Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas

Subject: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 07:17 PM

I have a shed load of cassette tapes which are a mixture of commercial stuff, demos, live recordings and tapes from vinyl.

I have now digitised most of them and am looking for a good home for them.

Has anyone any useful ideas other than taking them to the tip?

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 07:21 PM

Hi, Malcolm-

If you've digitized them, then I think the best thing to do with cassettes is to give them a proper burial. Cassettes were a mistake from the get-go. I keep meaning to digitize them, but it's so hard to get them to work right when they haven't been played for 15 years.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,Guest Betsy
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 07:36 PM

I've got a great load of good stuff on casette.
I bought a contraption to convert from casette to the computer. What a waste of money, you would have needed to be a Phd in computers Science to understand the instructions . I would love to hear a success story,
someone MUST know how to do ths thing properly / sensibly - there is SO much good stuff being held by all of us - how the fuck did Cecil Sharp manage ?
OK - technology didn't move as fast - in those days.

Cheers Betsy

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 07:37 PM

Hi Joe

Some of the stuff I have digitised is almost/more than forty years old.

I found the best way to get acceptable quality was to record from a ghetto blaster (I might soon have one of those looking for a good home as well) with a direct input into my various computers - laptop, notebook or PC - don't ask - and recording with Audacity at 50% input volume.

Just for the record I am still using dos occasionally and only today I saved myself a lot of time by downloading some text from Paradox to PDF before converting it to Word. That was from my auxiliary PC! Daft innit?

It's really good fun when I have all four working at once and I am copying a programme from the TV while watching something else, listening to some music, cutting the grass or even down the pub!!

The last four pick any one from four.

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: Jack Campin
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 08:10 PM

Do they repel slugs if you unreel loads of tape round vulnerable plants?

I still have loads of them, in lots of genres. They sound way better than mp3 if you use a good player. I don't have the skill or the time to digitize them without losing significant quality.

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 08:16 PM

Hi Malcolm.
I'm in the process of digitising around 200 cassettes of extremely precious and irreplaceable material - there really is no substitute for doing it properly with a reasonable playback system - ghetto-blasters really don't hack it if you value what you have.
A decent deck through a reasonable sound system, coupled with a reasonable editing programme (Adobe Audition suits me) - will give you what you want in little more than reel-time.
For me, the problems will come with editing or if I want to clean up tape hiss etc - gawd bless Adobe again.
And then comes the indexing....!!!
Good luck
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: Deckman
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 09:38 PM

A large part of my archive collection of over 700 tapes came from Cassettes. Don't sell them short. Because the machine were small then, we carried them to hoots and jams and used them to capture some wonderful material. All you need is a tolerable, used, cassette player and a digitizer. I use a Marantz. Best luck to all, bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 10:32 PM

Here's a simple tip which may involve a little extra affordable £££$$$ outlay.
But worth considering.

Ok, you've already got a decent working cassette player,
reliable, stable playback speed, clean playback heads
[google "degauss cassette tape" if necessary].

So now, if you don't already own one, purchase a Zoom H2n Portable Recorder,
or similar product, as cheaply as you can find in a discount sale.

The H2n has a line input which can record direct from the line output of your cassette player.


The simple beauty of this method is that the Recorder will digitize
and save to it's internal SD card in real time at either CD quality,
or higher resolution rates more suitable for 'broadcast quality' editing and mastering.

Then just transfer the recording to your PC via USB
for doing whatever noise reduction, etc you need to in your editing software.

This totally avoids the unpredictability and potential glitching,
drop outs, and freezing,
of trying to digitize in real time to an average home computer
and software.

Plus, the H2n will earn a place in your toolkit for easy mobile recording at sessions, etc.

Worth considering if you're not already doing it, and still trying to struggle with digitizing to computer software.

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: Deckman
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 10:55 PM

I completly AGREE with the previous posting ... very good advice. bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: selby
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 03:33 AM

We recently did a house clearance and had a huge collection of fairground organ tapes, we offered them everywhere and nobody wanted them the end result was a tip to the skips. As a final attempt we placed the boxes full of tapes strategically to see if the skip men would do anything with them and unfortunately they went to land fill.

Keith

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 03:51 AM

Hang to your old cassettes so at least you'll have something to listen to in 20 years time. More reliable than any digital media I'ver used. CD-Rs are woeful & I've more hard drives and SD cards crash on me than is good for my health.

The other day I found some old Folktrax Seamus Ennis from 30 year back - and they still play!

I'll digitise them by & by so I listen to them on my Nokia C3 when I'm out & about. NOT with Adobe though - the very thoughts! Use Soundforge at the very least! And always acknowledge the source - i.e. don't get rid of the tape hiss if it means losing the top end of the original recording. Some things you have to live with unless you've got access to seriously good gear & someone who knows what they're doing.

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 06:39 AM

Much as I respect Jim Carroll's thoughts with regard to my use of fairly accessible hard and soft ware I am not trying to produce studio quality material from something that is not that to start with.

I am merely clearing some shelves that never get visited anyway and preserve some personal memories that I might just get around to listening to on my phone (very basic but will hold about 4000 tracks) when I am on the train or a long flight.

I may be a Philistine when these things are discussed but I find it hard to detect any appreciable difference between the originals and what I end up with.

If no-one can suggest anything other than the tip for the tapes perhaps Keith and I can arrange a wake for them with invited guests down at the Waste Disposal Facility, y'all come along.

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: maeve
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 06:45 AM

Some recycling facilities can recycle such material. We enjoy listening to cassette tapes still- have you considered offering them through a local Freecycle group?
http://uk.freecycle.org/
Available in various places around the world:
https://www.freecycle.org/

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 06:52 AM

As long as you buy the beer and sandwiches Malcolm I'm in .
Keith

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 06:59 AM

Maeve - thanks for the thought but I avoid things like freecycle like the plague - they usually finish up having to be spammed.

Keith - as if - don't you recall my hard won reputation for carefulness (in you come Dickie!).

Mind you there is cheap beer (£2.10 a pint) and free grub at the Grey Horse quiz nights on Tuesday (General Knowledge) and Thursday (Music, Films & TV and Sport) and that's as generous (what's that?) as I am likely to get.

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 08:54 AM

Give them to someone who has an old car. Old car radios play only cassettes, and they're very hard to adapt to play anything else.

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 09:14 AM

I had to recently clear out a suddenly deceased close relatives home,
made all the more difficult due to the deadline imposed by the Housing Association.

At the last moment all home recorded 'off air TV' VHS tapes
went out in black bags to the bins.

Every charity I approached declined to accept any of the thouands of £££s worth
of shop bought pre recorded VHSs.

Luckily, a cousin stepped up and took them out of perverse fondness for the old obsolete tech format.

My home is now an over stuffed storage dump.
with at least one very large crate of tape cassettes,
many still shrinkrapped and unplayed.......

Plus, a box of dictation recorder mini cassettes..
probably hours of amateur unpublished creative writing work in progress ideas.

I am really in 2 minds about what to do with them.
As I'm sure the contents might be very 'personal', 'troubled'
and difficult for the family to listen to....???

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 09:38 AM

I currently have n old car with a cassette player, and a few yr ago I managed to find a [sony] hi fi that had a tape deck. I will probably not play everything I got, but I can play them at least. I find it easy and useful to record radio that I want to listen to later.   and
these days you can get retro look machines that will play everything, including 78's.

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 09:59 AM

Every charity I approached declined to accept any of the thouands of £££s worth of shop bought pre recorded VHSs.

punkfolkrocker,

I've volunteered in a couple of charity shops over the past year or so, and both refuse to accept VHS tapes for the simple reason that no one wants to buy them. Storage space is limited, and then eventually it costs the shops money to dispose of them.

You say that they're worth thousands of pounds. They may have cost you that, but they're only WORTH what someone wants to pay for them, which as you've found is virtually nothing.

There does however still seem to remain (an albeit small) market for pre-recorded audio cassettes. Obviously charity shops can't accept home recorded stuff.

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 10:30 AM

Ed.. yes precisely...

My relative paid a total of thousands over many years of collecting.
To me they were a worthless problem.
I did not have transport or storage for most of the home contents.
But I am never happy chucking perfectly good things in a skip
if I can find some one who does value, and will enjoy using them.

I must say that some of the charities I approached in Bristol were in my opinion quite snooty,
unhelpful, and ungrateful.

One big city centre Charity
who did in the end take at least one or two thousands of £££s original purchase price
of newish and unworn clothing, and kitchen items,
seemed fairly grudging about arranging to provide a collection van & driver.

The Shop manager semed to have a hauty sense of entitlement
in the way she took donations for granted,
and I felt she treated us [ a mourning family] almost as a bit of an inconvenience.

It felt aggravating having to deal with her,
but none of the friendlier charities were able to secure a volunteer van driver
to fit in with the short home clearance deadline set by the housing association.

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 10:34 AM

Malcolm, sorry I got a bit side tracked..

What I meant to say was you could google 'cassette tape enthusiasts'
or similar to find anyone who might be happy to collect your tapes.

eg. tapeheads

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 11:23 AM

Apologies to continue the thread drift, I'll stop after this:

punkfolkrocker,

I'm sorry that you had a bad charity shop experience, and there's certainly no excuse for any of them being 'snooty, unhelpful, and ungrateful'

However, my experience over the past year has shown me that a lot of people try and take advantage of shop collections by offering donations, expecting the shop to pick them up, and then the collections turn out to be unsaleable junk. It seems that some people see it as an easy and free option, rather than taking things to the skip.

I'm not, of course, suggesting that you were doing that.

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 11:45 AM

I'll conclude my thread drift with this...

Yes Ed, I appreciate both sides of the problem.

In my early to mid 20s I had a serious involvement in voluntary & community activities in Bristol.
I've always since respected Bristol as a great progressive City

One of my relative's problems in declining years
was becoming a 'more money than sense' shopaholic & hoarder.
So the flat was a potential treasure chest for charities.
We hoped we had enough time to find the right charity in line with our relative's beliefs & causes.
But time was against us, and it was tiring getting a train to Bristol every day...

That charity that did have a retained 'pro' driver,
eventually sent him round to vet & value the contents,
before the'y consent to a free collection.

If I remember correctly, I think British Heart Foundation
said they might be interested in donations of good condition pre recorded VHSs,
but they were unable to collect.

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 12:24 PM

Hi punkfolkrocker (at least you are not a petrolhead if I read your post correctly)

The last postings to tapeheads was in May 2013 so not really functional.

Thanks anyway.

My retained VHS stuff is Whitby Folk Week archive stuff and that is going nowhere for the moment although I do intend it to go to either/and C# House and/or Doc Rowe if he can succeed in getting his archive housed as he would like.

All of that I have digitised and am satisfied with the quality. I also had the tapes recorded at the 25th Whitby Festival by Stuart ??? in conjunction with John Tams and Jim Boyes. The tapes are now with Rob van Sante who very kindly digitised them to studio quality although obviously being live recordings they come complete with warts.
I must nudge his elbow and arrange to get copies. The same destinations for these will be done.

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 12:36 PM

Yeah.. never owned a car, or even taken a driving test.

Public transport and cycling all my life.

Of course stubborn principles are extremely impractical
and made life one long inconvenience after another....

You've reminded me, I still have to think about all my Dad's off air radio recordings
of BBC Big Band sessions, boxed up at my mum's house.

There might even be reel to reel tapes of 1960s pirate radio
he got included with a 2nd hand tape recorder ??

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,Don Stevens
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 11:17 PM

Over the past 57 years, we have collected over 100,000 Reel-To-Reels, 8 Track's, 78's, 45's, LPs(over 52,000), Cassettes, and CDs, of Traditional Music.

We have had a few Friends, that have copied many of these Reel-To-Reel, 78's, 45's, LPs, and Cassettes, to CD. We Love 'em all. I'm sure there are many others 'out there', who can copy these things.

Like the rest of You, we sure hate to see these go into the 'trash bin', when we are 'gone' (I'm 82, and my Health isn't too good). We sure hope to find some organization, to leave them to.

If You 'Love it', like we do - hold on to it!

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: meself
Date: 12 Oct 14 - 01:56 AM

When we cleared out our folks' house, the auctioneer insisted that we throw out nothing, other than actual garbage. He was quite certain there was a market out there for everything you could imagine and much you couldn't. So if you figure an auctioneer will be hauling away your earthly possessions when you're gone, you might want to just shove those tapes in the back of a closet, rather than throwing them away.

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,#
Date: 12 Oct 14 - 03:58 AM

However, if the tapes are multiple copies of 'YMCA' or 'In the Navy' by the Village People, perhaps you could offer them to Montreal while the
Turcot Interchange is being constructed. The project 'which has been ongoing since before the births of the band members and has a completion clause in the contract stating that the final cassette in the structure will be placed on or near The Second Coming' could use your help.

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Oct 14 - 05:34 AM

I digitised my cassette recordings. Mostly non-commercial stuff that cannot be bought. Me and my Canadian cousin - self-penned numbers.
All I did was connect the walkman (running on battery) to the laptop (on battery) - to reduce any hum. Oh yea, loaded Audacity (and Lame) and selected the correct input (in Audacity) and pressed record.
A few dummy passes to get the levels just high enough (volume control on walkman).
Quality - good, especially for stuff that cannot be re-created.

Skill level? Ah! You have me there, I am an electronic engineer but my degree career didn't get as far as PhD.

IMNSHO the web is a wonderous encyclopedia when it comes to "finding out how" - given a bit of selectiveness thereof.

Subject: RE: Old Cassette Tapes - Ideas
From: GUEST,harpgirl
Date: 12 Oct 14 - 05:25 PM

Punkfolkrocker, I I am going to try that with my dr40 tonight. I will either use my numark turntable for records or my cassette deck with line outs .
thanks for the idea, love, harpgirl