Music Tapes in 2016!

[BigRedX]

[quote name='4stringslow' timestamp='1469615616' post='3099699']
In fact, the music industry failed pretty abysmally in managing the implications of the digital age and it was down to Apple, with iTunes, to really take advantage of the new technologies and new possibilities. Too many fat cat music executives without a clue having grown rich from their monopoly control over artists, production and licensing. Power to the people eh?
[/quote]

I'm glad that you put a smilie at the end of that statement I might have thought that you were being serious.

The "digital music revolution" has simply exchanged one set of "fat cats" for another. And i'm not entirely sure that it's a good thing. At least record companies had a vested interest in going out and finding new artists and depending on the budget doing some development and promotion - certainly far more than the average musician could do themselves.

Apple and their like are simply distributers. They don't care what they are distributing so long as you are paying them (via an aggregator) your $50 or so for the privilege, and they certainly aren't going to be doing any developing or promoting of new artists.

It might be easier than ever to record your album and for it to be available for the public to buy, but that alone doesn't mean that they are going to buy it or even know about it, when its up against 25 billion plus other tracks on ITMS...

[4stringslow]

Indeed. Be careful what we wish for.

[ivansc]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1469528740' post='3098982']
I've seen audio cassettes come and go. And 8-track cartridges (remember them?) and Betamax and VHS and Laser Discs and MiniDiscs, and DAT tape, and CDs and DVDs.... the only medium I wasn't around to see the introduction of was vinyl. I'm not THAT old.
[/quote]

I tremember the very first 45 and 33 records coming out. My first singles that I bought were all 78rpm

[SpondonBassed]

[quote name='Roger2611' timestamp='1469558046' post='3099381']
I still have a box full of cassettes under the stairs, not played any of them in twenty years, I think I still have a really nice Marantz twin cassette deck wrapped and boxed in the loft, I know I have a few songs I really ought to transfer to computer but I can't be bothered to dig it all out and see if it still works.

My mate still has the first imported Tascam 8 track cassette recorder, I doubt it has ever had more than 5 hours use since he brought it, from memory you had to use top range chrome c90 cassettes and it ran at 4 times the speed of a normal cassette player so you didn't get many songs on an expensive (at the time) tape
[/quote]

I still have my Fostex x15 four track recording mixer. Standard speed, standard cassettes, dead reliable even today.

Anyone remember Elcassettes? More importantly, did anyone actually buy into this flash-in-the-pan format.

[crez5150]

Did anyone buy into Philips DCC format? was going to be the next big thing at one time. I still have the player.... best thing about it was that it had an optical output so you could put a standard tape in and transfer it easily. I backed up loads of my old tapes to CD

[PaulWarning]

[quote name='SpondonBassed' timestamp='1469703220' post='3100420']
I still have my Fostex x15 four track recording mixer. Standard speed, standard cassettes, dead reliable even today.

Anyone remember Elcassettes? More importantly, did anyone actually buy into this flash-in-the-pan format.
[/quote]no but I fell for mini disc

[SpondonBassed]

Sony... Now that's a WHOLE thread all on its own.

[KingBollock]

I've never had the money to go buying into new formats, I always have to wait until the prices come down, by which time they're usually better established.

However, I did buy a PC in about 2000 with a Zip Drive in it. I never had any disks for it, though, because they were £8 each!

[4stringslow]

Zip drives were something of a revolution given that they stored 100MB when launched compared to the 3.5 inch 1.44MB 'floppy' disks of the day. They connected to the PC parallel port as well (pre-usb days!). I used to back up PCs onto Zip disks in the early 90s. They were later updated to 250MB but died a natural death when external hard drives and memory sticks became available with higher capacities. A 100MB Zip disk would only store about 10 pictures from a decent DSLR these days!

[RockfordStone]

[quote name='4stringslow' timestamp='1469718727' post='3100621']
A 100MB Zip disk would only store about 10 pictures from a decent DSLR these days!
[/quote]
not even that, my DSLR exports high quality raw files at 35mb each
my dad bought a pc with a 10gb hard drive and zip drive as selling points, my phone by comparison comes with 16gb as standard... oh how times have changed

[4stringslow]

[quote name='RockfordStone' timestamp='1469718864' post='3100624']

not even that, my DSLR exports high quality raw files at 35mb each
my dad bought a pc with a 10gb hard drive and zip drive as selling points, my phone by comparison comes with 16gb as standard... oh how times have changed
[/quote]

Oops - I was thinking jpegs.

But you're right, times have massively changed as far as storage is concerned. I've just bought a USB memory stick for my key ring - 64GB for less than a tenner!

Edited July 28, 2016 by 4stringslow

[mcnach]

[quote name='4stringslow' timestamp='1469718727' post='3100621']
Zip drives were something of a revolution given that they stored 100MB when launched compared to the 3.5 inch 1.44MB 'floppy' disks of the day. They connected to the PC parallel port as well (pre-usb days!). I used to back up PCs onto Zip disks in the early 90s. They were later updated to 250MB but died a natural death when external hard drives and memory sticks became available with higher capacities. A 100MB Zip disk would only store about 10 pictures from a decent DSLR these days!
[/quote]

Back in 1998 my '95 Olivetti laptop had a 500Mb hard drive. I was looking to buy an external drive, thinking about the Zip drive. Instead I ended up with a SyQuest drive that used 1Gb cartridges! I still have the laptop, and the Syquest drive with 4 cartridges. Parallel port... not the fastest way to backup even 100Mb.

[Patster1969]

I ended up buying loads of tapes as a kid for 2 reasons:-
(a) had many Walkman's (although none actual Walkmans, as they were too expensive for my pocket - lots of low cost brands that I could replace easily when I managed to break the thing, which I did many times - probably false ecomony), and
( could easily stash new tapes in my bag and wouldn't have to explain to my parents that I had bought yet another album - was also buying vinyl at the time and it was more difficult to hide the Our Price bag! Haven't got any of it left I don't think though - might have something in the loft but have moved a few times and less and less stuff made it each time

[stingrayPete1977]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1469619309' post='3099735']


I'm glad that you put a smilie at the end of that statement I might have thought that you were being serious.

The "digital music revolution" has simply exchanged one set of "fat cats" for another. And i'm not entirely sure that it's a good thing. At least record companies had a vested interest in going out and finding new artists and depending on the budget doing some development and promotion - certainly far more than the average musician could do themselves.

Apple and their like are simply distributers. They don't care what they are distributing so long as you are paying them (via an aggregator) your $50 or so for the privilege, and they certainly aren't going to be doing any developing or promoting of new artists.

It might be easier than ever to record your album and for it to be available for the public to buy, but that alone doesn't mean that they are going to buy it or even know about it, when its up against 25 billion plus other tracks on ITMS...
[/quote]

Worse than all of that they force fed everyone with an Apple product the new U2 album, that surely was worse than the VW diesel scandal for pollution, noise pollution!

[Spike Vincent]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1469610955' post='3099659']
Thanks!

Nasty electronic stuff was the mainstay of the original DIY cassette scene back in the late 70s and early 80s. I think that the fact my bands recordings were different, having guitars and "songs" certainly helped us to get noticed back then.

Do you sell many cassettes these days? The Terrortones cassette does reasonably well, but I think a lot of that is due to the fact that it comes with a download code and you get 5 tracks for less than the price of a 3 track vinyl single.
[/quote]


Not that many, I've not put much effort into it recently since other people started putting my stuff on their own labels, plus downloads are a lot easier and cheaper ( that's a whole new topic...) but one of my colleagues sells around 30 a month on average.

[ambient]

I'd love to release something on cassette.

I've been fortunate to have a few things released on vinyl.

I love it.

I've had a Revox reel to reel for a couple of years, and record a lot of stuff onto it.

[mep]

[quote name='crez5150' timestamp='1469704307' post='3100439']
Did anyone buy into Philips DCC format? was going to be the next big thing at one time. I still have the player.... best thing about it was that it had an optical output so you could put a standard tape in and transfer it easily. I backed up loads of my old tapes to CD
[/quote]

Bought a portable one as soon as they came out. Used it to master on to from our Tascam 4 track instead of chrome or metal cassette! Worked well enough and also used a mini disc. It gas since packed up though.

[EliasMooseblaster]

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1469705786' post='3100460']
no but I fell for mini disc
[/quote]

Whilst I never owned a minidisc player myself, I always thought it was a shame that the format never caught on - from my limited experience (that is to say: correct me if I'm flagrantly and embarrassingly wrong), it seemed to offer most/all of the advantages of a CD, but in a smaller package that wasn't as prone to getting dented and scratched. Was it just its timing (it seemed to appear just before the first iPods and the boom in small, portable mp3 players), or were there other downsides that kept it grounded as a format?

[PaulWarning]

[quote name='EliasMooseblaster' timestamp='1470061442' post='3102981']
Whilst I never owned a minidisc player myself, I always thought it was a shame that the format never caught on - from my limited experience (that is to say: correct me if I'm flagrantly and embarrassingly wrong), it seemed to offer most/all of the advantages of a CD, but in a smaller package that wasn't as prone to getting dented and scratched. Was it just its timing (it seemed to appear just before the first iPods and the boom in small, portable mp3 players), or were there other downsides that kept it grounded as a format?
[/quote]nothing wrong with it tbh, at the time it had good editing features and sound quality, and was infinitely better than the tape cassettes it was supposed to replace but like you said it quickly got overtaken by MP3 players, which can hold loads more music and you can do all the editing and tagging that you need on a computer

Edited August 1, 2016 by PaulWarning

[SpondonBassed]

Ummm, somehow the topic has gone from tape to disc and therefore digital...

Still wanting to know who got burned buying into Elcassette. I would have if my pocket money had been enough. Very glad my Dad was tight. Heeheehee.

[tony_m]

When a friend of mine emigrated a couple of years ago, she left behind a pile of unopened blank cassette tapes and mini-discs and asked if we could try and sell them for her on eBay. We were surprised at the amount of interest, and while I can't remember exactly how much they made, it was certainly more than we expected.

[tom skool]

The only good thing about cassettes was that you could chuck them about and they would still play. Also I got very skilled at accurately rewinding small sections of songs when I was learning parts. Something I've not been able to do with CDs or a mouse.

[KingBollock]

A few years ago I cracked out my old Spectrum 128. All the games that were on tapes that were kept in cases worked fine, but every single one of the games whose cassette didn't have its case, failed to load.

I was always a bugger for not putting stuff away properly when I had used it, which is why I never liked vinyl much, too easily damaged (and all the records that I did keep well got damaged by someone else, every single bloomin' one of 'em!). Yet I have always been really careful with all my CDs.

[SpondonBassed]

[quote name='KingBollock' timestamp='1470340457' post='3105376']
A few years ago I cracked out my old Spectrum 128. All the games that were on tapes
[/quote]

Off topic for a post entitled "Music Tapes in 2016"? Sorry to be a pain in the 'arris KB.
That would be a great thread all on its own though - cassette storage for digital media.

[BigRedX]

"Digital" and "tape" are two words that should have never gone together ever.