There it sits. Your faithful servant. You don't really bother to look after its needs, yet week after week it records your worship services flawlessly. You expect it to never fail, but then you toss it in the back of the truck on the way to some remote piece of land to dedicate the new church building it still gets the pastor's comments on tape. What did that poor little cassette recorder ever do to to you to deserve such punishment, to undergo such despicable treatment, to suffer such humiliation!?! Is such treatment scriptural? A thousand times no! To quote my pastor, you may (or may not) find reference to this and many other little known audio truths in Hezekiah II.
Had you going, didn't I? But seriously folks, how many of you remember to take loving care of your cassette decks on a regular basis? Probably ten percent of you, if that many. Yet you are puzzled when the thing starts to act up eating tapes, producing a dull sound, mangling your favorite tapes, swimming azimuth problems, shredding the tape of today's sermon...oops! The reality is that the only way you can expect them to perform great is if you take the time to keep them in top running condition.
Let's start with a basic tour of a quality cassette deck, and then we'll finish up with how best to maintain one. Your deck may or may not have all of these features, and you can decide for yourself how important they are to you and your budget.
To classify any piece of audio equipment by price alone is a foolish thing, but here I go anyway. Any cassette deck that you find for $50 to $200 at your local discount electronics store should rightly be considered a supply item. That is to say, if and when it breaks, the repair bill would cost more than it would to simply toss it in the trash and purchase a similar replacement unit. To this day I have trouble with that concept, but it is a reality of today's audio industry. Cassette recorders that cost say $200 to $500 or so will definitely have more bells and whistles. Even then, if you have a habit of leaving the thing powered up twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and the capstan motor burns out on you one day, check out the potential repair costs before you tell them to go ahead with the repairs, and then make a rational decision based on that information. Now, if you paid from $500 to $900 for your cassette deck, any potential repair probably is worth the effort and the costs involved, even at $45 per hour labor plus an expensive motor. Leave it in the hands of a repairman you trust. And if you paid more than $900 for your cassette deck yes, they do exist I'd really like to see the rest of your sound system!
Transport
The tape transport of any tape machine is a vital link to its signal integrity. The tape must be metered past the heads at a consistent, steady pace. One would prefer that it also be the same speed from machine to machine, lest a soothing ballad heard on one machine become a zippy rocker on another. Not to mention the fact that off-speed cassette decks used to playback accompaniment tapes can drive singers with perfect pitch absolutely bananas.
The average cassette machine transport is designed to meter the tape past the heads at 1-7/8 ips (inches per second). By comparison, the old 8-track cartridges, as well as many of today's "multitrack cassette recorders" use a tape speed of 3-3/4 ips. Semi-pro reel-to-reel tape machines run tape at 7-1/2 inches per second, and professional reel-to-reel machines use either 15 ips or 30 ips.
Some cassette decks offer a feature called pitch, which offers a variable speed control. What it does is vary the speed of the capstan motor. The effect it provides is to vary both the pitch of the music and voices on tape, and with it the tempo or pace of the program material. This can be good or bad. Good in that, if an accompaniment soundtrack happens to be slightly off pitch, it can be brought back into alignment with careful adjustment of the pitch control. Good in that, if the pace of the program or song would benefit all by being run slightly faster or slower, small adjustments of the pitch control can offer that flexibility. But bad in that it will invariably be accidentally left in the off-speed adjustment you won't find out until one day when the church bookstore brings you a tape that makes the pastor's voice sound suspiciously higher in pitch.
I made that mistake once (don't tell my wife, she thinks I'm perfect). During my early days in school, trying to learn this craft of audio, I was recording a concert and inadvertently left the two-track machine I was recording onto in the "variable speed" mode. A couple of days later, our "studio manager" pointed this out to me, and forced me to learn a very good lesson the hard way. I had to sit there and spend the time to vary the speed of the master until I had determined precisely what the natural pitch should be (i.e., duplicate the offset speed that I had originally recorded it at), and then document it so that whoever made any subsequent tape copies of that concert would know how to set up the machine properly. How embarrassing.
The controls that shuttle the tape to and fro are the transport controls. They include PLAY, FORWARD, REVERSE, RECORD, PAUSE, and the ever popular STOP. These functions as found on an inexpensive deck use a mechanical means of control. That is to say, when you press one of these buttons, it physically moves a shaft inside the deck that slips a certain set of gears into place, or pushes a little switch that engages a specific circuit, and so on. More expensive decks wisely dispense with this mechanical tomfoolery by substituting electrical relays and solenoids that, while achieving much the same end result, do so in an often more trustworthy and consistent manner. I've often wondered though what would happen if I would walk to my car one cold winters' day, with its nice, fancy electronic door locks and all, and find the battery dead as a doornail. How would I get into the car to open the hood latch to replace the battery? Luckily for us cassette decks do not provide us with any physical means of transportation.
One useful function of a cassette deck used in the church is a quick-reverse system. The best such system would be one that has a nice big fat button, clearly labeled "direction," which allows you to make a rapid change in the direction of tape movement. When you're recording the sermon, in particular, there's nothing worse than missing a few key words of an important point due to an ill-timed tape change. Oh, after you hit that big fat button, don't forget to hit the "record" button again as well.
Another feature such a system often provides is an auto-reverse function. This comes in handy during that all important trip to forage for extra doughnuts or another cup of coffee, or perhaps so you won't be disturbed from your nap by having to make a tape direction change. As you can see, this might be a more important feature for some than others.
There may be a set of switches to establish some options for this auto-reverse feature. They allow you to set the machine so it continuously plays the tape, which can be handy for playing background music tapes during an evening prayer service. Another choice is for the tape to play side "A," reverse and play side "B" and then stop. And of course there should be a way to disengage the auto-reverse function so that the deck acts like a non-reversing machine.
Most such devices simply reverse the motion of the tape, and engage a symmetrically arranged set of erase/record/playback heads. Since cassette tape is so narrow, you can wisely assume that the tolerances allowed for tape tracking are quite slim. Because of this reality, the premise that the tape can track just as carefully in one direction as another, or that the cost of two sets of heads is the same as one good set, might be argued. Rather than simply reverse the direction of the tape, one manufacturer decided to build a system that pulls the cassette from the head stack, physically rotates the tape like a miniature San Francisco cable car at the end of the track, re-inserts the tape back into the transport, and engages the play function again. It's quite a sight to behold.
Some decks include an auto search for program. This circuit operates in the fast wind mode, and looks for the presence of program material. When it senses the material, it disengages the fast wind mode, and defaults to the play function.
Memory Locate or Return-to-Zero (RTZ) are two nice bells and/or whistles to find on your machine. The RTZ function is rather self-explanatory. You can obviously set the tape counter, whether it be mechanical or electronic, to read "0000" wherever you care to, regardless of the physical position of the tape in the machine. Let's say that you are recording a cassette tape for a special presentation, and find that you are having to restart the recording at the same position repeatedly until the talent does a flawless performance. Rather than hitting rewind and watching the counter until it reads zero, you can simply hit the RTZ button, at which time the machine will dutifully go whizzing back to the appropriate spot and park the tape right there. The mechanical counters will park it "somewhere near zero." The electronic counters and higher quality transport systems will be far more accurate.
The Memory Locate feature, sometimes called a cue point, et al, provides a second point that you can arbitrarily set to any position your needs dictate. For example, you can establish your "0000" point at the beginning of the recording, and then as the tape rolls past a certain position, like the start of a second narration, you can press the cue or memory button. Now, whenever you hit the Memory Locate button, the tape will roll back (or forward) to the point you chose and park the tape at that spot. The better quality professional reel-to-reel machines even allow several such tape locations to be stored in memory, to be called up and used or altered as the needs of the session dictate.
And last, but clearly not least, a major plus for any cassette deck destined for the church audio rack is a big, fat, clearly labeled EJECT button. Let's face it, if you don't have that handy auto reverse function, or you have to change to a second tape because your pastor happens to be going long today, or if you're juggling one machine to both play the accompaniment tape for the special offertory music and to record the pastor's sermon, that easy-to-find eject button can be as welcome a sight as that airport I was looking for the day I got lost in a Cessna 152 at 3,000 feet in the late summer afternoon haze over southeast Missouri.
Input/Output Controls
The input level control on any cassette deck allows you one last chance to adjust the incoming signal for optimum gain structure, which in turn provides the best possible signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio through the electronics of the deck. Obviously, the quality of the cassette tape chosen to record on is more of a factor to the S/N ratio, but the input control can be misused regardless.
As in any piece of audio equipment, the desire is to deliver the optimum signal level to the input and from the output of the device. For example, the published "sensitivity" figure for a power amplifier says that whenever this amount of voltage is delivered to the input of the amp, the amp will be driven to its full output. Similarly, the meters on a mixing console have a handy "0 VU" reference point, and your desire as an engineer is to have the program material hovering at or just below the 0 VU point, with occasional excursions into the red or plus side of the meter.
Learning to deliver just the right amount of signal through that console to make those meters wag around 0 VU is fairly academic, almost child's play. Learning to deliver just the right amount of signal to an inexpensive cassette deck while watching its signal meters is something of an art. A fraction too low, and the resulting tape will be too noisy; a fraction too hot, and the tape will be distorted.
Those of you who have been reading my audio primer series over the last few years will remember our discussion of what a signal strength meter is telling us. Briefly, there are two types of meters in use today the standard VI (volume indicator) meter and the peak program meter. The primary difference in the two meter types is the ballistics how fast it responds to the incoming signal. The VI meter (read in Volume Units) has been the most common, particularly in the US. Its ballistics are designed to display an average of the audio signal present, and are intended to correlate with human hearing. The VI meter appears rather sluggish when compared to the peak meter which displays the instantaneous peaks of the program. Actually, the true ballistics of the peak meter are so quick that our eye would have trouble extracting any useful information, so it is designed to respond quickly to track the rise time of the input signal, but then to fall off slowly so that our eyes have a chance to focus on a useful reading. Thus, the peak meter doesn't really show us the envelope of the sound peaks as they decay, but that's not really what is important in recording. We're really interested in the rise time.
One last point about reading a VI meter. The reality is that when the meter rises to 0 VU in response to any percussive sound, like the strike of a snare drum, the actual signal that went through the electronics is at least 10 dB hotter than the VI meter is telling you. VI meters have a built in 10 dB meter lag, which contributes to their sluggish ballistics mentioned earlier. Well, 0 VU equals +4 dBu on most pro audio gear. This means that the signal that went through is now at +14 dBu (+ 4 dB plus the 10 dB meter lag). Most consoles today will allow signals of roughly +24 dBu to pass without distortion, but many inexpensive consoles will distort at any signal over +16 dBu.
So remember that when any percussive signal, like the hit of a kick drum, snare, possibly even a sharp chord on the piano, comes through and hits 0 VU on that meter, there is a real possibility that you are nearing distortion of the electronics. By comparison, a football played on a trombone or a bass guitar is usually anything but percussive in nature, so you have much greater leeway. Now, don't take this information and run away with it. I'm not suggesting for you to start recording all bass heavy, non-percussive sounds way into the red, or to be afraid of all percussive sounds. Still aim for 0 VU on all program material, and then just remember to consider the content of that program material when things start to get out of hand.
Okay, back from that side road. Some cassette decks have separate input controls for "left" and "right." Others have one big input control, and a "L/R Balance" control which can be used to achieve the same effect. Personally I would prefer the one big knob, simply because when I have a need to adjust that control, I want both channels to track up or down together, an effect that is difficult to obtain with two separate rotary knobs.
Another trap awaiting the engineer is the dangerous output volume control on the cassette deck. If you've got one on your cassette deck, in most cases you can just set it for wide open and leave it there. Doing so will provide you with the best gain structure in most cases.
Here's my war story on that one. A couple years after I left my job as audio director at Grace Church, we were attending another church in the area. The music minister asked me to help him with a particular special music presentation on a holiday weekend. I attended the rehearsal on Saturday, leaving all the levels set as I needed. I arrived early on Sunday to reconfirm each and every point and control setting, and triple-checked myself. I went back to pray with the worship team right before the service, and heard the "pre-game" cassette tape music playing softly over the system. I didn't really think anything of it, but just to be safe, I checked things again when I returned to the console. This time, I noticed that their deck does in fact have an "output" level control. Those around me who work in that audio ministry every week reassure me that this control is set for the proper volume. No time to recheck it now. The service starts, and at precisely the proper moment, I roll the cassette but the volume is way, way too low! My hand darts to the cassette deck, asking those around me who twiddled that knob. Immediately following that mini-crisis, I deftly move the fader up precisely on cue for the entrance of a narrator's part no sound! What's going on here!?! While I was carefully trying to get the track volume back to normal, out of my eyesight my assistant for the day was cleaning up the console as he normally would at that point, and had pulled down the submasters that I had so carefully set just before the presentation started. He hadn't attended the rehearsals or arrived early for the setup, so he had no idea that I had the narrator's mic assigned to one of the submasters that he had so nicely "cleaned up" for me. I think I still had my salvation intact after the dust had settled, but it was a moment to say the least.
While we're here, we might as well mention the headphone volume control. Not all cassette decks have an adjustable headphone output, but everyone who has ever needed to use the headphone output has wished there was a control for it. If it's not there, you could always make one to sit next to the deck. It would only cost a few dollars in parts to put it together.
Bias Games
This is neither the time nor the place for a lengthy dissertation on the need for AC bias in recording. Briefly, AC bias is a very high frequency audio sine wave that is fed to the tape right along with your program material. Magnetic media does not have a linear transfer function. There is, however, a linear portion of the curve. AC bias is applied in order to shift the audio signal into this linear portion of the curve, thereby allowing an undistorted replica of the electrical audio signal to be stored on the magnetic tape. The bottom line is that, without AC bias, the frequency response, signal-to-noise, and distortion components would all suffer.
The amount of bias required is dependent on the type of tape, the tape speed, and the record head gap length. Some cassette machines provide switches that alter the amount of bias added to the signal according to predetermined guidelines regarding the requirements of the type of tape you happen to be recording onto. So you can see that if you happen to record one service with a "normal bias" tape, and then record another service with a "high bias" tape, the bias requirements will differ. This switch need only be set during a recording it makes no difference to the playback of the tape. In fact, some of the newer machines don't even give you a choice; when you insert the cassette into the transport mechanism, it will "sense" what type of tape has been inserted with an internal switch, and apply that amount of bias as you record.
The equalization (EQ) setting on the deck does matter to both the recording and the playback. The theory, once again, is that different tape formulations require different alignment settings. Professional reel-to-reel machines have several adjustments that can be set individually for each type of tape to optimize its performance. The theory suggests that if the tape is a chrome tape, it should both be recorded and played back with the EQ switch in the CrO2 position. Things being the way they are, we've all discovered that a chrome tape sounds brighter when played back with the EQ switch in the "normal" position. Okay, so we're breaking another unwritten law of audiodom.
New Tricks
Some cassette machines offer an auto-bias function which automatically adjusts the record bias for you. Some decks force this function on you every time you hit record. Other machines offer a variable bias adjustment. It's not automatic, but you are provided with a bias adjust trimmer on the front panel controls instead of a few idiot switches. If you're really lucky, a pair of lights will guide your twiddling by winking at you when the bias level has been optimized.
Some buzzwords in the cassette arena are the Dolby HX (Headroom Extension) and HX Pro systems. As I mentioned earlier, adjusting the bias on any tape machine is something of an art. It is, in effect, a compromise setting that allows a reasonable frequency response, S/N ratio and distortion performance all at the same time. To complicate things further, the bias requirements of program material can change, in particular with regard to the strength of high frequency signals in the program material. The Dolby HX system varies the bias level and the high frequency EQ in response to the input signal.
Their design is based on a basic principle of AC bias that the bias frequency must be at least five times the audio frequency it is shifting. That is to say, a bias frequency of 20 kHz would be adequate for a 4 kHz audio signal, and so on. (Most pro machines use a bias frequency of 120 kHz or greater.)
To take that premise a little further, it would imply that high frequency audio signals present in the program material would have a certain biasing effect of their own on low frequency program material. So, the biasing that is being done, particularly on those low frequencies, is caused by a combination of the bias oscillator and the biasing effect of high frequency program material. The HX Pro system uses a VCA (voltage controlled amplifier) to counteract this effect. By feeding the tape a more consistent bias level, the frequency response is held stable.
Remember that the Dolby HX Pro system is a record-only function, and is not used in playback. Also, don't confuse it with a Dolby noise reduction system. While both Dolby B noise reduction and Dolby HX Pro Headroom Extension systems may be found on the same cassette deck, they are independent functions. In fact, the HX Pro system works in the background it is just "there," with no buttons or knobs to twiddle on your part.
Noise Reduction
The goal of any noise reduction system is to reduce the "hiss," usually the hiss associated with recording tape. If you say the word "hiss," you will note that it refers mostly to a smooth, high frequency sound.
There are several types of noise reduction systems available today, with both professional versions and modified or simplified versions for consumer use. The industry leaders are Dolby and dbx.
The Dolby B type of noise reduction found on most cassette decks is a kid sister of the original Dolby A system used in professional recording equipment. The Dolby B system achieves a 10 dB reduction of noise above 5 kHz by applying compression and a high frequency pre-emphasis which varies in response to the strength of high frequencies present in the program material. This "encoded" signal is recorded onto the tape. The greatest addition of high frequency EQ is added to program material with soft high frequency content. As the strength of those high frequency signals increases, less and less pre-emphasis is applied. Little or no compression or pre-emphasis is applied to loud program material, the theory being that any noise present will be masked by the already loud program.
A complementary "decoding" process is required on playback, expanding the signal and de-emphasizing the exaggerated high end it was recorded with any tape hiss present simply goes along for the ride, being reduced to a negligible degree. Those of you who make it a practice of recording cassette tapes encoded with Dolby B, and then playing back those tapes without the decoding circuit switched in are, of course, listening to program material with an altered frequency response one that varies according to the strength of the signal, and in particular the high end, that is recorded on tape. Now, you'll probably continue to break this rule, but at least you'll know what rule you're breaking.
The newer Dolby C noise reduction is similar to the B type. The system uses two special purpose compressors along with the varying high frequency pre-emphasis to achieve a 20 dB improvement in signal-to-noise ratio. Once again, there is a complementary expansion and de-emphasis required during playback to restore the program material to its original frequency response and dynamic range. As with all Dolby noise reduction systems, the companding process (a combination of compression and expansion) depends on proper matching of their thresholds. For this reason, the record and playback levels must be closely matched for a proper transfer to occur.
The other front running noise reduction system is made by dbx. The dbx system achieves a 20 dB to 30 dB reduction of noise by applying a broadband 2:1 compression combined with a 12 dB high frequency pre-emphasis in the record process, followed by a mirror image expansion/de-emphasis in the playback mode. By comparison to the Dolby systems, the dbx noise reduction system is rather insensitive to level differences, and will provide a reasonable transfer almost without regard to those level differences.
Don't Forget the Tapes
Most churches go through cassette tapes like a laundromat goes through water. You are probably aware that the quality of tape you record on, and the quality of tape that the dubs (copies) are made on are both major players in determining the quality of the end product your congregation will listen to on their home tape players.
Once again, there's no room here to fully discuss magnetic tape, but we can suggest some guidelines for you to follow.
If you stop to think it through, the fact that someone sat there and figured out that if you glued a bunch of iron dust onto a piece of paper, and then had the audacity to somehow pull that strip of paper at an even pace across a changing magnetic field and "record" a signal on it in the first place and then reverse the process and play it back too!?! Well, that guy was either struck by an omnipotent God, he was a sheer genius, or he was high as a kite on something.
For all the uproar it caused, "metal" tape simply hasn't panned out to be the success many thought it would be. "Chrome" or CrO2 tape has been refined over the years and remains the most popular formulation for professional use. You should use this tape for all serious work, and if you consider your master tapes for the worship services and pastor's sermon to be "serious work," then you've already answered that question. Certainly you would want to use chrome tape for any music recording, because of the extended frequency response it provides.
"Normal" tape, whatever that implies, is fine for less important recording. Use this for master recordings to document a service that probably won't have hundreds of dubs made of it, or for work tapes for the worship team rehearsals, and so on.
Then we drop down to "duplicator" grade tape. (Oh, my!) The reality is that your weeks of planning and hours of hard work preparing for the service are going to be reduced to and documented forever on the limited dynamic range and frequency response of a wavy piece of mylar so thin you could almost see through it. Does that mean you give up and don't give it your absolute best? No, no, no, no, noooooo! You're doing this for God, remember? The tape will still document the service, and is fine for that need. The fact is that many listeners, while they would notice the difference when pointed out to them, probably wouldn't care. What is important to them is to hear what went on, and the duplicator grade tapes serve this purpose adequately. I hate that word. "Adequate" is far too often followed up in the church with the lame "but we're only a church" excuse for avoiding the expense of quality. Don't get me started.
In regards to brands of cassette tape to use use what works for you. I've tried them all Maxell, Ampex, BASF, Agfa, Scotch, Denon, TDK, and others I wouldn't mention in the same company. Most all of them have performed admirably in the role for which they were chosen. My personal preference overall is probably the Maxell UDXLII. While it costs an arm and a leg at record stores and the like, if you search the large discount warehouse-type stores, or the mail order supply houses, you can get their 100 minute tapes for under $2 apiece. If you're really going through a lot of tapes, consider the BASF chrome tape, available from the mail order supply houses for less than $1 each (the last time I looked).
Track Formats
The track format of a cassette machine is a little different than that of a professional reel-to-reel machine. Here the tracks are grouped together to cover one half of the width of the tape. A stereo recording is made on these two tracks with the tape running in one direction, then the tape is flipped over, bringing the unused half of the tape over the same set of heads to be recorded in the opposite direction.
Mono cassette machines are often used for programming slide changes for slide projectors. It's really a dual-mono deck, with one track used to play the program material, and the other used to record the timing signals that will later change the slides. The placement of the tracks are similar to that of a two-track reel-to-reel machine.
Preventive Maintenance
I have two things to say about cassette deck maintenance. First, get rid of the rubbing alcohol. You're only lessening the useful life of your machine by using rubbing alcohol for cleaning. The old adage that my dad used to invoke (and still does) when he wanted to drive home a certain point about the running condition of my car still applies "pay me now or pay me later."
You should use a cotton swab moistened with pure (9799%) isopropyl alcohol. Another excellent choice, and the cleaner I prefer to use, is the Tape Head Cleaner made by Nortronics. If my memory serves me, the fluid they use is called trichlorotrifluoroethane. Everyday rubbing alcohol can leave deposits on the heads and other surfaces, and can dry out the rubber parts, eventually causing them to deform or crack. The Nortronics cleaner is said to be safe for the rubber pinch roller. If you are concerned about the pinch roller, or if you have a ceramic capstan shaft, use the household cleaner named Formula 409. It does a splendid job of keeping the rubber parts clean, yet leaves them soft and supple. (Don't use the Formula 409 on the heads.) If the pinch roller isn't very dirty, you could just use a lint-free cloth dampened slightly with clear water; wipe the surface dry before you're done.
One last concern about cleaning be careful how much fluid you use when attempting to clean the capstan shaft. You want to clean the shaft without allowing fluid to run down the shaft and into the motor that's turning it. If you're careless with it, the fluid will eventually dry out the bearings and burn up the motor.
Secondly, buy a decent head demagnetizer and use it. Look for the Annis Han-D-Mag or equivalent unit from Nortronics. Many of the inexpensive head demagnetizers on the market don't have a strong enough magnetic field to demagnetize a gnat. You should budget $60 to $100 for a respectable unit. The reality is that you're lessening the useful life of every cassette you put in the machine when you use it for long periods of time without demagnetizing the heads. Whenever tape passes across the heads, it leaves a small residual magnetic force on those heads and the metal guides. Over time this can build up to the point that eventually it will start to erase any program material recorded close to the surface of the tape. This means that the high end of your pastor's sermon or your favorite music tapes will be dulled forever.
How often should the head stack be demagnetized? For the average church, only using the deck for a couple of services on Sunday plus the midweek service, I'd say that once a week is plenty. You could probably get away with it even longer, but the chances are that it wouldn't become a routine part of the cleaning process, and you'd soon forget to do it. Professional recording studios will clean and demag the heads before every session, or at least every morning. I've heard the figure "every 8 hours of use," and if that helps encourage you to demag those heads regularly, then use it. By the way, the process is usually called "clean and demag," but my habit is to reverse the process. I demag the heads first, since this will loosen any iron oxide particles laying in the cracks, and then clean the heads with a good tape head cleaner.
Well, that's it for now. To my new readers, I hope I wasn't too irreverent for you. After all, if we can't have fun doing this, then why are we doing it? We love God, we love the craft He has given us to learn and make a living with, and we love developing the teaching gift He has given us to share that knowledge with others. Let us know what you think, as well as any topics you would like to see covered in these pages.
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