I might love my--
--analogue Laserdiscs and Vinyl LPs, but . . . no:
Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassette TapesThe cassette tape represents a rejection of the digital age of instant gratification and attention-deficit disorder, he says. "It's sort of like trying to combat ADD where people with a CD can kind of skip all over the place," he says. "But with a tape, you kind of have to take it from start to finish on both sides." A cassette player has nothing comparable to the shuffle setting on an iPod, either.
I will admit, that I had a sizeable cassette collection back in the day. I didn't get my own CD player until I had graduated from High School (well at least one that wasn't a video game system--then my first CD player would have been my Turbo Duo!), thus I either had to record tunes off the radio on a cassette recorder or buy tapes from the music store.
There was no real service to just buy a single song. If you didn't want to buy that whole album, you either had to buy an overpriced cassette single (last time I bought one way back when, I remember them being $3.49 a piece) or listen diligently to your radio with a blank tape at the ready and hope that the song you wanted was played. Not so bad if you were into pop music with the penchance of top 40s station to replay a song over and over each day. You were kinda screwed if you were a classic rock fan like myself!
There was this one short lived service that they had at certain music stores that would let you buy songs from a library of several thousand songs and they'd put them on a high quality iron oxide tape (instead of the standard mylar coated tapes) with Dolby B Noise Reduction. Songs were $1.10 each or so with base price of $3 for the tape. It was pretty neat because you could name the compilation and pick the design for the cassette case (of maybe 10 different color schemes/designs.) Can't remember the name of the service though. It only lasted about a year before they disappeared from the music stores. Guess the world wasn't ready for "music on demand" just yet.
I can remember one mix I made. It was the first way I had Iron Butterfly's "In a Gadda Da Vida" on any medium. Also it was first time I heard Grand Funk Railroad's awesome "I'm Your Captain/Closer to Home". Had a few other songs on there that I can't recall, but the name of my compilation? "Silver and Calico Soup" XD XD XD
(EDIT: I messaged a friend of mine who used to work at the record store where I got a few of those custom mix tapes--it was called The Personics System. Here's a blog entry on the service that includes the cover of the blogger's custom tape as well as having some commenters who actually worked on the system giving more info on it.)
But I digress . . . in this digital age of portable devices that can contain 8 jillion songs as well as make a phone call or browse the internet for you, it's crazy that an extremely antiquated medium like compact cassette is making a comeback!
Who knows? Maybe Laserdisc will make a comeback too! Oh who am I kidding?
EDIT2: Hah! Found a commercial on YT about Personics!
Miss the Hiss? Fanatics Flip for Tunes on Cassette TapesThe cassette tape represents a rejection of the digital age of instant gratification and attention-deficit disorder, he says. "It's sort of like trying to combat ADD where people with a CD can kind of skip all over the place," he says. "But with a tape, you kind of have to take it from start to finish on both sides." A cassette player has nothing comparable to the shuffle setting on an iPod, either.
I will admit, that I had a sizeable cassette collection back in the day. I didn't get my own CD player until I had graduated from High School (well at least one that wasn't a video game system--then my first CD player would have been my Turbo Duo!), thus I either had to record tunes off the radio on a cassette recorder or buy tapes from the music store.
There was no real service to just buy a single song. If you didn't want to buy that whole album, you either had to buy an overpriced cassette single (last time I bought one way back when, I remember them being $3.49 a piece) or listen diligently to your radio with a blank tape at the ready and hope that the song you wanted was played. Not so bad if you were into pop music with the penchance of top 40s station to replay a song over and over each day. You were kinda screwed if you were a classic rock fan like myself!
There was this one short lived service that they had at certain music stores that would let you buy songs from a library of several thousand songs and they'd put them on a high quality iron oxide tape (instead of the standard mylar coated tapes) with Dolby B Noise Reduction. Songs were $1.10 each or so with base price of $3 for the tape. It was pretty neat because you could name the compilation and pick the design for the cassette case (of maybe 10 different color schemes/designs.) Can't remember the name of the service though. It only lasted about a year before they disappeared from the music stores. Guess the world wasn't ready for "music on demand" just yet.
I can remember one mix I made. It was the first way I had Iron Butterfly's "In a Gadda Da Vida" on any medium. Also it was first time I heard Grand Funk Railroad's awesome "I'm Your Captain/Closer to Home". Had a few other songs on there that I can't recall, but the name of my compilation? "Silver and Calico Soup" XD XD XD
(EDIT: I messaged a friend of mine who used to work at the record store where I got a few of those custom mix tapes--it was called The Personics System. Here's a blog entry on the service that includes the cover of the blogger's custom tape as well as having some commenters who actually worked on the system giving more info on it.)
But I digress . . . in this digital age of portable devices that can contain 8 jillion songs as well as make a phone call or browse the internet for you, it's crazy that an extremely antiquated medium like compact cassette is making a comeback!
Who knows? Maybe Laserdisc will make a comeback too! Oh who am I kidding?
EDIT2: Hah! Found a commercial on YT about Personics!
Click to view