Why cassette tapes are making a comeback
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- Опубликовано: 21 ноя 2024
- While vinyl controlled the largest share of the physical music market last year, cassette tapes are surging in popularity. The medium saw an increase in sales from 2015 to 2023 of more than 400%. Marc Masters, author of "High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape," joined CBS News to discuss the comeback.
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If someone made a mixtape for you, you were def someone important in their life.
And the feeling of making and then gifting it to that special person 😊
His or her life...fixed it for you
if people stole your mix tapes then you could look back and know that you Did know how to mix....
@@priuss6109 🫣
@@MEANASSJAMSTERthat’s funny. Had not thought of that
No younger person now days will understand how serious it was to make a mixtape either for yourself or a loved one. You had to first get a stereo that allowed copying. Then you had to get all the correct tapes from your favorite artist. Next you had to find the start of each song on the tape and manually sync up your recording with the track you wanted. All this literally took hours to accomplish and there was a possibility the tape player could get jammed up and ruin a section in your mix tape. It was all very serious.
UNIVERISITY MUSIC IN CT 1990S GOOD TIMES TAPES AND RECORDS
THEN CD CAME ALONG AND THE STORE CLOSED
Exactly why I hated cassettes back in the 80s. The invention of the CD was the greatest thing. Being able to skip to the beginning of each song in seconds was Heaven/Bliss.
The extra work made the mixtape more special and personal. If there were flaws, that also made it more personal.
@@roberteng3567 getting together with friends to copy and share music, borrowing an album so you could tape it... that was fun
Tape to tape?? yuck....
I travelled the world with a Walkman and a bunch of cassettes in my backpack back in the 80’s. Those were the days.
Bunch of batteries too, I guess 😅
Good times.
@@saix81Rechargeable batteries already existed at the time.
dutch - yeah and you have what, same 30-40 songs all the time
That's true
I still have all my tapes AND play them on Sunday mornings, usually. Love the sound and the nostalgia to play it on an 80's stereo that works perfectly.
Facts
I still have my CD cassette stereo on my dresser collecting dust I don’t even know if it still can play cassettes with the advent of digital music all my music is on my phone and I just connect my Bluetooth speaker so my stereo is just sitting there unplugged I still have cassettes i just can’t seem to toss the stereo out I’m sure the drive belts for the cassette player has long since degraded because they are rubber I hope cassettes do come back so I can dust old girl off and bring her back to life and if companies are willing to make stereo cassette players that can improve sound quality of my older tapes I would buy a new stereo system lol
I have all of mine also and they go back 60 years and all still work. oops I am giving away how old I am
The only nostalgia that I have for any tech, is the Minidisc, which I still have and I bought a high-end deck off of Ebay years ago. Even the Minidisc is not inconvenient and it was way more convenient that a cassette. This cassette thing must be an attempt at a fad. Some tech, must stay buried!
@@HardCold-Alquanalso can't come near MD reliability 😊
Cassettes were a dream because when I was growing up that is what you recorded on from the radio when a song came on
Nowadays the radio is not worth listening to..... I hate all the morning talk shows, commercials galore - even with the same commercial twice in the same break, news with commercials between every subject and never getting my request played. Nope. Spotify rules.
@@istankimjong-unbutcantstan3398 The music is all programmed now because the stations are no longer independently owned. They are owned by Clear Channel, Sony and BMG. So the so-called DJs are not DJs anymore. They are "on-air personalities." They exist just to talk fluff. This started in 1997. Before that time, you could still call up a radio station and request songs to be played. The best were the quiet storm segments at night where they would air the people calling up to dedicate certain songs to their lovers, ex-lovers and crushes. Those were the days before radio became the corporate oligarchy.
So long the DJ doesn't talk before the song fades,or you hear the station's jingle before the next song being played.
Haha yeah. That was the first cassette tape I ever recorded was songs off the radio. That was way back in 1980 lol. I still have that very tape and all the other tapes I did thereafter.
I have a nice collection of rare N.O.S cassette tapes too. Teac, Sony etc..
Typically we'd buy the record album, then record it to tape and that we the record stayed in mint condition. if the tape got wrecked, then you'd simply record another.
I never bought Store bought tapes because they were almost always recorded poorly on bad quality tapes.
It was a wonderful Era nonetheless.
I can relate to you guys… the DJ keep talking at the song intro right
You buy it, IT IS YOURS until it breaks unlike SONY/Streaming/NETFLIX locking you out of your 1990s car stereo!
and spotify. they stopped some songs
I bought a handful of songs (not a big music person) before 2010 from iTunes and Amazon. All still available for me to stream or download on iPhone (while at least don’t see Apple or Amazon going out of business anytime soon)
Exactly!
So much better than having to find space to store everything. Cassette Tapes are also one of the worst more recent formats music came on when it comes to quality and tapes degrade even if you take care of them. This is a trend that doesn’t make much sense.
@@sixplicit2977 There's a reason it was vinyl that made a comeback, and not the cassette, nor the 8 Track.
no ads on my MP3's, cds and mini disks
Mini discs are the best!
I wish my damn DVDs didn't have unskippable ads.
Also your tracks can't be retroactively removed by licensor unlike digital.
@@balsalmalberto8086 That's why get a ton of hard drives. Cassettes and VHS sucks. The way they degraded and were too clunky and difficult to copy for family and friends. I'm not too young or old to forget the nightmare.
You have to have a really great budget for minidiscs these days but I agree - they are amazing. Much more interesting and fun than mp3s or steaming IMO. But I'll take my music any way I can get it. I bought the first MZ-1 when it first came out and later collected discs and machines. Down the rabbit hole we go! ;)
The reason is you own it, and it’s yours not like the subscription and cloud nonsense companies want so they can make more money.
I own all my digital MP3s saved on my hard drive. I have never used a subscription or cloud.
They don’t make more money, they make way less nowadays. Subscriptions per month are cheaper than buying just one CD or cassette album.
@@abc33155They are but you don’t really own them. You just rent them. I still do it so I’m not trying to put it down but I also keep my favorites on mp3 so I’ll have them.
@@sci-fi.tsunamiI do both but it is good to keep the favorites because with streaming you pretty much just rent them while you’re subscribed.
I get the argument, never streamed a song in my life other than watching classic videos on RUclips, but why the subpar audio quality and lack of durability of cassettes when CDs exist? Unfathomable to me, who lived through the poor media quality of the late 70s to 80s.
Will this increase the sales of pencils too?
knife blades, nail files, pinky fingers, writing pens and even a tightly rolled up napkin all can do the trick..........
The old clear Bic pen was the perfect fit.
@@jimcabana9309 Exactly! you always had to take up that slack in the tape! or do a total rewind by spinning it around in the air!
I used a pinky finger which is free so IDK but quality comment 😂
👍
My Sony Walkman Cassette player from the late 80's still works.
The good Sony walkmen (?) are shockingly expensive still. If you can find a new in packaging cassette tape or CD discman, they're miles better than 99% of the junk made in China today.
Mine does to panasonic boombox
Love the WM-DDII and WM-D6C
My old $300 Walkman (with equalizer, TV audio, dual sided playback) broke years ago, and I was able to buy it on eBay for $35 including shipping. Once I got a $3 replacement drive belt from Norway, I was able to listen to all my old college tapes…brought me back to younger days….
Back in the days when I worked at Circuit City, I remember the cassette phased out during the early 2000 . Cassettes are the least expensive devices to produce and replicate. They are also the most popular devices to use for EVP recording. They still work today , better than digital recordings.
For those wondering like me what the hell you are talking about: “Within ghost hunting and parapsychology, electronic voice phenomena (EVP) are sounds found on electronic recordings that are interpreted as spirit voices. Parapsychologist Konstantīns Raudive, who popularized the idea in the 1970s, described EVP as typically brief, usually the length of a word or short phrase.”
@@GladeSwope That's what happens when things go obsolete. Obsolescence is a scam.
No, they aren't better than digital.
@@bobm9509 they are more practical and dont need internet.
All that tape hiss!
You can buy brand-new cassette players and recorders in Japan.
I'm going to Japan!!!
You can here too (e.g., Fiio, We Are Rewind). Problem is, they all use the same mechanism, so they are all pretty much the same and not all that great. But they are fine starting points for kids who want to get into it, so I’m not gonna hate.
You can still purchase brand new "professional" TASCAM decks in North America.
@@RobCamp-rmc_0, yes, those use the ONLY real cassette mechanism still produced, which is a knockoff of an old Tanashin mechanism. It can never be great, but it can be made decent with good playback heads and electronic circuits, plus they are pretty reliable.
@@joshwilkesbooth 30 years ago these would sit firmly in the bottom row... Do we still have the luxury of buying and using low-rent tape transports while there are still plenty of top-of-the-line decks on the market? sure, bringing them back to "like new" specs is pricey but IMO worthwhile.
I run a cassette duplication rig for a merch shop and can vouch for these being the go-to for independent musicians; our orders keep increasing
My car only takes cassette tapes (Saturn 99). What shop is it and do you guys do online orders?
@@christiniyoutubesuxyour handle is apt - I tried to reply with a link and the wonderful people at Google censored it 🤐. We do take them online. Google Do-It Now T shirts in Philly
@@christiniyoutubesux They do - search for Do It Now T Shirts in Philly
@@christiniyoutubesux They do - Do It Now T Shirts in Philly
So you pirate music....... hee hee. Movie reference.
I'm personally drawing the line on 8 tracks coming back😂
Cassettes predate 8 tracks actually. Now reel to reel is where it's at!
8 track sucks!! Muffled mess 🗑️👎
Sorry, sticking with my CD’s.
Bull 💩@@SgtJoeSmith
@@bobd9868yeah and you probably support Trump also CDs are trash the worst
Let's hope QUALITY stereo cassette recorders start being made again along with decks with DOLBY NR & metal tape bias. Chrome tapes were sooo good.
I agree, I still buy NOS chromies from the 90s. But as for truly high-quality decks, I'm afraid nobody's going to commit to make those anymore.
FACTS...the tdk chrome/ metal tapes. Good sound bass be pumping
I used to buy TDK SA90's by the boat load back in the late 70"s and 80's. I liked Maxells also and I'd buy Fugi tapes on a budget.
I still have my Technics SU-V6X set up with some book shelf speakers, it sounds great with CD's. Would be awesome to add a quality double cassette deck back in to my hifi system.
All you young-uns can go ahead and have fun wit'ch "new" toys. I've been there, done that and own the shirt. The shirt has worn out ages ago, however but I am not goin' back.
This will make my dad happy. He has every cassette, laser disc, and dvd he's ever bought.
I kept the box of tapes I had from the '80s. I knew they would eventually come back. Our third car has a casette stereo, so I still get to listen to them📼
My 11 yo son is obsessed with cassettes, 8 tracks and vhs camcorders. He’s actually de-digitized some of his media to cassettes and vhs 😂. I wondered if I was witnessing the beginning of a trend where gen z&a begin to migrate back to analog technology and blend digital and analog tech in novel ways in the future
Ive herd of 12 year olds now, getting into retro gaming too so, you never know
Your son already sounds amazing. Be proud!
sublimer - he`ll be sorry for a few years
Because that VHS quality is top notch. Lol😂
It's just more reliable.
Back in the 80's, making a mixtape was a Saturday night if you had nothing else to do. Sunday morning,"hey, what did you do last night?", me"stayed at home, made a great mixtape for the gym". Everyone knew what that meant.
I still have a walkman and all my tapes. I also have a cassette deck which plays cds. My generation don't throw stuff away just because something new comes along.
@@lexluthor9509 Quite sure. Beware the Squander Bug was drilled into me as a child. OCD is not the same as being thrifty. They're not organised by artist or anything. 🙂
Still got mine too 🤣 no OCD hear, what people fail to understand is that not artists went to CD or Streaming media
@@lexluthor9509 You are incorrect. I do not blame my behaviour on syndromes. You do you. I like to use stuff until it breaks.
@@phoenixr6811 I love my tapes. I can't afford to replace them all with other media.
Most of my tapes wore out. So did all of my machines, they all died. Had to buy CDs. And then I went through about a dozen portable CD players too LOL, and I thought Napster and MP3 were a god send, being able to play and carry an iPod with all my songs LMAO
My daily driving Tacoma from 2002 has a great sounding tape deck & I have like 100 cassettes that I like...
My 2004 Toyota Sienna has cassette tape player AND CD player…
I listen to tapes all the time in my '99 Miata. They take up less space than CDs in a car where space is very limited, and they sound just fine, plus they're cheap enough where I don't have to worry about what happens to them.
buy an amer. small truck!!!!
Cassette tape is the most beautiful and fun format to listen to music! Good video!
I still have a bunch of cassettes from the 80's and they sound great! Best decade ever!
I love seeing tapes rolling from the beginning to the end of it there's something it's like a message of how the music starts and ends with joy I'm your heart as you listen to the music
Ah, the cassette tape. They meant the entire world to me. Thankfully, I've saved a lot of them over the years for sentimental reasons. The thrill of going to K-Mart, Tower Records, Sam Goody, etcetera and just browsing the cassette tape section...whew! My grandfather buying me Jodeci's _Come & Talk to Me_ or Hi-Five's _Unconditional Love_ are memories that I'll cherish for the rest of my life. I miss sitting in my room and just staring at the artwork for Janet Jackson's _janet._ or carrying Mary J. Blige's _What the 411?_ in my lil' purple fanny pack. Cassette singles were my favorites because I could buy an unlimited amount of them. As the mid '90s emerged, I started buying cassettes, CDs, imports and maxi-singles. My dad couldn't quite understand why I needed Nasir's _Illmatic_ on cassette and CD. Finding European import singles w/ b-sides and rare remixes was the best. Erykah Badu and Mariah Carey had the best imports. Oooh, I need to find my lil' Sony walkman again. See, for me, it's not just music. It's life. I can go on and on for days about this so Imma just leave it here.
I’m right there with you! Good times🤠
Cassettes making a comeback in the age of RUclips is quite unexpected.Yet it feels good to be in the nostalgic mode.
Still got my Walkman
Me too 😁
Did you just get it or have you had it for awhile?
I remember that I used my dad's walkman in 2000. as a little girl. It was so cool. I miss those times
#walkmanforever
I just bought another Sony WM FX20. Had one of these back in high school and used it till the belts broke. Bought new belts for the one I bought, installing them was easy and adjusting the motor speed. I checked the head alignment and all was well. Cleaned and demagnitized the head and capstan too. Recorded some stuff to a Maxell 90 XLII. I've never heard chrome tapes sound so crisp in my life.
Everything old is new again. When I was young I had a huge collection of music on cassette and vinyl. Now it's all coming back. I remember getting a mixtape from my boyfriend.
Never died for me have most of mine from the 80's &. 90's. I am 47
Only thing that tends to go bad are rubber belts and sometimes capacitors. Remember that.
@@SlavTiger I agree with that I rebuilt a Onkyo ta 2017 a few years ago and it works like a champ
@@bluemantom77 need more people with that fix it first throw it later mindset these days. They dont make it like they used to. Ive met people who's minds were blown that even simple things can be fixed. Think it's a cultural problem.
@@SlavTiger exactly we're losing more people that can do things like that I got lucky growing up and I was told how to do a certain things
@@bluemantom77 always can try to teach others
I still have a sealed TDK tape, maybe some day I will use it.
One of the problems is that a new tape deck/player is usually not as good as many of the older machines..
Having the Alpine 7618 pull out cassette deck while in high school in 1994 was good times.
Today im 27. I remember growing up in the early 2000s and remember my parents playing cassette tapes for us. The one I specifically remember is them playing Jungle Cats around Christmas. It's basically Christmas songs but with a cats voice meowing to the song/beat. Good memories
Like vinyl, it's a warmer sound and no one will change the lyrics.
I've heard the warmer sound argument. I have friends that swear by their tube guitar amplifiers. My ears can't tell the difference; even when I was young I couldn't.
If you mean garbled and wobbly, then yeah LOL
@@TheOtherKine You mean because the tapes were stored in a 120 degree car interior, or in a humid garage, for 40+ years. And played on a poor-quality deck that hasn't been maintained. Not a fair argument at all.
No. The tapes were analog. They were never going to be able to replicate digital. Especially the EDM type music I was into already, like Jean-Michel Jarre. I switched to CDs and the difference was amazing
@@TheOtherKine Of course tapes are analog, but that's not what you meant when you said "garbled and wobbly". Those words imply tapes & equipment that was either low-quality to begin with, or hadn't been maintained properly.
Maybe the real appeal is actually owning something you can hold in your hand, and having control over when you hear it and how often. No commercials. No waiting, It's just one button to play your favorite songs.
All that's old is New again.... glad I held onto my tapes for when I was a teen.. love it...
I was browsing through my dad's old tapes and found real good tapes from big artists during his time. What really shined though were the tapes that were dedicated to my mom; the case on one of these cassette's have a personalized letter dedicating the songs on the tape to my mom, and I think that that's so beautiful, and I'd like to bring back this tradition for myself and my possible loved ones as well
In Cape Town we had a rental shop called Disque Record Library. You could borrow an LP, take it home; dub it onto cassette & it was yours forever. I remember clearly borrowing Michael Jackson's BAD LP & copying it. Also Earth, Wind & Fire; Michael Franks, Sade, Pieces of a Dream, Teddy Pendergrass, George Benson. I really got my Jazz Education because of Disque Record Library. The shop closed long before cassette sales dwindled because record companies thought it to be fraudulent & pushed for banning the shop. I only knew of the one shop in the city of Cape Town. They couldn't measure popularity & true record "sales" ... if people were just borrowing. But it was a great idea to have a library. You can borrow books but not LP's?
I was born 2005 and love cassettes!!!! Nostalgia from my childhood. It really is a good format for children to own.
I still have my Van Halen's 5150 album in cassette tape bought in 1986. It's nostalgic to see this news.
Love it! That was the album of the summer...😎👍🎸
The great brands of cassettes were Maxell, That's and TDK. The metals were the best to have. When I was a young guy, I was addicted to make my own tape recordings. The best tapedeck that I had was the Harman/Kardon 491. This amazing machine was the best that you could buy in the 80's.
In cassette days, I dreamed about CD... no noise, no stupid rewinds... broken tape etc ;)
Except a CDs can be scratch easily and can either stop or skip. At least tape doesn’t get damaged as much.
I’m 27 years old and I grew up with fond memories of cassettes. My first cassettes were Barney and Sesame Street compilations. Then for any of you Hip-hop heads, I graduated and moved up to enjoying cassettes my father used to record of DJ Red Alert who was a big DJ in New York City on the radio as far as Hip-hop is concerned. I wish I still had those Red Alert, Mr. Magic, Funkmaster Flex, and Chuck Chillout cassettes. I kick myself every day for getting rid of them as a kid. But hey if it wasn’t for those tapes, I wouldn’t be a DJ today..
There are no ads on tapes!! And the audio quality last longer.
Nonsense!
Cassettes are a nightmare format in a Digital world.
Please, no more Audio Dinosaurs!!!
Fact are facts. To this day cassettes are still being sold. Anyone, in the professional Industry, who cares about preserving their music, records it, saves it, to play it on tape. And yes, absolutely, the quality is the best. It's a fact. But, I completely understand the Hassel. I remember them getting stuck and undone.
I still got about 300 cassettes LO.L
😂
Me too! 📻😁
I just digitalized all my tapes, I have to find a place that will recycled them
About 1,200 myself
I personally have about 1500 lol
That's how our band in the 70s learned how to play songs before RUclips. We'd keep rewinding the tape till we got every note right.
Easier to learn to read music...
@@paulsawtell3991 I was taught at 12 to read music and play guitar. The problem was that they didn't make sheet music or have song books for bands like Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath back then.
I'm a Millennial on the youngest end of the spectrum. While cassettes were commonplace when I was born, digital music would come to be the standard during my childhood as well. Initially this meant music downloads, but I eventually moved to streaming as it seems most people have. I had a large library of digital music on my PC but began to question whether I should keep it when everything is available for streaming. I changed my tune (no pun intended) not long ago, after experiencing a number of digital items disappearing from online platforms including Spotify, RUclips, and even video games that I had purchased a digital copy of. I realize now that these "on demand" services are a convenience but not a replacement for a collection. So I decided not only to increase the size of my digital library, but to also start collecting physical media, buying CDs and vinyl from my favourite artists--I haven't purchased any tapes, only because I prefer CDs for the fidelity or vinyl for the album art. I have a fairly large shelf that is full and will continue to grow--while I will acquire digital copies of most of the music I like, I will be sure to acquire physical copies as well for my absolute favourites. Additionally, I purchase physical copies of video games whenever possible now both to avoid a game being bound to a certain account, that game eventually not being downloadable anymore, and because you can eventually sell the game or even just give it to someone else to enjoy which can't be done with digital.
I just said this ! I was born in 94 so I’m 3 years off from a zoomer and now I always thought I was a proper millennial but it seems with a lot of experiences im leaning more elder zoomer these days. I saw cassettes but never really used one irl. By the time I entered kindergarten in 2000, cds reigned supreme. If vhs is bought back I’d totally be on board for that!
Tapes are dope. The current problem is finding a good quality, affordable tape deck.
Exactly, modern players are junk
I know it's only 3%, but my bet for the future is on digital downloads. I'm sensing people are becoming uneasy with not owning anything. But at the same time, they don't want the inconvenience of physical.
Personally, as something of a musician myself, I am considering a situation where I release only a portion of my music on streaming platforms and limit the rest to buy-to-own only, in both digital and physical format. I want to reward the people who make a direct contribution to my income the way they deserve and also, well...
I refuse to have streaming platforms cash in on work that I invest literally thousands of dollars into while I get paid spare change.
The future is definitely about streaming, even more so than downloads. A lot of people I know, even people in their 50s and older who always had physical product available, have dumped all of their hard copy and moved to streaming, mostly out of convenience. In the '90s, my band made vinyl. Many people said, "I'd buy it if it was on CD." Nowadays, "I don't have a CD player. Is it on Spotify?" I'm with you on everything you've said. However, I will definitely continue to release my music on hard copy (vinyl, CD) as well as digital. Go for everything that pays. Digital is like passive income. Yep, Spotify and others like it suck because we make pennies (more like % of pennies) on the dollar.
@@Ted_James i think there may be a generational gap. i think a lot of young ppl like me are starting to get tired of streaming, at least people who enjoy active listening. sure streaming is convenient, but there's something about a physical analog item like a cassette. it's hard to rewind / fast forward / skip, you have to be intentional. additionally tape saturation just gives a really nice sound, imo. i'm someone who grew up during the era of cds so i don't even actually have nostalgia for cassettes, but i love the physicality of magnetic tape, and also the cheapness of them. it's kinda like democratized ownership of music. there's also something about cds that makes them not as interesting as cassettes, probably bc the media is digitized and perfect- cassettes feel like a living thing.
i make music as well, and make cassettes. spotify is for convenience, but cassettes are love.
Tapes and vinyl are analogue media. They capture ALL of the audio levels from low level to high. I always feel I am missing something on cds as the levels are digitally coded to the nearest binary number. (Quantised) so some information is lost in the gaps. You can watch a analogue tv pic through the “snow” but a digital pic just falls into pixel blocks
Tapes are 6-bit, vinyl are 10-13bits. Usually 10-bit for a regular pressing. Tapes have lots of filters (Noise Reductions) and the noise floor of the aforementioned 6-bits are literally hindering a lot. Vinyls can't capture everything either as the grooves have to be super thick (for bass) to make the grooves reach into each other or too thin (highs) for the needle not to jump off. So again, you have to make compromisses and that is by mastering to fit the vinyl, not the correct sound reproduction.
On a CD, there is no such thing as compromises. It captures everything, there are no grooves, no needled that can jump and skip, no tapehead that scrapes along, has a 16-bit noisefloor (that is more than the human ear can handle for safety buffer), some error correction and the quantization is 65,000 steps. Absolutely inaudible. Even if you dither it down from 32-bits it is simply physically not possible to hear such details. It has been proven several times by layering an anologe and 16-bit waveform on top of each other = Perfect match.
EDIT: Side note = Vinyls are digitally mastered since the 1970s. Just check your vinyl sleeve. YOu will find many "DDD", "Digital Master" et cetera. Means they are 16-bit then pressed to vinyl. You will be surprised how much of your "analogue" medium is actually 16-bit but LOSES quality by taking it to those inferiour analogue media like tapes and vinyl records... ;)
We didn't only listen to music, we collected it, traded it. I even remembered trading double up iron maiden tapes for the latest airwalk skateboard boots early 90s off a kid at school. They were like currency before we had jobs at a young age.
Now songs are a file on a phone which you don't own.
I like owning music, tapes, cds, lp etc. You feel like part of the band in a way buy owning a collection of their art.
So essentially you are collecting physical audio art.
I remember buying an album purely because of the art, never heard the band before. Pre 2000s were awesome in this regard.
Im glad I grew up in the tape and vinyl era
As soon as CDs were released, I abandoned cassettes. The hissing was one thing, but having tapes get eaten by my car stereo was the kicker.
now the same with all media sotrage for music - cassetes, CD, vynil...streaming is THE KING
Commodore 64 Tape, Dual Tape boombox, Walkmans etc. Been there.
I still own my JVC H-FI Tape recorder made for stereo racks. I still have all my tapes from 1980's.
I worked in a record shop got lots of cassettes still also promo ones from labels same with albums Like seeing others enjoyed recording off the radio waiting for favorite songs to come on ❤
Reminding me of the days of the mixed tape.
Got your tape, and it changed my mind….
As a CBC radio fan who has listened to a considerable classic music and commentaries by knowledgeable presenters through the years, having taped such programs has allowed me to appreciate classical music. At times I have listened again to my tapes and have learned a lot. Recording conversations in foreign languages is also a great way to train one’s listening ability. Cassette tapes definitely have a place for those of us who are attentive to detail. Food for the mind as well.
It's not just big stars that benefit. Garage bands playing in small venues can easily make tapes. With the proliferation of software available for mixing, all they need is a laptop and a tape recorder and they can make a couple dozen tapes at home to give away or sell to their fans. I know, give away? What a concept!
A real cassette "revival" for me would be manufacturers making Hi-bias blank tapes (type II and IV) and higher quality recording and playback decks and of course, the pre-recorded tapes with type II & type IV tape stock compatible to CD and vinyl quality sound.
NAC in Missouri is making cobalt-based type II’s, though they’re arguably not as hifi as the older formulas (which can no longer be made due to environmental restrictions). Hopefully they continue to improve the formula for the new ones.
@@ericvannielsen Personally I just buy NOS chromes from the late 80s and early 90s
They're already making Type II but not up to the quality of new old stock tapes! Forget new Type IV metal tapes, very likely not going to happen due to environmental restrictions on the materials used!!!
Perhaps DATs should make a comeback, although they never really were for commercial use like cassettes but the sound quality would be like high-quality cassettes and CDs and they were much smaller than cassettes and the player could be about the size of an iPod.
Last-generation old-stock type IIs like Maxell UDII are still much cheaper than any new products (and far superior). Easy choice.
My Sony FH-7 MK II Hifi sounds amazing still after 41 years.
She obviously didn't care for her tapes. I still have mine and they work. You can tape your choice of music. Now we just need tape players.
Cassettes are awesome! Cassette tapes overtook vinyl records in 1984, making up almost 53% of all album products shipped to trade that year, up 30.1% from the previous year. Cassettes remained the dominant format in the United States and the UK until 1992, when CDs took over.
In the USA, cassettes made it into the early 2000s. I bought mainly cassettes in the early to mid 1990s.
Nostalgia of my teens and twenties.
I think it's a crying shame that there are no decent new cassette players made these days. You either have to look hard for a decent old one or just put up with a new one that will play a cassette badly, and then, a couple of months, the player will break.
The compact cassette format that Philips introduced in 1963 is the technology that truly brought recorded music to the masses. Sturdy, portable and cheap, it really was revolutionary. Its popularity really exploded around 1980 with the introduction of the Sony Walkman. My first ever compact cassette album that I purchased was ZENYATTA MONDATTA by The Police in 1980 !
Its hard to imagine it came out in 1963 and didn’t catch on till the 80s
Definitely miss the cassette tape era.
Too many nightmare experiences of cassette tapes (and VHS tapes) being eaten by the player when I inserted and played them. I was overjoyed to switch to CD.
One thing with audio and video cassettes you should do. Wind to the end then rewind every so often. It helps to prevent magnetic print through from one layer to the layers either side. On audio tapes you would hear an echo. It also improves the tension… less need for pencils!
Broadcasters and studios would store their reel to reel tapes tail-out for that reason.
Just like anyone else I also listened to tons of cassettes and had alot of them but when cd's came out it was just alittle better than cassettes for me but when the smart phone came out and using mp3 downloads, now that's a game changer I much appreciate!! The cassettes and cd's can remain history for me but to be able to download music is priceless
My parents ( well my mother now ) have hundreds of cassette tapes. Growing up we listined to them, some sounded better than CDs of of today. My mom still has her 1985 Boom Box ( as she calls it ).
Also referred to as ghetto blaster.
@@mattdonna9677 ... I think so.
Amazon mistakenly shut my account and wont fix it, do I've lost 20 years of ebooks, audiobooks, music, videos, and my cloud storage and web storage and developer space, and my merch accounts. Im never trusting online anything ever again. They flat out stole my $350 gift card balance too.
I'm already deep into buying new albums on vinyl and making myself mix tapes.
By the way, blank tape has never left. Its always been a ailable in pharmacies, and its good quality Normal Bias tape.
Physical is the wrong word. Mechanical is correct, and computer hard drives with spinning discs and CDROMs are included in that. Computer hard drives and CDROMs are digital. So they are in two categories. There are digital audio tapes as well as analogue. Analogue tapes include the cassettes in this video. But there are 8 track and reel to reel analogues as well.
It's the analogue medium that's making a comeback. I won't be at all surprised to see reel to reel make a comeback too. I can't imagine 8 tracks coming back. But hey, who knows?
RTR did make a niche market comeback, but it's very expensive.
I still use cassette tapes to record off my cassette radios. They're great.
The biggest draw back to cassette tapes aside from sound quality was waiting to fast foward or rewind to your desired song.
i had this hifi system, which nobody believes, the cassette actually has a track skip, repeat everything a cd player does...but it does it in a crude way, say you want to repeat a song, you hit the repeat button, what it does is, after the song is completed it stops and rewinds it back to the start of the track and plays, without knowing the technical side of things my guess is it can detect a blank spot between each song and rewind/fastforward to the next blank spot, works the same way as skipping tracks forward and backward
@@MrQ12elve I had an Alpine cassette deck in one of my vehicles in the 90's that did this, I'm pretty sure your right about detecting the blank between tracks.
@@MrQ12elve, yes, that feature was called things like "music search" or "track search". I have a Pioneer deck from the late 90s that will do that pretty well.
No it's not like that, it can prevent you to urge to skip the album that is why I love that than stream mp3 or even cds
I had tape players that did that, but you still had to wait.
Instead of all video being digitally recorded, I'm now waiting for 8mm home movie film to return. Back in the day you could buy the film at the drug store, put it in your Kodak Brownie movie camera, make a three minute movie of your kid's birthday party, then return it to the drug store to be developed. Technology at its best.
If you buy an old cassette deck from a thrift store, you need to remember a few things -- It's a mechanical device that needs a lot of maintenance. Not only do you need to clean the heads, but you should get the heads demagnetized to ensure the best audio quality. You can buy a demagnetizer or take it to an electronics repair shop to have them do it. Also, the motors need to be in good shape, and the rubber belt that drives the spools will degrade over time and break. There aren't too many companies around making cassette deck motors, and replacement parts may be very hard to find.
".. take it to an electronics repair shop .."
These damn near do not exist. No one repairs electronics anymore, the ypush for you to buy new stuff. There used to be 3 where I live
Yes, dirty heads can even degrade the quality of a clean tape.
Open reel to reel was far superior; if you want analogue go for that.
You can take it to Radio Shack.......oh, wait
Cassette's are making a comeback because the world's gone mad and people wish it was like it used to be.
Funny, I started to sell cassettes on tour in 2015... and everyone was amazed... all the artists I met in each city said they wanted to do it. Looks like they did.
Magnetic tape is the best music format, on a really good system it takes some beating, it’s small convenient and physical, you can record on it over and over again and it’s nostalgic and can hold beautiful memories too, it’s awesome!
I buy and listen to cassettes all the time. It's a less expensive format and you can still support the band. I dig!
I bought some old cassettes in the later 2000s because the music was not available on CDs or iTunes and I had a cassette deck and a CD-r burner so I would burn them and put the music on my iPod.
Is tape less expensive than a cd to produce?
Cassettes have a warmth that digital can't give you. Tape pumps, ebbs and flows with the sound, and instruments blend together more. The tactile element is cool too; the clicking, whirring, button-pushing... very satisfying.
My 1997 Lexus ES300 has a tape player.
So does my '05 Honda Pilot....came with a CD player AND a cassette deck which my wife and I thought was odd when we bought it.
@@hondaphan4172 As late as '05? Wow.
Marc Masters called it right, tape cassettes have crappy audio quality. Dolby B and C tape noise reduction encoding was a sham. 12cm polycarbonate music CDs were the best audio recording media by far and can also play on computers with optical drives. And you own the music.
I’ll never go back to tapes. They aren’t long lasting and you can’t skip tracks. Duplicating one takes forever. I burned all my audio media to data disks as backup and have it all stored on a hard drive. My mp3 player works just fine and is super compact. No streaming service can say no to my mp3 player. It’s got no internet connection.
The only people who think cassettes are great are young hipsters who didn’t have the experience of growing up with them. They don’t remember the experience of your cassette player eating your tape or seeing the resulting hundreds of feet of tape fluttering in the wind tangled in the shrubs growing in freeway medians. But those of us who grew up with cassettes remember all too well how terrible they were.
@@matthewstorm5188cassettes are outdated I remember as a kid in the 80's how terrible the quality of sound goes using it constantly.
@@matthewstorm5188I’m Gen Z and honestly I’m buying because if crap hits the fan and there’s no power I can still listen to music since cassette players run on batteries. Also when the internet goes down, physical media that is usually ignored flies off the shelf. So hoarding physical media and then selling it when times are bad will bring in a boat load of income since everyone is dependent on digital media.
I still have my four track cassette/mixer recorder. You put a metal sticker on the back of the cassette that told the recorder it was now four tracks. I still have pages of those stickers. This thing is a looker, too. The Yamaha MT44D/RM602 Multitrack cassette recorder and mixer with RB35B patch panel
Using cassette tapes with the right recorder, with mic meters & decent wired attached microphones. The sound is AMAZING!
Yes it is...in the late 1970's I put on cassette tape so many of my LP's somehow they sounded better to me taped
rather then just played on the turntable . Miss my old Sony TC5M
yeah, love all that tape hiss!
The hiss your hearing is probably in your ears, I would see a doctor for that issue.
A well taped cassette deck with top-notch microphones by passing machines mics and the use of mic meters . I've made high-quality cassette tapes for 40 years, no hiss, but if I heard hiss, I would seek a doctor.
Just a few years ago a new Ringo Starr album sold more cassettes than anybody in over 30 years!
Yeah the Compact Cassette! One of the fantastic inventions (just like the Compact Disc) of the Dutch Philips company...😉👍🏼
❤❤❤ the idea!!! I still have a box of about 200 of them in my closet AND a cassette player. Guess I’ll have to pull them out!
I'd say its simply all about the novelty and the nostalgia... Personally I'm into the humble CD...
From the 2021 THE GUARDIAN Article on Lou Ottens, inventor of the Cassette Tape. "Ottens had little patience with the renewed popularity of the cassette tape - or even vinyl.
“Nothing can match the sound of the CD, it is absolutely noise and rumble-free. That never worked with tape … I have made a lot of record players and I know that the distortion with vinyl is much higher. I think people mainly hear what they want to hear.” ...
Tapes are just fine for driving. The CD's advantages are lost once the car's engine, tires and wind kick in. For serious sit-down listening, Ottens is correct. While cleaning house or doing dishes, not so much. Singing along and playing drums on the steering wheel? We know that answer!
The exciting part is going to the music store, opening the cassette case and listening to it in the car even before playing it at home. And collecting them.
There's a generation now who don't own any media. That's the thing. Three things going on here, Nostalgia, Novelty (be it those who are too young to have owned a cassette, people saw it in a recent movie or as they touch on here cheap merch) and the people who gravitated away from physical media starting to realise that physical media will always be more practical than digital (because you actually own something or whatever)
Record labels need to get on board and either heavily promote tape, yeah it's a copyright nightmare medium but people buying albums on cassette actually want the art work and everything not a copy)
Oh boy, I still have my cassette tapes from the 70s and 80s. They have literally followed me around the world. 2:15
Tapes have that warm lofi sound that we love.
They do! 👍
i grew up with lp's, 8 tracks, cassettes, and cd's but i love and prefer streaming. i can carry my whole collection on my phone
I use blank tape to capture what I want off the internet. It’s as simple as having my headphone Jack plugged into the back of the tape deck. And as for tape jamming, quality, etc.? You need to get informed as to the decks and tape brands that are great, and those that are garbage. Lastly, everyone needs to realize; vinyl, tape, CD, or online and internet…nothing is “indestructible”.
You record from the internet to tape? How and why? Very cool btw.
@@ColtraneTaylor Simple. A lot of people are finally sharing a wealth of rarities on a multitude of outlets online, and if you can’t get the material to transfer to CD, just capture the audio in real time. With the odds against a good chunk of this stuff being seen at your local Walmart, I won’t be wasting time waiting. Roll Tape!
@@monaural2.988 Isn't it easier to capture it on your pc and store it as mp3s or burn it to cd?
Same, i connect one cable to the iPad and the other end to the tape recorder, make a half hour playlist and then press record on the tape recorder and play the Spotify playlist u created and let it record for half hour and its done, mix tape made
Obviously use Add free Spotify or youtube
@@RealBadGaming52 And even with the free version with ads? No different from stopping the tape when there are commercials on the radio. Except with the internet, editing is easier and cleaner than it was taping the radio stations. It’s all nothing new!
I still have lots of records that are decades old, but I got rid of all my cassette tapes. They were a pain with the tape getting stuck in the machine all the time!
I have a Denon cassette deck from the early 2000's barely used, double deck. Should be good quality compared to whatever you can get now that isn't used. Maybe I'll keep it as I'm currently using it as a TV stand.
Cassette tapes, spool of plastic tape coated with metal dust that rubs off onto your tape heads lowering the sound quality & eventually damaging the heads.
The glue that adheres the iron oxide to the tape transfers to the rollers. It's inevitable that, even with cleaning, eventually all cassette tapes will fail. Even if it doesn't get demolished by the player, the material will flake off and you'll have a tape that has snap, crackle and pop included. Also, the tape will stretch. Another problem is reverse side bleed over.
Thank you! Someone that remembers. They were a catastrophe. I don't miss them and they're a waste of resources too. Never turning back from my trusty MP3s and digital video. I would have killed to have an MP3 player and a Smartphone in High School. These kids have no clue how good their tech is.
A crap format for sure but pop music appeals to many whose ears are not finely tuned anyway