A cassette tape poll

3 guesses how I answered this and the first two don't count

HA!

I think any music listener alive within a 10-15 year time period has a relationship with cassettes. John D made a career based on the ones he made. I heard many many records that are still favorites -- many MANY -- for the first time on cassette tape. I once bought a $600 tape deck, and became snobby about the quality of the tape. That's all over now. I'm not sure if I'm sorry or not.

I heard many many records that are still favorites -- many MANY -- for the first time on cassette tape.

same here, but I think we've already discovered that we're the same age.

I think the last time I used a cassette tape was to load a Commodore 64 program (this was like 4 yrs ago)

I'll be 35 on October 23. Don't make me a mixtape. I have nothing to play it on.

I'll be 35 on November 7. I can play tapes in my car.

so many favorite albums that I first heard on tape. I discovered Steely Dan via the MCA two-for-one tapes and that shit changed my life. Hell yes, tapes.

xp Scorpio fist bump.

Memories: the giant yellow walkman I had in high school, which you could drop off of anything and would still work just fine. It was waterproof for pool and beach use, though I never used it for that. First time I ever heard Daydream Nation, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, Doolittle, the Jesus Lizard, etc etc etc

This should probably be on ILM. Because it's not really about the technology, finally, is it?

As an old man who is also a late adopter of new technology and a skinflint too cheap to upgrade any music I have already bought once, I still own many cassette tapes and a tape deck. I even play them from time to time.

I discovered Steely Dan via the MCA two-for-one tapes and that shit changed my life. Hell yes, tapes.

Two of my earliest music purchases were Steely Dan - Gaucho and Spyro Gyra - Catching the Sun. I was 12 and influenced by my uncle, who was trying to be Audio Guy. One of those is still one of my favorite records, and I think it's complete genius, and it's bracing and sharp and depressing and awful and also great. No points for guessing which one.

i rarely bought stuff on cassette because i thought the sound quality wasn't very good -- if i needed portability i would record the vinyl onto tdks

so yeah there are a lot of tdks in a closet

xp Oh yeah -- both on cassette tape. In that MCA case that was blue with white type (what font was that? I'd know now if I saw it), as opposed to the Columbia tapes, that were red on white. Easy to see what label what thing was on, once upon a time.

i donated a deck to the e-waste place the other day (replaced with snazzy Onkyo deck). kinda miss it, though. it produced awesome and unpredictable heavy compression which seemed to increase when one pressed the dolby noise cancelling button.

totally love the whole stupid making a mixtape thing.. incurable.. it's a skill, though.. each tape i made seems better than the last (technically) and it's always fun to experiment with recording dialogue from tv/films. also it's always fun to mess around with those wacky early stereo mixes (Beatles, Zombies, etc)

my favorite cassette tape i own is the Royal House album; just sounds great on cassette.

xp Futura Extra Bold Condensed? i'm guessing from memory.

The mixtape will never die! But it is lamentably different without the time constraint.

Did anyone else ever break off the little top tab of pre-recorded tapes they were sick of and use them as blank tapes? I did this a lot, I think. RIP, Sting album.

nah, you had to put scotch tape over the holes to use them as blanks

i don't think i've made a mixtape in over a decade.

i've definitely recorded over pre-recorded tapes ... i just put masking tape over the tabs.

xp Oh right, got it backwards.

yeah you had to tape over the holes

It's been a while.

Cassettes that were a unique color:
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx ... - Purple
Paul's Boutique - I remember yellow, but the internet tells me that it was also red

others?

The clear ones always seemed fancier, somehow.

I was always breaking my walkmen so I never had nice ones just the cheapo kind that only had a FF button and no rewind.

I remember thiking Cassingles were awesome because they were so cheap and I was a kid it was all I could afford anyway.

No longer own any tapes or anything that still plays them.

Singles are still cheap.

I remember the first time a boy made me a mixtape and how HUGE that gesture seemed at the time. I also remember spending hours making tapes for friends and carefully decorating/labeling the insert. Man I wish I still had some of the ones I got over the years but I've moved around too much to keep stuff like that I guess.

Mixtapes would be more valuable to me than most things I'd drag around, and they're not large or heavy. I'm still not sure if I've (or my mom has) lost my tapes or not.

TBH I'm surprised that I never kept them. I guess that there could be a box somewhere in my parents basement but it just seems like the sort of thing my father would throw out without realizing what he was doing.

One of the disasters of my life is that I lost my crate of cassettes (through no fault of my own). Even if I have replaced every single song on every one of them (which I haven't and can't), just the effort that went into the song order and the cover art is irreplaceable. Funny, I didn't think much of it when I lost that crate of tapes, but slowly over time I realized that that was maybe the most valuable part of my music collection. To me.

Ugh now I'm sad about not having them. :-( Also, I had a radio show in college and had a box of tapes from that. I would LOVE to be able to hear some of those now and laugh at how dumb and young we must have seemed. Man, this thread is a bummer Kenan.

I had tapes of my own (pirate) radio show in that crate. Death of a loved one. I've already been all heartbroken about it once, so I'm not sad anymore.

i thot it was gonna be tdk vs maxell vs sony or something. in which case maxell xlii s, right?

its weird how something so ubiquitous becomes extinct and forgotten.

the "metal" switch never did anything did it?

i voted yes because it's true, but if there was a question about when the last time was i actually listened to a cassette, the answer would be 'a long time ago.' hell i barely ever listen to cds even anymore.

i thot it was gonna be tdk vs maxell vs sony or something. in which case maxell xlii s, right?

lol u old

i've been listening to a lot of cassettes lately because the cd player part of my boombox died and i'm too lazy/cheap to buy another decent one. it's been fun, though, listening to old stuff. and realizing how much better loop albums sounded on cassette than on the original CDs.

i just ordered some metal cassettes from a label in the UK, too.

Have a number of cassette machines; four or so Marantz CP/PMD units, three Walkman style ones, a pro Denon tape-to-tape machine and various other odd ones.

Also found a place that does new units for cars!

http://www.soundmaster.com.au/bookpic/KEH-P2035l.jpg

^ wow stylin

That tape deck rejects your tape if it is old, beige-colored and boring. It only accepts sexy cassettes.

i used this not so snazzy thing to play cassettes when i was a kid
http://ny-image2.etsy.com/il_430xN.74605070.jpg

I wouldn't call that sexy, but it's kind of beautiful. I even like the colors.

When I was first in college and I had a Mac Classic (this was 1993-94, and it was a fancy-ass computer at the time), some friends of mine who were serious computer guys would say I had a "Fisher Price computer." They weren't wrong, either, except to think that meant it was a bad thing. That silly cassette player is an embryonic iPod, seriously.

an old deck with stereo mic inputs with individual vu's for L/R is still the greatest cheap way to record band practice

...or record your next siltbreeze release

I hate it when you need two mics into your tape deck because you can't use one and record mono. And I hate a little that I have nothing to record, but that's not pertinent.

the "metal" switch never did anything did it?

It did something, but I don't think it did anything useful. Seemed to make everything sound thin and tinny, regardless of the tape. Metal tape was a gimmick, anyway.

ts: dolby b vs. dolby c

LOL exactly.

ha skeletor, I still have that from when I was a kid! With a hat over the mic, it actually doesn't make such a bad way to record a band, in fact now it's probably a sought after lo-fi technique.

i think I still have three or four cassettes laying around. there is my wife's tape of Bowie's Low in the trunk of the car that still has a (broken) cassette deck in it, and maybe a few more scattered here and there, but I threw out the bulk of these a few years ago and sold my stereo's tape deck last year to my neighbors. I do have some self-recorded tapes of me and my cousin on LSD though (our first trip!) somewhere, they are probably not as interesting as I thought they were

When we sold our car, we got rid of the last cassette player in our possession. I probably have a few old mix tapes in a box, but I'm not sure and I couldn't find them if you asked me to. I don't feel a lot of nostalgia for tapes because I am just old enough to have all of my early, formative musical experiences with vinyl, and I always hated cassettes. They always broke or got stuck in my crappy old car's crappy old tape deck (not the car we sold, a long-ago car) or I wore them out and had to repurchase them and sometimes they really smelled funny and the artwork was always weird and shrunken. I was super happy when CDs happened.

But on the other hand, I did like mix tapes a lot, and without tapes there would not have been this, so I'm not saying they were all bad:

http://hphotos-snc1.fbcdn.net/hs156.snc1/5813_138548986069_713441069_3751147_6307261_n.jpg

Cutie. :)

The only cassette I remember owning was Bad Religion's Stranger Than Fiction, because I had a few months of custody of a car that only had a tape deck.

My brother's first car had an 8-track deck.

Not counting my Fisher-Price camera that recorded on cassette tapes.

I have a box of cassette tapes in the closet, but I have nothing to play them on.

i also have a brown grocery bag filled with tapes that i intend to drop at a thrift store at some point or just put out on the street for anyone to take

am0n you know how to find my house rite

climb a mountain?

lol

no really how do i get there

1) smell the tapes you have and remember what you smelled
2) as you drive down my street, roll down your window
3) when the scent of tapes grows strong, just pull into my driveway, I am in the kitchen baking tapes

I have TWO casette playing machines - both with dual tape decks too. One is my faithful old portable AIWA which also does shortwave radio and can play the input from a turntable. Had it since the mid 80s - it still works fine.

I also have a proper Sony casette deck that goes with my amp, VCR etc. It hasnt had all that much use really: by the time I purchased it in the late 80s casettes were on the way out slowly.

I still have a few boxes of tapes, theyre all mix tapes and bootlegs. Quite a few old concerts like v early cocteau twins, pixies, throwing muses. We're talking 5 men and a dog in the audience kind of thing.

The mixtapes all have homemade covers and whantnot. Also there are just tapes of other peoples records I wanted; Brian Eno and things like that.

I dont think I ever purchases an Actual Album on cassette though. I only own one or 2 given to me.

has a pink walkman, remember listening to Spandau Ballet and Howard Jones on it, lying on the trampoline in the yard.

Oh and of course best of all - tapes from the late 70s/early 80s of me as a kid, talking into my casette recorder. Pretending to be a radio DJ, or do ads from TV, or just talking about my day and telling stories. Those are great.

For a long time my only cassette player was in my car (which has a radio but no CD player.)

But I felt I wasn't listening to my cassettes enough, so last month I bought a NEW cassette player for my office. It wasn't so easy to find one, actually! But now I'm listening to tons of old tapes and loving it. Join me, people with unplayed bags of tapes!

Now I want a brownie.

I have over 500 cassettes and three tape decks.

I also take part in two different mix tape trading clubs.

The band that I used to be in pressed their new album from this year onto a "pro" cassette. It's pink and has silver text on it.
It's really awesome.

must have a hundred tapes still in my parents house. nothing to play them on though. anyone here ever convert their tapes to mp3's?

A friend of mine did that for a couple of mixes I made that he released on his label. I think it sounds okay.
http://www.archive.org/details/JAM-028
http://www.archive.org/details/JAM-027
http://www.archive.org/details/JAM-029

Aw, I had completely forgotten about that Fisher Price cassette player! With the handle, so you could take it anywhere! I had both it and the Fisher Price record player when I was a kid, the handles were so convenient for following my mom from room to room to make her listen to everything.

My dad also had a few of those wall-mounted cassette holders with his all his tapes in his closet, and as recently as 2003 I was going through it to steal things to play in my car.

anyone here ever convert their tapes to mp3's?

Did this for some language tapes and it sounds ok but it was pretty time-consuming splitting them into tracks so I haven't got round to doing any music tapes yet. I really should as I've bought a handful of noise tapes in the past few years and never got round to playing them because of the format. Also I have a few 90s jungle mixtapes and recordings of indie shows which I keep thinking I should mp3, but the same live sets are probably all mp3ed and on the internet already.

I used to create mixtapes that 'crossed over' from/to, and I did MP3 some of those...

Eventually, didn't bother (it needed a 4 track recorder, and going back to redo if the beats went wrong...)

Now, I could mp3 some of those tapes, but it'd be quicker to spotifychoose, but I don't do that either...

I just learned how to record cassette to mp3; Audacity is free software and ace at this.

I have a box of cassette tapes. I *do* have a device to listen to them on, however, it's a 4-track tape recorded and I can never be bothered to get it out and set it up. So I voted that I have both, but really I should count as just the box.

I mp3'ed a couple of radio sessions that I'd tried to find elsewhere but were lost to the ages, so I felt quite virtuous about that. I've got the Jeff Buckley one on now: the quality's good enough for laptop speakers, not so good on anything decent. I'd like to do more rarities if I ever find my old tapes, but I think most of them were the kind of home taping that killed music.

They still use cassettes in gaol, because unlike CDs they can't be broken up and used to stab fellow prisoners.

oh i'm sure they could be if you were motivated enough

i have no cassette-playing device anymore. i have a couple of boxes of tapes in our storage room in the basement, probably rotting away. the only stuff i care about is tapes of stuff i did on 4-track like 10-15 years ago. i converted some of the better songs to mp3 at some point but there's still lots of sentimental-value tracks on there i should probably convert before it's too late.

i do have a tascam 488 8-track cassette recorder that i still record on, though it is slowly dying (it has to be inverted to work properly). i will be sad when it is dead. i have to buy blank tapes for it, so i have some blank cassettes lying around the house.

Cassettes that were a unique color:
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx ... - Purple
Paul's Boutique - I remember yellow, but the internet tells me that it was also red

others?

living colour - stain was RED
talking heads - naked was YELLOW

today i listened to oingo boingo - dead man's party and two pogues tapes

i have a friend who runs a tape label that has released some fantastic shit

i have a mix of out of print rap and limited release noize that I play on tape

Cassettes that were a unique color:

jon spencer blues explosion - orange (translucent orange, of course)
i think some ryko releases were on green cassettes

I have things I can play cassettes on, and many cassettes. but I never play them. I am thinking of designating some day of the week as a cassette only day, like vinyl sunday.

Yesterday, Alice (9) came in the room with my old cassette walkman, headphones on, bobbing.

She hands me one earphone, and I find she's found one of my mixtapes and is grooving to "French Disko"

She then hands me a tape she 'can't get to work'.

After she's gone to bed, I change the batteries, and find the tape she couldn't play was an old demo collection of mine. *That* is going into the loft, pronto!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120470842493&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

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