cassette tapes are the new vinyl

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is anyone besides me nostalgic for cassettes? I still buy them and in fact have found a lot of stuff that I otherwise would not have found on vinyl, cd or mp3. gotta love that hiss...

― nonthings (nonthings), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 00:29 (twenty years ago) link

http://www.post-data.org/cassette/

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 00:30 (twenty years ago) link

I still use them for mixtapes, copying vinyl and home recordings. I dig 'em.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 00:31 (twenty years ago) link

yeah, and didn't several indie labels get started cuz they could put out cassettes real cheap. K Records for one.

― nonthings (nonthings), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 00:34 (twenty years ago) link

i'm afraid i don't see the point of cassettes any more.

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 00:36 (twenty years ago) link

the point is they're cheap and some of us haven't bought CD-burners yet, and therefore must fetishize them. Plus, I haven't the foggiest how you'd make CD-R's out of songs from albums on vinyl. But I can mixtapes of them easy.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 00:39 (twenty years ago) link

What I dig are the bargain basement liquidation stores that sell deleted cassettes. I've found the coolest cassettes on my way out of these places - the residents, alex chilton, steve wynn, james marr, mark eitzel, etc. - and all for pennies a glass.

― Bruce Urquhart (Bruce Urquhart), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 00:40 (twenty years ago) link

I meant James Carr

― Bruce Urquhart (Bruce Urquhart), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 00:41 (twenty years ago) link

fair enough i guess. they do have their applications - i still have a cassette 4-track..

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 00:41 (twenty years ago) link

Plus, I haven't the foggiest how you'd make CD-R's out of songs from albums on vinyl.

I have a line set up that goes from the headphone jack of my stereo (which my turntable is hooked into) to the line-in on my PC. Then I use Goldwave to record from that. It's a bit time-consuming, but worth it.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 00:42 (twenty years ago) link

time-consuming

an understatement. the amount of time it consumes is exponentially proportional to how anal you are about the result.

(me = very anal)

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 00:45 (twenty years ago) link

I have a cassette dictaphone for interviewing people. Sure beats vinyl - bloody hard work, scratching a groove as you listen.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 00:51 (twenty years ago) link

please God don't anyone link to that horrifying fucking Hank Steuver article from last year

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 00:51 (twenty years ago) link

CD burning is a gas. A CD-R costs less than a dollar here! How insane is that?! It certainly revolutionises the process of sending out demos. On the other hand, cassettes do have a special, warm sound that can't be replicated with any other medium. Like vinyl really.

One thing though: make no mistake, CDs are how the song actually sounds in the studio. So it is hearing music the way it was intended.

Please someone provide me with that Hans Steuver link? Hehe.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 00:52 (twenty years ago) link

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A32476-2002Oct28¬Found=true

― nonthings (nonthings), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 00:57 (twenty years ago) link

CD burning is a gas.

I do not share this sentiment. You can't even listen to music while you do it!

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 01:11 (twenty years ago) link

Wifey, when buying her new car, specifically requested a tape deck in teh car instead of a CD player.

POLYAMORY still releases cassettes - and probably always will.

From a journalist's perspective, I couldn't imagine doing an interview with someone any other way. What am i gonna do, hold a DAT recorder under my subject's mouth?

Tapes rule.

― roger adultery, Tuesday, 5 August 2003 01:14 (twenty years ago) link

no, you can use a digital recorder that records up to I believe two hours.

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 01:16 (twenty years ago) link

interviews : minidisc.

― gaz (gaz), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 01:18 (twenty years ago) link

i love cassettes better than CDs, they fit in my pocket better, as does my walkman.

― The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 01:20 (twenty years ago) link

CD burning is a gas.
I do not share this sentiment. You can't even listen to music while you do it!

-- Mark (mar...), August 5th, 2003.

Mark, you need a stand-alone CD burner. I prefer them myself, being a bit of a PC hater in general. They work pretty much exactly like a cassette deck except you can access tracks like on a converntional CD player. Also, of course, you can listen as you burn. Please reconsider.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 01:20 (twenty years ago) link

You can listen as you burn? Wow -- my wife bought me one of these last year & then I returned it for an internal one for my computer. I was thinking about all the MP3s I was going to download someday, I guess, when I get a fast connection (still hasn't happened.)

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 01:29 (twenty years ago) link

As a journalist, I still use a pen and pad unless the interview could be lawsuit worthy.
Then I tape it like a mofo.
I don't have a cassette player in my car and I miss the mix tapes I used to make.
That took effort and emotion.

― Bruce Urquhart (Bruce Urquhart), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 01:39 (twenty years ago) link

"tapes have more emotion" backwash = dud dud dud

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 03:13 (twenty years ago) link

he didn't say *the tapes themselves* have more emotion, did he

― unknown or illegal user (doorag), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 03:20 (twenty years ago) link

format fetishes fuck me off.

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 03:21 (twenty years ago) link

That sentiment would be great shouted by Becky Bondage.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 03:22 (twenty years ago) link

i don't think english people say that stuff "fucks them off"

― unknown or illegal user (doorag), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 03:25 (twenty years ago) link

Oh. Well then. Perhaps it could be Alex from Chicks on Speed who should shout it. Yes, that's perfect.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 03:34 (twenty years ago) link

mmm alex *swoon*

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 03:34 (twenty years ago) link

Vinyl LPs sound a *little* better than cassettes, I must add.

― Sean (Sean), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 05:36 (twenty years ago) link

unless you try to play them in the car

― unknown or illegal user (doorag), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 05:41 (twenty years ago) link

oh, and die nonthings. ;-)

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 05:49 (twenty years ago) link

Making compilation tapes is infinitely more satisfying than making mix CDs, definitely, and not just because you can put stuff from tapes and from vinyl on without a complex rigmarole involving line-ins and computers and software and other madnesses. They're great because the likelihood of pain is much higher, like when you put on the perfect next song and the run is a thing of beauty and a joy forever and it then turns out that you only had a minute and a half left and All Is Ruined and The World Hates You and you give up. That rocks. Also, you can play things at double-speed while you're tape-to-tape'ing them, and double-speed makes everything sound good.

But tapes are also evil because they die and erase themselves and snap and then you have to go and re-buy your Radiohead albums on CD and the people in the shop laugh at you for a) still liking Radiohead and b) ostensibly not having this record already.

― cis (cis), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 10:23 (twenty years ago) link

Wise words.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 10:35 (twenty years ago) link

I've recently rediscovered my love for the tape after finding the 1989 Touch cassette-only release Glas: Choral Music from the Soviet Union for two quid in Stern's on Euston Road. It's not even good sound quality for a tape (God knows what it was sourced from; there's no date on the recording, though it is stereo, and Touch don't seem to know themselves), but it's awe-inspiring stuff.

I did produce a noise-reduced version of one piece for a friend's CD-R comp, but in the end went with the hissy magic of the original. Eliminating the white noise roar robbed it of some of its ambience too.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 12:59 (twenty years ago) link

Many many many noise/power electronics labels are cassette-only, or still release large quantities of them. Hospital, Truculent, RRR, American Tapes, the aforementioned Polyamory, HereSee, Gods of Tundra, Hanson.. Freedom From used to release lots of tapes, but doesn't so much anymore.

I like cassettes 'cause they're cheap.

― Ian Johnson, Wednesday, 6 August 2003 00:18 (twenty years ago) link

Funnily enough, I've lately been busy transferring some recently-unearthed tapes (Marc Almond's Tenement Symphony, The Cure's Standing On A Beach - B-Sides & Carnage Visors, C86 among others) to MiniDisc. I experimented with Dolby - ha! remember Dolby? - and eventually decided they sounded way better with none of that noise reduction bollocks.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 00:31 (twenty years ago) link

It was all about Dolby B.

― rgeary (rgeary), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 02:31 (twenty years ago) link

dolby? he came close but no cigar.

― The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 04:17 (twenty years ago) link

(i bet that jokes been made a zillion times vefore on this board, right?)

― The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 04:18 (twenty years ago) link

I don't think so.

I used to wish people would mark whether they had used Dolby B on tapes they made me or not. Playing non-Dolby tapes with Dolby on = a sonic disaster.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 06:46 (twenty years ago) link

I feel kind of weird talking all nostalgically about this - I made a Dolby B tape for someone last year.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 06:47 (twenty years ago) link

MF Grimm on MF Doom’s ‘Tick, Tick...’: ‘Noise reduced, MF thinks in Dolby / Chop that ass in half like Obi-Wan Kenobi’

― Orange, Wednesday, 6 August 2003 07:10 (twenty years ago) link

The hard thing to resist when playing back tapes you'd recorded with Dolby was to disengage the NR; once done (wow, so much extra top end! All that clarity!) you never felt like pushing it back in again and listening to it 'properly'. A similar thing was achievable by recording on to chrome tape with the bias switched to Type II and playing back as if was ferric.

Dolby C was a disaster wasn't it? Dolby S was apparently the final decisive leap into high fidelity for 1.875ips/0.25in tape but by then no-one cared.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 08:45 (twenty years ago) link

Michael you are so right with your tales of disengaging trauma ("I know it's the wrong bias setting but it sounds sooo goood").

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 08:54 (twenty years ago) link

tapes cause more emotion - like fits of f***in' massive pique when they tangle up in your player, drive you crazy coz you can't hear anything on them properly, hiss horribly and stuff. they are without doubt the worst possible recording format ever and you're better off w/out them - anyone who likes them is f***in' mad and any nostalgia for them is totally misplaced...

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:02 (twenty years ago) link

Fucking minidisc, anyone? Kicks tape's ass.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 09:26 (twenty years ago) link

MD - yeah. I'm going on a trip & was about to make a bunch o' tapes .. then I realized that I can record 160 minutes in mono* on a minidisc & it takes up 1/3 the space... 15 MDs should hold me for a few days...

(I'll be on a boat with a cheapo tape deck - mono will be fine.)

So fuck tapes.

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 10:39 (twenty years ago) link

but tapes = you can tape songs off the radio.

and for that, i will forever love tapes.

― lid, Wednesday, 6 August 2003 10:45 (twenty years ago) link

Ahhh .. radio. Great for Creed fans.

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 10:47 (twenty years ago) link

look ppl wtf minidisc on LP4 setting = 5 hours (300 minutes) on one disc, sounds tip top

― Chip Morningstar (bob), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 11:42 (twenty years ago) link

Nobody needs to tell me and Dastoor about MD - unfortunately no one needs to tell us about the escalating miseries of MD hardware failure either. I may never field-record again.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 11:47 (twenty years ago) link

18 months ago I hankered after one of the new 4x minidiscs. But now 500 hours on an iPod seems more attractive..

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 11:55 (twenty years ago) link

I bought a portable MD player about five years ago [a sony mz-r50]. after a year, the door had begun to fall off and it stopped being able to record.

I have had my walkman for about three years.

― RJG (RJG), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 11:56 (twenty years ago) link

I've had my portable minidisc walkman since the second year at university. I garduated two years ago and it was a three-year course. I have never had any problems with it at all.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 11:59 (twenty years ago) link

My first md walkman had to go back the the shop when it started skipping, grinding and stopping even when left still on a solid surface. My replacement started doing the same within a few months and I have kind of given up on it.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 12:08 (twenty years ago) link

I fall between the two Nicks. Sharp 702, late '98 - never liked recording on AC adaptor, always a bit fussy with blanks, dropped for the umpteenth time Oct '01, output stage conked out. Worked intermittently since, also started to fail on recordings late last year, laid to rest a couple of months ago.

Sony MD deck (summer '99) has been to the repair shop once (might've been my fault though - I used to 'overburn' 74min blanks to squeeze close to 80min on them, which probably didn't do the record head a lot of good).

Yes, better than tape, more convenient than DAT, but, no, I'm probably not going back.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 15:30 (twenty years ago) link

My Pioneer MD hifi deck has never caused me any problems, but then I haven't used it much. The NR is great, though.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 15:58 (twenty years ago) link

Noise reduction on MD deck? Please explain.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 17:44 (twenty years ago) link

Tapes were always horrible, even when that was a good portion of what I owned and listened to: so prone to breakage, mediocre sound quality, time-consuming to forward through, etc.

That said, there's something very romantic and quaint about mixtapes that makes me miss listening to and making them. Mix cds seem to be a different animal.

― Larcole (Nicole), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 17:56 (twenty years ago) link

I've got so many tapes I don't know what to do with them. I started giving them away to people, until I noticed that I've got some wonderful things on tape, such as an original German copy of Trans Europa Express in a beige cassette case. I only realised just how obselete they were when a Japanese friend of my wife's saw my collection a couple of years ago and said: Wow I like tape! ...The implication being that she was struck by the quaint old heirloom that tape had become. I'm not in any way nostalgic for the format, myself. Its only real contribution being that oxidised shift from very muffled to very trebly and back and forth brought home recently on Kylie's Love At First Sight. The other characteristic of tape is the strange juxtapositions you put on either side of a 90 minute tape. Old thread on the subject: C90 strangeness

― Daniel (dancity), Thursday, 7 August 2003 07:20 (twenty years ago) link

Mike, I don't know - there's just this NR button (no branding) and it works really well both when recording and playing hissy old transfers. Doesn't really dull the sound much at all and unlike Dolby, you don't can use it whether or not the MD was recorded with it. I used it to great effect with my B&S radio sessions.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 7 August 2003 07:29 (twenty years ago) link

Take that 'don't' out of the 2nd sentence for maximum sense.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 7 August 2003 07:33 (twenty years ago) link

Ah right, it's on-the-fly digital hiss reduction for analogue transfers. Nice idea, I think someone (probably Pioneer again) used this feature on their cassette decks too instead of Dolby (kind of barmy to imagine an A/D-D/A chain inside a tape deck but that's what they did).

There was an audiophile fetish aspect to cassettes than doesn't really exist with MD or CD-R; the shexy ceramic shell of a Sony SMMST (with metal case!), the solid forest green edging of a TDK MA-XG, the gold-leaf letraset accessories of the Maxell Vertex. When was the last time you thought, "Now there's one handsome mf-ing CD blank"?

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Thursday, 7 August 2003 09:27 (twenty years ago) link

When I was last at your flat?

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 7 August 2003 09:49 (twenty years ago) link

What about Tascam 4-track cassette decks? Revolutionised home recording, they did. I made two albums on those buggers.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Thursday, 7 August 2003 10:43 (twenty years ago) link

eleven years pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu2_9L1Qp20#t=143

― how's life, Friday, 10 October 2014 15:06 (nine years ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZyXwcsboGs

― sleeve, Friday, 10 October 2014 16:35 (nine years ago) link

This is an idea I can get behind

― calstars, Friday, 10 October 2014 18:40 (nine years ago) link

ha, that is extremely dope.

― festival culture (Jordan), Friday, 10 October 2014 18:57 (nine years ago) link

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