Who remembers the days of cassettes when...

[Hardbopjazz]

Everyone that ever reused a cassette tape probably at one time or another experienced this. When you recorded over what was on the tape previously, you could at times still hear what was the original recorded. Tonight I was transferring some old cassettes I used to record some radio broadcasts, and I can hear what's underneath the last recording. Any one know what I am taking about?

[Chuck Nessa]

Nope.

[colinmce]

I do.

[Leeway]

Yes, it's called bleed-through or print-through. You might actually be hearing the flip side of the tape bleeding through, not necessarily the over-recorded material. Of course, it could be both too.

[Big Beat Steve]

I remember, but it happened very, very rarely with the cassettes I overdubbed (and I overdubbed a lot and still must have several of them).

[sidewinder]

Yep - I've encountered this with Philips C-60s and C-90s. TDKs weren't so bad.

[Big Beat Steve]

I can't recall this was a matter of specific brands. I rather had the impression it was related to the age of the cassettes. If I feel like it, I might try to see if this is so one of these days ...the other day I unearthed a huge stack of cassettes my parents had recorded off the radio (mostly literature readings) back in the 80s.

[sidewinder]

I've got stuff that goes back to about 1972 ! Even some BBC Radio jazz broadcasts from that vintage - will have to dig them out.

Edited April 3, 2014 by sidewinder

[Big Beat Steve]

I still play cassettes that I recorded/compiled myself in the 80s/early 90s in the cassette players in my (late 50s) cars and many of these cassettes still play very well except in those segments where they had become entangled/folded/"accordeonized" (remember those tape pileups? ) before and now play with some crackle and sound loss through those tape segments. Any loss of fidelity wil probably be just as much due to abrasion deposits on the heads in the player.

What I meant was that it might be interesting to see if those 80s tapes that had come my way will stand being re-dubbed again without some mixup of sound, i.e. will those old recordings disappear altogether or will they remain as background noise in the quiet sections of the new recordings? I remember that being a problem with some mid-70s cassettes I overdubbed again later in the 80s.

Edited April 3, 2014 by Big Beat Steve

[paul secor]

It's been a long while since I listened to a cassette, but I can't recall that happening. Guess I was lucky.

[Hot Ptah]

I have heard this, yes.

[l p]

i think if you re-record onto an old cassette, then after a time you will hear the bleedthrough. if you re-record onto a fairly new cassette, then it's ok.

[ejp626]

Slightly different topic, but I remembering being so hard up for cash as a university student that I reused the B-side of a cassette for French lab (rather than buying a blank tape), and of course now deeply regret having erased the B-side. At least I kept the A-side which was the more critical of the two.

And then attempting to figure out a new VCR and accidentally erasing part of a VHS that I really wanted to keep. Arrggh.

Yeah, I don't really miss cassettes or VHS tapes.

[Neal Pomea]

I remember when the flip side of mp3 singles would bleed through.

[Scott Dolan]

It's been a long while since I listened to a cassette, but I can't recall that happening.

Lucky, and lucky.

In that order.

Unfortunately, I know exactly what Hardbop is talking about. Fortunately, I haven't listened to a cassette in the last two decades. Bleed-through could be a real bastard with those suckers. And yes, it was real my friends...

[kindablue]

Yep I remember this - it was usually a good time to get a brand new tape! Seem to remember it was to do with incorrectly set head bias current?