The Official I Love Vinyl! Tape Thread (Buying/Listening/Reel To Reel/8 Track/Etc)

all tape stuff here.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Tdkc60cassette.jpg

Cassette tapes are made of a polyester type plastic film with a magnetic coating. The original magnetic material was based on gamma ferric oxide (Fe2O3). Circa 1970, 3M Company developed a cobalt volume-doping process combined with a double-coating technique to enhance overall tape output levels. This product was marketed as "High Energy" under its Scotch brand of recording tapes.[24] Inexpensive cassettes are commonly labeled "low-noise," but typically are not optimized for high frequency response.

At about the same time, chromium dioxide (CrO2) was introduced by DuPont, the inventor of the particle, and BASF, the inventor of magnetic recording,[25] and then coatings using magnetite (Fe3O4) such as TDK's Audua were produced in an attempt to approach the sound quality of vinyl records. Cobalt-absorbed iron oxide (Avilyn) was introduced by TDK in 1974 and proved very successful. Finally pure metal particles (as opposed to oxide formulations) were introduced in 1979 by 3M under the trade name Metafine. The tape coating on most Cassettes sold today as either "Normal" or "Chrome" consists of Ferric Oxide and Cobalt mixed in varying ratios (and using various processes); there are very few cassettes on the market that use a pure (CrO2) coating.[2]

Simple voice recorders are designed to work with standard ferric formulations. High fidelity tape decks are usually built with switches or detectors for the different bias and equalization requirements for high performance tapes. The most common, iron oxide tapes (defined by an IEC standard as "Type I"), use 120 µs playback equalization, while chrome and cobalt-absorbed tapes (IEC Type II) require 70 µs playback equalization. The recording "bias" equalizations were also different (and had a much longer time constant). BASF and Sony tried a dual layer tape with both ferric oxide and chrome dioxide known as 'ferrichrome' (FeCr) (IEC Type III), but these were only available for a short time in the 1970s. Metal Cassettes (IEC Type IV) also use 70 µs playback equalization, and provide still further improvements in sound quality.[24] The quality is normally reflected in the price; Type I cassettes are generally cheapest, and Type IV usually the most expensive. BASF chrome tape used in commercially pre-recorded cassettes used 120 µs (type I) playback equalization to allow greater high frequency dynamic range for better sound quality, but the greater selling point for the music labels was that the same Type I cassette shell could be used for both ferric and for chrome music cassettes.

Notches on top of the cassette shell indicate the type of tape within. Type I cassettes only have write-protect notches, Type II have an additional pair next to the write protection ones, and Type IV (metal) have a third set in the middle of the cassette shell. These allow cassette decks to automatically detect the tape type and select the proper bias and equalization. Virtually all recent hi-fi systems (with cassette decks) lack this feature; only a small niche of cassette decks (hi-fi separates) have the tape type selector. Playback of Type II and IV tapes on such a player will produce exaggerated treble, but it may not be noticeable because typically such devices have amplifiers that lack extended high frequency output. Recording on these units, however, results in very low sound reproduction and sometimes distortion and hiss is heard. Also, these cheaper units cannot erase high bias or metal bias tapes. Attempting to do so will result in "print-through".

God I kind of love tapes

I have a ton of them at my parents' place still

now playing: The Library Of Congress Endangered Music Project - Music For The Gods - The Fahnestock South Sea Expedition:Indonesia (Ryko Analogue)

they are my main source for Indian Classical music. When I lived in Philadelphia I would walk to west philly and hit the Indian grocery stores and buy dozens of cheap cassettes at a time. that was my schooling on sufi/qawwali/punjabi folk/carnatic/classical/etc.

found about 20 Indian tapes at a thrift store a month ago and i've been playing one or more every day since.

yay! i've wanted to start the same thread for a while. I Love Tapes, listen to them almost exclusively in the car for the past couple years. I do a decades thing where I 'feature' years ending in the same digit as the current, so have been playing all my 1990 rap tapes lately. just found my 120 min of Ken Nordine's 'Now Nordine' show taped from the radio back in 1985. and still have a cassette-folder of tapes I made as little kid playing around with my Dad's recorder, doing stupid little shows or just recording me & my friends playing Star Wars.

AND tapes are dirt-cheap these days (and dirty - gotta have a good head cleaner if you're buying used, but they usually still sound great).

speaking of Indo, when I was in Bali in 1991 they didn't have vinyl since it's too hot but had AMAZING tape shops filled with floor-to-ceiling with cassettes. tons of Western music since the copyright laws were non-existent and lots of Indonesian music of course. I spent all my cash on gamelan and other trad folkie stuff, but kick myself to this day for not grokking and loading up on dangdut and Indonesian pop music. I bought one tape - a compilation of Javanese(?) girl-groups - when we did a side-trip to Java cuz it looked so cool and it's become one of my most prized possessions.

^^^ awesome

listening to 4-track tapes on regular tape deck. probably should have mixed these down before the technology to do so disappeared from the face of the earth. so much digitization, so little time. I have also been supporting the scene from time to time wrt new tape releases (unripped, unheard by me so far) and so is almost time to bust out enormous coby waklman for AM commutes.

My friend found two shopping bags of mostly Negativland bootlegs one time in the Mission.

Favorite tapes of the last six months are The Twerps and the aforementioned Pizzas. The Twerps tape has this song "Dancing Alone" where the guy talks in a nasally American accent about attitude, rock n roll and being sorta fake about how tough he is. The music on that song is like 50s rock, but the rest of the songs are generic 90s indie, except that the songs get stuck in your head, in a good way, so I don't know how generic it really is.

Got this tape that says "Vol 1: Merchandise/Deluxin.' " I don't know if the band is called Vol 1 or if it's a split or what. The two sides sound completely different. One side is shoegazy maximal instruments working against each other, and a singer doing this melodic indie thing underneath it all, while the other side is the exact opposite, instruments all cohering nicely with a singer screaming on top.

I'll buy Burger stuff to drive around to. I like Cum Stains and the Nobunny twofer, although I have to fiddle with the mids and trebles on the Raw Romance side.

Got this Dunebuggy single with this killer organ driven track.

Play Upstairs at Eric's mainly for "In My Room." Play new copy of DJ Magic Mike tape that I used to have but lost.

Got a tape of late 20s and early 30s Greek music a couple of days ago. Got a Czech tape with a cartoon chicken on it that's at home unplayed.

Local band 1991 is killer. Play Guns n' Roses "November Rain" cassingle a lot.

Play Chopin Complete Etudes more than Bach Organ Favorites.

still lamenting the loss of a Nick Cave & Bad Seeds live bootleg with a cover of I Put a Spell on You on it - purchased at Mystery Train in Boston in 1994? 1995?

no one wants to hear me ramble on about reel to reel fidelity i know but jesus

i would kill to have a constant source of new reels - i think they just throw them away before they get to the estate sale or salvation army or whatever which is like a million miles of frowny face to me. plus the geeky tape threading and the whole mechanical vibe just gets me at a certain level i think.

in a broke panicked last minute house vacating moment a few years ago i abandoned boxes and boxes of my cassettes and i am now filled w/regret tbh

i always put reels out when i get them in donations for like .99 each or something, i can keep ya posted if they ever show up, which isn't that often tbh. they usually sit in the store a week or two and don't sell and then go to salvage.

yes plz!

just picked this up last weekend:

http://www.vintagecassette.com/Onkyo/TA-R77

I got rid of pretty much all my cassettes except live bootlegs and tapes of my old college radio shows. Next time I see a working tape player at a thrift store I think I'll garb it.

or grab it even

I still have a few cassettes from olden days, but due to space have given away/sold/trashed most of them (except for a box of 4-track tapes). I've bought a few in the last couple years as it's the only way to get some releases, like that Meth Teeth tape or the Fresh and Onlys one. Recently bought and frequently listening to the Lower Dens demo from earlier this summer. My wife and I bought a used 2004 toyota about 2 years ago which inexplicably had a factory installed tape deck (and cd player) so it's been nice to just grab a tape and play it there. About a year ago, found an Aiwa F990 in a Goodwill for $10 and was able to get it working again with a new belt and some schematics (the old belt had basically disintegrated/melted within the machine). So now back to making mixtapes of new vinyl (esp. 45s) for the daily commutes.

I had a 8-track when they were plentiful in the thrift stores and used to rock James Gang Rides Again and All Things Must Pass on it. I had a reel-to-reel that had a broken motor, but used to play guitar through the amp circuitry -- sounded awesome!

hahaha ok wrt me selling old reels: i guess we're not supposed to put them or any other blank/recordable anythings out at all because OMG WE DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT'S ON THEM but whatever i'll try and sneak 'em into the store anyway.