The Cassette Comeback?

[goose]

What is with everyone offering cassettes now, along with vinyl and CD? Did I wake up in 1985?

 

But seriously, if they start putting a tape player back in cars, then I am all in.

 

Cassettes were my first form of music listening. most guys here had vinyl....so did I.....BUT i loved cassettes.

 

so many memories with my little walkman, lol and Cassettes still had the concept of sides. and i love the idea of sides. fukk......i'd buy cassettes again.

 

Mick

 

Cassettes were portable, moderately durable, relatively affordable, and allowed for longer play times that LPs or early CDs -- I'm still not sure why they went away! It's true the art and liner notes were small af. Such is the hard calculus of corporate decisions.

 

As for why, hipster irony?

 

you ever try too cart an LP around, lol Cassette's were some much easier to bring to friends houses.

 

AND you'd trade with friends. ones they had and you didn't and vice versa.

 

Mick

Skipping tracks sucked, same with replaying a song

[custom55]

Who remembers the "Blown Away Guy"

 

 

http://youtu.be/Zk71h2CQ_xM

Edited March 22, 2022 by custom55

[IbanezJem]

My cassettes, many of them, and mostly records I`ve bought again on CD (but not exclusively), are all still in tip-top shape and play well - I can`t recall one dying on me. My third choice stereo has a twin tape deck, so hey, I don`t mind having the option. Doesn`t matter in the car as I bluetooth from my phone. I did feel like I always lost out on album art with cassettes, but CDs hardly addressed that problem. A lot easier to deal with postage etc., with a tape too.

[Entre_Perpetuo]

Cassettes don't interest me but any form of music buying has my support!

 

I have Lacuna Coil's Delirium on cassette.

 

Heck yeah.

[Rhyta]

I love my cassettes and have kept them. I used to spend hours recording my own special mixes and enjoyed fading out music on the deck so I could tailor the music to fit the length of cassette. I became a big audio book person in 2004 and was checking them out from the library to listen. Sounds ancient huh?

 

Saw this blurb

 

Sales of cassette tapes in the U.S. have increased by double digit percentages in recent years, according to Nielson reports, and now number in the six figures annually. Though still peanuts compared to vinyl, it's a marked upswing. May 12, 2021

 

There was a book that came out in 2016 called the Revenge of Analog and I listened to the author on the radio talk about it. I read parts of it but didn't finish it. I think it is like some have said, it is part nostalgia for some but it seems it is also based on a newer generation wanting to see what they missed. He pointed to the interest in journaling, stationary and fancy fountain pens plus the return of vinyl records. Millennials became enamored of having tangible items instead of all digitized. I even saw that photography is going analog again with using 35mm cameras and film.

 

As for the equipment, that is where this trend is not as big. I found a lot of walkmans on ebay when I was listening to my audio books but I bet they are selling for a lot more now with this trend. Same with tape decks and you have to realize that they can break at anytime and it's hard to find repair shops or parts for them.

 

Personally it makes me smile, yeah the tapes are noisy but it was such a fun medium to own.

 

https://www.nytimes....ck-sound-lousy/ This is from the NYT so I think you can get a few free articles. If someone wants to read it, let me know and I can share a copy.

Edited March 22, 2022 by Rhyta

[bluefox4000]

What is with everyone offering cassettes now, along with vinyl and CD? Did I wake up in 1985?

 

But seriously, if they start putting a tape player back in cars, then I am all in.

 

Cassettes were my first form of music listening. most guys here had vinyl....so did I.....BUT i loved cassettes.

 

so many memories with my little walkman, lol and Cassettes still had the concept of sides. and i love the idea of sides. fukk......i'd buy cassettes again.

 

Mick

 

Cassettes were portable, moderately durable, relatively affordable, and allowed for longer play times that LPs or early CDs -- I'm still not sure why they went away! It's true the art and liner notes were small af. Such is the hard calculus of corporate decisions.

 

As for why, hipster irony?

 

you ever try too cart an LP around, lol Cassette's were some much easier to bring to friends houses.

 

AND you'd trade with friends. ones they had and you didn't and vice versa.

 

Mick

Skipping tracks sucked, same with replaying a song

 

Viny is cool and i enjoy it.....may even sound the best in certain cases.

 

but you have to almost be like a medical doctor in taking care of it.

 

if it's not cleaning it's.....oh i want to skip tracks.....careful with the needle......oops damage there, lol and i being handicapped have poor motor skill. so vinyl is not really tailored to me, lol

 

i enjoy it......but in ways too listen to music.......it's down there for me honestly.

 

Mick

Edited March 22, 2022 by bluefox4000

[Entre_Perpetuo]

What is with everyone offering cassettes now, along with vinyl and CD? Did I wake up in 1985?

 

But seriously, if they start putting a tape player back in cars, then I am all in.

 

Cassettes were my first form of music listening. most guys here had vinyl....so did I.....BUT i loved cassettes.

 

so many memories with my little walkman, lol and Cassettes still had the concept of sides. and i love the idea of sides. fukk......i'd buy cassettes again.

 

Mick

 

Cassettes were portable, moderately durable, relatively affordable, and allowed for longer play times that LPs or early CDs -- I'm still not sure why they went away! It's true the art and liner notes were small af. Such is the hard calculus of corporate decisions.

 

As for why, hipster irony?

 

you ever try too cart an LP around, lol Cassette's were some much easier to bring to friends houses.

 

AND you'd trade with friends. ones they had and you didn't and vice versa.

 

Mick

Skipping tracks sucked, same with replaying a song

 

Viny is cool and i enjoy it.....may even sound the best in certain cases.

 

but you have to almost be like a medical doctor in taking care of it.

 

if it's not cleaning it's.....oh i want to skip tracks.....careful with the needle......oops damage there, lol and i being handicapped have poor motor skill. so vinyl is not really tailored to me, lol

 

i enjoy it......but in ways too listen to music.......it's down there for me honestly.

 

Mick

 

I don’t skip tracks in general, but even if I did I would just let them play on vinyl. I’ve tried just selecting tracks before and it’s always a pain. I can never quite hit the dead wax between songs. Took me a good deal of practice to drop the needle at the start too, and I still miss on occasion.

[bluefox4000]

What is with everyone offering cassettes now, along with vinyl and CD? Did I wake up in 1985?

 

But seriously, if they start putting a tape player back in cars, then I am all in.

 

Cassettes were my first form of music listening. most guys here had vinyl....so did I.....BUT i loved cassettes.

 

so many memories with my little walkman, lol and Cassettes still had the concept of sides. and i love the idea of sides. fukk......i'd buy cassettes again.

 

Mick

 

Cassettes were portable, moderately durable, relatively affordable, and allowed for longer play times that LPs or early CDs -- I'm still not sure why they went away! It's true the art and liner notes were small af. Such is the hard calculus of corporate decisions.

 

As for why, hipster irony?

 

you ever try too cart an LP around, lol Cassette's were some much easier to bring to friends houses.

 

AND you'd trade with friends. ones they had and you didn't and vice versa.

 

Mick

Skipping tracks sucked, same with replaying a song

 

Viny is cool and i enjoy it.....may even sound the best in certain cases.

 

but you have to almost be like a medical doctor in taking care of it.

 

if it's not cleaning it's.....oh i want to skip tracks.....careful with the needle......oops damage there, lol and i being handicapped have poor motor skill. so vinyl is not really tailored to me, lol

 

i enjoy it......but in ways too listen to music.......it's down there for me honestly.

 

Mick

 

I don’t skip tracks in general, but even if I did I would just let them play on vinyl. I’ve tried just selecting tracks before and it’s always a pain. I can never quite hit the dead wax between songs. Took me a good deal of practice to drop the needle at the start too, and I still miss on occasion.

 

there's just a ton of prep for vinyl that if i'm not in the mood i just don't want to do.

 

luckily my table has an auto needle drop thing i can't put it over the spot at the beginning and hit the needle lower thing-y, lol

 

THEN.......i'm getting into an album......oh i gotta flip this thing now. may not seem big to you guys but my limbs get tired easy, lol i can flip a cassette easier....it's little but a LP disc takes me a moment. and i will do it if i'm in the mood mind you. and after trial and error i've trained my body to do it......but....oy, lol

 

never mind replacing parts and turntable upkeep..........sigh......it really is the most inconvenient way to play albums......sorry guys.

 

Mick

Edited March 22, 2022 by bluefox4000

[invisible airwave]

I've seen some cassette to streaming converters at the indie record store near where I grew up so I'm not surprised that people are fed up with mp3s and would like to hear FLAC formats. Last one I purchased on cassette was Boys Don't Cry by The Cure over 2 decades ago and that was only because it included a song that wasn't on that or 3IB, World War. I even did that for Faith since Carnage Visors isn't on the CD. Last one I got was in senior year of high school before going straight forward CD was Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too by New Radicals in December 1998. Edited March 23, 2022 by invisible airwave

[stoopid]

Only tapes I have are 4 track masters or the master mixes from my self produced garage band level stuff back when. Cassettes were valuable for recording and until anti-skip CD players became the norm, great for portable players. Otherwise, it's a shit format I'm glad is gone.

 

I never really liked vinyl, just too large and I'm twitchy about a clean signal [traits that ended up being valuable later on as a music producer/mixer]. The inherent imperfections of vinyl IMO was always unacceptable.

 

CDs are still a very viable media, I still buy them (along with surround blurays/dvda/sacd). Durable, fairly small, excellent fidelity, and cheap to manufacturer.

 

The format I'm puzzled never caught on was minidisc. Smaller CDs seemed like a no-brainer, and they were recordable like CDs using certain players. I even recorded a few live shows on minidisc. There's a few youtube videos that go into why the format failed to catch on.

Edited March 23, 2022 by stoopid

[blueschica]

I love my cassettes and have kept them. I used to spend hours recording my own special mixes and enjoyed fading out music on the deck so I could tailor the music to fit the length of cassette. I became a big audio book person in 2004 and was checking them out from the library to listen. Sounds ancient huh?

 

Saw this blurb

 

Sales of cassette tapes in the U.S. have increased by double digit percentages in recent years, according to Nielson reports, and now number in the six figures annually. Though still peanuts compared to vinyl, it's a marked upswing. May 12, 2021

 

There was a book that came out in 2016 called the Revenge of Analog and I listened to the author on the radio talk about it. I read parts of it but didn't finish it. I think it is like some have said, it is part nostalgia for some but it seems it is also based on a newer generation wanting to see what they missed. He pointed to the interest in journaling, stationary and fancy fountain pens plus the return of vinyl records. Millennials became enamored of having tangible items instead of all digitized. I even saw that photography is going analog again with using 35mm cameras and film.

 

As for the equipment, that is where this trend is not as big. I found a lot of walkmans on ebay when I was listening to my audio books but I bet they are selling for a lot more now with this trend. Same with tape decks and you have to realize that they can break at anytime and it's hard to find repair shops or parts for them.

 

Personally it makes me smile, yeah the tapes are noisy but it was such a fun medium to own.

 

https://www.nytimes....ck-sound-lousy/ This is from the NYT so I think you can get a few free articles. If someone wants to read it, let me know and I can share a copy.

 

I love audiobook recordings. :) Our county is a warehouse and truck terminal area. I worked in the public library for a long time and we had 4 or 5 long haul truckers that would always check out stacks of books on tape for their runs. They always knew more about the new releases etc than we did I think!

[blueschica]

What is with everyone offering cassettes now, along with vinyl and CD? Did I wake up in 1985?

 

But seriously, if they start putting a tape player back in cars, then I am all in.

 

Cassettes were my first form of music listening. most guys here had vinyl....so did I.....BUT i loved cassettes.

 

so many memories with my little walkman, lol and Cassettes still had the concept of sides. and i love the idea of sides. fukk......i'd buy cassettes again.

 

Mick

 

Cassettes were portable, moderately durable, relatively affordable, and allowed for longer play times that LPs or early CDs -- I'm still not sure why they went away! It's true the art and liner notes were small af. Such is the hard calculus of corporate decisions.

 

As for why, hipster irony?

 

you ever try too cart an LP around, lol Cassette's were some much easier to bring to friends houses.

 

AND you'd trade with friends. ones they had and you didn't and vice versa.

 

Mick

Skipping tracks sucked, same with replaying a song

 

Viny is cool and i enjoy it.....may even sound the best in certain cases.

 

but you have to almost be like a medical doctor in taking care of it.

 

if it's not cleaning it's.....oh i want to skip tracks.....careful with the needle......oops damage there, lol and i being handicapped have poor motor skill. so vinyl is not really tailored to me, lol

 

i enjoy it......but in ways too listen to music.......it's down there for me honestly.

 

Mick

 

I don’t skip tracks in general, but even if I did I would just let them play on vinyl. I’ve tried just selecting tracks before and it’s always a pain. I can never quite hit the dead wax between songs. Took me a good deal of practice to drop the needle at the start too, and I still miss on occasion.

 

 

It is tricky, or at least it was for me! A friend and I had a radio show in college at the teeny radio station the college had. The studio lighting was dim and I was often dropping the needle on the wrong song. Just used to pick it up and try it again. :lol: Luckily the signal only went about a mile so not too many people heard

[Blue J]

I was not aware that cassettes were making any kind of a comeback until you told me, Laura…lol :)

 

Back in the early 2000s, so about 20 years ago now, I was heavy into transferring a bunch of my cassettes to CDs. I did that a bunch, and then I stopped, while I still had hundreds of cassettes I had not transferred yet. And I do still have quite a few of them. Lots of 90-minute tapes that had albums longer than 45 minutes, so some of the B-side would be taken up with it, and then use the rest of the B side with some filler, of something totally different.

 

Nostalgia, indeed…and I guess that’s why I haven’t thrown them all out.

 

A quick aside- my high school had its own FM radio station (like 50 watts or something, you know, like two miles away you could get very good reception- but still), and I was involved in it for my sophomore through senior year- my senior year I was the music director, actually. And I happen to still have a cassette that I recorded of one of my own on-air shifts, at that time (1990). I found that cassette among all my other things, and it was just bizarre, as an adult, to listen to 17 year-old me, on the radio. :lol:

[J2112YYZ]

I still have this cassette.

 

 

I did too. But I was only like 12 years old when it came out and didn't know any better. What's your excuse? Lol.

[Mr. Not]

before i had web access i would use CDs, but my dad owned a few cassettes which he didn't own on vinyl so i'd use his cassette player for them.

 

the nice thing about casettes/vinyl is that you're forced to listen to the album in full basically, and being forced to do that is nice for people like me with trigger fingers. but there's no real advantage to casettes, while there are some with vinyl.

 

why it's making a comeback is simply because it's a novelty / cool collectible, etc. they're kind of like having an 'action figure' or 'trading card' version of an album to show off.

[goose]

What is with everyone offering cassettes now, along with vinyl and CD? Did I wake up in 1985?

 

But seriously, if they start putting a tape player back in cars, then I am all in.

 

Cassettes were my first form of music listening. most guys here had vinyl....so did I.....BUT i loved cassettes.

 

so many memories with my little walkman, lol and Cassettes still had the concept of sides. and i love the idea of sides. fukk......i'd buy cassettes again.

 

Mick

 

Cassettes were portable, moderately durable, relatively affordable, and allowed for longer play times that LPs or early CDs -- I'm still not sure why they went away! It's true the art and liner notes were small af. Such is the hard calculus of corporate decisions.

 

As for why, hipster irony?

 

you ever try too cart an LP around, lol Cassette's were some much easier to bring to friends houses.

 

AND you'd trade with friends. ones they had and you didn't and vice versa.

 

Mick

Skipping tracks sucked, same with replaying a song

 

Viny is cool and i enjoy it.....may even sound the best in certain cases.

 

but you have to almost be like a medical doctor in taking care of it.

 

if it's not cleaning it's.....oh i want to skip tracks.....careful with the needle......oops damage there, lol and i being handicapped have poor motor skill. so vinyl is not really tailored to me, lol

 

i enjoy it......but in ways too listen to music.......it's down there for me honestly.

 

Mick

I had a decent collection, but got rid of most of my vinyl. There's nothing like holding the jacket or sleeve while listening to the music, but actually playing the record is a pain in the ass compared to on demand files. I remember when my daughter starting walking, one of the first things she did was make her way to the stereo and break off the stylus. That was the beginning of my transition to "f**k it" with vinyl. :lol:

[Laurabw]

What is with everyone offering cassettes now, along with vinyl and CD? Did I wake up in 1985?

 

But seriously, if they start putting a tape player back in cars, then I am all in.

 

Cassettes were my first form of music listening. most guys here had vinyl....so did I.....BUT i loved cassettes.

 

so many memories with my little walkman, lol and Cassettes still had the concept of sides. and i love the idea of sides. fukk......i'd buy cassettes again.

 

Mick

 

Cassettes were portable, moderately durable, relatively affordable, and allowed for longer play times that LPs or early CDs -- I'm still not sure why they went away! It's true the art and liner notes were small af. Such is the hard calculus of corporate decisions.

 

As for why, hipster irony?

 

you ever try too cart an LP around, lol Cassette's were some much easier to bring to friends houses.

 

AND you'd trade with friends. ones they had and you didn't and vice versa.

 

Mick

Skipping tracks sucked, same with replaying a song

 

Viny is cool and i enjoy it.....may even sound the best in certain cases.

 

but you have to almost be like a medical doctor in taking care of it.

 

if it's not cleaning it's.....oh i want to skip tracks.....careful with the needle......oops damage there, lol and i being handicapped have poor motor skill. so vinyl is not really tailored to me, lol

 

i enjoy it......but in ways too listen to music.......it's down there for me honestly.

 

Mick

I had a decent collection, but got rid of most of my vinyl. There's nothing like holding the jacket or sleeve while listening to the music, but actually playing the record is a pain in the ass compared to on demand files. I remember when my daughter starting walking, one of the first things she did was make her way to the stereo and break off the stylus. That was the beginning of my transition to "f**k it" with vinyl. :lol:

 

Yikes, I guess so!

[Syrinx]

I saw an Eminem interview a while ago and he was sitting in front of a wall of cassette tapes. Obviously a big collector of them. Like everything else it is nostalgia and many of the things we threw out or sold at a garage sale are now "collectable". I follow some big auctions and old sealed video games, VHS tapes etc are getting huge dollars now. There is an Ebay auction I have been tempted to buy with a lot of Rush albums on cassette - most sealed. Then I consider that I have no cassette player and have enough stuff. But they are cool! Edited March 23, 2022 by Syrinx

[goose]

The coffee table every cassette fanatic needs...

 

 

I've also seen one with a bunch of cassettes laid on their spines under glass. A YouTube music reviewer - the guy with the black porkpie hat - has one.

[treeduck]

I've still got some old cassettes, Mr Big's first album, the 1989 album from Hall & Oates, Frank Gambale Live, Lou Gramm, Don Henley. I didn't buy that many though I was all-in on vinyl.

 

I did grab a cassette edition of Firepower though back in 2018! :haz:

[pjbear05]

I have a bunch of cassettes, mostly albums recorded from CD when I had a cassette player in my car and a dual cassette tape deck that I still own.

Very few pre-recorded albums, mostly because they're shit. Prime example was The Who's Live at Leeds, as it was recorded so far in the red level wise as to be unplayable. Equally unenjoyable was a 4 cassette box set called The Marvin Gaye Collection, released in 1990-decent enough music when you could decipher the song being played from the muted version of the song on the other side of the tape playing in reverse! Motown did release a CD version, but it's been out of print for years. Sad.

A few other rarities in plastic; radio shows, mix tapes, and oddities, like a four track DAT of my friend John on guitar, self accompanied on drum machine, pedal bass, 3 part harmony and spoken word, doing a version of "The I-95 Song" as vocalized by Alvin & The Chipmunks.

[grep]

It would be nice f they came back... sort of like the current vinyl vibe.

 

Maybe someone could design a decent modern deck, and figure out to how get ahold of the Dolby Patent and build in that circuit. Modern decks are OK, but without Dolby...there's that hiss.

[New_World_Man]

I don't really see it happening but you never know. Anything is possible.

[J2112YYZ]

I don't really see it happening but you never know. Anything is possible.

 

Well, this whole discussion is about how they have made a bit of a comeback.

[Syrinx]

If they could solve the tape stretch and tangle it would be great!