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 Posted:   May 12, 2014 - 6:20 AM   
 By:   Tall Guy   (Member)


It was an art, indeed, to get a balanced compilation tape or not to under/over-run the length of the tape but practice made perfect ... helped, no end, by a decent tape deck!



My method was fool proof. Well, fool resistant!

Record tracks on side A of the tape until you know there are six or seven minutes left, then turn the tape over and whilst playing the track you want to close the tape with on your record player, "play" side B for the length (plus a few seconds) of said track. When the track finishes, stop "playing" the tape, turn it back onto side A and record your track. The end of the recording should finish a few seconds before the tape finishes.

Then, go back and time the gap between the last track and the track you recorded before leaving the six or seven minute gap, by "playing" the silent tape. All you then have to do is find a track a few seconds shorter than the gap and record it.

What you're left with is a perfect fit, without leaving a huge gap at the end of a tape. Then repeat for side B, being careful not to record over anything you've already put on side A. I did this countless times and it never failed. The only trouble was, it worked so well and was so slick that (although I was longing for someone to ask how I did it) nobody noticed how cool it was.

Story of my life.

Still, it's out in the open now - some 35 years later. Great advice for any retro fanatics!

 
 
 Posted:   May 12, 2014 - 6:40 AM   
 By:   Thor   (Member)

Wow, wish I'd had that recipe back in the day.

 
 
 Posted:   May 12, 2014 - 6:43 AM   
 By:   CinemaScope   (Member)

Bloody hell that sounds complicated. I used to see how many minutes I had left on the tape, & search round for a track of that length. It was an art. I make up albums on my ipod by changing the album name of the track, 70's Mix 1, Main Titles, there's over 80 tracks on that, if only you could buy compilation film track LP's that were that good back in the "olden days".

 
 
 Posted:   May 12, 2014 - 7:18 AM   
 By:   dan the man   (Member)

To you mates in the UK,i am glad you guys didn't have to put up with the voiceovers at the end credits there when you were a kid. Here in America they been doing that since the 70's. I can't tell you how when there was a great end theme coming up, suddenly a voiceover would start to talk about what is on next or the next night or some news event telling you to stay tuned for the upcoming newscast, how it got me mad .It was part of my reason and desired to become more interested in film music and less hearing the same top 40 song over and over again. I used to say I don't get this. There playing the mediocre melody on the radio into our heads over and over again and the great melody they won't even let us here at the end of the movie. Yes, opinion is opinion, but GOD, this is nuts.I remember thinking about that in the old days.

 
 
 Posted:   May 12, 2014 - 8:04 AM   
 By:   pete   (Member)

New Sony cassette could store 47 million songs!

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/08/tech/innovation/data-storage-cassette-tape-sony/

I'll be needing two.

 
 
 Posted:   Sep 3, 2018 - 8:28 AM   
 By:   alexp   (Member)

Any of you snuck a audio tape recorder into a movie theater to record music that was not available on LP?

In this blog…

http://wideanglecloseup.com/starwarsaudio.html

… this kid from the 1970’s loved John Williams’ music from Star Wars so much that he had to have every note, as the 2 LP album had some music cues missing from the score. So, he snuck a audio tape recorder into a movie theater and made a recording of the film from start to finish.

This “kid,” is David Morgan, who would become an accomplished author and news producer for ABC News.

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 9, 2019 - 1:57 PM   
 By:   Thor   (Member)

In a few weeks time, I will revisit my old cassettes, as my parents are moving (and hence cleaning out their attic, where my old cassettes are stored). I'm expecting a nostalgia trip like no other.

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 9, 2019 - 2:11 PM   
 By:   Howard L   (Member)

Fond memories of my first Compact Cassette recorder purchased at the drugstore downtown with my paper route earnings. It was the fall of '71 and just in time for the World Series with the Pirates vs Orioles. I had seen my next older brother go from reel-to-reel to 8-track to cassettes and now it was my turn to get into the act. Taped off the radio and TV. Especially TV. Lots of Jeannie, Star Trek, theme songs, movie music (Ben-Hur and the annual The Wizard Of Oz come to mind) and who knows what else. Still have a cassette from h.s. senior year with everyone complaining about this morning's exams. And our final concert band concert. I had set my little recorder underneath the seat in the clarinet section. Many of them held up through the years until the tape snapped or was eaten up in the car stereo. In later years the compilation tapes culled from TV, albums, the radio etc. have pretty much died from natural causes but a few remain. Including those of my then-burgeoning film music awareness and passion. Sound may not have been the greatest but they all sounded gorgeous to me.

 
 Posted:   Mar 9, 2019 - 2:12 PM   
 By:   First Breath   (Member)

In a few weeks time, I will revisit my old cassettes, as my parents are moving (and hence cleaning out their attic, where my old cassettes are stored). I'm expecting a nostalgia trip like no other.

Keep us posted!

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 9, 2019 - 2:17 PM   
 By:   Les Jepson   (Member)

Two or three weeks ago I read in a news article that the number one album in the UK chart (some rock thing, I don't recall what) had sixty per cent of its sales in CD, vinyl and musicassete formats. I think it also said that 50,000 new musicassettes were sold during 2018.

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 9, 2019 - 2:18 PM   
 By:   PFK   (Member)


"Remembering Cassettes!" ........ I want to forget them!

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 9, 2019 - 2:21 PM   
 By:   Thor   (Member)

No, no. They're a crucial part of your past. Don't forget that; whether the sound was inferior or not.

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 9, 2019 - 2:25 PM   
 By:   Howard L   (Member)

"Remembering Cassettes!" ........ I want to forget them!

Bite yer tongue!

 
 Posted:   Mar 9, 2019 - 2:28 PM   
 By:   WagnerAlmighty   (Member)

No, no. They're a crucial part of your past. Don't forget that; whether the sound was inferior or not.

Man, I'll never forget when my boyfriend (well, as much of a boyfriend as you can have as a fourth grader) brought home Stained Class on cassette. I played it until my tape player ate it, then bought the vinyl.

 
 Posted:   Mar 9, 2019 - 2:45 PM   
 By:   BornOfAJackal   (Member)

Ya know, the "compact cassette" format was reaching unprecedented levels of quality just as the format was becoming obsolete. I, for one, switched to Sony's MiniDisc format in the years after its introduction.

The major classical labels, such as Decca and Telarc, RCA Victor/Sony with the Star Wars special edition double-cassette sets, and The Beatles were all doing stratospherically high quality transfers onto cassette just as the format was ending.

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 9, 2019 - 3:39 PM   
 By:   Thor   (Member)

I don't really have that many ORIGINAL cassettes. It's 75% copies. But I'm amazed by how many scores are actually available on cassette.

 
 
 Posted:   Mar 9, 2019 - 4:33 PM   
 By:   Bob DiMucci   (Member)

I'm amazed by how many scores are actually available on cassette.


And it's not just scores that were first released in the cassette era. MCA reissued two-thirds of the 1950-1970 MGM and United Artist soundtrack catalogs on cassette in the mid-1980s--at least 85 releases.

 
 Posted:   Mar 9, 2019 - 6:05 PM   
 By:   'Lenny Bruce' Marshall   (Member)

I made mix tapes for at least three gals I was keen I .
Three strikes.

 
 Posted:   Mar 11, 2019 - 12:01 AM   
 By:   BornOfAJackal   (Member)

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock on Capitol Records XDR Cassettes!

'Nuff Said!

 
 Posted:   Mar 11, 2019 - 12:12 AM   
 By:   Paul MacLean   (Member)

Most of my remaining cassettes are of interviews I did in the past, or things I recorded off the radio.

I have a few albums on cassette -- luckily I bought Bernstein's Legal Eagles on cassette, and was able to make a CD-R from it (I've lost all hope that score will ever see a legitimate CD release).

 
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