KVR Audio

mandolarian · Post by **mandolarian** » Wed May 22, 2013 12:50 am

Tricky-Loops wrote:
Lode_Runner wrote:Finding your favourite track on a tape.

FWD, wait, wait, wait, Stop, Play, are we there yet? No, Stop, FWD, wait, wait, wait, Stop, Play, are we there yet? no, stop, FWD, wait, wait, wait, Stop, Play, too far, RWD, wait, stop, play... oh no did it too fast, tape's been chewed. I don't miss this at all.
This wasn't just inconvenient, this even has led to some serious car accidents because people were too distracted...

Yeah, that's why 8-track was the superior tech. And today, txting on a smartphone and touchscreen climate control, nav systems don't distract the driver at all, so that's progress.

dayjob · Post by **dayjob** » Wed May 22, 2013 2:19 am

there is so much dumb in that article. jesus. but not everyone can know wtf he/she is talking about all the time. at least the person who wrote that article isn't covering foreign affairs or 'evidence to invade iraq' or something with major consequences...

but yeah.. cassettes are great, fun, gimmicky, trendy, cheap, DIY FTW etc.. so however the music gets out for whatever audience.. that's great.

a friend started a cassette label a few years back and in about a month had japanese and EU distribution. he did know some people and had previously had a vinyl label but got out right when download services took off. wasn't his style.. took a break.. got into garage rock and experimental drone synth music and next thing ya know he's running another little label.

people are into cassettes for whatever reason. the only cassettes i own i own because i bought them 20 years ago or whatever... or they're mix tapes from the 90s

kritikon · Post by **kritikon** » Wed May 22, 2013 5:46 am

Craig Proulx says he has discarded scratched CDs, but still has cassette tapes from his childhood.

Ha ha. I have plenty of tapes still from nearly 30yrs ago and mostly they sound...shit, I'd say. Godawfully inferior to anything remotely digital. And that's the few that don't have tape dropouts all over them. Tape definitely doesn't last forever. The range for most cassette players was only up to something like 14 or 15KHz wasn't it? Had to use Dobly otherwise it was noisy as shit. And some Dobly systems were pretty awful. Heads need cleaning. Tapes getting stuck. 3 hours to find your place on a tape. Try getting a cassette player fixed nowadays...

Yeah we used 4track cassettes to make music etc - but only because we had to. It was all there was without a mortgage at the time. Although I must admit I did have fun messing about with tapes played backwards at half speed etc on my old 4 tracks.

Admittedly some tape players were pretty good. I had one with Dobly S on it that was almost clean sounding. It wasn't cheap though. And a do remember we had some drum tracks on cassette that we had done in a studio, put on a top end cassette recorder, and I was surprised at how good it sounded. But definitely not your every day cassette quality.

mandolarian · Post by **mandolarian** » Wed May 22, 2013 6:42 am

I gave this to a thrift store 15 years ago. Nakamichi 700.

Idiot! Who knew low dynamic range would be making a comeback?

In it's day, after calibration, it was 32-19k with about 70dB SNR. Sexiest cassette deck ever. Had a friend who had a rack of Nacs for duplication. Now they're 'vintage' items on ebay. It's tough keeping up with the past.

tapper mike · Post by **tapper mike** » Wed May 22, 2013 12:47 pm

It isn't the fault of the cassette deck for the accident it is the pre occupation of the driver. Same with those who put makeup on while driving, texting and the phone. Not to mention all the other distractions people choose to focus on rather then where their attention should be...

As well many manufacturers had cassette decks (home, car, portable) with seek/scan function for a few dollars more. I've had several cassette decks with this feature since the 70's and there are plenty of vid's on youtube demonstrating this feature.

Hovmod · Post by **Hovmod** » Wed May 22, 2013 1:19 pm

tomtoo wrote:Good old analog times. Nobody blamed you to make a copy .

Really?

Daniel Magix · Post by **Daniel Magix** » Wed May 22, 2013 1:39 pm

This reminds of the current climate of MP3s and all the piracy hysteria around it. People tend to forget very fast, there was an inferior quality audio format in the past that was used to duplicate recordings, and it didn't destroy the industry. Simply being able to copy and share is not the reason the music industry is in trouble.

Wormhelmet · Post by **Wormhelmet** » Wed May 22, 2013 1:48 pm

Speaking of cassettes, has anybody made a converter for Korg EX800 and Poly 800 that eliminates the need for cassette tape preset loading? What a strange and cool way to save and load presets on an analog synth, but a bit dated now.

SampleScience · Post by **SampleScience** » Wed May 22, 2013 2:10 pm

Wormhelmet wrote:Speaking of cassettes, has anybody made a converter for Korg EX800 and Poly 800 that eliminates the need for cassette tape preset loading? What a strange and cool way to save and load presets on an analog synth, but a bit dated now.

Why the need of a converter? The Poly-800 just send a coded signal that you record, if you want your data back just play that signal back into the Poly-800. You can do that with anything that record and play (your computer, a digital recorder...).

tomtoo · Post by **tomtoo** » Wed May 22, 2013 3:04 pm

Hovmod wrote:
tomtoo wrote:Good old analog times. Nobody blamed you to make a copy .

Really?

For private use it was absolutely legal in germany. Record from radio copy it and give it to friends legal.

Dont know about other countrys.

BDeep · Post by **BDeep** » Wed May 22, 2013 3:10 pm

tomtoo wrote:For private use it was absolutely legal in germany. Record from radio copy it and give it to friends legal.

Dont know about other countrys.

Yup, same in the Netherlands, there was a VAT type of thing on top of the price of a cassette, that went to rights holders organisations. That made it legal.

Tricky-Loops · Post by **Tricky-Loops** » Wed May 22, 2013 3:16 pm

Recoding from the radio was horror! Hours of waiting till the right song was coming, than to push the "record" key in exactly that moment, and in most times they didn't play the song till the end but the moderator broke in with some chat...

I don't miss it...

tomtoo · Post by **tomtoo** » Wed May 22, 2013 3:33 pm

Tricky-Loops wrote:Recoding from the radio was horror! Hours of waiting till the right song was coming, than to push the "record" key in exactly that moment, and in most times they didn't play the song till the end but the moderator broke in with some chat...

I don't miss it...

The pesty moderator breaks came later

The_Hidden_Goose · Post by **The_Hidden_Goose** » Wed May 22, 2013 3:55 pm

I love the sound of old wobbly tapes.

The more knackereder the betterer!

Wish I still had my old broken recorder...

farlukar · Post by **farlukar** » Wed May 22, 2013 4:22 pm

The return of cassettes