The Curse of the Cassette

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Dec 19 - 06:52 PM

I successfully transferred 2 hour long folk radio programs from about 1978 using Audacity.... so I am pleased with the system so far.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Dec 19 - 11:28 AM

I just received my TEAK 660, and have done one LP onto a CD and one tape directly onto an offline computer and saved it in Audacity format.

It require carefully following procedures for defining tracks and volume levels, but it seems as if it will work ok.

"...only about 300 to go now.." About 150 cassettes for me, and as many of several hundred LPs as I don't already have as MP3s. (In usenet, I have found quite a few of my collection ripped and posted by others, but I have no exact count.)

Since the copying must be done in real time, it will take umpty-'leven months.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Dec 19 - 01:11 PM

Well my TEAC LP-R500 turned up, and it's grand. I have been transcribing tapes onto a CD-RW, and ripping them into my PC. When I have a few done, then I shall run them through Audacity to clean them up, and then transcribe onto CD-R. At the moment I'm working on a load of old Charlie Poole tapes, kindly sent to me by Severn,thanks friend.
Soon be no more cassettes, only about 300 to go now ;)

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: GUEST,JHW
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 12:05 PM

My first car had NO player so a cassette portable sat on the front seat.
So called 8 track cassettes were to be the big thing for cars but went the same way as Citizens Band.
Then there were those radios where pushing the station button pulled the string along and moved the dial.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 06 Dec 19 - 05:10 AM

Yes Bill that's almost the same as the model I have just purchased, and that I mentioned above, the TEAC LP-R500

I will update when it arrives, but as I see it, I can record onto a rewrite CD, then edit it on my PC using Audacity, and hopefully come up with something good enough for my needs.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Dec 19 - 02:31 PM

Found a sale on this TEAK 660. It can hook directly to a computer as well as make a CD.

My cassettes are almost all things I recorded live years ago for learning and memories... I do not expect super quality, and my ears no longer hear some frequencies, anyway. Some of my old LPs 'may' come out pretty well... enough for putting them in survival mode.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Dec 19 - 12:36 PM

Do some modern PCs still have digital Coax or Optical audio inputs
that can be connected to the digital outputs
of Hi fi gear...???

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Dec 19 - 12:26 PM

The resulting sound quality of recording into the line input of a computer
depends on if it's analogue to digital converters are better or worse than mediocre;
and overall system stability.

Lo-fi noisy converters, audio glitches and dropouts,
being the motivating reasons for the development of dedicated sound cards and drivers,
and USB audio interfaces...

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: robomatic
Date: 04 Dec 19 - 05:47 PM

Most of my cassettes have held up better than my cassette players.

A few years ago I was able to output from the cassette player directly into a computer with a Line In socket. I even have an older laptop which has a dedicated Line-In and using the program Audacity will capture and store various rates of WAV for later processing into cuts and formats.

Newer laptops may be a bit trickier but if they have even one socket they may allow you to turn it into a Line-Input.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Tony Rees
Date: 04 Dec 19 - 04:36 PM

I too have some drawers of cassettes (several hundred), most home recorded e.g. albums, broadcasts, live shows also some commercial releases. Busy triageing them at the moment into "really would like to save", "some interest" and "zero to little future value". "Really would like to save" is mainly unique live recordings of artists I respect - I have slowly been "leaking" these out to youtube e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDTbEhCWD2s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW7tF_hvUz8, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qskuAEG2MPk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqtVm_PryQo, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zSq2UTkiSI

- also a few radio broadcasts that nobody else seems to have (e.g. Fairport at Cropredy 1984, Mark O'Connor at Cambridge 1986, and so on...).

"Some interest" is mainly commercial things that were released only in the cassette format and/or odd tracks that would be tedious or expensive to re-purchase on CD, or now out-of-print LPs never reissued; "zero to little future value" are mostly dubs of commercially available LPs that I *could* re-purchase on CD if I really want to (but probably don't).

The "Really would like to save" batch is gradually being transferred to CD and/or wav format for safe keeping, but it is a slow task and may take the rest of a lifetime - depending on how short or long that is!! Then there are all the video tapes, which is another story for another time, most likely.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 04 Dec 19 - 04:07 PM

"I'm not sure the easily available converters do FLAC. Ones I've seen seem to be MP3-only."

Let me suggest "Traders Little Helper" and "Foobar2000" for starters which are both freeware and will batch convert.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 04 Dec 19 - 12:27 PM

Right then, keep it simple...

Record from the line out or headphone socket of a cassette player
directly into the line in inputs of a portable digital recorder,
like the very good and affordable Zooms...

You then have WAV file recordings of at least 'CD quality' 16/44,
which can be transferred to computer for conversion to smaller lossless flac files,
or lossy mp3.

It's 2019, there are no serious reasons why folks involved in music
should not already own at least one portable digital recorder.
They are now basic essential equipment.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 04 Dec 19 - 11:55 AM

TEAC do a converter that records LP's or cassettes, straight to CD it's a TEAC LP-R500

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Dec 19 - 09:49 AM

Yeah, but what comes off the read head needs to be converted to something lossless as early as possible. Is there a device that outputs FLAC or WAV directly?

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 04 Dec 19 - 08:11 AM

I use ffmpeg, a free command line programme, or VU player will convert to flac.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Dec 19 - 07:53 AM

I'm not sure the easily available converters do FLAC. Ones I've seen seem to be MP3-only.

I have most of Ruhi Su's recordings on cassette and all of them on MP3 (torrent download). I only listen to the cassettes, partly because of the convenience and hearing them in the context he intended, but also because the MP3 conversions have sporadic ear-shattering pops and I've never got round to noting which tracks to avoid (checking through the whole lot would mean the process was much slower than real-time conversion).

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 04 Dec 19 - 07:47 AM

Better to convert to flac which is lossless, so no quality is lost.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Dec 19 - 06:04 PM

Not really, Bonzo. An MP3 is eternal. A cassette will one day shock you by being useless (found that out when I tried to play some 30-year-old ones the other day). Just apply the best bit rate you can when converting.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 03 Dec 19 - 03:40 PM

To convert music on cassette to mp3 is sheer lunacy.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Dec 19 - 03:06 PM

I have hundreds of cassettes (mostly Middle Eastern, Indian and Western classical, with a few jazz and folk), have several cassette players, and listen to them regularly. The sound quality is dependably better than MP3 (at least any MP3s I can get and any equipment I have access to for playing them) and the 20-30 minutes of one C60 side is a convenient length for a lot of music (like most classical concertos, symphonies and chamber works, or a typical recorded raga). I don't see myself ever wanting to convert them unless to send one via the Internet.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Dec 19 - 02:21 PM

I recently discarded maybe 200 cassettes... now I have about 50 in the "I think I'd like to convert & save this stuff" pile.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 30 Nov 19 - 05:22 PM

I have a couple of hundred cassettes on a shelf just behind me. Maybe I should sell them and buy a new guitar?

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 Nov 19 - 04:03 PM

You can also use QHIMDTransfer for usb transfer to PC or mac I suppose.

QHiMDTransfer_win32setup.exe

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 29 Nov 19 - 01:25 PM

There appears to be an active download link on this forum
https://us.community.sony.com/s/question/0D50B00004IL277SAD/sonicstage-for-minidisc?language=en_US


"megnyc

2 years ago
Hi Atomant,


I am copying here a link to Download SonicStage Ultimate 4.3 from JustJager's item of 4/20/20/16. I just tested and it is still active.


https://mega.nz/#!NthnXRbA!HFXq06CdmUvR63STJc7y7uVUk44wxqnuL6RJjXBCryU


You should read his initial post as it has additional useful info. In fact, I would suggest that you read all the entries in this forum, starting at the beginning, It really won't take you very long and you will glean a lot of useful info.


Good luck and welcome to SonicStage!

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: BobL
Date: 29 Nov 19 - 01:01 PM

Bonzo, is Sonic Stage still available anywhere after all this time? I use it to import stuff from Minidisc, and it's one of the reasons my old XP machine is still alive.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Nov 19 - 09:04 PM

I have a http://audio.teac.com/product/ad-rw900/ that I am using to convert a few old LPs and audio cassettes to MP3s. It will also record directly to CDs, but that is another storage problem...., not as bad as LPs and cassettes, but.... (a lot of it is just personal memories, but a few old LPs might be of interest to folkies..(a paper sleeved LP called "Olden Ballads" with Richard Dyer-Bennett on one side and Tom Glazer on the other)
I don't pretend that it is professional quality studio results, but it is a way to save things *I* recorded years ago and LPs rare and long out of print with no commercial CDs that I can find.

It is slow, real time work on a set with many non-intuitive settings, but I am successfully getting copies of recordings I made up to 40 years ago!
I doubt I will ever work my way thru the entire mass of stuff, so I'm being pretty picky about the order in the times I find to work on it.
If I win the lottery, I'll pay some pro outfit to do a bunch... I guess I better buy a lottert ticket, hmmm?

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 01:30 PM

I now use my CD recorder to convert the spdif (is it?) signal from DAT to optical for feeding into my HiMd which can then be transferred to pc via usb, in order to preserve digital quality.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 12:04 PM

I gave up on Sonic Stage because of all Sony's petty restrictions as to what you could make further copies of. I'll take your word that things have improved but I've moved on.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 11:55 AM

Ok, I was overlooking the CD burning facility, but even so it’s the general fag of re-recording recordings in advance, to listen to later, that life can now seem too short for. By the time I’ve completed the second generation recordings, in real time, I’m not always in any great hurry to listen to them so soon again in the car. Or is that just me?

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 10:02 AM

The problem with the CD recorder was that it only recorded in real time. I would also mention DAT - I have a dead and a partially working Sony D7 DAT recording walkman. To extract a recording digitally you either need the proprietry Sony digital connector cable which cost £120+ back in the day, or you use a diy connector as I do, but you can only copy in real time.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 08:51 AM

The problem is seeing if that dusty tech switches back on again,
and still works properly,
if you need to use it again after so many years of not being powered up...

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 08:46 AM

Philps???

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 08:24 AM

I have a Philps hi fi video recorder and cd recorder gathering dust!

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 08:04 AM

I remember the Philips digital cassette when it was being promoted
as the next big thing at trade shows...

Then not too long after, the HiFi CD recorder was invented...

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 07:37 AM

Steve Shaw - re minidiscs, Sonic Stage ver 4,3 was developed by enthusiasts to work with Windows 7, and I have found that it works OK in Windows 10.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 06:04 AM

How is that essentially any different in principle
to recording cassettes from other sources such as LPs and radio...???
.. and if it's that much trouble,
maybe ask a younger relative to do it for you then...

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: JHW
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 05:46 AM

'Not sure if that is progress, because you now have to either downstream music or record it in advance onto a stick'
Agree.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 05:43 AM

Jerry - Burning compilation CDs was never difficult,
once you established which brands of blank discs were consistent and reliable
with your equipment and software.
Nero took all the donkey work out of it..

Loading tracks onto an SD Card, or USB stick, is nowhere near as much work as compiling a cassette...

I know all this as fact from too much time spent since 1978
obsessively compiling music on hundreds of cassettes and then perhaps even more CDs
for mates to take to university,
long Band van touring drives of Europe,
and music to persuade stubborn aging musician mates
to listen more widely outside their narow preferences/prejudices...

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 04:19 AM

I've got loads of home compilations on CDs in my car!

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 03:53 AM

Although cassettes tend to be denigrated now, they were really useful in their day. First you could share music with friends and produce your own compilations of favourite songs, secondly unsigned artists could easily produce their own recordings and sell them at gigs, and thirdly it was the only way you could listen to your own choice of music whilst driving. Having a car with a radio cassette player was great at the time, but eventually they switched over to CDs, making for easier track selection but no home compilations, but now superseded by MP3 or memory sticks in cars. Not sure if that is progress, because you now have to either downstream music or record it in advance onto a stick, which just is as laborious as compiling cassette recordings was in 1980s.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Nov 19 - 02:31 PM

Cover mounted free cassettes were common and popular,
until the CD was invented,
and in some cases for a longish time ater..
Early 80s NME casettes have gone down in cultural history,
they were such important compilations...

"Between 1981 and 1988, the venerable British music magazine NME released a staggering thirty-six cassette compilations. These were created as giveaways, intended to be promotional items rather than artifacts of lasting cultural value. Somewhere along the line, though, the C81 and C86 tapes became part of the unofficial indie-rock canon. "

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: GUEST,Modette
Date: 26 Nov 19 - 01:56 PM

'I presume that poster has never been nearer to Glasgow than their Moscow troll farm anyway. Anybody local would have got the connotations of the way I wrote.'

Jack, you're a rare man. It was (and still is) easier to get a bus from Gweedore to Glasgow than it was (and is) to go to Dublin. In my late teens I spent several weekends in the city, staying with relatives and hitting the town at night. More recently, I've lectured at the university.

My elder brother has reminded me that there was a UK rock magazine in the 80s/90s called 'Select' which used to have a free cassette attached to its cover. Were there any folk magazines which did the same?

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Nov 19 - 09:49 AM

The world was in waiting for portable Hi Def micro SD card recorders...

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Nov 19 - 07:52 AM

And what about the curse of minidiscs? The name of the curse is Sonic Stage. Well done to Sony for ruining a good idea.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: robomatic
Date: 25 Nov 19 - 11:37 PM

I still have some C180s. So thin you could see thru the tape.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Nov 19 - 11:05 PM

From cassette tapes to an argument about about Irish sectarian politics
in only 10 to 12 posts...

Mudcat... for all your petty dispute needs, all under one roof...
see inside for 50% Black Friday time limited special deals...

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Nov 19 - 10:56 PM

Fenian is a term that seems to be loaded.

I'm just getting started on a cassette digitization project here. Some from friends who gave them to Dad, the lion's share of them recorded by him at Song Circle and other folk events. Lots of notations ahead.

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 25 Nov 19 - 06:00 PM

What are you on about?

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 25 Nov 19 - 05:52 PM

I could have labelled the other side of those cassette trays at Ibrox/Parkhead as Bluenose music, but I figured the reference to Butcher's Apron livery was snarky enough as it was.

I presume that poster has never been nearer to Glasgow than their Moscow troll farm anyway. Anybody local would have got the connotations of the way I wrote.

You'd have had to be an ethnomusicologist to want to patronize either side of those guys' merchandise anyway. (I have a cassette of Serbian nationalist music from the 1990s which is presumably saying the same sort of thing, but luckily I can hardly make out a word).

Subject: RE: The Curse of the Cassette
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 25 Nov 19 - 04:38 PM

See who comes over the red blossomed heather
Their green banners kissing the pure mountain air
Heads erect eyes front, stepping proudly together
Freedom sits throned on each proud spirit there
And down the hill twining, their blessed steel shining
Like rivers of beauty that flow from each glen
From mountain and valley, 'tis Liberty's rally
Out and make way for the bold Fenian Men!

We've men from the Nore, from the Suir and the Shannon
Let tyrants come forth, we'll bring force against force
Our pen is the sword and our voice is the cannon
Rifle for rifle and horse against horse
We've made the foul Saxon yield many a red battlefield
God on our side we will triumph again
Pay them back woe for woe, give them back blow for blow
Out and make way for the bold Fenian Men!

Side by side for the cause have our forefathers battled
Our hills never echoed the tread of a slave
In many's the field where the leaden hail rattled
Through the red gap of glory they march'd to their grave
And those who inherit their name and their spirit
Will march 'neath the banner of Liberty then
All who love foreign law, native or Saxon
Must out and make way for the bold Fenian Men!