It's cool that another generation has discovered cassettes and having fun making them like I did when I was a teenager and college student in the 80's. I still have a big collection. But they will always be a collectors niche format like VHS/Beta video tape, Reel to Reel and 8-track.
+Sherrie McClaren And that is aso my opinion that cassettes are most brillant invention taking balance of all requirements for comsumer application. Actual technology of their production is at top of all times. Sadly that new cassette recorders are problem.
Basically all I got from this was that tapes 'don't sound that great, but have a certain charm about them.' Which is obvious if you're at all experienced with, or grew up with tape. I wish this video would go deeper than the nostalgia.
E R.A. Hey, I have the Dolby NR feature on my cassette player, however, I am not sure what is the use of it. I have read about it. What I understood is, you use dolby NR option to play a cassette only if the cassette was recorded with Dolby NR option turned on. Am I right ? I tried and Found out when I play a commercial cassette, that the Dolby NR option removes some background hiss or noise but I feel like the sound also lose some of its "power" or "attack" maybe. What do you think ?
E R.A. on wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_noise-reduction_system it says if you play a cassette recorded with dolby NR B without the functionality it is ok, whereas with dolby C it is bad. I have B and C on my cassette deck. I only found one tape on my collection which have the Dolby Double D Symbol. It's the Cotton Club Original Motion Picture Sound Track. But I find it weird when i turn Dolby NR B on, I mean I'm not sure I like it better, of course all the hiss goes out but then all the atmosphere disappears, the singing voice sounds different I think. I have another Jean Louis Murat cassete with Dolby but then all my other cassette which are either from turkey india or us hiphop or localbands don't have any Dolby mention
hjyuihyuihyuihnjyuih but all in all i find it too complicated, i would not use dolby nr to record cassettes as the people whom i sell it or giv it too would not know about it. Also i don't have a problem with a little hiss.
+JonnyInfinite I've tried recording music on Floppy Disks. You can fit only one song on one disk and it is in WMA format using the Windows Profesional 10 audio codec and I select 32kbps 32kHz for the long songs and 48kbps 44kHz for the short ones. Works like a charm :)
Tapes have been my fashion since my childhood and always will be, that's why I never give up on them. I of course do have CDs too, but cassettes will never go out of fashion to me, I don't care what people say about it being outdated and CDs and MP3s being the modern era today, I'm never gonna give up on my tapes!
Sam Bee I have cassettes that are 30 years old that sound just as good as the day they were recorded. I also have CDs and CDrs that are only 10 years old that will no longer play. Have 4 cassette decks that still work great. LONG LIVE CASSETTES.
Cars That's great to hear. I have a Burt Bacharach cassette from 1966 & it still plays fine. I guess depending on the kind of tape used, & the condition of the player & the conditions in which the cassette is stored, it can last a very long time. lol
I still have all my tapes all the way from the early 90s! Theres something to be said about the tape! I love listening to cassette tape more than any other format!
I still have much love for cassettes. I've transferred all mine to mp3 by now, just to protect the recordings, but there's a tangible, tactile thrill to tapes that I love. It's a format that forces you to be patient and listen to everything, moving between tracks was never easy. Stop, eject, lift, flip, drop, close, play. ;¬)
I hope cassettes do make a comeback since I collect them. Would love to see cassette decks sold at Best Buy. It beats me having to buy used ones on the internet that don't last that long.
I loved it when my walkman was running out of batteries as a little kid - and the music and voices would slow down like they were melting or something. Was hilarious. Then you hit stop for a few minutes, then press play again, and got another 5 minutes of playtime! hahaha.
My teacher, who was quite strict but very good once said: "Stop abusing the word 'like'. Whenever you wanna say 'like', just think of the word 'dog'. 'So I was dog'... 'and he was dog'... .Does that sound odd? You see?" He was very right.
Vebinz That's right. Cassettes had a charm in them that CD's and digital doesn't have. That's why I recently bought a good second-hand cassette deck. I missed my cassettes.
Samuel Blues I used a rigged broken down cassette deck that was able to rewind a whole 90 minute tape in just 30 seconds for my rewinding. I stopped using it because I later found out that it was damaging my tapes :)
Cassette development was pushed by Nakamichi in the 1970s. The Nakamichi 700 was introduced and could faithfully reproduce High frequencies as high as 22,500 cycles, well beyond what a CD or DVD can reproduce. Tape hiss was only an issue with improperly recorded tapes (too low of a recording level and low quality tape). Low quality cassette players contributed to the tape hiss as well as poor frequency response. The main advantage to any player that can faithfully reproduce signals that you may not be able to hear (High frequencies such as 22,500 cycles) is that they have no problem with signals that you can hear. The other disadvantage to CDs and DVDs is that they are digitally sampled at 44,100 cycles and cannot faithfully reproduce high frequencies, so your kidding yourself if you think they sound better. You do have the advantage of no tape hiss, but with the way all digital media is presently produced, the audio has been so compressed that most listeners will suffer "listener Fatigue" and that is even worse with Broadcast FM radio. AM radio suffers the same symptoms but also suffers from the limited frequency response that the Broadcasters choose to transmit. AM and FM can sound pristine, but the industry destroyed it like they are destroying HDTV with all the compression there also. Cymbals are the real test of audio digital medium and a camera panning across a crowd at a sports event are the test for video digital media as the facial details blur. For most, mp3s are "Good Enough", since they have never been exposed to truly good audio.
+Dennis Romo I share what You say - new standards show lifted up levels of quality in some ranges and lowered in another. And for some demanding people it may be not worthy at all. But talking about 20 or 22 kHz is useless - in ideal transmission it's hard to notice difference bewteen limitation 16 kHz or 20 kHz. It's theoretical limit of hearing but almost not noticeable in sound except noise. For complete satisfaction we should have flat 20 - 10 kHz -unfortunately in my experience it's not available from source to ear. even in best equipment . Mostly not for sopranos but the reason is distorted mid/low range.
+Dennis Romo And then, back in the late '70s there was the Elcaset system, that unfortunately never took off as it shuld have. I'm pretty sure you know it?
There's an inexplicable feel to cassettes that brings out a whole new side to music. Even an mp3 track you've listened to millions of times will sound different on tape. It doesn't sound great, or as clear, but there is definitely a tangible quality and charm to it that only analog technology can bring. Thing is most people today don't fully understand it. I still have all my dad's old tapes from when he was a teenager, and they work brilliantly. I absolutely love the cassette.
I just got (back) into vinyl. 'had a record player as a wee lad. Mom saved her favorite 20 LPs or so, and just handed them down to me. Like her, I saved about my favorite 20 cassettes. I'm kind of glad to hear they're making a resurgence, just the nostalgia part of me. But remember the quality? One had to spend some serious coin to get metal tapes and a deck that could record them to have decent sound. CDs just blow them away. They make component CD burners now, so it is not MUCH harder to make a CD than it is to make a cassette, and they have superior sound.
If you want a tape sound without having to purchase tapes and some hardware that can play them, Google or TH-cam search for "U-HE Satin" - it is a VST plugin you can run in any good audio player and it gives you THAT sound (and more).
The compact Cassette was originally for dictation and was monaural. It was found to acceptable for music as the speed regulation was "pretty good" for moving at a very slow speed (1&7/8th inches per second) usually at this low rate the high frequencies fall off drastically. At the time 15 ips for music and 7½ ips for speech was the norm. Add to the fact the cassette used 1/8th wide tape as apposed to the normal 1/4 inch , this really compromised the area to place enough signal. Now add four tracks to a 1/8 inch wide tape (two for stereo in one direction) and this headroom for signal really gets hard to lay down enough energy to create high fidelity. Tape magnetic oxide and even the tape itself got better and thinner so more could be placed into that tiny reel. Then came the electronic magic of Dolby to further reduce the "tape hiss" The remarkable decks of that era were indeed just that. Many engineers worked to further the state of the art to the point that even some very inexpensive tape machines could deliver very good quality results. Was it as good as CD (wave file) or high bitrate Mp3's? No but it is what led to these formats we enjoy today
I am collecting vinyl records, but after seeing this video I thought wait a minute didn't I have quit a lot o cassete tapes too, let's dig them out of the loft and play them tonight ! Added this to my playlist on vinyl records as I think vinyl collectors should really start playing the old cassete tapes as well.
Cassettes themselves to me are interesting. It's actually the players that I believe are ridiculously cumbersome and frustrating. You've gotta spend A LOT of money to find a decent quality player.
Not necessarily. I just found a Pioneer f500 at the local record store for 8 dollars. Meters light up and everything. You can get a new califone for about 15 and wire it into your stereo. Decent quality is a very ambiguous term. The hardware is what it is, and the fidelity will always suck balls, but cassettes are rugged, portable and cheap. That is the ONLY reason they ever existed anyway.
Trance88 I found a good quality dual tape deck for $5 at a garage sale. keep your eyes peeled for quality used equipment at garage sales or theift shops.
I know a lot of people claim it to be hipster fodder, but I'm a metal artist and I think it's just a cool alternative to boring CDs especially when MP3s are all available online. but I mainly love the DIY aspect of it, and the added crunchiness and resonance that it would give to something like black metal or grindcore.
Recordings on cassette tapes and vinyls encourage the listener to play through entire sides of an album which in turn presents the art created in its intended context. I hope that the resurgence of these mediums push trend back towards the creations of records that are more complete ideas rather than just standalone singles compiled into some sort of order mixed with filler.
I hitchhiked around Europe with just 2 tapes - Pink Floyd the Wall and a Strawbs Greatest hits. An emotional rollercoaster! I'd play the Wall - get depressed. Then play the Strawbs to cheer me up. Then get sick of the Strawbs and play the Wall again and get depressed...
I think cassettes, recorded well and listened on a hi fi system sound close to audio CD in quality and definitely better in feeling. I started recordings of vinyl 24 bit recordings to tapes and I like how they sound.
I beg to differ with the "it doesn't sound great" comment. Cassettes can sound excellent. Like other media, it depending on the equipment you use to record and playback. I have some cassette recordinigs that equal CDs or vinyl in sound quality.
I agree. A good Maxell XLIIS or an equivalent TDK can sound great on a good tape deck. I even got great sound off of 8-Tracks because I used a good tape deck with high quality tape. Didn't stop them from getting eaten up every now and then, but they could be made to sound really good! Most of my LP's are in mint shape today because I would buy them, put them on tape and file the record away. I have 3 tape decks still. I could play a CD, a cassette and an LP and I guarantee the only one you would notice a difference in is the LP because of pops and clicks!! Pre recorded tapes sound terrible. Companies used cheap tape and mass recording... usually high speed which kills the sound. The hiss and noise on a pre-recorded tape will turn anyone off.
i agree with you, martin. a good tape and equipment sounds really fine. thats the reason, why is collected some thousands of them within the last years...
***** I agree about cassettes having the potential to sound good, via good equipment, a properly adjusted tape deck, and a good audio source. I also agree about the quality of many pre-recorded tapes not being very good. However, towards the end of cassettes reign some of the record companies did start to make an effort at better sounding cassettes by using better tape. I remember buying some pre-recorded cassettes (I think one of them was a Police album) that used Type II tapes that were biased for Type I that did sound pretty good.
indeed. the industry did their best to make tape rival the best lp or cd versions. I was hearing a Joe Jackson pre-recorded A&M tape yesterday that sounded tops. Also the makers of cassette players really made a great effort to improve sound quality making decks with 3 head decks, dual capstan transport, quality electronics , HX Pro and Dolby C & later Dolby S. I still have over 200 cassettes and 5 tape top of the line cassette decks that sound as good as good as my CD player or turntable.
I like tapes very much. I'm making recordings on a cassettes from maybe 4 years old. I grew up with the cassettes and I won't stop listening to them. With a high quality equipment actually the Compact Cassette sounds really great. A little bit of hiss is separating it from the CD quality and it isn't bothering me. It's the only analog medium on which you can make high quality recordings at home and at the same time it's compact enough compared even to a CD. The only problem is that nobody produces a high quality cassette players/recorders nowadays and at the same time the spare parts as belts, pinch rollers etc. for the old players are harder and harder to find. Sometimes it's a real adventure to find all the parts needed to fix a particular machine.
+Origoangelohrol322 Maybe you should look at the German eBay. Here you'll find tons of parts, sometimes even complete belt kits for a large number of the higher-end decks like the better Naks, Kenwoods and Sonys. I fully agree with you on the sound quality. I started recording cassettes at the age of 7 and won't stop it. Now I record my tapes on a Kenwood KX-9010 and play them back on the go on my Sony WM-F28 which is a VERY good Walkman. Do you know the Elcaset system? Just use Google and Wikipedia if you don't know it. I cannot recommend it enough!! WHAT a joy to use a Sony EL-7 three head Elcaset machine!! They pop up on eBay.de regularly. I bought one and have had no regret, not a single second! Tapes can be a bit hard to get, but be patient: sometimes a good lot is offered.
Yes, I've heard of Elcaset I know that system it's very good and definitely superior to compact cassette but I've never seen or listened to this medium in the real life. It's something between reel to reel and s compact cassette.
Cassettes were a critical step in home music recording and programming (mix tapes!) but my expensive technics deck sits gathering dust. There is a reason for this.
I am still not crazy on the format,I was there the first time around and people moved on for a reason, but I love bit of nostalgia and these people have passion for tapes, gotta love that.
What a "cool", uplifting video. It...made my day watching this. And...I agree with the comment(or)right below mine; With a upper-tier cassette deck and upper-tier("Metal")tape, an exceptional sounding recording can be made. Oh, & the recording levels properly adjusted/monitored.
Using Bias and Calibration of course! Even a type 1 tape can sound just as good as a chrome. (The double coated type 1's.) I have a rare TDK D-SX and the hiss? Is nearly gone by default and can handle high recording levels.
The one flaw is that you don't have direct access to the song. It's makes it tough finding the song if you are unfamiliar with the album and/or the track is an instrumental. That later part is proof as to why cassettes never caught on in the jazz and classical genres.
Yes, but this problem with cassettes was somewhat solved with the feature of "AMSS" o r the Automatic Music Search System (aka "AMS", "MS" or "Auto Music Search") introduced on newer cassette decks made in the '80s and later. The AMSS feature will automatically search for the next song on the tape by "listening" to the audio on the tape by keeping the playback head active while the tape is fast-forwarding or rewinding (the audio is muted so you won't have to hear a high-speed chipmunk screech of audio while it's working), and whenever AMSS detects a break of silence on the tape (usually between tracks), it will automatically stop and play the next (or previous) track. It's not completely foolproof though, for long quiet passages within songs or false starts/endings in a song will "fool" the AMSS into playing the tape. My Pioneer CT-W530R dual-deck unit has this feature (labled as "MS" on the FF and REW buttons), and depending on the content of the cassette, usually works well.
***** You are correct as I do now recall seeing that function about 30 years ago. I think where cassettes will make a comeback is in mixtapes off of the radio if they still survived. There's very little in the line of playlists from back in day. There are Billboard charts but certain stations and outlets played album oriented material where the single hardly got figured in. I find it's very intriguing to see what where the regional hits in local markets. Sad thing is that we always thought there would be fresh new music but we didn't take a cue off of the sentiments of prior generations where they lost what they had. The one thing I disdained about tapes was channel drop-out which can extend to the master tapes. Buddha masters are notorious for this but at the time it allowed for expanded dynamic range. It's always a toss-up as to how to remaster this stuff for reissue. Does one use mono, a mint vinyl record, or noise reduction or compression? It's very controversial yet each have mixed results with severe limitations on each method.
***** During the cassette area especially in Black music, the album was divided between several genres. You could have swingbeat, adult contemporary ballads, jazzier Quiet Storm ballads, and freestyle all on the same set. It's not so much a question of quality but one of appeasing one's mood.
Autumn Aarilyn Yes, hopefully some those cassette mixtapes of off-air FM recordings are still lying around, it would be great if such could be posted to the internet for listening, either here or on SoundCloud--much like how TH-cam hosts quite a few off-air TV recordings from the 70s and 80s, right when VCRs came around. I have an old cassette I found at a thrift store a while back of about 90 mins. worth of KOSI-FM in Denver from 1984, which was at the time an easy listening, aka "beautiful music" station. It's a real delight to listen to, and it even has a few commercial breaks and a newscast as part of the recording--a literal broadcast time capsule. I'm planning on posting that on my SC account soon.... It definitely would be interesting to hear a local FM station's playlist from back in the day--it reminds me of back in the 80s-early 90s when a local Top 40 station in my hometown (KYYY-FM, aka "Y-93") had a countdown show at 9pm every weekday called "The Top 9 at 9", where listeners could call in and introduce the songs! I should've recorded a few of those... :(
This is great. Wishing I would have grown up in the 70s/80s when the cassette tapes were popular. The 90s was awesome with CDs, but the old school is always better. Nice video!
+htimsydoc 1413 ?? They were popular throughout the 90s too..About everybody I knew was using them & they were still everywhere in stores until the very end of the decade
If anybody wants to know how to fit a playlist on each side of the tape, there's an app to do exactly that. It's called "MixTape Calculator". It's free and I think is available for both Android and IOS.
Fidelity is not the entirety of the listening experience. It is also not entirely indicative of the influence that a medium has on the music of its day.
I don’t have a Walkman but I have a pioneer ct-f950 that has been fully serviced with 4 new belts. Sounds great with my modern Cambridge cxa60 integrated amp.
I love cassettes, even though vinyl is still my first preference. In my 40s now, I grew up with tapes, used them in the 80s and 90s and also saw them disappear. I love taping CDs onto tape. I make cassettes albums of new music and design the jacket on Photoshop and print it in colour. I love TDK, Sony and Maxell from the mid to late 80s. Tapes sound great if you use a high quality blank and use a high end cassette deck. I have five decks, Yamaha, Sony, Technics, and two Pioneer. I do tests with various types and it gives hours of fun. It warms up a cold sounding CD. I have a D6C professional Sony Walkman which is the coolest thing ever. You can still buy a large selection on eBay but the Type II and Metal cassettes are getting expensive. The only cassette you may find on the high street is the Maxell UR bog standard Type I for speech and music. Sony and TDK have stopped manufacturing them. Will they ever make them again? Who knows, but I wish they did!
+KRAZEEIZATION the tape is the best audio vs CD, tape recorded the profecionales 8 Traks and a cassette copy of the tape Cadre 2 traks, a CD or MP3 track is half
+KRAZEEIZATION Also still widely available is the Sony HF tape. WAY better than the Maxell UR or TDK D, although all three are bug basic ferric tapes. Don't believe me? Just try it! With a good quality deck like the Kenwood KX-9010 or Nakamichi CR-7 you will be blown away... even the high frequencies will be OK!
The Sony HF from mid 80s is fantastic. It has the clarity that the D and the UR don't have. I love the Sony 1985 range HF, HF-S and HF-ES, plus the 87/88 range too, they are th best ferrics ever made.
+KRAZEEIZATION Exactly the same here! The 1986 Sony HF-S and HF-ES are my absolute favorite type 1 tapes, but the HF is very good also. At least, the 1986 ones. I have dozens of them... and of the HF-S also. And a box full of brand new 1985 HF-S also!
For most folks cassette will be a mid fi audio medium at best. You really NEED a top of the line 3 head deck with Dolby S which performs AMAZING, and record using premium metal tapes. If a deck like that is setup properly and you setup the recording process properly you can achieve STUNNING results with cassettes. Sadly most folks do/did not not ever have a good deck, use crap tapes, and nothing is calibrated properly yielding mid to lo fi sound. It takes a serious minded, dedicated person to squeeze the total potential out of the cassette medium, but if you do it right the sonic results can be rather stunning from this humble format, even in this modern day of audio.
I have fond memories of cassettes (born in 1980). All of my first music experience came from cassettes. Parents, then I started getting my own. I think my first few were like Dire Straits Brothers in Arms and a couple others I can't recall around '87 '88. I definitely remember buying Prince - Diamonds and Pearls the day it came out with my allowance. That said - cassettes, pre-recorded ones anyway, sound somewhere between "Okay I Guess" and "Hot Garbage Juice." However, I've found after picking up an old really good Marantz tape deck from 78 or 79, if I record at 3 3/4 IPS (double normal speed) from a good source, like a nice clean vinyl, when I play it back I can only barely, JUST BARELY pick out the difference between the tape and the source. And I listen to a lot of vinyl and the difference is typically stark between it and any other source - I've been building the collection since '95. For the kids: If you care about sound at all, forget cassettes unless you're a bit of an audio nerd. If you're just interested in 80s culture and music and format or whatever if it's simply cool again... cool. I was really into the 60's and 70's in the 90's so I get it. In any case - have fun!
Agreed, full fledged resurgence will definitely never happen. I think that the biggest value that cassete tape can offer is its novelty as a merchandise item for touring bands that depend on that income daily. Ok Computer is an incredible album because its full of really great songs that fit together into a concept and sonic aesthetic.
I feel kinda compelled to write something defensive here, since most comments I see on cassette-related internet things seem to consist of the mindless repetition of the word 'hipster' & little else. (Usually, something pseudoscientific is thrown in for good measure, to make the angry, pompous 'Hail digital!' guy seem like he knows what he's talking about. More often-than-not, though, it just ends up reading like a bunch of condescending shit.) But anyway, it seems like almost anything qualifies one as a hipster these days, so while i'm tempted to say i'm not one, at this point, I confess - I'm not entirely certain what a 'hipster' is. I do like cassettes though, & i'll expound upon why. I have an older car with a cassette player in it. I noticed a lot of great older music on cassettes - full albums, artwork, liner notes, the whole 9 yards - for 99 cents at second-hand stores. Out of curiosity & practicality, I started to buy some. Many is the time that i've picked up a 20/30 year-old cassette from Savers or Goodwill, popped it in my player & and been shocked to hear crisp, bassy, noiseless or near-noiseless music that easily rivals - often, sounds superior to - CDs or mp3s. I don't have any 'scientific' studies to link you to which claim to prove something about whether your personal preference for sound is wrong or right. I speak only from experience, not something I came across on the internet. Legitimate, day-to-day personal experience. Seriously -The Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper', Green Day's 'Dookie', Aerosmith's 'Gems', Whitesnake's eponymous, The Traveling Wilbury's eponymous, various Sinatra albums, Slayer, Metallica; the list goes on - all used, unseald, decades-old... and sounding great. Clear, artifact-free sound which, if anything, sounded better - far richer and less compressed - than the thin, prickly flatness of CDs & mp3s. I like them because I've never had a real problem with them, and most importantly, they sound really fucking good. Bottom line is this: if cassettes invariably sound like dogshit to you, or were constantly being eaten/unwound by whatever device you played them on: a.) you're a fucking idiot who has no idea how to load & play a simple tape. b.) you stored them under your toilet tank or in the dampest, dankest corner of an unfinished basement. c.) you played them exclusively on piss-poor, bottom-end equipment (which, I must note, produces an end result near-identical to playing CDs, mp3s, LPs, or reel-to-reel tape on shit equipment - the music sounds like shit.) d.) you're one of those angry weird guys with an inexplicable hatred for anything analogue (perhaps I should say 'any non-digital media format'.) In years and years of listening to these things, I've not once - NOT. ONCE. - had a tape get 'eaten' by the player. I'm sure it happens, from time to time, but seriously... for me? Not once. I've left them in my car through hot & freezing weather, accidentally cracked the tape shells by stepping on them or slamming them in the car door, etc.; I've never experienced any sound degradation from my carelessness. They're indestructible, for the most part, so please stop desperately trying to find ways to convince the current masses of vulnerabilities which you seem to've imagined. Most importantly, however: stop labeling people's affection for a particular medium as 'hipster' out of your mystifyingly intense personal vendetta against all things analogue, or simply because it exceeds the limits of your understanding. Just let people enjoy whatever the fuck it is they enjoy. Rewinding is definitely a fucking pain the ass, though. I'll gladly give you that.
+Charles Incharge These could have been my words. All too true! Since 1977 I've been using cassette tapes - right until now. I still enjoy them. Not a single one died on me in those nearly 40 years. Using a decent deck to record them, they just can't go wrong! The combination of my Kenwood KX-9010 deck and Sony WM-F28 Walkman is just great - so much better than any screeechy sounding MP-3 player. No high- frequency artifacts (I really HATE them, I'll take the noise of the cassette any time over that) and a full rich sound. I'm no hipster either (although I may look like one, with beard and long hair) I'm just enjoying one of the most simple, good sounding and indestructible media for music recording ever created...
I never said that they were replacement. I agree that digital mediums are far superior, especially in the realm of accessibility. I'm a huge advocate for streaming music services; sharing playlists online is far better than burning a cd ever was. My point is that the ease of skipping tracks or even purchasing can potentially turn the listening experience into something like reading only a few chapters in a novel without ever knowing the whole story.
All you people are giving these people shit for liking something that they enjoy. People like you are the reason why this world is split apart. Stop the hate like seriously! Let people be.
I agree with you, however, each advancement of technology doesn't immediately negate the great things that previous mediums had to offer. Music is art and the mediums used have affected its outcome and deserves to be viewed in context. A resurgence in mediums like vinyl and casette tape will give a new generation a chance to have a listening experience that encourages patience; the same patience that influenced the writing of albums that have remained relevant for decades not weeks.
I still have my $400 Sony tape recorder that you can tune to get the best recording from each individual tape. It has Dolby S and you can listen to the recording tape while its recording. I still have boxes of old tapes and recordings. You can download free programs to print your own labels and add artwork if you like. Old fun.
I make music (badly) in Reason6. But I will absolutely put it through a cassette once I'm done. I don't miss the way tapes broke or chewed but I do miss their tone.
unlike records which USED to cost about 10 bucks they have now inflated to somewhere around 25 to 35(at the very most) while tapes are still quite affordable and are some sort of physical thing that isn't a crap CD, I think tapes are good for exploring and finding new artists and are also good for someone who wants something physical at a good price. that's just me though
My favourite line: 'The tape cassette fits in your pocket' yeah so does an ipod with thousands and thousands of songs! Enjoy tapes if that's what you like but thank god for MP3!
Man, I'm really underexposed to African music/Afro Pop, people ARE NOT kidding when they say Vampire Weekend lift heavily from that sound, it's awesome. Little subcultures like this are always cool, you can tell these guys really love what they're doing and have latched onto something nostalgic in a big way and kept pushing it forward however they can, or drawing inspiration from it. Some lulzy lines though. "It can fit in your pocket..." You know what else can fit in your pocket? An iPhone.
Before CDs and MP3s I had only alternative to make my playlist on Cassetes... Metallica, Deff Lepard, Iron, you name it! God, that was ALL i NEEDED FOR A GOOD TIME OUT IN MY OLD CAR.
There may be other ways to share music now, but cassettes are... still there. People like to hold something, it's fun to put in an old friend's or new friend's hand, and they won't break the bank. Do It! I'd love it if my demented ukulele warbling wound up at an old folks' home, or a thrift store in Romania.
You could record over not just the blank side of the tape, but even the side that already has a recording. All you have to do is roll up a ball of paper and stick it in the holes that are on the top edge of the tape.
I have a studio I do most of the mixing on gear not in a computer. I actually want to find a nice tascam 3 head cassette recorder to put all that beautiful sound on.
When I was little in the late 70's, I so loved listening to my dad's records sitting in front of the Hi-Fi. I always listened to cassettes in the 80's, 90's and early 2000's until CD's became more affordable until 8 years ago until I donated all my cassettes for mp3's. Now I collect vinyl and enjoy the sound better than cassettes.
When we have cassettes we collect records now digital age it is an amazing thing to collect cassettes the best ones would be demo cassettes of bands from the 80's and 90's... those will be golden. Man i can still remember some of my cassettes when I was a kid(late 90's to early 2k) red hot chilli, incubus, etc etc, even abba!, some local bands (eraserheads) and even self recording just for dun with my bestfriend. sad that I lost them all.
No but i am from holland, and can say that it was a after invention of the 8-track player. which wasn't very popular here cause it could not rewind the tape and it would jam frequently enough so it got hated fast! Vinyl was a BIG hit in holland. in the 50/60's (after WW2) And baby boomers became teenagers. The funny thing is, that Phillips would send of prototypes to workers and try them out. And this was a big hit right from the start.
I wander when reel to reel tapes are coming back. cause they were better in sound quality . Though i had a massive collection of cassette, and a walkman as well. always headphones on. lost it all .. miss the time. living in the netherlands though . cassettes arent readily available now.
+Dhr Willemsen They were back but now direct compare does not show evident difference in sound and noticible l dynamic.. I like reel because they (depending on thickness) can play two hours one side. And do not for handling . .
True, playing a reel. keeps you listening for a few hours. Had one with slow play which could turn a 2 hour side in 3 hours. makes 6 hours of listening. While now we have itunes and the likes . I like to put on a record ore a tape once in a while.
+Dhr Willemsen I heard of some restoration company that even BEFORE a R2R machine came in, it was already sold! They couldn't keep up with the demand! Prices are going up at the moment. Look at what a decent Technics RS-1500 costs nowadays... and if it has not been FULLY restored (which also means a FULL recap) it will soon DIE! So, on top of the purchase price you'll have to shed some serious money to have it restored by a good technician. I know this, I have been restoring my own RS-1500 and this took weeks and weeks and weeks. All 139 electrolytic capacitors (especially, but not limited to the purple Matsushita dreaded ones), have been replaced, they were scattered over 8 PCBs. Finally, it sounds GREAT. Still to do: the brakes. On all these machines, they are GONE.
well im in good luck then. I build and repair older radio stuff. and true they are hard to come by. i have an old alai that still works and needs restoration . the tapes how ever are pretty hard to find new , not new old stock. had a few and they where to brittle . Only brand i know that still ( maybe not anymore ) made r2r tapes , was maxell.
+325iaddict As I know the dielectric standing more voltage is more aging. I often read statements about all capacitors replacement for 100% it's worn or damaged. Some say even few years is enough to suspect so "better renew" like in speaker crossover - (I consider this case stupidity). . I never do it by rule but only by technical condition. Depending on function of capacitor it may even be fault - those original resposible for sound quality or for tunning in radios may had values in quality limits +/_10%% and whole unit was in factory adjusted to this value. You may not find the same value today as now they are more accurate. . . Btw, I listen almost daily to my radio made in 1939 and 90% of capacitors are original - 77 years old.. It sounds great, no hum from bad filtering and it has enaough sensitivity to play distant ones from aboard - see my clip about Electric Aiutomatic - listening. . Voltage of this radio is 100- 270VDC.
I got a Nakamichi and that's the only way for me to listen ti cassette. CD quality minus the harshness. I used it for archiving rare music. I generally listen to LPs or CDs or some flac when in front of my laptop.
It's tempting to think of this as pure hipster candyfloss, but I do think there is more to it than that. It's maybe a distant memory now, but back in the day cassette tapes were the do-it-all tool used for so many things. Including in my case as editor of a computer magazine putting them on the front cover loaded up with the latest BBC BASIC programs. Everyone used to record The top 20 straight off the radio, take mix tapes into school for sharing and when John Peel was playing complete albums you could record the lot if you wanted to. Yes much of it was technically illegal, but in fact we all went out and bought stuff on vinyl when we could. Tapes were just, well cheaper. And none the worse for that.
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It's cool that another generation has discovered cassettes and having fun making them like I did when I was a teenager and college student in the 80's. I still have a big collection. But they will always be a collectors niche format like VHS/Beta video tape, Reel to Reel and 8-track.
I always loved cassettes. So easy and immediate....and portable!
+Sherrie McClaren And that is aso my opinion that cassettes are most brillant invention taking balance of all requirements for comsumer application. Actual technology of their production is at top of all times. Sadly that new cassette recorders are problem.
Sdyg
I still have my 500 cassette collection as of now 2016. Had them since the 80's. Ranging from 1981-1990. Mostly recorded blanks
Man i know you. I watched you old videos. I love it. I will be good if you do a video on your cassette collection.
Definitely
I'm wanting to hear these recordings
B great and absolutely fantastic to hear
Peace
It's not the sound that is amazing about tapes, it's the energy. I'm very glad people are coming back to this spiritual medium.
Basically all I got from this was that tapes 'don't sound that great, but have a certain charm about them.' Which is obvious if you're at all experienced with, or grew up with tape. I wish this video would go deeper than the nostalgia.
With the right cassette and the right recording equipment, it will sound better than any CD.
E R.A. Hey, I have the Dolby NR feature on my cassette player, however, I am not sure what is the use of it. I have read about it. What I understood is, you use dolby NR option to play a cassette only if the cassette was recorded with Dolby NR option turned on. Am I right ? I tried and Found out when I play a commercial cassette, that the Dolby NR option removes some background hiss or noise but I feel like the sound also lose some of its "power" or "attack" maybe. What do you think ?
E R.A. on wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_noise-reduction_system
it says if you play a cassette recorded with dolby NR B without the functionality it is ok, whereas with dolby C it is bad. I have B and C on my cassette deck.
I only found one tape on my collection which have the Dolby Double D Symbol. It's the Cotton Club Original Motion Picture Sound Track. But I find it weird when i turn Dolby NR B on, I mean I'm not sure I like it better, of course all the hiss goes out but then all the atmosphere disappears, the singing voice sounds different I think.
I have another Jean Louis Murat cassete with Dolby but then all my other cassette which are either from turkey india or us hiphop or localbands don't have any Dolby mention
E R.A. i found a cleaning AGFA cassette so i will try it. Also i tried the dolby nr b on the jean louis murrat cassette it gives agood sound to it
hjyuihyuihyuihnjyuih but all in all i find it too complicated, i would not use dolby nr to record cassettes as the people whom i sell it or giv it too would not know about it. Also i don't have a problem with a little hiss.
E R.A. but i record my cassettes from cd to cassette because i found out recording from tape to tape loses quality
I'm 14 and I love cassettes! I got a used deck and receiver from an indoor flea market recently and I've been nonstop making mixtapes!
There's record labels releasing albums on 3.5" FLOPPY DISKS now, can you out hipster that??
+JonnyInfinite I've tried recording music on Floppy Disks. You can fit only one song on one disk and it is in WMA format using the Windows Profesional 10 audio codec and I select 32kbps 32kHz for the long songs and 48kbps 44kHz for the short ones.
Works like a charm :)
+MegaBojan1993 these are whole albums. I'd best your effort by going 16 kbps mono AAC at 22.05 kHz
***** At those settings the music will sound like crap :)
+MegaBojan1993 yeah, but you're putting music on a floppy disc. If you want fidelity use a CD.
***** Might I ask what's the point of putting a whole album on a floppy disks?
Tapes have been my fashion since my childhood and always will be, that's why I never give up on them. I of course do have CDs too, but cassettes will never go out of fashion to me, I don't care what people say about it being outdated and CDs and MP3s being the modern era today, I'm never gonna give up on my tapes!
Sam Bee I have cassettes that are 30 years old that sound just as good as the day they were recorded. I also have CDs and CDrs that are only 10 years old that will no longer play. Have 4 cassette decks that still work great. LONG LIVE CASSETTES.
Sam Bee What? Are cd's & MP3's still considered modern in 2015? LOL
Cars That's great to hear. I have a Burt Bacharach cassette from 1966 & it still plays fine. I guess depending on the kind of tape used, & the condition of the player & the conditions in which the cassette is stored, it can last a very long time. lol
You same as me I like it.
I still have all my tapes all the way from the early 90s! Theres something to be said about the tape! I love listening to cassette tape more than any other format!
Here's a plus side (No pun intended): After you finished listening to an album, you can have something look back to.
Any punks with cassettes here!
MEEEEE!!! :)
UK82!!!
I have quite a few cassettes from a few local punk bands from the early 80s that never got big. I doubt they even have copies of their music.
Most of them were just teenagers that were doing it just for the fuck of it.
Ayyy my dude
There is something about having a physical copy of an album that you've liked or an album that meant something to you at some point.
I still have much love for cassettes. I've transferred all mine to mp3 by now, just to protect the recordings, but there's a tangible, tactile thrill to tapes that I love. It's a format that forces you to be patient and listen to everything, moving between tracks was never easy. Stop, eject, lift, flip, drop, close, play. ;¬)
👍👍 albums, 45s, cassettes, 8-tracks, CDs, MTV, mp3, TH-cam, music steaming…at 60 years old, I’m ready for my musical brain transplant. 😀
I hope cassettes do make a comeback since I collect them. Would love to see cassette decks sold at Best Buy. It beats me having to buy used ones on the internet that don't last that long.
I loved it when my walkman was running out of batteries as a little kid - and the music and voices would slow down like they were melting or something. Was hilarious. Then you hit stop for a few minutes, then press play again, and got another 5 minutes of playtime! hahaha.
She says 'like' every other word. I think this is what I sound like. Got to put a stop to that.
My teacher, who was quite strict but very good once said: "Stop abusing the word 'like'. Whenever you wanna say 'like', just think of the word 'dog'. 'So I was dog'... 'and he was dog'... .Does that sound odd? You see?"
He was very right.
The only thing I hate about cassettes is the rewinding.
+MegaBojan1993
Yeah, but on the other hand it forced you to listen to a whole album you just bought, instead of fast-forwarding to the known singles.
Vebinz That's right. Cassettes had a charm in them that CD's and digital doesn't have. That's why I recently bought a good second-hand cassette deck. I missed my cassettes.
+MegaBojan1993 I never rewind, I listen to the other side :D
Samuel Blues I used a rigged broken down cassette deck that was able to rewind a whole 90 minute tape in just 30 seconds for my rewinding. I stopped using it because I later found out that it was damaging my tapes :)
+MegaBojan1993 hahaha! Awesome! :D
Long Live The Cassette!
I miss tapes so much (from my childhood) that I'm hoarding them to dj with. I even picked up a direct drive Technics deck recently.
Cassette development was pushed by Nakamichi in the 1970s. The Nakamichi 700 was introduced and could faithfully reproduce High frequencies as high as 22,500 cycles, well beyond what a CD or DVD can reproduce. Tape hiss was only an issue with improperly recorded tapes (too low of a recording level and low quality tape). Low quality cassette players contributed to the tape hiss as well as poor frequency response. The main advantage to any player that can faithfully reproduce signals that you may not be able to hear (High frequencies such as 22,500 cycles) is that they have no problem with signals that you can hear. The other disadvantage to CDs and DVDs is that they are digitally sampled at 44,100 cycles and cannot faithfully reproduce high frequencies, so your kidding yourself if you think they sound better. You do have the advantage of no tape hiss, but with the way all digital media is presently produced, the audio has been so compressed that most listeners will suffer "listener Fatigue" and that is even worse with Broadcast FM radio. AM radio suffers the same symptoms but also suffers from the limited frequency response that the Broadcasters choose to transmit. AM and FM can sound pristine, but the industry destroyed it like they are destroying HDTV with all the compression there also. Cymbals are the real test of audio digital medium and a camera panning across a crowd at a sports event are the test for video digital media as the facial details blur. For most, mp3s are "Good Enough", since they have never been exposed to truly good audio.
+Dennis Romo I share what You say - new standards show lifted up levels of quality in some ranges and lowered in another. And for some demanding people it may be not worthy at all. But talking about 20 or 22 kHz is useless - in ideal transmission it's hard to notice difference bewteen limitation 16 kHz or 20 kHz. It's theoretical limit of hearing but almost not noticeable in sound except noise. For complete satisfaction we should have flat 20 - 10 kHz -unfortunately in my experience it's not available from source to ear. even in best equipment . Mostly not for sopranos but the reason is distorted mid/low range.
+Dennis Romo And then, back in the late '70s there was the Elcaset system, that unfortunately never took off as it shuld have. I'm pretty sure you know it?
I use to love going to music stores back in the day looking at cassettes and trying to see which one to buy.
There's an inexplicable feel to cassettes that brings out a whole new side to music. Even an mp3 track you've listened to millions of times will sound different on tape. It doesn't sound great, or as clear, but there is definitely a tangible quality and charm to it that only analog technology can bring. Thing is most people today don't fully understand it. I still have all my dad's old tapes from when he was a teenager, and they work brilliantly. I absolutely love the cassette.
I just got (back) into vinyl. 'had a record player as a wee lad. Mom saved her favorite 20 LPs or so, and just handed them down to me. Like her, I saved about my favorite 20 cassettes. I'm kind of glad to hear they're making a resurgence, just the nostalgia part of me.
But remember the quality? One had to spend some serious coin to get metal tapes and a deck that could record them to have decent sound. CDs just blow them away. They make component CD burners now, so it is not MUCH harder to make a CD than it is to make a cassette, and they have superior sound.
If you want a tape sound without having to purchase tapes and some hardware that can play them, Google or TH-cam search for "U-HE Satin" - it is a VST plugin you can run in any good audio player and it gives you THAT sound (and more).
The compact Cassette was originally for dictation and was monaural. It was found to acceptable for music as the speed regulation was "pretty good" for moving at a very slow speed (1&7/8th inches per second) usually at this low rate the high frequencies fall off drastically. At the time 15 ips for music and 7½ ips for speech was the norm. Add to the fact the cassette used 1/8th wide tape as apposed to the normal 1/4 inch , this really compromised the area to place enough signal. Now add four tracks to a 1/8 inch wide tape (two for stereo in one direction) and this headroom for signal really gets hard to lay down enough energy to create high fidelity.
Tape magnetic oxide and even the tape itself got better and thinner so more could be placed into that tiny reel.
Then came the electronic magic of Dolby to further reduce the "tape hiss"
The remarkable decks of that era were indeed just that. Many engineers worked to further the state of the art to the point that even some very inexpensive tape machines could deliver very good quality results. Was it as good as CD (wave file) or high bitrate Mp3's?
No but it is what led to these formats we enjoy today
I am collecting vinyl records, but after seeing this video I thought wait a minute didn't I have quit a lot o cassete tapes too, let's dig them out of the loft and play them tonight ! Added this to my playlist on vinyl records as I think vinyl collectors should really start playing the old cassete tapes as well.
That bit at the beginning.... SOOOO true :)
I just finished paying for a Technics M24 and a SU-Z4, can't wait to start this journey!
Cassettes themselves to me are interesting. It's actually the players that I believe are ridiculously cumbersome and frustrating. You've gotta spend A LOT of money to find a decent quality player.
Not necessarily. I just found a Pioneer f500 at the local record store for 8 dollars. Meters light up and everything. You can get a new califone for about 15 and wire it into your stereo. Decent quality is a very ambiguous term. The hardware is what it is, and the fidelity will always suck balls, but cassettes are rugged, portable and cheap. That is the ONLY reason they ever existed anyway.
shutthefuckupdonny99 Emerson makes a good one to.
Trance88 Found a kyocera deck at Goodwill for 7$. Kyocera (Yes the cell phone makers) made some top shelf audio gear in the 80's.
Good find :) Clean and demagnetize those heads!!
Trance88 I found a good quality dual tape deck for $5 at a garage sale. keep your eyes peeled for quality used equipment at garage sales or theift shops.
I know a lot of people claim it to be hipster fodder, but I'm a metal artist and I think it's just a cool alternative to boring CDs especially when MP3s are all available online. but I mainly love the DIY aspect of it, and the added crunchiness and resonance that it would give to something like black metal or grindcore.
Pretty sure that's actually genuine interest and obsession for cassettes.
Recordings on cassette tapes and vinyls encourage the listener to play through entire sides of an album which in turn presents the art created in its intended context. I hope that the resurgence of these mediums push trend back towards the creations of records that are more complete ideas rather than just standalone singles compiled into some sort of order mixed with filler.
The perspective of free culture in this video is amazing..!
I hitchhiked around Europe with just 2 tapes - Pink Floyd the Wall and a Strawbs Greatest hits. An emotional rollercoaster! I'd play the Wall - get depressed. Then play the Strawbs to cheer me up. Then get sick of the Strawbs and play the Wall again and get depressed...
I think cassettes, recorded well and listened on a hi fi system sound close to audio CD in quality and definitely better in feeling. I started recordings of vinyl 24 bit recordings to tapes and I like how they sound.
I beg to differ with the "it doesn't sound great" comment. Cassettes can sound excellent. Like other media, it depending on the equipment you use to record and playback. I have some cassette recordinigs that equal CDs or vinyl in sound quality.
I agree. A good Maxell XLIIS or an equivalent TDK can sound great on a good tape deck. I even got great sound off of 8-Tracks because I used a good tape deck with high quality tape. Didn't stop them from getting eaten up every now and then, but they could be made to sound really good! Most of my LP's are in mint shape today because I would buy them, put them on tape and file the record away. I have 3 tape decks still. I could play a CD, a cassette and an LP and I guarantee the only one you would notice a difference in is the LP because of pops and clicks!! Pre recorded tapes sound terrible. Companies used cheap tape and mass recording... usually high speed which kills the sound. The hiss and noise on a pre-recorded tape will turn anyone off.
Because of the tapespeed a cassette can never be close to a CD. Then you need to get the big spoolmachines like Teac and so.
ThM - Norway.
i agree with you, martin. a good tape and equipment sounds really fine. thats the reason, why is collected some thousands of them within the last years...
*****
I agree about cassettes having the potential to sound good, via good equipment, a properly adjusted tape deck, and a good audio source. I also agree about the quality of many pre-recorded tapes not being very good. However, towards the end of cassettes reign some of the record companies did start to make an effort at better sounding cassettes by using better tape. I remember buying some pre-recorded cassettes (I think one of them was a Police album) that used Type II tapes that were biased for Type I that did sound pretty good.
indeed. the industry did their best to make tape rival the best lp or cd versions. I was hearing a Joe Jackson pre-recorded A&M tape yesterday that sounded tops. Also the makers of cassette players really made a great effort to improve sound quality making decks with 3 head decks, dual capstan transport, quality electronics , HX Pro and Dolby C & later Dolby S. I still have over 200 cassettes and 5 tape top of the line cassette decks that sound as good as good as my CD player or turntable.
I like tapes very much. I'm making recordings on a cassettes from maybe 4 years old. I grew up with the cassettes and I won't stop listening to them. With a high quality equipment actually the Compact Cassette sounds really great. A little bit of hiss is separating it from the CD quality and it isn't bothering me. It's the only analog medium on which you can make high quality recordings at home and at the same time it's compact enough compared even to a CD. The only problem is that nobody produces a high quality cassette players/recorders nowadays and at the same time the spare parts as belts, pinch rollers etc. for the old players are harder and harder to find. Sometimes it's a real adventure to find all the parts needed to fix a particular machine.
+Origoangelohrol322 Maybe you should look at the German eBay. Here you'll find tons of parts, sometimes even complete belt kits for a large number of the higher-end decks like the better Naks, Kenwoods and Sonys. I fully agree with you on the sound quality. I started recording cassettes at the age of 7 and won't stop it. Now I record my tapes on a Kenwood KX-9010 and play them back on the go on my Sony WM-F28 which is a VERY good Walkman. Do you know the Elcaset system? Just use Google and Wikipedia if you don't know it. I cannot recommend it enough!! WHAT a joy to use a Sony EL-7 three head Elcaset machine!! They pop up on eBay.de regularly. I bought one and have had no regret, not a single second! Tapes can be a bit hard to get, but be patient: sometimes a good lot is offered.
Yes, I've heard of Elcaset I know that system it's very good and definitely superior to compact cassette but I've never seen or listened to this medium in the real life. It's something between reel to reel and s compact cassette.
Cassettes were a critical step in home music recording and programming (mix tapes!) but my expensive technics deck sits gathering dust. There is a reason for this.
I am still not crazy on the format,I was there the first time around and people moved on for a reason, but I love bit of nostalgia and these people have passion for tapes, gotta love that.
I love them and I still have hundreds of them along with 2 or 3 walkmans that work great.
"It doesn't sound great..." Well shit, I'm sold.
i also used to record the radio rock sow with Mary Anne Hobbs on Tuesday nights, still have loads of em.
rock sow, roll boar
What a "cool", uplifting video. It...made my day watching this. And...I agree with the comment(or)right below mine; With a upper-tier cassette deck and upper-tier("Metal")tape, an exceptional sounding recording can be made. Oh, & the recording levels properly adjusted/monitored.
Using Bias and Calibration of course! Even a type 1 tape can sound just as good as a chrome. (The double coated type 1's.) I have a rare TDK D-SX and the hiss? Is nearly gone by default and can handle high recording levels.
I have tape recording of me as a kid, laughing to SNL shows, farting, and a barrage of all kinds of silliness!!
I relate to what this girls going on about when it comes to tapes I was into them from about her age as well and used to record people on them etc
I collect cassettes and have made a lot of mix tapes, it is nice that they are making a come back.
The one flaw is that you don't have direct access to the song. It's makes it tough finding the song if you are unfamiliar with the album and/or the track is an instrumental. That later part is proof as to why cassettes never caught on in the jazz and classical genres.
Yes, but this problem with cassettes was somewhat solved with the feature of "AMSS" o r the Automatic Music Search System (aka "AMS", "MS" or "Auto Music Search") introduced on newer cassette decks made in the '80s and later.
The AMSS feature will automatically search for the next song on the tape by "listening" to the audio on the tape by keeping the playback head active while the tape is fast-forwarding or rewinding (the audio is muted so you won't have to hear a high-speed chipmunk screech of audio while it's working), and whenever AMSS detects a break of silence on the tape (usually between tracks), it will automatically stop and play the next (or previous) track. It's not completely foolproof though, for long quiet passages within songs or false starts/endings in a song will "fool" the AMSS into playing the tape. My Pioneer CT-W530R dual-deck unit has this feature (labled as "MS" on the FF and REW buttons), and depending on the content of the cassette, usually works well.
*****
You are correct as I do now recall seeing that function about 30 years ago. I think where cassettes will make a comeback is in mixtapes off of the radio if they still survived. There's very little in the line of playlists from back in day. There are Billboard charts but certain stations and outlets played album oriented material where the single hardly got figured in. I find it's very intriguing to see what where the regional hits in local markets. Sad thing is that we always thought there would be fresh new music but we didn't take a cue off of the sentiments of prior generations where they lost what they had.
The one thing I disdained about tapes was channel drop-out which can extend to the master tapes. Buddha masters are notorious for this but at the time it allowed for expanded dynamic range. It's always a toss-up as to how to remaster this stuff for reissue. Does one use mono, a mint vinyl record, or noise reduction or compression? It's very controversial yet each have mixed results with severe limitations on each method.
Hopefully you can circumvent that by getting albums that every song is awesome and you wouldn't want to FF to a specific song. :)
*****
During the cassette area especially in Black music, the album was divided between several genres. You could have swingbeat, adult contemporary ballads, jazzier Quiet Storm ballads, and freestyle all on the same set. It's not so much a question of quality but one of appeasing one's mood.
Autumn Aarilyn Yes, hopefully some those cassette mixtapes of off-air FM recordings are still lying around, it would be great if such could be posted to the internet for listening, either here or on SoundCloud--much like how TH-cam hosts quite a few off-air TV recordings from the 70s and 80s, right when VCRs came around. I have an old cassette I found at a thrift store a while back of about 90 mins. worth of KOSI-FM in Denver from 1984, which was at the time an easy listening, aka "beautiful music" station. It's a real delight to listen to, and it even has a few commercial breaks and a newscast as part of the recording--a literal broadcast time capsule. I'm planning on posting that on my SC account soon....
It definitely would be interesting to hear a local FM station's playlist from back in the day--it reminds me of back in the 80s-early 90s when a local Top 40 station in my hometown (KYYY-FM, aka "Y-93") had a countdown show at 9pm every weekday called "The Top 9 at 9", where listeners could call in and introduce the songs! I should've recorded a few of those... :(
I'm only listning to cassette right now
This is great. Wishing I would have grown up in the 70s/80s when the cassette tapes were popular. The 90s was awesome with CDs, but the old school is always better. Nice video!
+htimsydoc 1413 ?? They were popular throughout the 90s too..About everybody I knew was using them & they were still everywhere in stores until the very end of the decade
I love recording my music onto cheap old cassettes because the recordings always come out with interesting warbles and glitches.
If anybody wants to know how to fit a playlist on each side of the tape, there's an app to do exactly that. It's called "MixTape Calculator". It's free and I think is available for both Android and IOS.
Fidelity is not the entirety of the listening experience. It is also not entirely indicative of the influence that a medium has on the music of its day.
I don’t have a Walkman but I have a pioneer ct-f950 that has been fully serviced with 4 new belts. Sounds great with my modern Cambridge cxa60 integrated amp.
My older sisters gave me cassettes when I was little, they're so... endearing.
"in my apartment in Williamsburg"
+walter smelgore i thought that aswell hahaha
I love cassettes, even though vinyl is still my first preference. In my 40s now, I grew up with tapes, used them in the 80s and 90s and also saw them disappear. I love taping CDs onto tape. I make cassettes albums of new music and design the jacket on Photoshop and print it in colour. I love TDK, Sony and Maxell from the mid to late 80s. Tapes sound great if you use a high quality blank and use a high end cassette deck. I have five decks, Yamaha, Sony, Technics, and two Pioneer. I do tests with various types and it gives hours of fun. It warms up a cold sounding CD. I have a D6C professional Sony Walkman which is the coolest thing ever. You can still buy a large selection on eBay but the Type II and Metal cassettes are getting expensive. The only cassette you may find on the high street is the Maxell UR bog standard Type I for speech and music. Sony and TDK have stopped manufacturing them. Will they ever make them again? Who knows, but I wish they did!
+KRAZEEIZATION the tape is the best audio vs
CD, tape recorded the profecionales 8 Traks and a cassette copy of the tape Cadre 2 traks, a CD or MP3 track is half
+KRAZEEIZATION Also still widely available is the Sony HF tape. WAY better than the Maxell UR or TDK D, although all three are bug basic ferric tapes. Don't believe me? Just try it! With a good quality deck like the Kenwood KX-9010 or Nakamichi CR-7 you will be blown away... even the high frequencies will be OK!
The Sony HF from mid 80s is fantastic. It has the clarity that the D and the UR don't have. I love the Sony 1985 range HF, HF-S and HF-ES, plus the 87/88 range too, they are th best ferrics ever made.
+KRAZEEIZATION Exactly the same here! The 1986 Sony HF-S and HF-ES are my absolute favorite type 1 tapes, but the HF is very good also. At least, the 1986 ones. I have dozens of them... and of the HF-S also. And a box full of brand new 1985 HF-S also!
Long time fan of tapes. I still have some tapes of me when I was a kid.
oh god the second guy was like a portlandia skit, fuck, we really are hipsters...
For most folks cassette will be a mid fi audio medium at best.
You really NEED a top of the line 3 head deck with Dolby S which performs AMAZING, and record using premium metal tapes.
If a deck like that is setup properly and you setup the recording process properly you can achieve STUNNING results with cassettes.
Sadly most folks do/did not not ever have a good deck, use crap tapes, and nothing is calibrated properly yielding mid to lo fi sound.
It takes a serious minded, dedicated person to squeeze the total potential out of the cassette medium, but if you do it right the sonic results can be rather stunning from this humble format, even in this modern day of audio.
I have fond memories of cassettes (born in 1980). All of my first music experience came from cassettes. Parents, then I started getting my own. I think my first few were like Dire Straits Brothers in Arms and a couple others I can't recall around '87 '88. I definitely remember buying Prince - Diamonds and Pearls the day it came out with my allowance.
That said - cassettes, pre-recorded ones anyway, sound somewhere between "Okay I Guess" and "Hot Garbage Juice."
However, I've found after picking up an old really good Marantz tape deck from 78 or 79, if I record at 3 3/4 IPS (double normal speed) from a good source, like a nice clean vinyl, when I play it back I can only barely, JUST BARELY pick out the difference between the tape and the source. And I listen to a lot of vinyl and the difference is typically stark between it and any other source - I've been building the collection since '95.
For the kids: If you care about sound at all, forget cassettes unless you're a bit of an audio nerd. If you're just interested in 80s culture and music and format or whatever if it's simply cool again... cool. I was really into the 60's and 70's in the 90's so I get it. In any case - have fun!
I'm 33 I grew at with the cassette. I love them I wish I had a tape deck still
Agreed, full fledged resurgence will definitely never happen. I think that the biggest value that cassete tape can offer is its novelty as a merchandise item for touring bands that depend on that income daily. Ok Computer is an incredible album because its full of really great songs that fit together into a concept and sonic aesthetic.
Analogue is natural sound. Digital is synthetic.
I feel kinda compelled to write something defensive here, since most comments I see on cassette-related internet things seem to consist of the mindless repetition of the word 'hipster' & little else. (Usually, something pseudoscientific is thrown in for good measure, to make the angry, pompous 'Hail digital!' guy seem like he knows what he's talking about. More often-than-not, though, it just ends up reading like a bunch of condescending shit.)
But anyway, it seems like almost anything qualifies one as a hipster these days, so while i'm tempted to say i'm not one, at this point, I confess - I'm not entirely certain what a 'hipster' is.
I do like cassettes though, & i'll expound upon why.
I have an older car with a cassette player in it. I noticed a lot of great older music on cassettes - full albums, artwork, liner notes, the whole 9 yards - for 99 cents at second-hand stores.
Out of curiosity & practicality, I started to buy some.
Many is the time that i've picked up a 20/30 year-old cassette from Savers or Goodwill, popped it in my player & and been shocked to hear crisp, bassy, noiseless or near-noiseless music that easily rivals - often, sounds superior to - CDs or mp3s. I don't have any 'scientific' studies to link you to which claim to prove something about whether your personal preference for sound is wrong or right.
I speak only from experience, not something I came across on the internet.
Legitimate, day-to-day personal experience.
Seriously -The Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper', Green Day's 'Dookie', Aerosmith's 'Gems', Whitesnake's eponymous, The Traveling Wilbury's eponymous, various Sinatra albums, Slayer, Metallica; the list goes on - all used, unseald, decades-old...
and sounding great.
Clear, artifact-free sound which, if anything, sounded better - far richer and less compressed - than the thin, prickly flatness of CDs & mp3s. I like them because I've never had a real problem with them, and most importantly, they sound really fucking good.
Bottom line is this: if cassettes invariably sound like dogshit to you, or were constantly being eaten/unwound by whatever device you played them on:
a.) you're a fucking idiot who has no idea how to load & play a simple tape.
b.) you stored them under your toilet tank or in the dampest, dankest corner of an unfinished basement.
c.) you played them exclusively on piss-poor, bottom-end equipment (which, I must note, produces an end result near-identical to playing CDs, mp3s, LPs, or reel-to-reel tape on shit equipment - the music sounds like shit.)
d.) you're one of those angry weird guys with an inexplicable hatred for anything analogue (perhaps I should say 'any non-digital media format'.)
In years and years of listening to these things, I've not once - NOT. ONCE. - had a tape get 'eaten' by the player. I'm sure it happens, from time to time, but seriously... for me? Not once.
I've left them in my car through hot & freezing weather, accidentally cracked the tape shells by stepping on them or slamming them in the car door, etc.; I've never experienced any sound degradation from my carelessness. They're indestructible, for the most part, so please stop desperately trying to find ways to convince the current masses of vulnerabilities which you seem to've imagined.
Most importantly, however: stop labeling people's affection for a particular medium as 'hipster' out of your mystifyingly intense personal vendetta against all things analogue, or simply because it exceeds the limits of your understanding. Just let people enjoy whatever the fuck it is they enjoy.
Rewinding is definitely a fucking pain the ass, though. I'll gladly give you that.
+Charles Incharge These could have been my words. All too true! Since 1977 I've been using cassette tapes - right until now. I still enjoy them. Not a single one died on me in those nearly 40 years. Using a decent deck to record them, they just can't go wrong! The combination of my Kenwood KX-9010 deck and Sony WM-F28 Walkman is just great - so much better than any screeechy sounding MP-3 player. No high- frequency artifacts (I really HATE them, I'll take the noise of the cassette any time over that) and a full rich sound. I'm no hipster either (although I may look like one, with beard and long hair) I'm just enjoying one of the most simple, good sounding and indestructible media for music recording ever created...
Beautifully said buddy.
I never said that they were replacement. I agree that digital mediums are far superior, especially in the realm of accessibility. I'm a huge advocate for streaming music services; sharing playlists online is far better than burning a cd ever was. My point is that the ease of skipping tracks or even purchasing can potentially turn the listening experience into something like reading only a few chapters in a novel without ever knowing the whole story.
All you people are giving these people shit for liking something that they enjoy. People like you are the reason why this world is split apart. Stop the hate like seriously! Let people be.
back on the cassette days you really listen your favorite cassette until it fall into pieces !
I'm 13 and I love collecting vinyls and cassettes
Making a cassette? It's not great? It is astonishing!!
I agree with you, however, each advancement of technology doesn't immediately negate the great things that previous mediums had to offer. Music is art and the mediums used have affected its outcome and deserves to be viewed in context. A resurgence in mediums like vinyl and casette tape will give a new generation a chance to have a listening experience that encourages patience; the same patience that influenced the writing of albums that have remained relevant for decades not weeks.
Long live the cassette! I have about 500 of them.
I still have my $400 Sony tape recorder that you can tune to get the best recording from each individual tape. It has Dolby S and you can listen to the recording tape while its recording. I still have boxes of old tapes and recordings. You can download free programs to print your own labels and add artwork if you like. Old fun.
I make music (badly) in Reason6. But I will absolutely put it through a cassette once I'm done. I don't miss the way tapes broke or chewed but I do miss their tone.
i still browse through tapes when i see them for sale
That is the STRONGEST English accent I have ever heard.
Was she faking it? "Like, you know?".
unlike records which USED to cost about 10 bucks they have now inflated to somewhere around 25 to 35(at the very most) while tapes are still quite affordable and are some sort of physical thing that isn't a crap CD, I think tapes are good for exploring and finding new artists and are also good for someone who wants something physical at a good price. that's just me though
I'm not even hating on cassettes, they look cool if that's what you like.
My favourite line: 'The tape cassette fits in your pocket' yeah so does an ipod with thousands and thousands of songs! Enjoy tapes if that's what you like but thank god for MP3!
Man, I'm really underexposed to African music/Afro Pop, people ARE NOT kidding when they say Vampire Weekend lift heavily from that sound, it's awesome.
Little subcultures like this are always cool, you can tell these guys really love what they're doing and have latched onto something nostalgic in a big way and kept pushing it forward however they can, or drawing inspiration from it. Some lulzy lines though. "It can fit in your pocket..." You know what else can fit in your pocket? An iPhone.
RIP Lou Ottens.
Before CDs and MP3s I had only alternative to make my playlist on Cassetes... Metallica, Deff Lepard, Iron, you name it! God, that was ALL i NEEDED FOR A GOOD TIME OUT IN MY OLD CAR.
There may be other ways to share music now, but cassettes are... still there.
People like to hold something, it's fun to put in an old friend's or new friend's hand, and they won't break the bank. Do It! I'd love it if my demented ukulele warbling wound up at an old folks' home, or a thrift store in Romania.
You could record over not just the blank side of the tape, but even the side that already has a recording. All you have to do is roll up a ball of paper and stick it in the holes that are on the top edge of the tape.
Isn't that common knowledge
Wonderful! I love cassettes :-)
I have a studio I do most of the mixing on gear not in a computer. I actually want to find a nice tascam 3 head cassette recorder to put all that beautiful sound on.
When I was little in the late 70's, I so loved listening to my dad's records sitting in front of the Hi-Fi. I always listened to cassettes in the 80's, 90's and early 2000's until CD's became more affordable until 8 years ago until I donated all my cassettes for mp3's. Now I collect vinyl and enjoy the sound better than cassettes.
Everyone in this is just so relentlessly indie, I can't deal with it...
I had a collection of tapes that I had from the late 90s to late 00s all with my voice recordings wish I’d never thrown them out
When we have cassettes we collect records now digital age it is an amazing thing to collect cassettes the best ones would be demo cassettes of bands from the 80's and 90's... those will be golden. Man i can still remember some of my cassettes when I was a kid(late 90's to early 2k) red hot chilli, incubus, etc etc, even abba!, some local bands (eraserheads) and even self recording just for dun with my bestfriend. sad that I lost them all.
I remember figuring out a way to playlist random tracks via WinAmp then record a mix set onto CrO2 blank cassette. Way easier then mixing vinyl.
No but i am from holland, and can say that it was a after invention of the 8-track player. which wasn't very popular here cause it could not rewind the tape and it would jam frequently enough so it got hated fast!
Vinyl was a BIG hit in holland. in the 50/60's (after WW2) And baby boomers became teenagers. The funny thing is, that Phillips would send of prototypes to workers and try them out. And this was a big hit right from the start.
I wander when reel to reel tapes are coming back. cause they were better in sound quality .
Though i had a massive collection of cassette, and a walkman as well. always headphones on.
lost it all .. miss the time.
living in the netherlands though . cassettes arent readily available now.
+Dhr Willemsen They were back but now direct compare does not show evident difference in sound and noticible l dynamic.. I like reel because they (depending on thickness) can play two hours one side. And do not for handling . .
True, playing a reel. keeps you listening for a few hours. Had one with slow play which could turn a 2 hour side in 3 hours. makes 6 hours of listening.
While now we have itunes and the likes .
I like to put on a record ore a tape once in a while.
+Dhr Willemsen I heard of some restoration company that even BEFORE a R2R machine came in, it was already sold! They couldn't keep up with the demand! Prices are going up at the moment. Look at what a decent Technics RS-1500 costs nowadays... and if it has not been FULLY restored (which also means a FULL recap) it will soon DIE! So, on top of the purchase price you'll have to shed some serious money to have it restored by a good technician. I know this, I have been restoring my own RS-1500 and this took weeks and weeks and weeks. All 139 electrolytic capacitors (especially, but not limited to the purple Matsushita dreaded ones), have been replaced, they were scattered over 8 PCBs. Finally, it sounds GREAT. Still to do: the brakes. On all these machines, they are GONE.
well im in good luck then.
I build and repair older radio stuff.
and true they are hard to come by. i have an old alai that still works and needs restoration . the tapes how ever are pretty hard to find new , not new old stock. had a few and they where to brittle .
Only brand i know that still ( maybe not anymore ) made r2r tapes , was maxell.
+325iaddict As I know the dielectric standing more voltage is more aging. I often read statements about all capacitors replacement for 100% it's worn or damaged. Some say even few years is enough to suspect so "better renew" like in speaker crossover - (I consider this case stupidity). . I never do it by rule but only by technical condition. Depending on function of capacitor it may even be fault - those original resposible for sound quality or for tunning in radios may had values in quality limits +/_10%% and whole unit was in factory adjusted to this value. You may not find the same value today as now they are more accurate. . .
Btw, I listen almost daily to my radio made in 1939 and 90% of capacitors are original - 77 years old.. It sounds great, no hum from bad filtering and it has enaough sensitivity to play distant ones from aboard - see my clip about Electric Aiutomatic - listening. . Voltage of this radio is 100- 270VDC.
I got a Nakamichi and that's the only way for me to listen ti cassette. CD quality minus the harshness. I used it for archiving rare music. I generally listen to LPs or CDs or some flac when in front of my laptop.
I love making mix tapes with cassettes
It's tempting to think of this as pure hipster candyfloss, but I do think there is more to it than that. It's maybe a distant memory now, but back in the day cassette tapes were the do-it-all tool used for so many things. Including in my case as editor of a computer magazine putting them on the front cover loaded up with the latest BBC BASIC programs. Everyone used to record The top 20 straight off the radio, take mix tapes into school for sharing and when John Peel was playing complete albums you could record the lot if you wanted to. Yes much of it was technically illegal, but in fact we all went out and bought stuff on vinyl when we could. Tapes were just, well cheaper. And none the worse for that.
I use a 1939 German wire recorder because it can't be beat!
What are those?
If you own a good deck.....you can Record sound like a cd or better. Dolby-s with a type IV tape and the right bias/record level.........this is it.
At least in respect to their love for cassettes, these people seem genuinely and organically attracted to the cassette tape. Cut them some slack.
This documentary should have explored the underground punk scene and labels like lumpy records