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Or was it just a bit of hype over a mere novelty in the press?
Just curious if anybody dipped their toe in and spent some cash or just dug out an old deck and a box of tapes.
God no.
I got some tapes out of the loft - mainly because one of my sons likes all things retro. He’s currently using my minidisc player. I bought one album on tape - but that was for him too.
God no.
I've gone straight back to wax cylinders.
Got rid of my tapes back in the late 90's when i initially moved over to minidisc so no intention of listening to cassette again but im pretty sure i have my old broken walkman dc2 somewhere in the loft
I have a decent NAD cassette player ( separates system) that is 20 years old and never used if anyone wants it
Terrible format. Minidisc was brilliant though
I have a decent NAD cassette player ( separates system) that is 20 years old and never used if anyone wants it
Errrm yes please!
How much for postage TJ?
I had no idea there was one.
In the context of what technology was available at the time it wasn't terrible* and results on my Nakamichi deck were very good.
Boring fact. King Crimson's "Earthbound" was recorded on a cassette machine and contains the definitive version of "21st Century Schizoid Man"*.
*Views stated are my own and not my employer's.
Before writing it off as shite, one should bear in mind it was commercially released in 1963. At that time it was without equal for quality vs the dimensions of the medium. Music became truly portable because of the compact cassette.
PM me Derek
PM sent tj.
They were great in the 80's as no other option if wanting to carry around music (i.e. on paper round) but they had a lot of weak points.
I thought the reason for them now is that small bands can easily produce many recordings for a low price and not have to involve vinyl pressing or putting onto streaming service.
Some of the music I listen to is being released on limited run cassettes as well as digital. I buy the digital and keep the cassettes because they are quite sought after (runs of only 50 or 100). Must of it is sold on Bandcamp where there seems to be a cassette rivival. They usually sell out in a couple of hours, sometimes quicker!
I have just (this week) finished converting the last of my old cassettes to mp3. I have done well over 100!!
The cassette decks on my stereo have never been used in 24 years so no.
I did sell a few unopened boxes of TDK 90 blanks (think it was 4 packs of 3x90's) though when it started to kick off. Put them on eBay as a 1p start and they went for well over £60! Thought that was a mad price at the time but a few weeks later saw some being sold for £30 for a pack of 3.
Why can’t you buy super light headphones like the ones you used to get with cheap Walkmans?
Why can’t you buy super light headphones like the ones you used to get with cheap Walkmans?
Because they were crap
As were cassettes
Boring fact. King Crimson’s “Earthbound” was recorded on a cassette machine and contains the definitive version of “21st Century Schizoid Man”*.
*Views stated are my own and not my employer’s.
I would argue with that statement, I’ve got a bunch of different versions of Schizoid Man, and I’ve got the recent remastered version of ‘Earthbound’, and it’s not a great recording; it may be a great performance, but the recording does it no justice.
The album's sound quality is very poor, because of its being recorded onto cassette tape (a low-fidelity recording medium, even by 1972 standards) by live sound engineer Hunter MacDonald. The liner notes to the original LP cover and recent CD reissues of the album state that it was "captured live on an Ampex stereo cassette fed from a Kelsey Morris custom built mixer ... in the rain from the back of a Volkswagen truck." Atlantic Records, the original distributor for King Crimson in the United States and Canada, declined to release Earthbound because of its poor sound quality. Because of its cassette origins, the sound could not be significantly improved on later CD reissues of the album.
Because they were crap
As were cassettes
No, that’s not entirely true, see above. They were a truly portable medium, and the quality, on a reasonable player, was easily on a par with vinyl, which wasn’t in any way portable.
I used to record mix tapes from my turntable, later a CD player, into chrome or metal tapes on a three-head Aiwa deck, which had bias EQ facilities, and in a car it sounded fantastic, especially tracks recorded from 12” vinyl, and the difference between those tapes and regular Ferric tapes was significant.
They were a truly portable medium, and the quality, on a reasonable player, was easily on a par with vinyl
By some quirk of manufacturing, the Sony WM-D6C provided better sound than many separate cassette decks. A mate of mine had one. I was very jealous!
I loved cassettes but to say it had similar sound quality to vinyl I will not agree with. Much more hiss even using dolby and did it not have a reduced dynamic range?
Given that I remember when they came out and the convenience of being able to record stuff without the hassle of reel to reel was a real step change
my car came with a cassette player with Oxygene in it.
Loved playing it constantly when it came out, but not so much these days
What eskay said. I have bought a few recently. Daveed Diggs released a cassette only purchase, but you got the digital too. I’ve stopped buying US ones off bandcamp as the postage is too high. Got a nice cass only release from a local band. I know I’m weird, and it’s a pretty unusual way of thinking these days, but I believe in supporting the artists.
I found a bag of car mix tapes I made in the 80s in the shed the other day. Tdk SA90s; will they have oxidised to death by now? Still have what was originally quite a fancy Kenwood tape deck in the loft. Although I also still have the albums I recorded the tapes from so a bit of a waste of time recovering the tapes.
Revival? I've carried a box of about 100 cassettes through 30 years of house moves. A few 80s albums but mostly cds recorded onto tape for the car. My hifi has always had a cassette deck in it, currently a Nakamichi that I inherited in 2008. I have a few older ones (Aiwas and Sonys) in the loft.
Sound quality is fantastic, if a little hissy sometimes.
I would argue with that statement, I’ve got a bunch of different versions of Schizoid Man, and I’ve got the recent remastered version of ‘Earthbound’, and it’s not a great recording; it may be a great performance, but the recording does it no justice.
Oh I agree. It's the performance I was referring to.
Revival?
I’d say it’s fair to call it that. I bet there was a long period before the last few years when new releases on cassette were very thin on the ground.
There was a new release on mini disc on bandcamp a few months back. I’m pretty sure there’s no revival in the near future though. I do still use mine occasionally. Made loads of compilations of Breezeblock sessions and Essential mixes.
Another fashion victim landfill revival.
Just wait, as soon as the emperors new new clothes come along charity shops won't be able to sell them cheap enough.
Having grown up with them they were convenient for portability but that's about it. Minidiscs were an evolutionary stop gap before solid state took over, why you would go back to something that degrades through use I can't understand.
I think I'll wait for the CD revival
Cassettes were only good for pirating commodore 64 games back in the 80s
I had boxes and boxes of them, whenever any of my group of friends bought a new game the rest of us would immediately make a copy of it onto a c90 cassette.
Another fashion victim landfill revival.
Wrong
and
Cassettes were only good for pirating commodore 64 games back in the 80s
Also wrong, but more humorously so
Aye, I still play a few of my old ones from time to time and purchase the odd rarity, sound quality is very indifferent between tapes/manufacturers.
My car tape players destroyed more than I currently own, no real fondness for them compared to vinyl/CDs.
Nostalgia-fuelled nonsense.
Back in the day I loved cassettes. As others have said, I too had hundreds along with C90s stuffed with ZX Spectrum games. It was the first truly portable, recordable format and in that capacity there's none better. But "I long for that authentic cassette sound" said no-one ever.
It makes even less sense to me than people still buying records - sorry, "vinyl" - at least there you can genuinely say that it sounds noticeably different and for some weird reason some people claim they prefer it, some pseudo-audiophile gibberish about 'warmth' or 'depth' or 'eating Rice Krispies' or something. Joking aside I get that, I do, plus records are Nice Things and there's the whole ceremony around actually cleaning and queuing up a disc before "listening to an album." Whereas cassettes brought us small and convenient, in 2020 there's smaller and convenienter with far better quality to boot so why bother?
Yes. CDs are my favoured medium. Cassette tape for stuff that isn't, never was, or never will be on CD. Digital files for having a listen before you buy CDs. No interest in vinyl records anymore, but cassettes, yes.
I've currently got a well-loved but fully functional (yes, tested) and rather nice Aiwa Walkman on the bay. One careful owner (me). Discovered in box of 'stuff not used for about 20 years'. PM if interested.
Cassettes were pretty good for when they turned up. Arguably more portable than CDs. But mostly what Cougar said, mp3 for the convenience win.
On a recent clear out,I found a load of old mix tapes,some that I had been given,some that I made up.They will never get played but I can't bear to throw them out.
Still send people music mixes on CDs #oldweirdo. 🙂
I have this snowboard, but that's as far as it goes.
Nostalgia for tapes only goes as far as making up albums for friends, which was replaced by CD-R in the 90s.
I demoed a nakamichi deck in 91 and it was surprisingly good, but that doesn't detract from the fact that tape is rubbish with humidity, awful to find a particular track on, etc, etc.
No ta.
It's not just nostalgia; an explanation for the narrow minded - say you're a little bedroom music producer, or maybe even not that little-known, you can sell a few tracks, so you want to release your music as a product, maybe you need to make a bit of cash from it, maybe there's a demand from your audience for something. Maybe you want it to be a bit different (eg. the tracks should be listened to in a particular order), you want people to see the artwork and you want it to be limited edition, because people like to buy ltd editions...maybe you don't want the music to be shared around on the web so easily.. Can you think of a cheaper, more cost effective medium?
Probably more reasons, just because you or I can't think of them, doesn't mean the reasons don't exist.
I don't remember it sounding that bad. Copies of CDs made on my Aiwa deck onto an SA90 tape sounded pretty good. A good quality "Auto Reverse" Sony Walkman sounded better then anything else you could carry around.
I don't really miss it as a format though. I reserve my nostalgia for Mini-Disc which I loved
Yes. CDs are my favoured medium. Cassette tape for stuff that isn’t, never was, or never will be on CD. Digital files for having a listen before you buy CDs. No interest in vinyl records anymore, but cassettes, yes.
This is exactly me. Although perhaps I'm a little more obsessed with CD not only as a medium but for the engineering, mathematics and science behind it. Ive read too many books on the subject. I love that people love vinyl. It just doesn't light my laser.
Still send people music mixes on CDs #oldweirdo. 🙂
I used to be part of a group that did this. It was a splinter from a mailing list (remember those?) I was on, several of us made a mix "tape" on CD and then forwarded it to one of the other members, with everyone else doing the same so you get a new shiny of other people's weird and eclectic music through the post every couple of weeks. We called it the "tape loop" so the tradition was probably established before CD-Rs were a thing. It was pretty cool.
Can you think of a cheaper, more cost effective medium?
CD-Rs. You can get quality CD-Rs now for like 20p each, and probably pay a lot less for if you don't care about them delaminating in six months' time. How much are new blank cassettes going for? First hit I got on Google was over a quid each.
Hell, you can get USB pendrives for like £2 these days, probably a lot less if you bulk buy.
People give them away as promo items at conferences.
Tapes were great, especially mixtapes. Best way to hear new music was mates making a tape of stuff that they liked and giving it to you to either devour or scoff at. Also, pretty good way to get your feelings over to teh girl (or boy) of your dreams that week so they would ignore you further or think of you as their weird wee mate with daft music taste while regularly snogging your best mate.
I don’t remember it sounding that bad.
You know, a lot of people complain about cassette audio quality but I don't remember them being particularly bad either. I mean, by definition an analogue recording is only ever going to be worse than the original, so if you're home recording from records / radio / another cassette then at best it's only going to be as good as the source.
Half-decent equipment mitigated a lot of this too. Buying branded tapes - I used to get TDK D-90s and then upgraded to buying SA-90s when I was a less impoverished teenager, metal ones always sounded weird to me - and playing them on Aiwa or Sony Walkpersons with separately-purchased headphones was a night and day experience compared to Happy Shopper cassettes and a Bush stereo. And there were a lot of crap cassettes, personal stereos and midi Hi-Fis about in the 80s. Maybe that's why the reputation was so poor?
A friend of mine is in the music business.
A few years ago I had the opportunity to listen to some music on 10" reel to reel running on a four head (aligned) machine running at 15"/sec.
It was ridiculously good. And that demonstrated to me how very capable magnetic tape is as a medium for audio. Very high fidelity.
Why would anyone want to go back to Cassette? Doesn’t sound as good as vinyl or CD
Can you think of a cheaper, more cost effective medium?
CD-Rs. You can get quality CD-Rs now for like 20p each, and probably pay a lot less for if you don’t care about them delaminating in six months’ time. How much are new blank cassettes going for? First hit I got on Google was over a quid each.
Hell, you can get USB pendrives for like £2 these days, probably a lot less if you bulk buy.
People give them away as promo items at conferences.
Covers 2 just of the things I suggested. Just because they aren't for you, doesn't mean they're redundant.
I'll see what a musician I know says.
I'm sticking to my minidisks for when they come back in fashion. could be a while.
It was ridiculously good. And that demonstrated to me how very capable magnetic tape is as a medium for audio. Very high fidelity.
There comes a point beyond which the source doesn't matter. You can store computer data on magnetic tape and that has to be a 1:1 reproduction of the original. And as soon as the process is digital then copying becomes reading and writing and a 15th generation copy will be as good as the original.
The same is true, if more subjective, of reproduction. You might prefer a little more bass or treble than someone else but sooner or later (and as we get older this tends towards "sooner") the bottleneck for sound fidelity is your ears. All the £200 mains cables in the world ain't gonna help you with that one.
But yeah. Reel-to-reel machines were much better than cassettes for the fairly self-evident reasons you suggest. You could get ones that fed tape faster than your mate's even - full tilt was 30"/sec and all other speeds were fractions of that. They're a bit harder to stick in your pocket though.
Why would anyone want to go back to Cassette?
..because no other musical medium can reproduce the buttock clenching panic of a car tape deck chewing up your favourite album whilst you're hooning down a country lane at night?
Covers just of the things I suggested. Just because they aren’t for you, doesn’t mean they’re redundant.
They're redundant for all practical purposes outside of the hypothetical fringe novelty application you've just made up.
I’ll see what a musician I know says.
Let us know how what he says.
We called it the “tape loop” so the tradition was probably established before CD-Rs were a thing. It was pretty cool.
I still think having someone send you a music mix on any physical thing is cool,tape,CD,pendrive,it's all good.Doesn't even matter (as Darthpunk says) if you love it or not,just the fact that someone has made the effort to set up a playlist to share ,then mail it to you.:-)
Yep love cassette, that all my car plays! 🙂
And there were a lot of crap cassettes, personal stereos and midi Hi-Fis about in the 80s. Maybe that’s why the reputation was so poor?
Indeed. The quantum leap forward with CD was to remove the dependence on quantities of precision analogue electronics stuff to make the sound good. The audio part of the electronics was reduced to a DAC, which in the scheme of things is a pretty cheap component. The playback mechanism didn't need 'tuning' or compensating or cleaning, at least to anything near the level of a tape. Yes it was pricey to begin with but as ever mechanisms came down in price.
And yes, there was a lot of cheap and awful tape gear around. Two words - ghetto blaster.
Yep love cassette, that all my car plays! 🙂
Heh.
To put that into context, I was going to a gig a couple of years ago and thought "I'll listen to one of their CDs on the drive over." Got into the car and was astonished to find that there wasn't a CD player. Astonishment number 2 shortly followed when I realised that I'd had the car for a year and had never noticed.
It'd play from USB, SD card, Bluetooth, a cornucopia of Android Auto apps, probably a bunch of other trickery, but CDs are seemingly now considered obsolete.
Two words – ghetto blaster.
Two words: Saisho, Matsui.
A very talented musician, who I bought a few tapes off (via Bandcamp) fairly recently, says:
"..it's the need for a solid medium that isn't CD, and which also allows for creative packaging and generally making an interesting object.
The fact that they sound good and force you to listen in a linear fashion is also a bonus..
It was a nice project for me to work on as it allows for creativity and can be homegrown/diy"
Three words BINATONE ghetto blaster.
When I was about seven, I thought my sister's Bush* would benefit from a few drops of 3-in ONE on the capstan. It didn't.
*s****
There's something a bit 'mission impossible' about them
By that I mean 'This tape will self-destruct' after an indeterminate number of listenings
Ill never forget my Phillip ghetto blaster chewing up my mates Blood Sugar Sex Magic as I was trying to copy it 😬
I enjoy music however it’s delivered. At work/on the train it’s streaming. At home it’s mostly vinyl.
I don’t know about participating in and revival as such, but I did buy a late 90s Pioneer tape deck a couple of years ago for £10 with loads of bells and whistles that’s worth £300 odd.
I never chucked my tapes out- been great fun putting them on. From bedroom mixtapes to dj sets from the radio and recordings of early 90s pirate radio. I’ve also got a couple of amazing Andrew Weatherall (RIP) sets from when he played at a friends club that I know nobody else has got or heard.
So for me they hold some great music/history/nostalgia but you sneery types sneer away!
A very talented musician, who I bought a few tapes off (via Bandcamp) fairly recently, says:
Fair enough, if it worked as him as a (one-off?) project then great. I stand by what I said though, it's still a novelty item. He's selling cassettes because they're now a novelty item.
Actually, I've just thought of another niche market which is still using tapes. Retro gaming. People are still buying, selling and collecting cassettes, and new games are occasionally being released on tape even.
A novelty item that contains some great music that you can't get anywhere else. And in buying that item I've supported someone who makes new music that I love. So yeah, it should be assigned to history as a novelty. Cool for those who don't give a **** about new music or the musicians making it.
Jeez chill out, other formats are available.
I'm sure they could explore more [s]pretentious ****[/s] innovative concepts with Laser Disc or HD-DVD.
I play in a Manchester based hardcore band. We have put stuff out on cassette. Why? Cos the kids these days demand it. Is it a fad? Certainly. But the public gets what the public wants.
Blinkin heck,just searched for Sharp GF-555....£100!!,only took mine to the tip last year (broken aerial ,tapes running slow).
I used to take it all over the place,great at parties with extra speakers wired in 🙂
At least the Digital Compact Cassette won't make a comeback as it never really arrived.
I still have a mini system in the garage with cassette, minidisc & CD, only really ever gets used for Mini-discs
@fasthaggis - bet it only needed new belts. Aerial could've been sorted. Bit late now though!
Some of those old ghetto blasters can fetch a few quid.
I bought a few bits at a local auction a couple of years ago including a monster Hitachi ‘D5500m’ tape deck from 1979, that they only made 100 of. A solid piece of engineering that weighed over 15kg. What I didn’t realise was it was missing the remote which had the play/stop buttons on it. I chucked it on eBay for spares/repairs as I couldn’t operate it and a German enthusiast bought it for over £500. There’s one on there for £2k at the moment.
Madness I know: you could buy a set of wheels for that..
I still have some mixtapes made by friends and ex-girlfriends. Setting them up on Spotify isn't quite the same experience.
@fasthaggis – bet it only needed new belts. Aerial could’ve been sorted. Bit late now though!
Aye Derek, probably would have been an easy fix, but I had already moved my old tape deck out to the shed (where the last of the tapes live)and I can't remember the last time I listened to any radio on AM or FM,so out it went.
It was an impressive bit of kit back in the day.
I play in a Manchester based hardcore band. We have put stuff out on cassette. Why? Cos the kids these days demand it. Is it a fad? Certainly. But the public gets what the public wants.
I think I've seen you play (with Sikkapillu) and have a couple of your cassettes. Are Dave Duck and Neurotic Myke in your band?
In here maybe...?
👍 good tape display 🙂
Yes. CDs are my favoured medium. Cassette tape for stuff that isn’t, never was, or never will be on CD. Digital files for having a listen before you buy CDs. No interest in vinyl records anymore, but cassettes, yes.
This is exactly me. Although perhaps I’m a little more obsessed with CD not only as a medium but for the engineering, mathematics and science behind it. Ive read too many books on the subject. I love that people love vinyl. It just doesn’t light my laser.
I'm all for embracing whatever medium you choose. The music is far more important than the listener straining to hear the differences in the different mediums available. Let's face it, it's really not as important as a lot of you think. I appreciate a certain level of quality of course, but let's not ruin it with format wars...