Cassette tapes are starting to catch some of the retro, nostalgic shine of vinyl records, spurring one manufacturer in Japan to bring back personal Walkman-type players. Younger Japanese music lovers are driving this trend, Nikkei Asia writes, despite many being born well after tapes were eclipsed by CDs, and later digital music. “A cassette tape is for when I want to listen to music carefully,” a college student visiting a Tower Records in Tokyo tells the magazine. He said he appreciates the “warm, unique” sound that tapes deliver, and visits the store weekly to see what’s in stock. While brick-and-mortar record stores and analog music are a throwback to a bygone era in today’s streaming economy, such new collectors are creating ripples in the music industry.
You had a mix-tape. I know you did. What was on it?
My friend had a tape he made for when he was dumping a girlfriend. He would drive around with the girl in the car until all the songs dawned on her that they were all about breaking up.
Thank God. I have, well, all of them.
They need the complete experience – Including fishing out 20 feet of tape that unwound from the cassette into the player that was built into the dash of their car, behind the console, climate controls and AC ductwork.
I’m trying to think of the last time I actually bought music, of any kind, too long ago. Ditto a movie DVD.
I remember the early 2000’s, when sharing (stealing) music was a thing. I never used Napster but there was a site called Audiogalaxy where you could download entire albums, no cost.
I used to visit a site, mp3caprice, where you could buy songs for about 10 cents.
With the various digital music services available now at such low costs, hard copies of anything now are just a storage headache.
Wow, I have dozens of tapes including 8-tracks dating back to when I was a service tech in the 1960’s. Gosh darn, I guess that makes me a relic. Still have my 1968 RCA tube caddy fully stocked with obsolete brand new tubes. Oh yes, I still recall the house call of the lonesome widow who’s tube burned out….
I used cassette tapes for data storage rather than music. Wasn’t in to music much in my younger years.
Cassettes are a horrible medium, full of tape hiss and the tape stretches a little every time it’s played or rewound until it’s useless.
@https://iotwreport.com/cassette-tapes-making-a-retro-comeback/#comment-2151287
Had the Tarbell interface which could save up to 1,000 lines of code on my Z80 STD Buss – 10 lines of code per day and you got a good rating on your performance review
“I’m trying to think of the last time I actually bought music, of any kind,”
Too funny. The wife and I were reminiscing a few nights ago about what a thrill it was to go to Tower Records. Gawd I miss those days.
I had many cassettes. I was born in ’76, so tapes were for making recordings off the radio, and for automobiles.
When I was young there was a station that played hardcore blues after midnight on Saturday and I recorded many hours of it. There was another station that did jazz on Sunday… Sidney Bechet, Lionel Hampton, Dave Brubeck, stuuf like that, and I recorded another many hours of that.
I also had a reel-to reel I made recordings on. I had a 4 track that used cassettes and I could do reductions with the reel to reel and expand my tracks. I rarely recorded more than 4 tracks, but with the reductions I could use guard tracks and play more with the stereo field.
All that bullshit stated… cassettes suck.
” I was born in ’76″
OMG. I hope that’s 1876. If not, I do have underwear older than that. You’re a child.
That photograph is me, so yeah not quite 50 years on this planet.
Some days it seems like a long time, and other days not so much.
Anyone have a pencil?
Yup, Huron, pencils and demag’d razors and splice blocks.
Dude,you’re way to young to be having those ED problems. Snicker
I guess I should elucidate by stating I used tape to record music I made, as well. So I had to do splicing, and guard tracks, and scratch tracks, and daily masters that were separate machines from the mult/masters.
I was serious about that shit back then.
10 years later I bought a digital 256 track that is considered absolute bullshit these days. But we deal with what we have at the time.
I’m no Tom Dowd, but I could write a book about recording on tape that no one would buy.
And a book about Super Beetles that no one would buy. And a book about telephones and cabling no one would buy.
And a book about tailoring and men’s suits nobody would buy.
And a book about shooting clays, and a book on precision rifle work.
Nobody would buy that shit, either.
Oh, and guitars. How to set up. How to play.
Jeez dude, no wonder you’re having performance problems. You’re minds a scrambled cassette egg.
Is it?
I had plenty of time to do quite a bit of shit. And do it well.
I remember the trip I took with a friend from Westchester Community College who lived in Yonkers (Yeah, BFH 🙂 and we went in his car to the Noo Jersey Shore loking for women. Key to the trip was the 8-track cassette player with the luvin spoonful best of hits and Layla from Eric Clapton. We found no dates but I think the 8-track player was stolen or maybe one of the tapes went missing. I do remember you had to slide the thing out from under the dash and store it under the seat so nobody would steal it… Of course later I moved up to a real ALPINE cassette player and I had many tapes that were nice to have on long trips.
ah yes, days of my youth!
Different subject, kids. Most would maybe use the word retro, although I would just say “my current gear is….”
My ham gear is a toss up between Henry Radio’s Tempo One (FT-200) or a Yaesu FT-101B. Bought both new. Both are what the British would call valve rigs. I could probably use a few of the tubes Dumb Bunny has collecting dust. Thing is both really, really work well. Hard to burn down a tube rig. You could load up a rain gutter without a protest. Try that with a modern rig.
WOW. As in that’s the sound cassette tapes made as the tape stretched and the wheels got stuck. worst recording medium EVAH.
I still have every album I ever bought, LP or CD, all saved digitally, EXCEPT for the cassette tapes, which were unsalvagable. The technology was CRAP.
https://youtu.be/pLqfXlIq6RE?si=4XxYlazqzHSc4ybz
I almost forgot what CDs were like. Maybe they’ll be next to make a comeback.
Bring back cars that the average driver can get to the spark plugs.
I contribute my contribution
I went into heavy debt to purchase a SAP VHS
E, E+, E++ + EXV+
Dual Stereo Chan
REPO Man
** Could record 2 seperate audio streams onto VHS tape
** 2 Seperate Stereo audio streams
** ^^^
** ===
** Simul record 2 borrowed cassette tapes
** 8 Albums on 1 VHS (Ex Grade worked best)
** ^^ In Stereo
**
** And special thanks to the guy that lived next door in the dorm. A divorced guy with a massive Vinyl and Cassette Collection. Good Times.
@lurker – I was Ground Radio Repair in the 5th Combat Comm Group, we used to tune up chain link fences. Effective Radiated Power was crap but we could communicate. We had a couple of TSC-60 Comm shelters, each had 2 Collins 10kW Xmtrs, we would tune those up on CB channels for shits and giggles. Probably fried the front ends of a few receivers.