A thread for cassettes

That Ralf and Florian eh? What are they like!

people still swear by betamax. or at least that guy at sony who just died never got over the use of vhs over beta.

I think my dad is STILL pissed about vhs winning this one! he was griping about how better blade runner looked on beta for a not insignificant portion of my childhood.

I love how the criterion videodrome dvd comes in a case that looks like a beta tape.

http://www.planete-hd.com/web/images/divers_sup_tests/videodrome_criterion_vhs_cover.jpg

aha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XDR_(audio)

Recording a short test toneburst at the beginning and end of the program material on the cassette, to detect for any loss of audio frequencies in the audio spectrum. The toneburst consists of 11 tones about .127 seconds in length (with .023 seconds of silence in-between each tone), from 32 to 18,000 Hz. These tones are recorded on the cassette, and are read during the duplication process to detect if there is any loss of any audio information.[4]

seem to recall this being mentioned somewhere on my Flat Earth cassette - which sounded like shit, as the bass distorted. replaced it for a different cassette copy, and that was the same.

so i believe i never bought another XDR marked tape after that.

i always thought the tone was to tell auto-reverse players to flip over before hitting the end of the side to reduce tape wear

I Love Tapes

we have a combo CD/cassette radio in our main car so I've been listening to mainly tapes while driving around. kept most of my tapes from back in the day so i've been having lots of fun revisiting albums I had ignored for years. I've found that buying used tapes from thrift stores is a total crap-shoot since, like Scott said, most people didn't think you had to take care of them, so I have a handy cleaning cassette in the glove box for when the heads get all gunked up.

I still play VHS tapes too (never throw media away, huge collection). got back into it a couple years ago and had trouble playing alot of them - wavy lines, stuttering, sound cutting out. almost believed the stories from pro 'digitize your VHS' sites that tape disintegrates after X years and was thinking of finally tossing them out, then found a tutorial on how you can manually clean the head drum (http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/ - how to repair anything). Carefully followed the steps and voila!, tapes look great again, even old SLP shit from the TV (i have a box of 6 hour tapes of random cut-ups from 88-92 as sample fodder, lots of preachers, Geraldo and Morton Downey Jr. lol)

I have a big box of old mix-tapes, sometimes pick one at random for the journey...

Which is why I'd get people asking why A&A were singing "I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy, and I'll punch the man who says I'm not.." back in the day.

herb, you don't have a reel to reel do you? got all these cool tapes i kinda wanna hear before i sell them to japan. bitches brew on reel to reel!

wish I did...my very first recorder as a kid was my parents' portable reel-to-reel w/ a built-in speaker. remember making little 'radio plays' and recording monster movies off tv.

remember making little 'radio plays'

I did this. The only one I can remember was a Sherlock Holmes, or Sherlock Holmes inspired one - set in Limehouse in London, I think I just liked that word, Limehouse.

i still have a book of K-Mart cassettes from a few years later, one is the epic 'Detroit Rock City' w/ me playing all four members of KISS

herb, i need to call you. i might need help with records. picking up a big load on sunday the 27th. how's your back? it IS world theatre day that sunday, so you might have plans... (i can give you many many many records in return for the favor)

no pressure though...

sounds like a total blast, I'll bring the vicodin

mmmm, now yer speaking my language. i'm gonna ask tattooed love boy S.G. if he wants to come too. so it would be me, you, S, and Maria. and we would get some help on the other end. could be close to 8k or more records. and i probably won't need 2 or 3k of those. so you will have plenty to feed on before i call in my local hoarders who will take care of the rest for me.

herb, you don't have a reel to reel do you? got all these cool tapes i kinda wanna hear before i sell them to japan. bitches brew on reel to reel!

may not be timely enough if you need to ship your reels, but there are TONS of reel to reel players on ebay for dirt cheap.

or there were a few years ago anyway

if anybody owns the bonus tape of blank unstaring heirs of doom pls webmail me. peace.

― plax (ico), Wednesday, March 16, 2011 10:10 PM (Yesterday)

now you have me intrigued. if you know your way around torrent programs (I don't), you may be able to download it via this Russian site.

(it's listed there as "Blank Unstaring Heirs Of Doom (2006) EP")

ok, never mind the torrent thing: I found it somewhere else. check your webmail :)

i love you

bought my first cassette in prolly 20 years and it arrived today (gonna play it soon)!: Zoom Zoom - the best of Louis Prima.
i enjoy being a Luddite of sorts

http://www.tonepublications.com/old-school/nakamichi-dragon/

A number of non-audiophile friends couldn’t believe I was listening to a lowly cassette, and a pre-recorded one at that. Our resident HMEC (human musical encyclopedia & collector) Tom Casselli sent me a MoFi recording of Dark Side of the Moon. “Dude, if you have a Dragon, you should be the keeper of this tape.” Yeah, it was cool and now the hunt for a few more MoFi cassettes is on.

good read! that's such a cool machine...

Today’s haul:
Toto IV
Pointer Sisters Break Out
Little Feat Waiting For Columbus