Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Cassettes


They're flimsy and ephemeral. What would work for me is like a cd that never came out of its jewel case, with something like a slit in it where the cd can be read. Clunky, tangible, and you could abuse them without them turning into bird scarers.
 
They're flimsy and ephemeral. What would work for me is like a cd that never came out of its jewel case, with something like a slit in it where the cd can be read. Clunky, tangible, and you could abuse them without them turning into bird scarers.

well get on it then.
 
Yeah basically. But I'd like to buy the cd and have it live in one of them. Less valuable CDs could get scratched to fuck etc.

I'm no expert but didn't minidiscs have to be either for audio or for data in two different versions? That might have been one drawback. I don't remember seeing many if any in Spain. We all got excited by MP3s.
 
TDK tapes were the thing for home taping. Many an hour spent listening to Radio 1 waiting for song & hitting record as soon as first note of intro was played. Once R 1 started stereo broadcasts the sound quality was as good as bought tapes.
 
I had a huge collection of cassettes and that was mainly because they could be played at home or in the car. They were shit and I ended up giving them all away.
The best thing was mix tapes for partners. these days there are so many other options for in car music, so why bother any more?
 
people buying cassettes is nothing to do with sound fidelity or convenience or anything like that though on the whole - I posted this on another cassette thread the other day:

As it happens, I run a label releasing music on cassette, and gave a lecture at the local uni last week that touched on this exact topic... :hmm:

The quick answer is that a lot of people don't actually play them, they'll download the digital files that are generally included in the sale and listen to them - the modern tape is mainly just a promotional item, and a way for fans to own the music in a world where almost all music is available for free on demand.

But for those who do play them (I do - I never stopped. Mind you, I even get the minidisc out every now and then, I like an obsolete format...) - I think we have a different relationship with music we have a physical collection of than the music we have on our computer / stream through spotify: could you imagine having the same attachment to a spotify playlist that you had for those mixtapes we made in the 90s?

The fact that you have to choose which tapes you take with you on a car journey, rather than taking a collection of thousands of hours of stuff to play on random forces you to think more carefully about what you might like to hear. Digging through a box of tapes (or records) looking for an album you're sure you have and finding it feels different (to me, much more satisfying) to searching for it on youtube and pressing play.

There's loads of reasons I like different physical formats, almost all are about the way it makes me think or feel about the music. I also stream loads of stuff off the internet too though, cause it's really convenient. Sometimes I'll do that instead of looking for the tape. :D
see this from the last page
 
see this from the last page


Still reckon tapes are shit but I do take your point. I pay for a streaming service but will also sometimes buy downloads to play on other devices. In the latter case, it forephils a bit of that conscious selection and curation thing. (And it's easier to play these files on anything.)

I've still got a box of cassettes and the Sony Walkman I got for my 16th birthday. (Might see if they still work actually.) Cds have been consigned to anonymous storage in wallets.
 
TDK tapes were the thing for home taping. Many an hour spent listening to Radio 1 waiting for song & hitting record as soon as first note of intro was played. Once R 1 started stereo broadcasts the sound quality was as good as bought tapes.
Likewise. Many a teenage evening was spent listening to John Peel with my finger on the record button. Many years ago I found such a tape with a song on that I loved, but I couldn't remember the name of the band. I googled it (this is years ago) and the only result was a my space comment by an old punk in Scotland. I followed it up and now have a CD compilation with the song on. "Pepsi Cola Beautiful Pictures"!
 
I've only bought new music on tape so far this year (not on purpose) - reckon I'm going to try and stick with it for the rest of the year tho.
 
Good feature here about what tech is allowed in US prisons, worth watching it all, but the first half is specifically about tapes as up until very recently only tapes were allowed, and prison tapes kept the tape industry in business during the years before the tape revivial. Interesting stuff, it really is
 
Listening to this tape again now, and it turns out it's wicked.
Its Volume 2 youve got right? Love that one
Something I didn't know at the time but becomes clear with Discogs, its basically 3 guys who made all those tunes: Daniel Champman best known as Crystl, Darren Beale best known as Decoder, and Pete Parsons best known as Voyager - all under different pseudonyms. Oh And DJ Trace in fact.
its a small world
 
I dug out my old hi-fi cassette player and played some studio recordings of my band and have to admit that I was blown away by the sound quality of some. I'd got it in my head that it was all going to hiss and no bass but one song in particular - the demo of Life In A Northern Town by Dream Academy (I was briefly in the band) - had floor shaking bass and sounded fantastic.

As soon as I get time I'm going to digitise some of these recordings in the hope that someone, somewhere might be remotely interested,
 
Tapes are best, I've bought three new albums on tape in the last week alone. :cool:

is this already out there?
I don't think so. It sounds bloody fantastic. It's a really polished demo and screams hit. There's 4 or 5 other demos on the tape too.
Nick was such fun to work with - I've never met anyone so enthusiastic.
 
Back
Top Bottom