Print-Through

The name for the magnetic tape recording phenomena where the act of layering, or winding layer upon layer of tape causes the flux from one layer to magnetize the adjacent layer, thus printing through from one layer onto another layer. Also sometimes called crosstalk (which is really a whole different problem) or interlayer transfer. The most vulnerable parts of the magnetic tape are the blank spots, particularly spaces between material that happen to occur adjacent to loud passages. Two other terms come from print-through: on layers played back before loud passages it gives a pre-echo, whereas on playback following the loud passage it gives a post-echo. If you listen closely to some of your old records from the 1970’s it is often quite easy to hear the results of print-through.