Death of the cassette

[Fatboy]

Re: Death of the cassette

Its sad. Fair enough now we have the ability to record on to CD or DVD media, but I am of the opinion that optical media is not has reliably as magnetic media. I speak from experience on this. A few years back (5 years) I put something on to a CD. When I come to access it a few years later the disc is un-readable. It has always been stored in its jewel case and has no visible scratches on it.

I have cassette tapes with 30 year old recordings of the Top 40 singles, and these still play. In my opinion, providing the cassette tapes are kept in their boxes and away from dampness, they will have a long archive life.

Old technology, such has video tapes/recorder, cassette tapes, that have become obselete in the name of so called progress. Take the modern replacement for the video recorder/video tape, the recordable DVD, the hard drive/DVD recorder. If you have the hard drive crash on these, then all the recordings have gone, the longevity of the recordable DVD has not been proven yet, and I feel it is not a reliable enough media to rely on, with my own experiences. I have never had a recording lost on a video tape, and maybe I've been lucky, but I've never had a video tape snap or get tanglled up inside of my video recorder either. I have recordings on video cassette of Top Of The Pops from 1987 and the quality of them is the same has it has always been.

My opinion of a lot of new tech now is that, its making the task more complicated than it needs to be, its for the sake of so called progress, and sometimes its going backwards from what we already had.

[vanhelsing]

Re: Death of the cassette

You can still buy blank cassettes in any newsagents.

[Richard1978]

Re: Death of the cassette

I've still got a load of tapes I occasionally listen to. Both ones I put together & prerecorded. Talking books seem to last a bit longer on tape compaired to music, I picked up a copy of Meera Syal reading Anita & Me at a sale at my local library a few weeks ago.

I went through a few with old chart shows on to transfer all the tracks off that I didn't have elsewhere.

I didn't have too many tapes break, but my Dad had a roll of splicing tape handy for any breakages.

These days I can afford to buy CDs, & any compilations I've done & want to keep I put onto Minidisc, which is a very underated format.

The later ones could hold 4 CDs worth of music on a MD, & could have files transfered onto them from a computer, even from MP3s.

[ArchStantonsGhost]

Re: Death of the cassette

I used to tape the whole top 40 singles chart from the BBC Top 40 show with Tommy Vance every other Sunday. Freemusic!

I used to hate when he talked over the intro music to a top song.

Must say I love the way I can store playlists on my pc. Far superior to tapes anyday............... but I will always have a soft spot for Tommy - and cassette tapes.

[branny]

Re: Death of the cassette

I used to make compilations of whatever i was into at the time (old and new) and gave them volume numbers. I never taped over them and have them in the loft. I bought a cd recorder (before I had a pc) and started to burn them on to cd. I finally stopped at volume 36 because I bought a sony hard drive recorder which holds around a 1000 albums and you can create playlists on that so yes for me the cassette is well and truely a thing of the past.

[culnara]

Re: Death of the cassette

Johnny Cash on one side and Roy Orbison on the other

Good Taste

[Aidanagain]

Re: Death of the cassette

Far handier for recording than your CDs or whatever modern alternatives there are now - we replaced our video with a DVD recorder lately & would much prefer the VHS.

[stevef]

Re: Death of the cassette

Yeah, I became a bit of an expert at mending tapes, so much so that my friends would come to me to fix them when theirs snapped. I still have loads of tapes and my car still has a cassette player in it, though for over a year now I've had the same tape playing over and over (Johnny Cash on one side and Roy Orbison on the other, two artists I never get tired of listening to).

[rossobantam]

Re: Death of the cassette

I still have lots of music cassettes, but they never get played

Most are 'compilations' made by me , whilst sat in front of the tv taping Top of The Pops (discussed seveal times on this forum )

Remember when they snapped? Who else tried mending them? Cut a very small piece of sellotape, same width as cassette tape....a temporary measure but usually worked (as long as you could keep the spools of tape from completely unravelling when you took the cassette apart )

[Emettman]

Re: Death of the cassette

I have a few select ones that live in my car (a 15 year-old, mine from brand new, Toyota Corolla. I'm hoping for a few more years.)

Unlike as suggested in the Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett novel "Good Omens", they have not all transformed into "Best of Queen" cassettes.
(though I did have one of those.)

From Enya to Orff, Thomas Tallis to Blue Oyster Cult.

[Marine Boy]

Re: Death of the cassette

I still have a huge collection of cassettes, and a reasonable deck to play them on. They're a nice bit of nostalgia to have around the place. When I occasionally play one, I'm reminded of very happy times. No reason to dump them at the moment.

[scotchmist]

Re: Death of the cassette

I will continue to play cassettes in my car, afterall it's about 17 years old so I like to stick with consistency! Besides a radio-cassette is worth diddly-squit to Crack-Heads and Smack-Heads and other exotic types who inhabit our urban landscapes so it makes better sense.

[Cat Weazle]

Re: Death of the cassette

Cassettes dead!

Check this guy out

YouTube - DJ Ruthless Ramsey Scratch Tape Decks

[danbakuk]

Re: Death of the cassette

I remember the death of Vinyl....now its back!

Will tapes make a nostalgic comeback or will they just get twisted and tangled at the back of a draw?

[sixtyten]

Re: Death of the cassette

Thats exactly the way i used to do it,when I ran a quiz..use a re-recordable Cd though,as you''ll only use a fraction of space