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 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 1:14 PM   
 By:   Thor   (Member)

Pr. the LP thread, I thought I'd create one on the main medium from MY childhood.

When I became seriously interested in music, after I had grown too old for children's records, cassette was THE thing. LP was still around, of course (this is ca. the mid 80s), but cassettes - both blank tapes as well as originals - dominated.

My father had/has a huge LP collection, but he often borrowed LP's from others too (mostly rock/pop) and made HiFi cassette copies. In the early 90's, he donated all of these to me and much of that music shaped MY musical taste as well. I'm guessing there were some 100 cassettes or so.

Eventually, I also started making copies myself of things I borrowed -- especially when CD's were starting to take hold, and even after I got a CD player, ca. 1991/1992.

I think the first ever soundtrack I got was a cassette copy of the CD soundtrack to TWIN PEAKS, ca. 1990.

Cassettes -- love em or hate em -- were a huge part of my childhood and even teenage years, and when I didn't listen to them on my HiFi cassette deck at home I chugged them along with my trusted Akai Super-Bass walkman.

Now they're all stored on my parents' attic somewhere; I don't even know if they're still playable.

What about you? Any memories?

 
 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 1:55 PM   
 By:   Miguel Rojo   (Member)

I have about 1000 TDK 90s. Cost me a small fortune.

My first Lp collection ended up on cassettes before I sold it.

Plus all my years and years and years of recording film music off video and TV from about 1977 (our first video machine - a Phillips) right through to my Fergsuon 3v32 stereo video which cost about £650 in 1982 - a lot then. All for better quality recordings of film music - not really for the quality of films. For a long time, at the beginning of video shops, they only had one small section of stereo films. One of the first I remember was Poltergeist and the Bond film of that year, whatever that was.

never the greatest medium for quality audio cassettes, a lot of hiss, and tapes wore out. Machines with dolby made a difference.
And the better quality the tape, the clearer the sound. TDK Metal tapes were the business but they cost much more.




 
 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 2:01 PM   
 By:   ScottDS   (Member)

The first film scores I bought were on cassette and I used to tape record music off the TV all the time. And I used to annoy my mom all the time by insisting we listen to Jim Henson's Muppet Manners tape on every car trip.

Oddly, I once owned a tape recorder that didn't rewind. It had buttons for fast-forward... and super fast-forward. I sincerely hope that company went bankrupt! smile

 
 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 2:06 PM   
 By:   Francis   (Member)

cassette was my first audio carrier to own. Followed by CD's and funny (to me at least) vinyl only came later and I've now gotten rid of cassettes and LPs.

Back on topic, I mostly listened to metal and hip hop on audio cassettes, and even though my first Soundtrack purchase was a CD, I remember having a tape full of film music I recorded from the vhs's I owned. I remember hooking up the cassette deck to the vcr player and even with the added hiss I wanted to have some cues on cassette. That recording consisted of Patrick Doyle's opening and end credits for "Needful Things", Silvestri's end titles for Predator 2, Horner's Aliens (bishop's countdown sfx and all) end credits from Ghostbusters I & II, ... I can't think of any others that were on there. (No Goldsmith as I became a fan and 'aware' of his music after Star Trek First Contact).

Although sound quality isn't perfect and the medium wears out, I have to give it props for being able to record music and in all honesty I got a lot of use out of my cassettes.

 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 2:09 PM   
 By:   Octoberman   (Member)

My first cassette player was a large, toploading portable. I wish I could remember the brand name. For some reason Longines Symphonette comes to mind... but that's probably way off. Anyway, for a portable unit (barely, it was so large), the sound was gorgeous. Nothing sounded bad on it.

Later in my mid-teens I jumped on the merry-go-round of revolving hi-fi equipment and kept making mix tapes on proper cassette decks. (I focused so intensely on every detail that I was certain I was the only freak that did that. What I didn't know then was that such a hobby was wonderful for developing a kid's grasp of diligence and tenacity.)

I would finish tapes and think, "Wow, it can't be made better than this". Then I heard the new chrome-dioxide tapes. Switched to those and thought, "Wow, it can't be made better than this". I would save my allowance like a demon and bring home boxes of TDK SA-90's. Then I heard metal tapes and... big grin

Actually, some of those metal tapes survived and I pop them in once in a while. The sound quality was really excellent. CDR's? Who'd have thought...?

 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 2:12 PM   
 By:   ToneRow   (Member)

No need for memories - I still have my cassettes as we speak!

I defaulted to collected soundtracks on pre-recorded tapes during 1990, the time when just about every record company ceased producing vinyl LP albums.

I bought about 40 cassette tapes between 1990 and 1993 (in my mid-20s); '93 is when I got my first CD player.

These were all purchases of "new" releases. Much of these are soundtracks by Danny Elfman (DARKMAN, DICK TRACY, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, BATMAN RETURNS, ARTICLE 99, etc.)
as well Jerry Goldsmith titles (MEDICINE MAN, MOM AND DAD SAVE THE WORLD, FOREVER YOUNG, LOVE FIELD, MATINEE, DENNIS THE MENACE, RUDY, etc.)

I once owned MR. BASEBALL on cassette, but threw that in the waste bucket years ago!

I've kept most of these cassettes, but whenever I replace one of them with a CD version, I then discard it.
Some I will keep on tape, because the score may not be good enough to upgrade to the CD counterpart!

 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 2:21 PM   
 By:   First Breath   (Member)

I still have my cassettes, both originals and copied ones, soundtracks and pop/rock music. I still play them from time to time on my walk-man/radio at night after I have turned off the light and gone to bed. I don't see why I should stop playing them just because it's 2011. I never play them on my ordinary cassette player during the day though. Don't know why.

The only soundtrack I have on an original tape is A League Of Their Own, with the two Hans Zimmer score tracks. I have several soundtracks on copied tapes though:

FILMMUSIKK/CANYON DREAMS - TANGERINE DREAM 1991
FILMMUSIKK/D.O.A. - CHAZ JANKEL 1988
FILMMUSIKK/DEAD SOLID PERFECT - TANGERINE DREAM 1989
FILMMUSIKK/DESTINATION BERLIN - TANGERINE DREAM 1989
FILMMUSIKK/DREAMSCAPE - MAURICE JARRE 1983
FILMMUSIKK/GRAND CANYON - JAMES NEWTON HOWARD 1991
FILMMUSIKK/HEAT - ELLIOT GOLDENTHAL ++ 1995
FILMMUSIKK/HOT SHOTS! - SYLVESTER LEVAY 1991
FILMMUSIKK/K-2 - HANS ZIMMER 1991
FILMMUSIKK/METRO (PROMO) - STEVE PORCARO 1997
FILMMUSIKK/PAPERHOUSE - HANS ZIMMER 1988
FILMMUSIKK/THE PIANO - MICHAEL NYMAN 1993
FILMMUSIKK/THE POWER OF ONE - HIGHLIGHTS - HANS ZIMMER, LEBO M. 1992
FILMMUSIKK/THE ROCK - NICK GLENNIE-SMITH, HANS ZIMMER, HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS 1996
FILMMUSIKK/RUNNING MAN - HAROLD FALTERMEYER 1987
FILMMUSIKK/TWIN PEAKS - ANGELO BADALAMENTI 1990

 
 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 2:36 PM   
 By:   Thor   (Member)

Interestingly, I never did that "tape off tv or vhs" thing that many others did.

 
 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 2:43 PM   
 By:   Francis   (Member)

Interestingly, I never did that "tape off tv or vhs" thing that many others did.

I guess to me it meant for a way to enjoy the music outside of watching the film. In those days (when I was in my early teens) the only way for me to see physical CD's and LP's etc. was by visiting stores and because of the lack of soundtracks (even back then) I just didn't think this music was even getting released. It wasn't until I discovered Varese titles, Colosseum and basically the internet (ebay) that I found some of the titles I wanted. Some, the majority simply weren't available.

So taping the music on cassette from VHS was in a sense the natural thing to do for a starting out film score geek wink
Though I will say that I only did one cassette. I did in later years spend some time on DVD 5.1 channels to get some unreleased film scores I wanted -in a sense comparable-, but I gave up on that seeing as how those scores would get a release (most likely and most have) and the quality was crap compared to what our labels can deliver.

 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 2:50 PM   
 By:   Urs Lesse   (Member)

I recently "authorized" my mother to dispose my old drawer of certainly 150-200 cassettes (95% of them taped from LPs or CDs). I definitely loved to properly and tidily write the track titles on the little folded "booklet" in a cassette case, and I loved to use the tape space to the max. But I did not have the slightest pain in parting from them now. In fact I had suggested just disposing of them way earlier.

Oh, and I taped just one movie – the complete THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (German dub) on two cassettes. wink

 
 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 2:59 PM   
 By:   Bob DiMucci   (Member)

I switched from buying LPs to cassettes in the late 1970s and early 1980s (before CDs) mainly as a way of avoiding the snap, crackle, and pop of LP pressings, which were deteriorating in quality during that time. With a Dolby tape deck, the hiss on the cassettes was much more manageable than the noise on LPs. On the downside, over the years I've had a number of cassettes break or otherwise stop working for me, but no LP has become completely unplayable.

 
 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 3:05 PM   
 By:   Marlene   (Member)

I loved cassettes dearly. When I started with audio they were still the only way to create a backup of anything. It was only eight years after that I got my first MD-recorder which was quite a different thing.

In 1992 I bought a wonderful tape deck from Sony with 3 heads, 3 motors... it had a lovely sound and made perfect recording that came close to the (then relatively modest equipment) CD player I was using at the time (it was a portable Technics - miss it to this day). And I had only the best cassettes: Sony UX-Pro, Sony Metal Master, Maxell XL-II S, TDK-MA...

When I got my MD recorder I dumped them all! Shame on me...

I never bought a pre-recorded cassette with filmmusic though I had a prerecorded cassette from Telarc (was extremely high quality). I also had some wonderful portable players over the years, my last one was a Sony with a DD drive. Wonderful built quality.

Although I sometimes miss all of this I´m glad to have something different now. The equipment I use nowadays is just so much better...

 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 3:29 PM   
 By:   MRAUDIO   (Member)

Interestingly, I never did that "tape off tv or vhs" thing that many others did.

I got starterd with TV Music with taping on cassettes, music from 60's & 70's shows, such as HAWAII FIVE-0, WILD WILD WEST, MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE - I still remember putting the tiny mic up to the TV speaker and telling my family to keep quiet, which NEVER worked - finally, my Dad came up with the idea to use an audio cable that plugged into our old 21 inch Sears "silvertone" color TV, that just happened to have an audio out speaker jack - pretty cool for its time, considering the TV was purchased in the early 60's and was one of the first color sets at the time from Sears.

Anyway, takes me back as I type this - I think some of those old cassette tapes that I made back then are still around here, somewhere.

I have other fond memories recording LP's to Cassettes through the years - and later, when I started purchasing CD's, I would transfer many of those to cassette, so I could play them in my car and Walkman.

Oh well, here's to the tried and true cassette tape...RIP...:-)

 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 3:44 PM   
 By:   Sirusjr   (Member)

By the time I got to buying music, cassettes were mostly dead but I didn't really buy much music even throughout high school until more recently. However, this year we recently pulled out a few old cassettes my mom had of Christmas music and used a line-in to record them to mp3s on the computer. Sadly cassettes tend to degrade so heavily over time just like VHS tapes so I'm glad they are gone.

 
 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 3:48 PM   
 By:   CinemaScope   (Member)

How about the art of making compilation tapes (& it was an art). I bought my first (& only) stand alone cassette recorder in the early 70's. I saved a long time to buy it, it was an Akai & the cheapest recorder I could buy with a Dolby B, I got it in the post Christmas sales. I made many compilation tapes, tapes of radio programs. I taped all my LP's, & made a few compleat movie recordings off the telly. When I at last junked the machine after about 25 years (it was falling apart), I'd had so much use & pleasure from it. When I go out with my ipod, there's about 26 days of stuff on it, too much choice! With the Walkman it was about three or four tapes in my pocket, much better.

 
 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 6:49 PM   
 By:   dan the man   (Member)

Like so many of you in the old days i used my tape recorder to tape film themes from the TV, full movies as well. When the walkman came around in the late 70's i bought alot of cassette soundtracks of all type, often listening to them on my way to and back from work, on my lunch hour and on off hours, they made my day more enjoyable, indeed,I like the sound, but of course with cassettes unlike Lp's when they go they go and will often take the walkman with them, trying to unravel a crunch up tape in the walkman happened at times, sometimes i was successful, sometimes not.

 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 7:28 PM   
 By:   ZapBrannigan   (Member)

I'm right there with a lot of you guys. In the 1970s I did it all with cassettes. I taped theme songs and score music from TV, songs off the radio, and transferred my LPs to cassette to extend their life. It was fun, it was hands-on, and I played the hell out of those tapes.

The TV score music in particular really felt like you were capturing something. It was a private stash, yours alone. No one else was playing that tape.

 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 10:05 PM   
 By:   Paul MacLean   (Member)

I had tons of cassettes as a kid. I still bought LPs, but 90% of my listening was done on cassette dubs of those LPs.

I never bought many prerecorded cassettes though since the quality of my LPs dubs was much higher than most prerecorded tapes.

Perhaps short-sightedly, I abandoned cassettes for MiniDisc in the mid-90s. MD was a great format but rendered obsolete by MP3 and CD-R within a few short years.

 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 10:13 PM   
 By:   Steve Johnson   (Member)

I sure am glad I didn't waste time and money on cassette tapes.

 
 
 Posted:   Jun 26, 2011 - 10:16 PM   
 By:   .   (Member)

I can recall discussing how quaint open reel had become, now that I'd bought my super-advanced Teac A450 cassette recorder with Cr02 tape capability and gigantic VU meters. Why, I could even record +3db into the red with no distortion! With 58db noise reduction!!! And those cassette cases looked so fine on the shelf compared to cardboard open-reel boxes. Of course, I used the best TDK cassettes, and not rubbish from BASF, Philips or Memorex.
Had a fancy head de-magnetizer too! Wish I still had it, so I could lend it to Thor.

 
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