Cassette tapes Music Chat

[Deleted member 63]

I learned this morning that Lou Ottens, the Philips engineer who came up with the cassette tape, died at the ripe old age of 94. He certainly lived a full life. Not only did he invent the cassette, but he supervised the team that developed the CD format. So not one, but two, major contributions to the history of recording music.

Of course, cassettes were used for more than music. One of my former churches used to record services on cassette (I have a couple of services I led). Answering machines and dictaphones used micro-cassettes to record voice messages. And my old Commodore C64 computer could store data on cassette tapes using a drive that came with it.

I got my first cassette player when I was quite young, maybe 8 or 10 and for years, bought music on a mix of vinyl (later CD) and cassettes. Still have a few of my old cassettes around but running out of devices to play them on. Neither of my current cars has a cassette player for starters.

Still, they played a pretty big role in my life, especially my appreciation for music.

Any memories of cassettes or of music you played from them?

 

[Tom]

I used to make up my own mix tapes every weekend. I'd usually fill a C-60 with tunes and listen to them on my Walkman when doing my paper round or out walking.

I can remember I was "tasked" with the job of recording country music radio shows for my dad, we ended up with 100s of EMITAPE Cassette 120 tapes (they had a picture of a dog and gramophone on the inlay card) full of country music talk shows and live performances - I'm sure they are still in storage somewhere at my parents house.

 

[Deleted member 63]

I used to make up my own mix tapes every weekend. I'd usually fill a C-60 with tunes

Yeah, I made a few of those. Even some C90 ones. I was really into classical so needed more space than a 60 provided. In some ways, a more enjoyable and entertaining experience than making playlists on Spotify or whatever. You actually had to listen and I sometimes changed my mind as I went.

 

[David76]

I used to make my own mix tapes too. You could usually find me in my room on a Sunday night when the Top 40 was being counted down with my tape recorder with record and pause pressed waiting for the next song to be added to my mix tape for the week.

I also had a Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum and a mountain of games stored on tape - I probably had more games on tape than music and that is where most of my pocket money went as a child - I remember buying the latest games by some the big games companies at the time - Ocean and US Gold were my favourites - and being annoyed when they brought out games with two cassettes in larger cases because they didn't slot into my cassette rack ?

 

[Tom]

You could usually find me in my room on a Sunday night when the Top 40 was being counted down with my tape recorder with record and pause pressed waiting for the next song

This was me too, every Sunday as the chart counted down. Then I got a double tape deck and everything changed lol. I used to love making mix tapes.

and being annoyed when they brought out games with two cassettes in larger cases because they didn't slot into my cassette rack

It was these that annoyed me, they wouldn't slot into my cassette rack either. It was mostly compilation albums like 'Now That's What I Call Music...' or 'The Best Rock Album Ever....'

 

[Deleted member 63]

It was these that annoyed me, they wouldn't slot into my cassette rack either. It was mostly compilation albums like 'Now That's What I Call Music...' or 'The Best Rock Album Ever....'

I have some musicals in those packs. Since I had some drawer-style tape storage, I could lay them down in tne drawers but, yeah, couldn't go in my rack.