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How long before Poppin’ and JuJu are on cassette?


Son-of-a-Weizen

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"These new cassette buyers are part of the digital music generation, Stepp explains. But the problem is that digital music has an inferior sound, because the files are so compressed. 

[...] 

" Producers of digital recordings continue to strive for the harmonics cassettes can capture." 

:rolleyes:

 

 

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A small, local record label specializing in punk currently produces many of their acts on cassette, and has done so for years. It's a trait that seems endemic within that DIY genre.

I also notice those labels on Squidco that produce cassettes for the AV/noise improv artists/groups regularly sell out. There are definitely some tape enthusiasts out there. 

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When CD first hit, I was not a fan. So as LPs withered away, I thought I was going to do cassettes instead. And that worked REALLY well until, uh-oh tape hiss, loss of highs, basic shit like that. I was not going to clean my tape heads evr hour on the hour, if you know what I mean, so I reluctantly accepted CD.

And then, lo and behold, in a few years they started figuring out how to do it, this digital thing, no more disembodied pianos and tinny everything. All of the early pluses still remained, and all of the old disadvantages fixed.

I get the appeal for certain niche markets, how music is supposed to sound imperfect and not last forever (if at all). But for everything else...

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Unlike my LPs from back in the day, which I kept, I finally gave away my cassettes when my stero system cassette player died.  By then, only 25 or so were left because my car player kept eating them. ... So I can't ever see myself going back to cassettes -- but if it works for others, more power to 'em. 

More evidence that many people still like tangible things when it comes to music.  For that subset of listeners (which includes me), streaming and/or downloads just don't make the grade (except for "previews" and such).

 

Edited by HutchFan
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Yes, I think it is another aspect of people wanting TANGIBLE things in music media.
My son told me more than once in recent years that cassettes are still a medium to be reckoned with on the "grassroots" level of Heavy Metal (which he is primarily into). Many small/local/startup bands not only make demo cassettes (and not CDs - or maybe both but definitely cassettes as well) but it also seems to be common for bands on that level that sell their own music at their gigs to explicitly market their recordings on cassette. So the demand for that medium seems to be there in that niche (maybe as an "in thing" but who knows?).

Edited by Big Beat Steve
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Casettes was a listening source of my youth in the 70´s.
I taped jazz on radio, I taped borrowed LP´s if I didn´t have the money to buy them, other came to me and taped my LPs, we taped live performances, our one ones as well as other´s performances. Some smuggled a tape recorder into a concert, those guys made me copies of live performances of Miles 1973 in Berlin, Mingus, Dexter, but when the cassete recorder era died I didn´t take care of those cassetes for which I didn´t have use anymore.
Only last year I bought a portable CD-USB-Cassette thing, mostly for listening to music in the garden on summer evenings, but when I wanted to spin my first performance with Allan Praskin from which a fan had made a tape, it was barely listenable, it had what I don´t know how you say in English (die Kassette eiert). So there are permanent changes of pitch and so on....., it was because I didn´t spin them back to the beginning when I didn´t listen to them . Or they had such an annyoing screamin torwards the end of a cassete, which made parts of the 2 Dexter cassetes of a performance from Vanguard at July 4th unenjoyable, because it´s especially on the ballads. The guy who recorded  it, I don´t know how he managed to get into Vanguard and record two sets.......he was from Cehoslovacia:lol:. Maybe with some tip, that´s just a possibility because in Eastern Europe you gave tip for almost everything, sometimes it was coffee, sometimes it was Kent Cigarettes....., so maybe he brought some packs of  Karlovy Váry wafers .....:lol:

Edited by Gheorghe
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Too bad the images didn't survive. I was happy when I sold these tapes to someone who probably is listening to them still. Some of them I played on my tape deck. The dynamics on these prerecorded tapes was, shall we say, poor.

As most of us who came up in the 1970s-1980s,. I had cassette tapes, which were very scarce in the USSR [as most tangible things were]. You just couldn't buy them in stores. A blank 90min. TDK or similar cassette tape went for an equivalent of $7-$10 on the black market.

Anyway, to me, the logical progression of the cassette tape was the mini-disk. I still have the disks, portable Sharp MD recorder, and the Sony MD deck for editing. Haven't touched them in almost 20 years. I taped a few shows in NYC in the very early 2000s, at places like the Knitting Factory, the Jazz Gallery, Tonic. I should listen to them this weekend, see what I've got.

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1 hour ago, Big Beat Steve said:

cassettes are still a medium to be reckoned with on the "grassroots" level of Heavy Metal

Yeah, although it's hard to draw the line between some of the hard core punk and heavy metal these days but those communities are full of DIY enthusiasm. 

 

9 minutes ago, Dmitry said:

the logical progression of the cassette tape was the mini-disk.

A friend of mine has and still loves/uses his mini-disks. I completely missed the boat as by that time I was using a portable Sony CD player and all music money was going toward keeping that tray active. 

I made mix tapes up until about 2003/2004 but probably stopped buying new cassettes in the mid-90s once I got that CD player. I didn't miss cassettes at all and when I got a car with a CD player in it, I never looked back (a CD-R capable player helped with that transition as well). I have no real nostalgia for cassettes at all, and streaming has dimmed my perception of CDs in a major way. I was already burning them into my iTunes and loading them on an iPod anyway for playing in the car and on walks. Goal this year is to seriously cull the CDs I have...hopefully I get the time to do it. 

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4 hours ago, JSngry said:

https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/6829094?ev=rb

Cheaper than you dare dream, and OH that Cobalt!

ZWc.jpeg

ZWc.jpeg

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Haha. Nice.  Thx.  I went to buy it to play in my car but didn’t have a discogs acct and when I went to sign up, looks like they’re glitching out tonite.  Typical.  🙄51863343755_4f16e3b516_m.jpg

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