The Last of the Analogs = Who grew up with a Cassette Collection?

[BionicEye]

THE CASSETTE GENERATION

Handheld Mono Speaker Radio
vs.


Analog Walkmans
vs.
CD Diskmans


vs.
Ipods



The physical manipulation of the media provided a different listening experience. The evolution of it changed the music business.

Anyone remember when the auto-reverse (where the tape would switch directions from side A to side B or vice-versa) feature was added onto cassette walkmans, and you'd know what song was on the other side before you hit it. Sometimes I'd have a favorite part of a song and hit auto-reverse, listen to a couple of seconds of the song on the other side for the right amount of time & hit the button again to hear the first part again.

[TurdBerglar]

it's analogue

[BionicEye]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=analog

it's analog, TurdBurglar

[TurdBerglar]

you didn't get it nevermind

[Kid Presentable]

I'd had walkmans(sp?) since about age 6. I first used one to play along on the drums to songs like 'Addicted to Love'. My musical prodigy years ended soon after. I used to deliver newspapers and had a walkman with me at all times. I remember the sun coming up when I worked out that the line in '3 Minute Rule' was "You know Y-A-U-C-H". I must have been twelve. About 97 I got a super slim walkman, with auto reverse. Looking at it, it was clearly the prototype (in design terms) for MP3 players, about the size of a packet of cigarrettes.

In 1997 I was listening to Chop Shop Vol 2, Paul's Boutique, Check Your Head, Ironman, Ill Communication, Tical, Minor Threat Complete Discography,Reign in Blood, Harmacy, Endtroducing and Cuban Linx among others on my walkman. Converting C.D's to mp3 is to me the modern equivalent of dubbing all your shit off C.D onto cassette.

I used to keep it in my Blazer (one of those schools) next to my smokes.

I'd skate everywhere, and the walkman would come with me.

Good memories. (y)

[BionicEye]

you didn't get it nevermind

oh................................................ .... plop.

[BionicEye]

Yeah, Kid. Zactly. The transition between orange foam head phones, to black foam to earbuds was equally monumental.

[TurdBerglar]

i have a walkman that's like 20 years old and it's acutally made of metal!



i don't know about that mp3 prototype theory stated previously (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v174/TurdBerglar/walkman.jpg)

[Kid Presentable]

Yeah, Kid. Zactly. The transition between orange foam head phones, to black foam to earbuds was equally monumental.

The earbuds were a rare glimpse into the future, like it actually felt like progress at the time.

[DroppinScience]

I've only had a handful of cassettes, but yeah, I did start off with a small cassette collection that was very indicative of '93/'94 (Wayne's World 2 soundtrack and Guns 'N Roses "Spaghetti Incident" album) because when my parents divorced, my dad took the sound system, so for awhile all I had in the way of playing music was a WalkMan.

By the end of the year, we got a CD system so everything from then on was CDs. Cassettes were only a factor for a very brief interval.

[zorra_chiflada]

we're quite a bit behind technology here in tasmania. it was cassettes for ages
i didn't get a discman until 2001.

[TurdBerglar]

now that i think of it i didn't even have a discman till 99. only had it for two years until i got a mp3 player. and i only used tapes to make mixes.

[Kid Presentable]

we're quite a bit behind technology here in tasmania. it was cassettes for ages
i didn't get a discman until 2001.

That's only a year after you got gravity, right? :D

[zorra_chiflada]

Anyone remember when the auto-reverse (where the tape would switch directions from side A to side B or vice-versa) feature was added onto cassette walkmans, and you'd know what song was on the other side before you hit it. Sometimes I'd have a favorite part of a song and hit auto-reverse, listen to a couple of seconds of the song on the other side for the right amount of time & hit the button again to hear the first part again.

yes i remember that.

[zorra_chiflada]

That's only a year after you got gravity, right? :D
oh har har! :rolleyes:




:( we're so behind everything. i doubt if it's even 2000 in tasmania yet.

[TurdBerglar]

my parents bought a stereo when i was in highschool and it could determine the gaps in between songs on a tape. and you could skip tracks perfectly like a cd player. i thought that was the coolest shit.

[BionicEye]

That walkman was/is the shit, TB. If you got that when it was 'released' or whatever you call it, do you remember how much you paid for it?


I had the first Sony Walkman with an LCD screen in it... whooo!!!!

... Paid $109 for it. That thing was my pride & joy.

[zorra_chiflada]

my parents bought a stereo when i was in highschool and it could determine the gaps in between songs on a tape. and you could skip tracks perfectly like a cd player. i thought that was the coolest shit.

yeah, i remember those. but the gap had to be big, didn't it?

[TurdBerglar]

remember those yellow waterproof sport walkmans. they were quite a bit too. i think they were around $150

[TurdBerglar]

i just notice that till the age of 16 part. i didn't even have a collection til i got a job and had money to buy shit. i only had like 4 or 5 cd's before 16. once i got a job at 16 is when i started buying shit

[BionicEye]

i just notice that till the age of 16 part. i didn't even have a collection til i got a job and had money to buy shit. i only had like 4 or 5 cd's before 16. once i got a job at 16 is when i started buying shit


CLOSE ENOUGH...

[BionicEye]

I wish my current walkman had that switch from a-to-b feature. It's embarassing having to switch sides when out for walks.


NAH, MAN!

EMBRACE YOUR ANALOG HERATAGE!

I am seriously thinking about getting some Orange-Foam Headphones and rocking the old Walkman with pride.

[TurdBerglar]

remember when those wrap around the neck rest on your ears headphones first came out. people had no idea how to wear them, ahahahaha

[BionicEye]

The earbuds were a rare glimpse into the future, like it actually felt like progress at the time.

Space Age Techology! How could so much sound come out of something so small? How do they stay in place?!?

You'd see alot of the ones with the red stripe on the right one and the blue stripe on the left - the ones that came with the original black & white Gameboy.


The one's with the wrap around action was a final reach for the status quo. Those were wacky.

[Kid Presentable]

To answer the poll question, C.D's, cassettes and some vinyl.

[beastieangel01]

Cassettes & CDs

[Documad]

One of my older brothers had a reel to reel tape recorder. My other brother and my sister had eight tracks.

I started out with a cassette player/recorder that was 16x5x3 and I would tape songs off the radio. It was under $20 at Kmart. I also used to interview people with it when I was a little kid and it came with a mic on a cord. It was made more for office uses, I think, because cassette players really weren't for music yet. We all had big record-playing stereos at home.

Then we moved to small boomboxes, which eventually got bigger and bigger. I had one and because I didn't have a cassette player in my car, my boombox sat on the seat next to me. It took 6 or 8 DD batteries to run that sucker!

My life-changing event: I got a Toshiba walk-man style portable cassette player/FM radio in about 1983. Sony Walkmans were pretty new. My dad found this Toshiba one in an ad in a camera magazine and it's the only time I remember him ordering something over the telephone with a credit card. It cost about $150, which was a fortune. What was cool about that was it was all metal, and it was smaller than the Sony ones, and the radio part was metal and looked like a cassette tape. To play the radio, you ejected your regular cassette tape and you put the radio cassette into the cassette tape holder. In 1987 I bought my first plastic Sony Walkman when I went to Europe and forgot the Toshiba at home, but the Sony's were never anywhere near as good.

I almost never bought pre recorded cassettes. I had a really good stereo system to tape my vinyl. I bought high quality blank cassettes in gross.

I switched to CDs really late--pretty much when you couldn't buy vinyl anymore. I only had one CD walkman before switching to the first iPod. I never walked around with the CD walkman and rarely used it. In fact, there was a time in the late 90s when I almost quit listening to music altogether and I think a lot of it was because of the change in technology. The iPod brought me back. :)

[BionicEye]

To answer the poll question, C.D's, cassettes and some vinyl.


I was gonna say that, but I thought it would broaden it too much. I had a kid's record player when I was a kid and listened to disney records on it. When I was like 5 my grandpa gave me this awesome Walkman-like tape player, recorder and radio with a mic on it. I have no idea why, it must've been expensive in 1983. I think it was because my dad never got the record player he always wanted.

[Kid Presentable]

I was gonna say that, but I thought it would broaden it too much. I had a kid's record player when I was a kid and listened to disney records on it. When I was like 5 my grandpa gave me this awesome Walkman-like tape player, recorder and radio with a mic on it. I have no idea why, it must've been expensive in 1983. I think it was because my dad never got the record player he always wanted.

I bought some music on cassette, but switched about 92...I think Check Your Head may have been my third C.D... :confused:

[BionicEye]

One of my older brothers had a reel to reel tape recorder. My other brother and my sister had eight tracks.

I started out with a cassette player/recorder that was 16x5x3 and I would tape songs off the radio. It was under $20 at Kmart. I also used to interview people with it when I was a little kid and it came with a mic on a cord. It was made more for office uses, I think, because cassette players really weren't for music yet. We all had big record-playing stereos at home.


Like the one I had... it had a leather cover with these bih snap buttons to remove it.


I bought high quality blank cassettes in gross.


Shit yeah. It was so much fun writing the liners, labeling the stickers and putting them on... TDK T-90's and Maxelles with the frosty black plastic. The weight of those just felt expensive.


In fact, there was a time in the late 90s when I almost quit listening to music altogether and I think a lot of it was because of the change in technology. The iPod brought me back. :)

I sort of had that experience, expect for traveling... damn skipping CD's

[Documad]

It was so much fun writing the liners, labeling the stickers and putting them on...
I often typed my liners, in a bizarre font on my mom's wacky typewriter. I always used Maxell. Usually 90 min tapes because I could get one LP per side. Until LPs started getting longer.

I still have a drawer full of the old tapes. I can't throw them away because of all the work I put into them.

[BionicEye]

I bought some music on cassette, but switched about 92...I think Check Your Head may have been my third C.D... :confused:

I think it was one of my first CDs 5 too, and Ill Communication was one of my last ones too.



The linear layout of the music was unique for cassettes though, right? The rewind and fast-forwarding was perfect for MAKING people listen to the whole album, making fans. It probably affected track sequencing - the order of songs for albums made during the cassette days was probably influenced.


Maybe Paul's Boutique wasn't successful till people started getting it on CD, it was a whole album listening experience... do they make those anymore?


With records you could just move the needle, but that was kind of a pain to get it right. With CD's came the wonder of listening to any song you wanted in a second. That was a step forward but maybe a step back for the industry?

But about the walkmans, I hated how the battery lids would always come off... the ole' electrical tape over the batteries with some cardboard under it would do the trick. I can't even begin to count the times my MacGyver fix would go horribly wrong on bike rides - scrambling for my batteries before they went down the sewer.

[BionicEye]

>bump.<

[synch]

Vinyl and cassettes until around 89, vinyl, cassettes and cd's after that. Mostly mp3's and cd's since about 2000. Still use vinyl and recently got a(nother) tape deck so I might hook it up and digitize some of my tapes before they fall to pieces.

[mickill]

I had one of the first walkmen; it must have been a prototype or something. The thing was the size of a hardcover book and it didn't have a clip to fasten onto your belt. Instead, it had this harness you had to untangle everytime you put it on, four different straps with buckles and whatever.

Anyway, I collected records until I was 12, and then it was pretty much strictly cassette for a few years. I bought about 800 of them. I wish they were just vinyl now because I obviously don't listen to tapes very often. Now, I'd say about 95% of what I purchase is in CD format and the rest is vinyl.

[Laver1969]

I grew up in the 70s listening to the big piece of furniture that had a turntable in it. This thing was huge. I also had a portable record player that looked like a little suitcase.

Then in the 80s I remember getting my first stereo that had a turntable/cassette/8-track combo...it was sweet.

Then in the early 90s I upgraded to the cd system.

I have yet to move to the ipod thing.

[TurdBerglar]

holy shit! the big ass stereo thing. my grandmother had one of these. i had no idea what it was as a kid. it was the size of a bureau. my mom use to yell at me becuase i would open it up play with the shitloads of wires in it. that thing was massive

[beastiegirrl101]

I also grew up with my P's old 45's....

[Echewta]

I grew up making wax cylinders of the weekend concerts in the park.

[BGirl]

I still rue the day I let a boyfriend talk me into switching over to cassette from vinyl... this was at the end of high school. Because now we have a turntable and can play the albums but we took the cassette player out of service (though we're still hanging on to it). And I have a lot of good stuff on cassette from the late 80's - early 90's that I'm too cheap to buy again on CD or MP3. :(

[Ferdinand_2]

CD's & Records

[Dr Deaf]

my first record was sesame street / saturday night fever. c is for cookie was a hot track. i also got michael jackson's thriller shortly after and the beatstreet / breaking soundtracks around age 9. my mom's collection of vinyl consisted of boney m, hall and oats and some tom jones. i used to 'scratch' the styluz across the grooves before i realized i was supposed to run in them. :p

my first casette was probably run dmc's raising hell. i must have been about 11. from that point on i rocked casettes for the most part, but started buying records when i was into punk stuff around age 12-13. DRI, dead kennedy's, day-glo-abortions, black flag etc. around age 16-17 i purchased cds almost exculsively until the year 2000 when mp3s became the rage. i had a half dozen different cd walkmens. sony, panasonic whatever i could lift, really. my first 'stereo' was a double cassette boom box for making mixes. later i got a one piece double-deck with turntable on top. my first cd player was a hand me down from my mom. she got a cd player at least 5 years before most people knew about them. she's always been a lover of the hi-fi. unfortunately she still has the base components from that then 'reveloutionary system'.

i like the mp3 format. although it's very lossy, i'm sure we'll be witness to larger HDs on portables that will enable us to fill up with ogg, FLAC and shn formats. hds will become physically smaller, but have greater capacities. long gone are the days of scratched worn out discs / tapes. the next generation of music afficianados could quite possibly maintain their entire collections over decades of listening. as new formats present themselves the ability to convert will become easier. there will be no limit to the portability and versatility of massive collections of music.

i couldn't imagine a world without music.

bionic eye: great thread.
gallery: great posts.

(y)

[BionicEye]

bionic eye: great thread.
gallery: great posts.

(y)


Thanks!

[kll]

Check Your Head

Good memories. (y)

I wore out two different copies of the CYH tape... crazy that you could wear stuff out those days...

[CrankItUp!]

I have ALL Beastie Boys material on 8-track tapes ! And I still have a portable 8-track player that operates on batteries , that still works too - CH - CLUNK ! (y)

[marsdaddy]

My first record was "How Much is That Doggy in the Window?" I had a Fisher-Price turntable. I started buying 45s at the local Jimmy's Music World. The record industry figured out 45s were great marketing tools for albums. They would practically give away 45s. I kept to exclusively vinyl as long as possible -- around 1990.

I never bought much on cassette. They always break and if you have the album, you can record on cassette. I have quite a collection of home recorded cassettes, plus many mixed tapes. In college, my buddies would dupe several copies of their newest mixed tape, so we all had the latest mixes.

One album I did buy on cassette was 3feet High and Rising. My buddy and I were driving to LA and needed music for the road. He bought Tone Loc's album. I bought the De La album on vinyl when we got back from the trip -- I don't think we liked Tone Loc as much.

I probably buy 75% used vinyl today and the rest new CDs.

Haven't gone for an iPod yet, but I'm sure I will soon.

[BGirl]

So I went and bought 2 tracks from Replacements Let It Be on iTunes because of this discussion (yeah I know, that was early 80's but I bought it later). Thanks for jogging my memory about favorite old tapes.

:)

[kll]

My first record was "How Much is That Doggy in the Window?"
my god, you ARE old!

[marsdaddy]

my god, you ARE old!One of your early hits?

[kll]

One of your early hits?


what most people do not know is the early history of that song... the song (which i wrote and performed) is not the one that most know... the 45 you have is the cover of my song, which hit the top 40 list... i was way ahead of my time when i put it out...

[CrankItUp!]

>bump.<
>bump.< your mother in the ass.

[BionicEye]

Bump your mother in her mouth.


(my mother doesn't have an ass)

[CrankItUp!]

Well , out of her ass is where you came from.

[BionicEye]

That was clever.

[Documad]

My first record was "How Much is That Doggy in the Window?"
I used to get mad when I heard that song. Because a woman a children's TV show sang it and I thought it was her song and it pissed me off when other people sang it. As a tiny kid, I'd scream at the TV if someone else sang it. My mom explained over and over that people cover songs and if it's a good song then it's nice that other people want to sing it too. Little did mom know that my extreme aversion to cover versions would last a lifetime. We had this same conversation in the car over the years probably 1000 times. It all started with Carmen the Nurse.

[Gareth]

i bought tapes til i was about 10.
first tape that i had was some sesame street tape which had this one song that will forever be etched in my mind - 'sing, sing a song...sing of good things, not bad/sing of happy, not sad'
first tape that i bought was the cocktail soundtrack.
at some stage i bought def leppard's hysteria while my friend bought a bon jovi tape, for some reason that purchase sticks in my head.

i had a black sony walkman and my sisters had them solid yellow sony sports walkmans.

then i made the transition to cd after my grandfather bought our family a cd player for xmas one year.
i don't remember what my first cd was but i bought a fair few of them.

my music collection consists of tape, cd and vinyl but i'm currently going through my shit and selling off stuff that i don't need.

[BionicEye]

I invited the class dork to my 7th Grade birthday party just because he has a CD player, Led Zeppeling Remastered & Nirvana. In 1991 it was already very not too cool to entertain people with just a hissy tape deck and I wasn't havin' it.

[BionicEye]

>bump<

[Kid Presentable]

I wore out two different copies of the CYH tape... crazy that you could wear stuff out those days...
I like how the cassette has a different studio shot to the C.D version.

[BionicEye]

BUMP

[zippo]

if theres something i cant live without its my discman, i recycle it every couple or more years and use it almost every nite before i go to sleep, during trips in car or plane, in the summer while tanning, while on the computer, and on random occasion apart from all those. i dont need mp3 players. who gives a shit about mp3 players.

[BionicEye]

if theres something i cant live without its my discman, i recycle it every couple or more years and use it almost every nite before i go to sleep, during trips in car or plane, in the summer while tanning, while on the computer, and on random occasion apart from all those. i dont need mp3 players. who gives a shit about mp3 players.



I would think someone with a cassette walkman and corny earphones is much more cool than any ole' dude with an iPod.

[HEIRESS]

uhhh I own a walkman that cost me 250 bucks

thats ALOT for a tape playaaaaa

I used to be a mixtape master
A FUKKIN MASTER I TELL YAH

[BionicEye]

My first MP3 was some live show from this site - Philly 1998 I think?