Cassette Tapes

[Fat Tires]

I've been looking at my equipment today and found my old walman as well as a few compilation tapes that I used to listen to when I took public transportation to get everywhere. I also found two Maxwell XLII tapes still wrapped in their packaging. This got me to thinking that it'd be cool to make a mix tape or two on my stereo component cassette deck. Both of my cars have tape decks so why not?

Do any of you still use cassettes on a regular basis?

[tartan]

Tapes are still used a lot, and tapes are used where the minidisc shouldn't go or if there are problems with the minidisc. there are no plans to abandon tape recording.

got 3 tape recording walkmans, one old and battered sony recorder, one newish and cheap digitor(doesn't record well and rarely gets used) and one new sony (the best of the taping ones) recorder. Usually the two sony ones are kept in the same bag as the minidisc.

[KJ_Palmer]

I've still got a small tape collection, don't plan on expanding it much, but will hang on to my tape walkmans until I've transcribed it all to disk.

In fact, I like the warm analogue sound of tape, compared to the more clinical digital MD/CD, so I'll keep most of it until it wears out.

I'm also going to transcribe some audio tapes to MD, so that'll keep the old tape gear busy for some considerable time...

[yamagatacamille]

i wish i didnt have to; but my mums car still has a tape deck so a mix tape or two wont hurt; i'm in limbo w/ 3 or more different types of audio formats -- cassette, CD, MD, mp3(if that counts)

somethings gotta give, i try to convince my mum to get a 2 din (cassette/CD) deck in her car, but it's quite expensive..

[dex Otaku]

I still use cassettes where they're appropriate [i.e. in the car] or where they're the only option [i.e. when giving a bunch of sound effects to a stage crew who have no other equipment].

I don't personally own a cassette deck that records. I have a decent unit that used to record but now only plays back.

I also have a 3rd-gen Walkman somewhere that still works, but it's probably buried somewhere at my parents' place.

I see nothing wrong with using K7, really. I have always been far more careful than the average person when making K7 recordings, and have always achieved better than average results.

I also used K7 for quite a while with Tascam portable 8-track machines, which could pull quite amazing sound quality [with dbxII NR] out of a standard chrome cassette.

My compilations these days are always done on CD-R. I rediscovered the magic of the A/B-side last year, though - most of my comps since then have been 2 discs in length, to give the old-style approach of having two sides to a cassette a go. It changes the way you do things, since you then have 2 arcs to assemble rather than just one. Makes it more meaningful at times.

[Michael1980]

Only use tapes to copy them to minidisc

[jadeclaw]

Despite the fact, that my collection of unused cassette recorders increased by one past weekend, I don't use cassettes anymore.

Anything, that was worth copying, has been copied to MD.

Thank god for the invention of Minidisc - no more noise, no more phasing effects, no more dropouts, no more wear and tear.

I hope, I never have to deal with cassettes again.

[Tiesto]

Only use tapes to copy them to minidisc

←

Same here ... even more the cd seems kinda obsolete when you have a 1giga erasable/writable (1000+ times) minidisc.

[garyc]

Only use tapes to copy them to minidisc

←

me too... manual recording levels cranked up

[Leland]

My kids still use tapes by preference for audio books. It is the best way to be able to stop a story and start up again at the same point, especially when you might remove a tape, play another one, put the other back in, etc. The physical linear format does that logical job better than any other format.

That said, last Sunday I spent 20 minutes repairing a tape that had been mangled by it's tape deck. I certainly don't miss that.

[Fat Tires]

You bring up a good point Leland. I've had to repair my fair share of cassette tapes in the past as well. That does suck.

On another note. Half of the tapes I found are pretty worn out and sound awful as far as quality goes (no comments on the choice of music I chose to include in these compilations). I guess I don't miss that either.

[Strungup]

It all depends on your deck

I love my TCD-5M

[aafuss]

I still have some tapes, a Sharp JC-108 cassette player to play them and a Sony CMT-EH15 to record tapes to play.

Here's a photo of the Sharp:

[KJ_Palmer]

I've still got a couple of cassette walkmans, a boombox and a tape deck incorporated into a bookshelf, along with about 50 recrded tapes, but to be honest they're not getting used at all. They're just there for nostalgia really and besides, my MDs can do all the recording needed, and better!

[bluecrab]

I have a box with some most pre-recorded CSs in it, a few mixes. I also have two good cassette decks, a Pioneer CT-07D and a Tascam 102 MK II, as well as a Sony sports walkman of some sort. The Pioneer needs a little repair, which eventually I will have done. After all, this deck has all kinds of features, including coax in and was on the costly side to begin with. Right now I have the Tascam in use, although I don't use it much at all. The Walkman I hang onto just in case. What the heck, it works perfectly, at least. I think one could make a case that the Pioneer CT-07D, with a good tape, sounds about as good as MD, maybe better if you really like analog-type sound. Anyway, I don't expect to be using any of these units much, although I am fond of them.

You can see the Pioneer CT-05D here. It is the same as the 07D but lacks the coax in.

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Pro...CassettePlayers

[raintheory]

i use cassette recorders (and the cassettes) for experimental sound works ("music").

[sharpsony]

I completely abandoned recording cassette tapes in mid 2001 after having purchased my first MD recorder. Since then I mainly use MD (and Hi-MD as of December 2004) for recording radio shows.

There are still over 200 cassettes (mainly recorded off the radio since the mid-eighties) on my shelf waiting for being copied to my PC's hard disc for editing and future listening. Hope to find the time necessary for doing this vast job some time in the future.

A couple of years ago, it took me a complete summer holiday to transfer my collection of recordings of rare shortwave radio stations from tape to hard disc, editing about 900 files and converting them to mp3...

Edited October 27, 2008 by sharpsony

[sfbp]

A couple of years ago, it took me a complete summer holiday to transfer my collection of recordings of rare shortwave radio stations from tape to hard disc, editing about 900 files and converting them to mp3...

Question: did you involve MD in this process? The main reason I got into minidisc was to save some LP records and recordings like this. At the time putting very much on computer hard drive wasn't an option, and then and now it wasn't/isn't easy to introduce computers to my stereo (One day I will post a picture showing why!)

I find that the sound I get from the MD's semi-automatic cleanup as I record is more reliable than analogue in to my computer. But maybe I'm being silly, and this is just me spending money and time on minidiscs when I could and should be finding better ways to capture sound directly into the PC.

Opinions welcomed.

[sharpsony]

Question: did you involve MD in this process?

No, I recorded directly to from tape to hard disc where I edited the recordings and saved them to WAV and RealAudio files (later, I dumped Real in favour of the more universally compatible MP3 format).

Involving MD would have been pointless anyway as MD was not yet USB upload capable when I did the copying back in 2002 or so. Nowadays, with Hi-MD and MZ-RH1 available, I indeed use MD or Hi-MD for recording and later uploading to my laptop for further processing, burning CDs, copying to my MP3 player etc.

The main reason I got into minidisc was to save some LP records and recordings like this. At the time putting very much on computer hard drive wasn't an option, and then and now it wasn't/isn't easy to introduce computers to my stereo (One day I will post a picture showing why!)

MD is nearly ideal for recording off analogue sources, especially if computer based editing is not an option for whatever reason. So there is no reason for you not to use MD. According to your signature, you have an MZ-RH1 that you can use for recording and uploading those recordings to your computer if required.

Edited October 27, 2008 by sharpsony

[sfbp]

According to your signature, you have an MZ-RH1 that you can use for recording and uploading those recordings to your computer if required.

Well I was doing it long before I got an RH1, using any deck with digital output into my optical input on the sound card. Even after the RH1 until someone in Russia figured out how to cure the RH1 of uploading SP at x1 only!!!!

But agreed the standard MD is still the most convenient, except when I need to capture more than 80 minutes. The only way that problem occurs is recording radio. For that I use my NH600 at 256kbps and mark the tracks before uploading (though doing titling after the upload).

So the RH1 uploading isn't really essential. It's very nice though. But I intend to keep it mostly for either

a. large volumes of speech recorded on LP2 or mono and

b. PCM recordings with a microphone.

Sound reasonable?

[sharpsony]

Sound reasonable?

Why not? MD recording quality is certainly not the worst, probably far better then WAV recording quality of many cheap on board PC sound cards. As digitizing cassettes is concerned, I nevertheless prefer recording directly to hard disc for ergonomic reasons. MD/Hi-MD is usually only used for original recordings.

[sfbp]

Why not? MD recording quality is certainly not the worst, probably far better then WAV recording quality of many cheap on board PC sound cards. As digitizing cassettes is concerned, I nevertheless prefer recording directly to hard disc for ergonomic reasons. MD/Hi-MD is usually only used for original recordings.

The interesting thing to me was that my first effort at this involved a sound card with coax "in" that cost $20 (in about 2001 or 2002). When you say "direct to hard disk", what is the exact route (of the data flow)? I can imagine maybe using the MD deck A-to-D and then optical to the computer, without ever recording a MD. But I haven't tried that, or compared it with the way I do it now.

If you really do go straight to the analog in of the computer, what sound card are you using, and how does it stack up against the (relatively high) quality of Sony's A to D?

[sharpsony]

If you really do go straight to the analog in of the computer, what sound card are you using,

Yes, I go straight to the analog in of my computer using a standard $/€ 4.99 audio cable from the local electronics discount store. I do not use any special sound card but the original on board sound chip ("Realtek High Definition" on my current Toshiba laptop, "Creative Soundblaster PCI-64V AC97" on my former desktop PC I decommissioned recently). For my (amateur) purposes, quality is good enough, especially on my new Toshiba laptop.

and how does it stack up against the (relatively high) quality of Sony's A to D?

I have not yet compared that, but I suppose Sony's A to D to be superior.

Edited October 28, 2008 by sharpsony

[bluecrab]

Question: did you involve MD in this process? The main reason I got into minidisc was to save some LP records and recordings like this. At the time putting very much on computer hard drive wasn't an option, and then and now it wasn't/isn't easy to introduce computers to my stereo (One day I will post a picture showing why!)

I find that the sound I get from the MD's semi-automatic cleanup as I record is more reliable than analogue in to my computer. But maybe I'm being silly, and this is just me spending money and time on minidiscs when I could and should be finding better ways to capture sound directly into the PC.

Opinions welcomed.

My opinion, fully shared by the two people who followed me into MD, is that tapes transferred directly from CS to MD often sound better on the MD. None of us knows why. Most of the time, it seems like just too much work (that is, I am too lazy) to do such transfers. Perhaps one day I will get motivated enough to really get going on that. I have no interest in getting my computer involved. Lest anyone think this means I am technically disadvantaged, it ain't so. I have had a long career doing various computer-related work (current title: programmer), but I just like keeping my audio separate, I guess.

[Modernaire]

Old cassettes recorded on Maxells mostly. Project soon of transferring them to MiniDisc MDLP at LP2 or SP Type-S using a Sony TC-RX606ES cassette deck. After the project is done, which should actually be a lot of fun, re-listening, using the keyboard input to name, etc. and the healthy activity of getting something done and clearing up clutter, Im still going to keep the ES as I have old mint cassingles and cassettes that are special to me and very collectible.

I once owned a Tascam 302 and I will never forget how GOOD that deck was, pro level, incredible B/C NR. I really truly regret selling it. Second close to it is the Elevated Standard decks with S-NR but of the mid to late 90's.

... I have no interest in getting my computer involved. Lest anyone think this means I am technically disadvantaged, it ain't so. I have had a long career doing various computer-related work (current title: programmer), but I just like keeping my audio separate, I guess.

Me too! I know computers well and have used Soundtrack Pro with much delight, but in my view, much like also creating music as musician or home recordist, using menu's, software, mousing around, selecting this, dragging that, takes so much away from the simple process of recording. I still love the separate dedicated deck that has the little red REC/PAUSE ready for me to push and start recording. Then listening closely to the results, there's just something great about that!

Im looking forward to recording a few LPs for on the go listening. All this is just another excuse to listen to more music!

Edited April 10, 2009 by Modernaire

[DreamOn]

What's a casette?

No, seriously it's been a while since i used them...downfall began in '01 and completely stopped any records to tapes (not including VCR tapes, but that's off-topic) somewhere around '03-'04

It's a shame though...there's still alot of good music on them, but the tapes aren't in that good shape anymore...or it could be my player too. that reminds me i still have a working walkman casette player somewhere, maybe it would work/sound better than that piece of dustmess akai one?

[sfbp]

Probably the player. My reel-to-reel tapes are 40 years old and unchanged. My cassette tapes basically ditto, though the biggest problem transcribing from them to MD and thence CD was the ones that wouldn't turn. I went through three second hand decks before finding this Denon that pulls like a steam traction engine. Funnily enough it still did nothing on the one tape that caused me to look seriously for a replacement deck (my Kenwood had been fine except for the open-close motor sort of got Alzheimer's), as it still refused to play. However all the rest are basically perfect, and between Dolby on the deck, the great A->D on my JE630, and FFT once I get to the computer, the sound I end up with is fabulous.

[sector001]

don't use them either...I still have some that are still shrink wrapped. It boggles me that they still make mini HIFI's with cassette decks on them.