Questions You Should Know about Leader Tape

Hi, I have another newbie question that I would like opinion on.

I have around a dozen pre recorded 7 1/2 ips reels, and two 15 ips reels enroute at the moment. My deck is an Otari MX-55N.

Some of the reels I have purchased have little or no leader tape, and ends of tape are often frayed and a little ragged.

I want to preserve the life of my music so am considering buying a 1/4" splice block, splicing tape, and a roll of leader tape, to add leader to either end of a reel.

So adding leader ( I'm thinking about 12 inches at start and tail of tape???) is worthwhile or not?

I can't see any negatives...but as I said earlier, I'm new to this game, and seek expert opinion.

Oh...........and recommendations of good 1/4" splice and leader tape is more that welcomed.

cheers

Chris On all my 7" tapes I add minimum 3-4' at the bottom an 4-5' at the front. I use paper leader at the bottom since my tapes never get that far as I have auto reverse and it reverses before it gets that far. You don't have to use paper tape, Polyester is fine too, I just happen to have some so I'm using it up.

On 10.5" reels, same at the bottom, and 6-8' at the top.

Leader Tape: TME, Scotch, ATR, RMGI

Splicing Tape: NO Scotch in the Black box, I've thrown away 8 boxes so far because they were old and no sticky left. Again, Same as leader Tape.

I get mine from www.reelworldtapeproducts.com I definitely want my leader tape to be long enough that I still have some leader between the heads and the supply reel when the tape is fully threaded. That's how consumer tapes in Europe were usually supplied and most people consequently recorded from the first piece of magnetic tape onwards. Many consumer recorders still manage to stop slowly enough to unthread the tape in FFWD/Rew mode.

I once had two tapes with paper leader and without sensing foil. You wouldn't believe how fast these leaders were gone! They snapped clean off at the first or second Rew pass. I think Freddy is right on but finding paper leader tape these days might be a task. I put it on any important and good tapes. This buffers out the defects that can occur from reel hub shapes. The paper tape I am using is probably 2 mil or more. There is no need to use the same thickness. The thicker the better is the rule for me- buffers out the reel defects good- the thinner the leader the more wraps you will need. 12" is almost a waste of time just pull a piece the length between your arms and splice that in- for most that will be 6 feet. remember that the leader will get shortened over the years as you use and cut crumpled stuff away. Don't be a piker. put a length on there it is not as much as the tape. All my 10.5" reels have red leaders and white trailers as the bbc only recorded/archived on one side, the reels were left tails out so had to be rewound each time they were used, apparently this is good practice as it unpacks the tape before use, It dont matter to me as I use both sides.

I have just recently refurbished all my Dads old 5" reels which were all barr one leaderless plus a few of the reels had many splices in them where he made one reel from a few 3" reels all had dried out and parted, I bought a splicing kit (secondhand) which had splicing tape included and I used zonal leader tape (blue cos it looks cool) £8.00 (uk money) bought from ebay and put 3 full turns plus enough to go through the akai to the take up reel on each end, so I guess thats around 4 and a bit turns, plenty of protection and should never have to touch the tape again, 55 years old and they play just fine Stop being a piker and put 6 feet on. That way when you are fast winding the tape can be stopped before it runs off the reel. I put that amount on the tapes and I do not worry about thickness but if I had my say it would be 2 mills as the thicker tape buffers out reel deformation at the hub better. The 3 M paper tape was about 2 mil thick and it does hold up. I was putting some on my RMGI LPR35 tape the other day. 12 " is a waste of time. I agree with those that USE leader tape instead of leave it on the original roll.

I think I have put about 70" per side on 10½" reels, enough to cover the tape on the reel a couple times, enough to have leader be the threaded part and some more leader to go through the tape path at the beginning of the tape.

I need to measure one to be sure as I have more to do and I want them mostly the same. Leader is cheap and the process is a bit time consuming so a 12" leader is not worth the effort. Sam is spot on. You want enough so when you see it on rewind there is enough on the tape to shut it down before it runs through the machine and on to the reel. I've been measuring mine but the arms length measurement is great! Duh, learn something new every day. Thanks Sam! or enough to stay threaded for auto-reverse

And you want enough leader to keep threaded on the reel if your machine has auto reverse. I always put the foil tab about 2-3 inches in on the leader, at the end of side 1. But never on the magnetic part of the tape. I have seen if the leader has been cut too short, the empty reel loses the wind, or traction upon reversing, and then what is the point? The whole machine shuts off for lack of tension. You have to get involved then. And I also learned not so long ago, that even if using older tape where the glossy side is away from the heads, leader tape should be attached glossy side FACING the heads. Bass Ackwards, I know. OK, I measured what I did, about 85 inches on each end.

I have about 15 tapes that needed leader and bought a reel with plenty of leader on it and evaluated what a fully wrapped reel and then some and settle on this length. I have more than enough leader and can use it in the future for more tapes as I get them.

Nonode  
Join Date: Feb Location: Worcestershire, UK. Posts: 2,629 What do coloured leader tapes mean? I've just had this query from a contact in Australia...

I'm an audio engineer for a small Australian archive,
Paradisec, and the majority of my job is dealing with reel-to-reel
tapes, cleaning, digitising, etc.

The other day I found a box of spare packets of Emitape leader tape, in
various colours, green, red, white, grey, yellow and blue, and I was
interested to know what the colour codes correspond to. I know that red
corresponds to tail and green corresponds to head, and that has been
helpful in some collections I've done where the direction of the tape
has been ambiguous. Merely out of curiosity, I'd like to know what I
could do with the rest of the colours. Thanks for any help you can give!

Can anybody answer this question? Thanks!

Steve Octode  
Join Date: Aug Location: Saltburn-East, Cleveland, UK. Posts: 1,801 Re: What do coloured leader tapes mean? Hi,
I believe that different coloured leader tapes used to denote the playing length of tape, i.e. Standard play, Long play or extended play, and also side 1 or side 2 designation of the tape.

I think that standard practice was to use a different coloured leader tape for side 1 depending on the tape thickness/length (and therefore playing time) and always have red as the side 2 leader.

I will have a dig around and see if I can find the appropriate designations for the different colours of leader, unless someone else beats me to it

Regards
Andrew Dekatron  
Join Date: Jan Location: Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, UK. Posts: 3,455 Re: What do coloured leader tapes mean? In my time at Bristol Hospital Radio we had the following colours:

White "Virgin" tape. ie a complete length without any splices.

Blue Recorded Program material

Green "Gash" or used tape. OK for general purposes and may contain splices

Yellow Spacers between items or cueing marks. ISTR was matt so could be marked in pencil.

Red END!!

Red and White striped Graphite tape ONLY TO BE USED FOR CARTRIDGE MACHINES __________________
"Nothing is as dangerous as being too modern;one is apt to grow old fashioned quite suddenly." Tetrode  
Join Date: May Location: West Auckland, New Zealand Posts: 96 Re: What do coloured leader tapes mean? The older European tapes (Philips, Agfa, Basf) pre 's usually had green as start and red as finish for the leader tapes.

Emi and Scotch 212 tapes had different colours for thickness of the tapes. green and blue mostly as start and red as end for leader tapes.

Maxell , TDK also uses different colours, orange, black, blue, start, thickness ( 35µM 50µM ), and red as end.

White and yellow are indeed used for radio stations for spliced tapes. Tetrode  
Join Date: May Location: West Auckland, New Zealand Posts: 96 Re: What do coloured leader tapes mean? Brown leader tape looks like a useless colour to me, especially when it has the same colour as the tape.

I have seen some brown leader tape advertised on ebay australia recently.

The whole point is to differentiate between tape, start, finish, edit etc. and different colours make it a lot easier. Dekatron  
Join Date: Aug Location: Madrid, Spain / Wirral, UK Posts: 7,665 Re: What do coloured leader tapes mean? Quote: Originally Posted by RODALCO
The whole point is to differentiate between tape, start, finish, edit etc. and different colours make it a lot easier. especially with a format like reel to reel, it's easy to leave the played tape on the take up reel say, take it off the deck in a hurry and get mixed up. that's one way casettes are simpler!