Back in the day, it was pretty common to make mix tapes on cassette for the car, parties etc.
Being a hoarder I still have my entire vinyl collection, and whilst I pulled out my favourite LPs some time ago, I have started to revisit some of the more esoteric stuff. Quite a lot of it is a bit crap really but with the odd nugget thrown in. Not worth keeping out, but it would be nice to listen to the odd gems in there from time to time. I have the technology to transfer vinyl to digital, but that seems to be missing the point somewhat. So I started think about recording them on cassette like in the old days.
I have in the loft a reasonably decent Teac cassette deck, so I started to look on Amazon to see if you can even buy blank tapes any more, lo and behold you can although anything half decent is quite pricy. I felt drawn down the researching on the internet, reading reviews etc. path, but decided to nip that in the bud and ordered a pack of TDK D-90s which back in the day were the workhorse of the cassette world, and ideal for mixtapes where sound quality isn't the be all and all. And TBH the quality of quite a few of the original recordings I am thinking about isn't all that great.
Quite looking forward to the process, I remember enjoying making up mixtapes in my long lost youth.
Anyone else out there still using cassettes?
Nice one Simon. I still own the Yamaha KX-1200 tape deck I bought at Uni and have been meaning to get it out and play some of my old tapes. I also have a mixtape that the Mrs made for me soon after we met. Good times!
There does seem to be a minor resurgence in tapes with some artists releasing new albums on tape as well as LP. I don't really get that myself, tapes were very frustrating when they were relevant and I don't want to go back to those days again. This picture sums up my memories
Yes I remember all that faff, although I seem to remember a Bic biro worked better than a pencil!
And a bit like white dog poo, something you never see these days is mangled cassettes at the side of the road surrounded by yards of unwound tape!
It's all a bit of a low cost experiment at the moment TBH, that said I think there is a bag of my old cassettes in our loft so if it goes well I might dig them out...
Who remembers 'Nakamichi' tape decks? They were cool! :)
When I was a charver of 18 years old, and at Liverpool Uni, in my first year, I'd make mixtapes for my wife - one side of a TDK D-90 of music, the other side me talking into the built-in mic of my Sony portable tape deck.
These are still in the attic. I image that they'll be impenetrable to my kids. Might as well be the Codex Serephinianus.
Originally Posted by The Hack
The Rolls Royce of cassette decks back in the day!
Doe anyone remember the Sony Elcaset? I think it was an attempt to capture the quality of reel to reall in a smaller format. Sadly it went the same way as Betamax.........
And the terrorist attack on the tower,,, Yippee Ki Yay.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
Nice tape deck in it's day.
Cassettes do seem a bit pricy these days, and not going to get cheaper unfortunately.
If your tape deck hasn't been used for a few years, it might be a plan to replace the belts and pinch rollers?
Nightmare when the rubber has hardened off due to it's age.
Nope - don't remember that! :(
...wish I still had the Nakamichi kit. Think I sold it 20 years ago..
Yep, I remember the EL Cassette...Sony's attempt to make 1/4" tape more manageable.
Worked brilliantly, superb sound quality, but launched a bit too close to the Compact Disc I think?
The CD blew it into the weeds.
My brother-in-law had one I was extremely envious of. I can't remember the model but I know it cost the thick end of a grand!
The beginnings of all our piracy.
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I still use my DR2, mainly for transfering old cassettes of Concerts onto Digital.
Record pause record pause record pause record pause
Trying to record from the top 20 on the radio each week without getting any voices!
And Sharp car radiocassette players with automatic stop between tracks on fast forward. Halogen days.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Like most people of my generation I recorded lots of stuff onto casette. TDK were the ones to use, I had a decent Marantz casette deck and I remember experimenting with various brands, altering bias settings etc.
Anyone remember Radio 2 In Concert, transmitted early Saturday evening? I used to record it every week. Unfortunately I binned all my cassettes many years ago, once I started recording onto CDs and got an in-car CD player I gave up in cassettes completely, I remember lending my cassette deck to a workmate and never asking for it back.
I’m back into vinyl but I don’t miss cassettes, the technology had its limitations. Pre-recorded cassettes were poor, the sound quality was often mediocre.
I remember BASF chrome being the geeks choice. Metal 60 minute ones were the top of the pile.
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A colleague has a sideline buying/selling/restoring/repairing old vintage hifi.
The Nakamichi `Dragon` is the daddy, and they go for well over a grand on the used market even today.
The auto-reverse mechanism is a work of art the way it automatically ejects the cassette, spins it around and then loads it again.
The eastern market are particularly keen on 80`s stuff - even `ghetto blasters` which we may think of being totally naff these days are very popular.
I even sold a Roberts transistor radio myself recently - i couldn`t believe it went to a buyer in China - it must of been 50 years old and very `retro` looking, sounded wonderful though, really nice deep tone, shame todays DAB offerings are so poor on sound quality..
Still using a TEAC twin cassette deck here, and listening to old mix tapes and pre-recorded cassettes. Two C90s using continuous play and auto-reverse will run for 3 hours, sometimes more useful than having to faff changing a CD or flipping an LP over if I'm doing something important like ironing shirts or slobbing on the sofa with a magazine - I don't do streaming.
I always had a fondness for the slightly up-market TDK AD90. I find that on the French selling site Le Bon Coin (equivalent of Craig's List, I suppose) packs of unopened cassettes can be had cheaply - 2 or 3 euros each.
TDK AD cassettes were the best compromise between cost and quality from what I remember. When CDs came out I used to borrow from the local library and record onto cassette.......happy days.
The best thing about cassettes was my Sony Walkman.
Lol. I went mental taping my library CDs and LPs. I think I have about 300 cassettes in my loft, mostly made for car listening when a cd player there was prohibitively expensive!
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Used to have an Aiwa tape deck that automatically flipped sides at the end of the tape - the quickest in the market I believe. I also had a Aiwa portable player!
Just googled and I think it was this one!
Happy days!
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Oh and Maxell tapes were my go to!
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I had that one. It was a great deck.Used to have an Aiwa tape deck that automatically flipped sides at the end of the tape - the quickest in the market I believe. I also had a Aiwa portable player!
Just googled and I think it was this one!
Happy days!
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I had a Aiwa small portable stereo when I was at school ‘full logic control’ electronic buttons, it made a amazing noise when swapping sides, really robotic and industrial clunking. I used to just keep pressing it to hear it do it’s thing, probably what broke it.Used to have an Aiwa tape deck that automatically flipped sides at the end of the tape - the quickest in the market I believe. I also had a Aiwa portable player!
Just googled and I think it was this one!
Happy days!
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Cheers..
Jase
Bought one in the 80s which had been PX'd at a local Hi Fi dealer for about ninety quid and loved it for years
'Still in the loft somewhere
£90??!!! You stole that.Bought one in the 80s which had been PX'd at a local Hi Fi dealer for about ninety quid and loved it for years
'Still in the loft somewhere
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I`ve got a similar Aiwa in the attic.
The auto-reverse, although quick, was not as efficient as the Nakamichi (which was one reason they were so expensive) - i could definitely hear a difference in sound quality when the tape switched from going forwards to `backwards` after reversing. There`s slight tape-head alignment compromises on these type of machines when they run in both directions. The Nakamichi can be set up perfectly for one direction when it`s the cassette itself which is switched.
This is the one i`ve got, along with a turntable in the attic...
I was a bit OCD about stuff when i was younger - when i bought an album on vinyl i would tape it and listen to that instead of the LP to save `wearing it out`.
So instead of listening to the better `source` material of the record i`d put up with the compromised sound quality of a recording on tape. Sadwit. I`m well over that particular characteristic now and enjoy all posessions for their intended purpose to the full without the fear...
Of far better quality were the Akai decks which were assembled at the tech park in Inverclyde, in Scotland.
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Known - as AKAI THE NOO.
I have an R707, lovely old thing
^^^^Yes, that`s what it was.
I did exactly that as well! I’ve got my albums but the tapes, record player, tape deck, amp and speakers are long gone!
It did allow me to listen to them on my Aiwai ‘walkman‘ though.
I worked as a Saturday lad in the Virgin megastore on oxford street, saved up and bought a Nakamichi Dragon - can’t think where it is now, just remember it being an amazing bit of kit! - also bought a Sony ‘Budu Khan’ Walkman which I have somewhere. Hi fi back then seemed really heavy and well engineered, loved it!
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That’s what Sunday nights 6 till 7 were for :)
That's dedication for a lad working a weekend job. I bet working in the VM would have been a great experience and led to some nice memories. The Dragon was the absolute top of the pile in tape decks, then through to today. Quite valuable now, it is certainly worth having a root through the loft to see if you still have it
Fast forwarding 20 seconds past the unrecordable header tape at the beginning....
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Last edited by stefmcd; 25th April 2020 at 14:24.
I had both a Dragon and an ZX9 back in the day (the Dragon I bought in the early 90's shortly before Nakamichi went bust).
Nak sure knew how to make top quality decks.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
Actually it was brilliant - I ended up on the sales desk giving out numbers for ‘run the world’ and chatted with Sting and Midge Ure in the canteen over jacket potatoes whilst pretending not to be dazzled by their fame (I was about 17) plus I got to serve ‘the dark haired girl out of Bananarama’ and Bill Oddie on the same day, those are 80’s memories! - working in the hifi department in the basement we had a brilliant listening room stacked full of kit and I could select anything at all from the store to demo. The new Philips CD player was the thing I was tasked to sell, and 99% of people listening to it chose ‘brothers in arms’ for a demo. I still can’t listen to that without reminiscing!That's dedication for a lad working a weekend job. I bet working in the VM would have been a great experience and led to some nice memories. The Dragon was the absolute top of the pile in tape decks, then through to today. Quite valuable now, it is certainly worth having a root through the loft to see if you still have it
I remember I used to wear a shiny blue suit, pink t shirt and pink espadrilles with my bleach blonde flat top. Thought I looked like Don Johnson, must have looked like a right
prat - and all to try and get the attention of the girl on the record counter who looked like a fitter version of Madonna, all lace gloves and moody come hither looks
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Well while I was out cycling this evening my cassettes turned up
Haven't had a chance to get going yet but hopefully will have a play tomorrow.
Slightly concerned that my 25 year old cassette deck may not have survived being stored for so long but we will see. It is the one that came with the Teac Reference 500 system and if it's anything like the rest of the system (which is still woking perfectly) it will be tough as old boots so hopefully all good!
My first CD player was a Philips and the first two CD’s were Dire Straits Brothers in Arms and Peter Gabriel So!
Happy days!!
I think some of those were lurking around in my '76 Trans AM glovebox at one time or another! So cool.............ermmm.............
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Thats a great story Rob and one I could have only dreamt of as a 16yo working a supermarket job in country Australia. You did well to hold it together, how did a situation like that even come about?Actually it was brilliant - I ended up on the sales desk giving out numbers for ‘run the world’ and chatted with Sting and Midge Ure in the canteen over jacket potatoes whilst pretending not to be dazzled by their fame (I was about 17) plus I got to serve ‘the dark haired girl out of Bananarama’ and Bill Oddie on the same day, those are 80’s memories! - working in the hifi department in the basement we had a brilliant listening room stacked full of kit and I could select anything at all from the store to demo. The new Philips CD player was the thing I was tasked to sell, and 99% of people listening to it chose ‘brothers in arms’ for a demo. I still can’t listen to that without reminiscing!
I remember I used to wear a shiny blue suit, pink t shirt and pink espadrilles with my bleach blonde flat top. Thought I looked like Don Johnson, must have looked like a right
prat - and all to try and get the attention of the girl on the record counter who looked like a fitter version of Madonna, all lace gloves and moody come hither looks
The first Oz VM open in Melbourne around 1990 and it was for me, as a music/audio nutter, a brilliant shop that I loved visiting. There was nothing remotely like it at the time, the range and vibe of that shop fills me with great memories. Sadly, those days are gone now, HMV was the only chain that managed a little bit of what the VM was all about but they are pretty crap and dying on their feet.
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