Just lobbed out all my music cassettes and feel rather sad about it

[editor]

I hadn't played any of them for years and they were taking up a ton of space, but I still ended up feeling strangely sad lobbing them into the bin.

So much so that I decided to write a whole article about the experience: http://www.urban75.org/blog/c30-c60-c90-go-so-farewell-then-trusty-old-cassettes/

Any of you still using cassettes?

 

[kittyP]

When I moved out of home but left my car parked at my parents as there was no parking where I was, my dad decided to "clean" the car and threw all the cassettes away!!

I was devastated! There were so many tapes I loved. And mix tapes made for me by special people

The only time I still listen to tapes is occasionally when driving if I have forgotten the ipod plug in thing.

 

[kittyP]

It made me feel sad reading your post too

 

[Steel Icarus]

I've still got hundreds of tapes. Including "Disintegration"! And yes, I still use them.

 

[Lord Camomile]

Aside from everything else, there is something satisfyingly chunky and robust about cassette tapes.

 

[bi0boy]

I have fond memories of untangling tape from the machine and trying to wind it back into the cassette. If it was totally mangled you might have to cut a section out and sellotape the ends together.

Also, there was that feeling that it wasn't quite playing at the right speed, especially on battery-powered devices.

 

[kittyP]

Aside from everything else, there is something satisfyingly chunky and robust about cassette tapes.

I agree but despite this I still lost a few old friends when they warped and melted on the back seat/shelf of the car on a hot day

 

[fredfelt]

A friend had a cassette party a little while ago. However not a single person turned up with cassette's as everyone had already got rid of them. If you are throwing them out maybe keep a few back should such an opportunity arise!

 

[fen_boy]

I've got loads of VHS and Audio Cassettes in the garage. I haven't looked at them in about 8 years, I'll find it difficult to chuck them though.

 

[Lord Camomile]

A friend had a cassette party a little while ago. However not a single person turned up with cassette's as everyone had already got rid of them. If you are throwing them out maybe keep a few back should such an opportunity arise!

Brilliant idea! Although given most of the cassettes I still own are from my early teens or before, I may claim to have "binned them" too

 

[se5]

Pedant's corner - Editor you write in the article "each little plastic box packed 180 minutes of music, hiss, wow and flutter, magnetically, nay magically embedded on a 3.81 mm-wide tape, which hurtled along at 1¾ inches per second."

- most tapes in my experience were C90 which meant they contained 90 minutes - 45 on each side

 

[mack]

Maybe you could have palmed them off to a charity shop instead? I gave away a ton of music stuff last year, it gives me some comfort that out there now is some adolescent kid rummaging through my old collection, maybe they'll be hearing the Aphex Twin's Digeridoo or the Pixies "Monkey Gone To Heaven" for the first time and be inspired in some way!

 

[marty21]

still played them til last year , but only in the car - then I had to replace the car and there was no cassette player in the car , so they went

I remember taping off the radio onto cassettes - usually the top 40 and trying to rewind to the end of the song before the DJ had stopped gassing, just in case I liked the next song

 

[gentlegreen]

Yesterday I remembered a piece of music and suddenly felt nostalgic for the 78s my dad gave me in the early '70s - I left them when I left home in '78 and might have got around to digitising them - mind you I haven't done that with my LPs ...

 

[editor]

...most tapes in my experience were C90 which meant they contained 90 minutes - 45 on each side

Oops. I fixed that.

Maybe you could have palmed them off to a charity shop instead?

The vast majority of albums were home recorded and compilations (and therefore "killing music") so I don't think they'd be much use to charity shops.

 

[Steel Icarus]

LOL @ trying to get an exact fit. I knew all the shortest songs in my collection for use on compilations - Lazy Day by the Boo Radleys, Concrete Life by Huggy Bear, Please please please by the Smiths etc.

 

[stethoscope]

Yep, still got a lot of tapes - mainly radio recordings

Slowly ripping them to mp3 but still listen to the actual tapes regularly and they all pretty much play mint When I planned to dispose of the tapes that I had converted, I just couldn't!

 

[yardbird]

I've got hundreds and I too am working through and ripping them to mp3. Loads of John Peel Top Gear, Mike Raven blues and Radio 1 sessions as well as stuff that I taped in clubs - unique.
Things recorded DI from mixing desks as well. May well be historic even.
How can I bin them?

 

[editor]

I've got hundreds and I too am working through and ripping them to mp3. Loads of John Peel Top Gear, Mike Raven blues and Radio 1 sessions as well as stuff that I taped in clubs - unique.
Things recorded DI from mixing desks as well. May well be historic even.
How can I bin them?

Radio shows and unique recordings are clearly different, but all the stuff I've lobbed out can be easily be heard in higher quality audio from a wide variety of sources/formats/streams.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I hadn't played any of them for years and they were taking up a ton of space, but I still ended up feeling strangely sad lobbing them into the bin.

So much so that I decided to write a whole article about the experience: http://www.urban75.org/blog/c30-c60-c90-go-so-farewell-then-trusty-old-cassettes/

Any of you still using cassettes?

Still got about 300 pre-recorded ones which I'm gradually replacing (most of them are getting a bit tired/stretched by now), and those I can't replace (numerous 1980s gig bootlegs and some small-run indie stuff) I'll turn into digital files and burn to CD eventually. As for now, I've still got a decent cassette deck hooked up to the hi-fi system, so I'll keep on using them.

 

[_angel_]

Haven't listened to any in years, but I don't want to get rid of them. I can imagine Swarthy would prob lob them all out if he ever got the chance though.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I've got loads of VHS and Audio Cassettes in the garage. I haven't looked at them in about 8 years, I'll find it difficult to chuck them though.

If the garage is at all damp, you probably won't be able to play them anyway, as magnetic oxide tapes are a wee bit hygroscopic.

 

[_angel_]

I still haven't even christened the tape deck of the little CD player I bought last year! Feels a bit sad.

 

[fen_boy]

If the garage is at all damp, you probably won't be able to play them anyway, as magnetic oxide tapes are a wee bit hygroscopic.

Aye, one of the local cats pissed over some of the videos too. Which won't have helped.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Maybe you could have palmed them off to a charity shop instead?

This is what I'm currently doing. As I replace a music cassette or a film that's on VHS with it's digital analogue (see what I did there? ), the tape gets checked to make sure it is re-wound, put in iits' case and put in a pile, ready to go to Oxfam or the British Heart Foundation Books & Music shop.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Aye, one of the local cats pissed over some of the videos too. Which won't have helped.

When I was going through some of my cassettes, stashed away in an old cardboard box, last year I noticed that several cases (all containing music by bands whose name began with the letter "b") had some strange crusty matter stuck to them. After some pondering, I realised that what the "crusty matter" actually was, was milky vomit ejected by my third G-dson, who stopped being bottle-fed about 15 years ago!

Sorry, Big Country, long time no listen to your cassettes!

 

[ViolentPanda]

I've got hundreds and I too am working through and ripping them to mp3. Loads of John Peel Top Gear, Mike Raven blues and Radio 1 sessions as well as stuff that I taped in clubs - unique.

be honest, Yardie.

You're talking about reels of tape, aren't you, not cassettes?

Things recorded DI from mixing desks as well. May well be historic even.
How can I bin them?

Good point! You might have some previously unheard live rock, folk or whatever from the 60s/70s!

 

[zeedoodles]

Nice article. When we moved to NZ I took two boxes of tapes down to the local dump. Not sure what I was thinking of, in the grand scheme of things it would have cost next to nothing to ship them over and we were not on that tight a budget. My records on the other hand got the first class 5 star treatment, strange the things we do because those tapes held just as many memories.

 

[19sixtysix]

If the garage is at all damp, you probably won't be able to play them anyway, as magnetic oxide tapes are a wee bit hygroscopic.

If its really precious recording there's always for the oven to drive the water out. Lots of master tapes are rescued by a few hours in a low oven.

 

[Clair De Lune]

When I hear certain songs they remind me of the mix tapes that contained them and what boy made it for me