fragile acetates.

• Conversion service as above to your choice of tested, selected, brand-name USB or CDs.

• Audio enhancement - click/crackle/pop reduction

• 6 months FREE backup of your digitised media with RetroMedia's 3VAULT triple redundancy archiving service is included with ALL transfers. This helps form part of the 6 month warranty on your transfers.



Not included but available:

• Vinyl "Peel" deep cleaning process

• Tracks Splitting - We will supply a single track for each side of your record. We can also split the track into individual songs if required, at extra cost.


Not included and not available:

• It needs to be accepted that we can't necessarily do anything about scratches deep enough to cause track skipping or repeating. We can do a secondary run-through with added cartridge weight (which may or may not fix the problem). This second run-through may attract a surcharge of 50%. In the case of repeats, we will edit them out. Please note that this editing is not seamless.


Timeframes:

Depending on your quantities, we’re quoting from approx 3 weeks at the moment for a small - medium sized audio conversion project, not including shipping time. Most jobs will be in the 3-6 weeks region, but some big jobs can take longer than that, because all digitising occurs in real time, and there are always jobs in the queue. If you’re in a hurry and need it sooner than these timeframes please let us know, and we may be able to accommodate you. A rush fee may apply.

On the other hand, if you're in no particular hurry, we also offer low priority discounts in some circumstances.


Terms:

• We ask for a part payment (deposit) at commencement, of approx 1/3rd of the estimate for your project.

• To keep things fair, for regular timeframe projects your job will go into a queue of work and will be attended in turn. Please note that predicting timeframes is not an exact science. It's simply not possible to precisely allow for unforeseen issues that may occur with obsolete media, either in your job, or in the jobs ahead of yours in the queue. So we aim at estimated turnaround targets. If you have a looming deadline or event, please let us know, and we can discuss options with you.

• Original media is available for collection upon full payment. Unless prior arrangements have been made, we ask for payment to be made within 7 days of invoicing. Storage fees may be levied on jobs not paid for &/or collected within 30 days of invoicing.

• We like to be as flexible as possible. We’re happy to work with you before commencement of the job to come to a mutually acceptable arrangement. But we do ask that if we have not made alternate arrangements with you before commencement, that you will honour our terms.