TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

Well, why the hell not?  I've gone a bit bonkers recently (well, more bonkers) and have started buying cassettes again.  Just bought a job lot on eBay which includes some corkers...including early Oyster Band, lots of Fairport, Clarion, as well as a first issue release of PJ Harvey's debut, which is worth twice as much as I paid for all 25 cassettes.  Anyway, the point of my question is this...does anyone remember a band called Everything's Rosy with a contact address in Henley (mid 90's)?  There's got to be someone else bonkers enough to join in a thread with tales of exciting cassette finds?  No?  Ok, then...  ;) :)

If you are talking rarities there may be as many as oooh 3  of these in the world somewhere

Mmmmm.....Septic Tank!   ;D

Jules

Outstanding...genuinely!  

There's a quid here with your name on it, Jude.  You only have to ask...  ;D

Rhyming slang for Yanks. I've heard it from Aussies and Londoners. Still doesn't answer Jude's query  :)

No idea about Everything’s Rosy.

However, (having sold all my LPs years ago when my mum told me they were going out with the ark grrrrr!) I do have all my cassettes. Most of my music collection, the stuff I saved up for from my Saturday jobs and student jobs, is all on cassette.

I have nothing on which to play these ....but as mentioned a while ago, I do hope to get something.

Maybe it's climate related but with many old 70s/80s cassettes I still have, the pressure pads have either turned to dust or fallen off.
 
Replacing them can be done but it's a real PITA...

I occasionally get adverts on social media for a device that converts cassettes to mps. Looks rather like a Walkman.

Or you can buy cd/cassette players new at Currys, eg Google "SONY CFD-S70 FM/AM Boombox". So there must still be a demand for tape players.

And this just posted by Kat Gilmore on Twitter...

I have a CD/Cassette deck that does this. Results are decent depending on the quality of the cassette. Disappointing results from a T Bone Burnett album recently but the tape mastering sounded muffled in the first place.

This documentary may interest cassette fetishists:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIuirfEIJr8

Jules

Nice.  Danke.

Nuked..

^Ignore!
 ..and how to fix them .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpxK5uNU7Js

Useful stuff.

My memory of cassettes involves the horror of road trips in the early 90s with small child pleasing music.
I soon got my own back. Once Lucy turned five we went over to the likes of Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. So she used to sob a bit, but it's an education.

I hear from a reliable source that the wheels on the bus go round & round...

Isn't that a Chris Leslie song?

Jules

Just sold a Clash cassette for £20.  From what little I understand, it's all about originality.  First generation releases are what sell.  Thankfully, I'm just about old enough to tell the difference between a cassette made in '79 and one made in '87 just by looking at it (and often, it really isn't clear what you're looking at with matrix numbers and all that, as there is so much less out there about cassettes in relation to vinyl).  I'm finding the whole thing fascinating, and quite a buzz when I either buy something I want to collect cheap, or sell something I don't want for a fair bit.  Bloke in Italy I sold this to, told me he spent £90 on a cassette single the other week  :o

No,that’s ‘The Sails on the boat go Flap flap flap’

I must look through my cassettes to see if I have anything exciting. I think a lot of mine are ‘best of’s, though I do have ‘Mirror Blue’ the first RT cassette I bought myself, after my mate Nick introduced me to the maestro in the early nineties.

Edit: I have had a look, found out most of my originals from the 80s/ early 90s are worth about six quid each. (Except for the Michael Jackson ones, which are advertised for a lot more. Yes, I was a fan when I was at school).

I definitely have to get something to listen again. The only handwritten ones I have left are  a couple of tapes my late Dad made for me when I was at college. A Beethoven and a Roger Whittaker...he had eclectic tastes, too!

 ;D ;D ;D

Where's the "screwy" emoji?

Jules

The collective thought is just how much did it cost me when I took all that **** to the tip ten years ago?

C'mon is cr@p a naughty word in this day and age?

A letter on the subject in an old issue of Word magazine:

‘Sort of enjoyed your cassette feature until I remembered how s**t the
things actually were.

When they weren't snapping, stretching or spooling into the machinery,
these wretched tapes either reversed at the speed of light or ground away
- in 'Fast Forward' mode - like Geoff Capes delivering another truck
across another FINISH line using only his forehead.

As for the audio quality, who cared about a little 'wow and flutter' when
the overall experience was akin to listening to the Flumps sliding down a
velvet lined woollen chute while your ears were intermittently plugged
with cotton wool.

Aaah - the old days...’

Because something is mechanically/practically rubbish, doesn't alter its desirability as a material object (why else are Trabants collectible, for instance).  These things can connect me to my (musical) past in a way which vinyl (which I collect now, but didn't really go for in a big way first time around) doesn't.  With vinyl the object itself is more desirable but the connection isn't quite the same.  Most of my formative listening experiences were on tape (buying The Attic Tapes, for instance at the first Fairport gig I attended - Wimbledon Theatre Jan '82)....

I don't have the collecting gene and have no idea why anybody would want cassettes. They were useful for time because they were more convenient than vinyl but have long outlived their usefulness.

My formative experiences involved sleeping on nylon sheets, watching tele on on a tiny black and white screen, drinking Nesquik, and listening to DLT, Paul Burnett and Saville on R1 (in analogue). I don't want to do any of those things again, any more than I want to listen to cassettes. CDs are better. Ditto iPods, Youtube, Spotify and other ways of listening.

But like I say, I have never understood why people collect things (one of many reasons I will probably never be rich) and would only buy things for their usefulness. Paintings to look at, CDs to listen to, books to read, clothes to wear (or at least, to intend to wear  ::) ).

Another thing I don't understand, why does a signature increase a things value? I've occasionally bought CDs at a gig and have been asked if I want them signed. I always say no. I want the music not a bit of scribble.

I think I have used the words useful/usefulness too often in this post. I obviously should have collected a bigger vocabulary along the way.  ;D

On the other hand if you still have some cassettes then sell them and fill yer boots. And then spend the money on something more, er, useful.

Banana Nesquik.

Drink of the Gods.

And there you surely have the name of your next band.  :D

I was going to go with "Wow and Flutter" from a couple posts above. :)

I'm assuming this is a tongue in cheek rhetorical question?  If not, then you need a Ladybird book of basic economics (focusing on supply and demand), plus a session with a psychologist who can help you with an understanding of why different "things" are important to different people...

I still possess and occasionally play cassettes on occasion. The ones I held on to are ones that in general are no longer in print, such as Whippersnapper 'These Foolish Strings'. Well that was  out of print last I looked anyway. The clear ones had and still have better sound as opposed to the non-see through ones. Just the other week I sat back and listened to Ashley Hutchings' A Word In Your Ear on cassette. So happy I held on to it in fact.

Gosh.
I understand the economics, and that people can make money, just not why someone would want to own it, and pay a premium for it. A signature won't make the music sound better, or a book more interesting.

I needed a smiley in there...it wasn't meant how it sounds.  Sorry.  I guess I'm just trying to suggest there are two aspects of value affected by having the artist festishise their work with their signature, and obviously the only one that really matters is not the financial one... You can tell someone who values the signature because they ask the artist to dedicate it to them.  Someone who wants it as an investment doesn't.

Then there was the whole bootleg thing which of course some bands like the Grateful Dead actively encouraged fans to do. I only remember ever buying a couple of those tapes, one of which I still have - ZZ Top at Donington in 85. But you'd see people selling them at record fairs with live recordings of all the rock bands of the day. The quality could be pretty poor and I think that's what put me off buying any more.

I still have quite a lot of cassettes, both ones I bought and ones that friends gave me. Remember how home taping killed music back in the 80s?  ;)
But it's nice having those with people's handwriting on them, especially the ones from a close friend who is no longer around.

You can get excellent quality audience recording of just about every Dead show online legally for nowt.  And yet people pay good cash for a 12(0)th generation 35 year old cassette copies of the same things with a few nice home made drawings on the front.  Two responses 1) You see?  2) Go figure...  Yin and yang.

I'm still buying cassettes regularly. I need them for my district managers to keep updated recordings of newspaper motor routes.  Nothing has come along that's proven a better media for it.  

Yes - cassettes, newspapers and over 50........my future is looking bright indeed!   8)

Very Rare!  Original!  Hmmmmm.   ::) ;D

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Very-Rare-Original-Album-Cassette-The-History-Of-Fairport-Convention-1972/273801552518?hash=item3fbfd82286:g:5yYAAOSwm-Zav51A

Even worse: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fairport-Convention-Leige-And-Lief-ICM9115-Cassette-Tape/142531430070?hash=item212f8906b6:g:1m0AAOSww1dZ2RpZ  Idiots.

Obscene...

I have that exact History cassette. That is a late 80s/early 90s copy. One of my first Fairport purchases after seeing the band for the first time in, I think, 1989.

Gub, me too, got it in about ‘91 after my mate first introduced me, then my sis and I went to see the guys live.

Yep...and 'worth' 3 or 4 quid.

It's the only Fairport album I have on cassette. It's obviously not very rare round these parts.

I think this illustrates well the confusion.  Given an original slab of vinyl and an early 90's reissue, one would know clearly which was the more valuable.  It seems with tapes there is such ignorance (lack of experience?) of them that sellers don't even know what they're looking at (ie claiming mid 90's reissues as 40-50 year old originals).

Anyway... more importantly, here's some tape porn for you all: http://vintagecassettes.com/index.htm

Oh, and by the way, Land of Grey and Pink anyone?  This is a completed sale price...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CARAVAN-IN-THE-LAND-OF-GREY-AND-PINK-DERAM-SCM-R-1-CASSETTE-PAPER-LABEL-PROG/233182437706?hash=item364ac1a14a:g:kpAAAOSwCtJcngDg

I still run a good cassette player in my system, and have a good number of hours of stuff on tape - 2-300 units.   Lots of it is radio broadcasts- - I've always rather have had the record or CD.  I have a few pre recorded tapes  left, but in my experience they have a shorter lifespan than blanks, assuming you buy good quality blanks.

I may have missed a post or 2, but I think part of the attraction of old, used cassettes, or vintage still sealed cassettes, is that they're analogue, like old records.

There's always one that goes just that little bit too far...  ;D

https://inews.co.uk/culture/music/mark-ronson-8-track-tape-cartridge-uptown-funk-shallow/

Ok, so now I've gone too far.  Far too bloody far.  But, hey....  ;) ;D

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223495018716?ul_noapp=true

I recall working in a shop (in about 1973) where a car 8-track player was hooked up to a car battery in the ceiling cavity with car speakers placed either side of the battery. The polystyrene tile buckled somewhat under the weight.

Ah, health and safety, eh?

Very pleased with this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/183818741288

I bet you are! Hope it’s in good condition

We'll see.  It's not for playing, anyhow....

Of course not...  :)

Latest Richard Hawley on cassette...free UK postage...with a download....£5.  Come on now, don't all rush at once now  ;) ;D
https://richardhawley.tmstor.es/cart/product.php?id=46712&lf=b37db39493cef9807e785cff0308e264

Heard him on Radio 6 talking about the album, all the tracks are barely three minutes with the exception of the last track which is in the region of four minutes which he referred to as his prog-rock experiment.

Lol.  I think most people think Standing at the Sky's Edge is Rchard's prog-rock experiment.

Despite him living just down the road from me, I've never been keen on the crooner stuff but the first seven tracks on that album are absolutely stunning.

I've just bagged what I believe (but am willing to be corrected) to be the first cassette release of the eponymous Fairport debut on Polydor (914 626) from 1969 which isn't in brilliant condition but will do as a banker until I find a better one.  I've also picked up a '75 reissue on cassette very reasonably and that is mint.  I now have 4 copies of this on cassette, so I'm officially slightly obsessed.  If anyone does have any Fairport cassettes they want to pass on to a loving, if slightly demented, home, then drop me a line  ;) ;D

Oh David, David, David....do be careful, rocking backwards and dribbling down your chin waiting for an e-bay auction to finish is not a good look. I have been there and dribbled on the t-shirt.

I decided I'd like to collect all the Floyd stuff on cassette, and I ended up with 75 tapes, which equates to 2 complete runs, and up to 8 copies of the same title, to acquire a cassette discography to match the vinyl and CD ones - as much as is possible.

This came about because I was going for job lots, which often works out a lot cheaper, to try and secure a copy of the More soundtrack which proved to be elusive.
I don't know if this will work with FC, but it has for collecting other bands on vinyl. I once got seven Hawkwind albums - two of which I already had - for a lower price than an auction for one of the seven.

Good luck anyway.

Lol.  A man after my own heart.  

Definitely a (predominately) bloke thing!  ;D

I have several Fairport (and some related Albions, Steeleye, RT, John Kirkpatrick, etc) but I refuse to part with them (Sorry!). Though they have long been replaced by CD, I still like holding on to them. Actually, I take that back-I have 3 Whippersnapper cassettes that still get regular plays as I never managed to get CD versions of them, and I believe one of those-These Foolish Strings was never released digitally though I am happy to be corrected!

I have met a woman with the completist collecting gene, but you're right - they're few and far between!

I have the cassette version of Fairport's The Boot, if anyone's after it.  I have the CD, so don't need the tape anymore.

Jules

"If you really mean it, it all comes round again …"  Never was a truer word written or sung.  :)   OK, if you want folk-rock obscurity on cassette, how about The JSD Band (the acoustic comeback one), Ashley Reed & the Savage Rabbits or Swarbrick & Nicol's In the Club (signed) !

The only fairport album I have in cassette format is farewell farewell. ( RGF label). I bought it at a time when CD was still a new thing and the price difference against cassette was noticeable.

I certainly do!

They're all at it... https://store.thewho.com/*/*/WHO-Cassette/690C0000000

Yes, I noticed that. The vinyl renaissance is one thing but I am finding the rebirth of cassettes a little bizarre. It is fetishism pure and simple which cannot be justified on grounds of sound quality or convenience.

Cassettes were a convenient recording medium, replacing the incredibly cumbersome (but technically superior) reel-to-reel machines.

However, their convenience was outweighed by their tendency to stretch and break, decorating roadsides throughout the 70s and 80s.

The idea that anyone would want to use them now that digital recording is easily available is just ridiculous.

I think that mab be the point. I don't think anyone wants to use them. They just want to have them. If this arks some sort of tide turning back towards people wantingsome sort of physical manifestation of their music to enjoy the artwork (by Peter Blake in this case), sleevenotes etc then I am all for it by why cassettes? I have no idea.

When is the great mini disc comeback? I still have a working player.

I can't help but agree.  Also: hiss; wow and flutter; dropouts.  If MP3s are the sonic compromise of the digital age, then cassettes were the same for the analogue age.

Jules

Maybe this whole thread's been a wind-up? 😊🤐

That moment when you just know you're doing the right thing.  Your collective bafflement pleases me no end...  ;) :) ;D

It really is very simple...the cassette was my first musical format, and most of my early musical memories came from them...so...fetishism?  Yeah, of course...but don't tell me that LPs or CDs are any less fetishistic.  That really would be a nonsensical argument...

No, but at least they work if you look after them  ;D

I've got far more knackered vinyls (I realise that word doesn't exist, but its persistent use these days amuses me no end) and CDs than cassettes.  And, anyway, cassettes work perfectly for ever if you never have any intention of playing them....  ;D

Ha ha, I was just winding up the cassette-man.  ;)

Maybe cassettes are God’s way of telling you that you have too much money....   ;D ;D


(apologies to Robin Williams)

"Better for you than cocaine".  I'm getting the t-shirt....

Same.  Fair point, well made.

Jules

You go to the wrong parties then...  ;D

(This is a joke, in case anyone thinks I’m promoting cassette usage)

The girl's on fire!   ;) ;D

ps back on topic...my latest purchase is an original Island Pink 'Kip of the Serenes'.  I'm a little in love with it.

I have a cassette version of AT2, not sure if it's playable as I no longer have a tape deck. Free to a good home, assuming it will be cherished/played rather than sold,  if any of you strange cassette collecting folk want it  ;) (already asked david - he already has it!)

First to reply gets it.

Good man!  Come on someone, you know you want to...  :)

Well I still use cassettes but please will someone enlighten me - what is AT2?  If its fairport or related I'll give it a home.

Tut tut, Alan!   ;) ;D

A.T. 2: The Reunion Concert
Fairport Convention

Woodworm Records WRC1 (cassette, UK, May 1983)

 album details  ▼ show all details  ▲ hide all details
Recorded live on August 14, 1982 at Home Farm, Cropredy, Oxfordshire by Mark Powell;
Produced & mixed by Dave Pegg at Woodworm Studios;
Interviews by: Simon Loake;
Cover Concept: (a send-up of E.T.) by Dave Mattacks;
Artwork: Mick Toole

Musicians
Dave Swarbrick, vocals, fiddle, mandolin;
Simon Nicol, vocals, electric guitar;
Dave Pegg, bass guitar, vocals;
Trevor Lucas, vocals, acoustic guitar [3, 5-8, 10-12, 14];
Jerry Donahue, electric guitar;
Dave Mattacks, drums;
Bruce Rowland, drums;
Dan Ar Bras, vocal, electric guitar
with
Linda Thompson, backing vocals [9, 13];
Phillipa Clare, backing vocals [12-13];
Johnny Jones, backing vocals [12].

Tracks
Side 1
The Lark In the Morning (5.21)
Angel Delight [Swarbrick, Pegg, Nicol, Mattacks] (5.29)
Marijuana Australiana [Brendan Hanley] (4.24)
The Beak [Jerry Donahue] / The Claw [Jerry Reed Hubbard] (3.01)
Here Come the Cowboys [Brent Parlane] (6.26)
Polly on the Shore (Roud 811) (5.25)
The Hexhamshire Lass (Roud 3182) (2.39)
Bring 'Em Down [Trevor Lucas] (7.29)
Interviews with Bruce Rowland, Children, Derek Brimstone
Side 2
Sloth [Richard Thompson, Dave Swarbrick] (16.35)
Dirty Linen [trad. arr. Swarbrick] (4.22)
Lucky Old Sun [Beasley Smith, Haven Gillespie] (6.03)
Love Me Tomorrow (Dan's Blues) [trad. arr. Thorup] (5.57)
Forever Young [Bob Dylan] (8.50)
Interviews with Neil Cutts, Baz Marshall

Also available on MP3 from me upon request, with full permission. It's appropriate to make a donation of what you would pay for these to a charity of your choice.

Thanks David, and Andy.  8)

It's yours, posted just now. Sold as seen, no refunds!

And, if you're not annoying your friends, neighbours (and yourself) by constantly singing Marijuana Australiana from here til the ends of time, then you're doing something wrong....  ;D

Validation  ;D

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-49906336

I can't wait to see your fax machine collection.

Jules

I imagine this is something which will become clear  . .. ???

Contact your nearest farmer

Does two count as 'a collection'?

Yes. And an extravagance   :o

Do you fax stuff between them for "fun"?  ::)

 ::) ;D ;D

Only my latest cassette lists....

Handwritten?

Nah...dingbats.

That's a

CUT   <--
CUT
CUT
CUT
CUT

 :)

I think I may need a translator.

Jules

That's a cut above the rest?

Do I win a prize?

What for? The best cutting comment?

THEPITSOST

 ;D

Cheers, looking forward to it! :)

 :D

P
U
S
B
M
U
H
T

I'll stop now...

On topic!  Now!   ;D

Gray started it, Sir!!!

Gray still doesn't know what's going on.

Gray

I remember losing a few cassette tapes to the car cassette player , you remember when the sound suddenly wobbles and you know the unit's rollers are swallowing the tape up , and then using surgeon like precision to recover the tape , all chewed up , and then trying to spool it back in to the cassette . Or opening your cassette shell up like a bomb disposal expert , once you've located a small enough screwdriver , splicing out the mangled tape , trying to join it together again , realising that you've now edited out most of a guitar solo that you loved soooo much. Why didn't you use a headcleaner to get the oxide off the rollers ? Because people said they damaged the playback heads.

Hours of fun !

Driving up the A1 to the 'Best of Bo Diddley' and hearing the tape stretch before your very ears >:(

Aah memories! memories! But not necessarily good ones  ::)

It's reassuring to know that the rest of the world is going bonkers with me..

https://burningshed.com/store/noman/no-man_love-you-to-bits_cassette?fbclid=IwAR1aBInlzspc2ZOLfZF9DjWO0n-wbIHlhb0VDtjTmG4nr0w0I6e-BFRDv9E

Currently re-reading The Rotters Club by Jonathan Coe and one of the characters is reading a women's tips column and this helpful suggestion was made-

'If a cassette tape breaks, don't throw it away,' wrote Amelia Fairney, from South Shields. 'The spools can be pulled out and the tape used as party streamers or for tying up presents.'

 ;D ;D

Just bagged a very cheap copy of an Island pink original of Nine.  Not in an original case though.  Does anyone have any Island Pink original cassette cases?  They are unlike any others, even from the same time...much thicker plastic than normal, and with equally thick grey or black backs to them....once seen never forgotten (well, if you're odd like me, anyhow).

You are not alone ;D

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7667959/Reel-music-returns-cassette-sales-100-000.html

I'd hate for the Daily Mail to prove my point, but, er, yeah  ;) :)

I've bought quite a few new albums on cassette in the last year - not just niche 1/50 type releases, but major ones too.  I'm looking forward to the Who's newie popping through the door soon...also No-Man etc etc

The Guardian had an article about it yesterday as well so you don't need to infect your browser with pages from the Daily Mail.  ;D

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/nov/09/back-in-the-loop-why-cassette-tapes-became-fashionable-again

I can barely tell the difference between the two at times these days, but that's another issue...

I have a few. They seem to be a glossy black plastic with part of them a grainy textured panel.

Hadn't seen anything interesting on cassette for ages but I spotted a copy of Alan Hull's Another Little Adventure, in my local Oxfam, this afternoon.

It's an excellent little live album, on Black Crow Records, that came out in 1988, Ridiculous value for 50p!

Absolute bargian and an album I'd love to hear. Alan Hull was a great writer and had the amazing voice that added so much personality to his songs

It's a strong album and stands up well against some of his other live releases.

I just need On The Other Side to complete my collection!  :)

There you go!

https://www.discogs.com/Alan-Hull-On-The-Other-Side/release/9895146

burning shed.com have a number of King Crimson/ Robert Fripp cassettes for sale.
1980s ex warehouse stock. £5.00 each.
Log onto burning shed.com then cassette format.

Just spotted this.

Thanks so much for the tip!

Have asked for a cd/cassette player for Christmas, as all this talk of cassettes has made me want to listen to mine if they are still working. :)

Cue: Demonic laughter and me rubbing my hands in glee  ;) ;D

Have they got antique shops on the Isle of Skye? ;D

Don't you believe it..they're selling them in Tescos.

Have they got Tescos on the Isle of Skye?

I can hear Andy Stewart singing, "Donald where's your Tescos?"   ;D

No, just three Co-ops and Tesco Delivery to pick-up points. (And some firms will deliver to us if they aren’t averse to island postcodes  ??? )

But we are allowed off the island periodically, to visit electrical retailers in the nearest town, 120 miles away  ;D ...my cassettes WILL play again!

The 'Oo and Polydor have done a good job on this: https://store.thewho.com/*/*/WHO-Cassette/690C0000000

Looks very similar to a classic 70's Poly cassette.  Even got paper labels...

And, fwiw, I like the album.  It's got a mature feel, but not (in the main) in a naff way.  The quality control slips on a couple of tracks, but it's far far better than many other Who albums.

Interestingly, one of the guys on the Pink Floyd forum I'm a member of, who's a live tape collector and has good skills in restoring recordings to a high standard, has been shifting his talents to official releases, and has discovered that some cassette issues, after he's done his stuff, have a better sound quality than some vinyl or CD pressings.

Excellent :D

The bit I highlighted in bold is quite a major caveat though.

Jules

I guess. Basically he makes digital transfers. These turn out better than transfers of vinyl and sound better than the official CD transfers of master sources. The tech stuff I don't get, but Dolby on and/or off is a major factor. Pre-Dolby tapes that haven't been worn out come up on top, usually.

Dug out some of my old cassettes today while working at home, so I've been listening to (and digitising some of them):

Big Country - an off-air recording of a live concert in Essen from 1986
Runrig - Amazing Things
Dave Bainbridge & Dave Fitzgerald (from Iona) - Eye of the Eagle
Tri Yann - Cafe du Bon Coin

Great feature about ‘mix tapes’ on tonight’s The One Show.

Not that we ever called them that this side of the Atlantic.

Jules

True, just quoting what they called them in the show. I mean in the telly programme  ;)

What did we call them? Just a compilation tape? I can't honestly remember but I do remember doing them, and also copying albums for friends (and inadvertently killing music) and sticking a few bonus tracks on the end of other bands I thought they'd like.

Yep, compilation tapes. I still have quite a few of mine and have replicated some of them as playlists on my various digital devices.

When I was in my teens I had two record decks and a little four channel stereo mixer (from Tandy. Remember them?) so I used to make my compilation tapes and cross fade between the songs. Of course it took a bit of preparation because I had to do it all in real time so all the records needed to be to hand and in the right order to precisely fit one side of a C90. I was very proud of some of those cross fades. My brother recently found two compilation tapes that I put together for my sister in law's 30th birthday party (33 years ago). Apparently they still play perfectly. I'd like to hear them.

Too cool, Gub!!

Jules

Lordy, you were advanced! I had an Alba mono cassette player and Fidelity mono radio til I was 18 and bought myself a JVC radio cassette recorder...I thought that was advanced as it had ‘tweeters’ and ‘woofers’  ;D


Now I have my new cassette player, I found a compilation that my one friend (male) sent me when I was at college..with talking in between the tracks! That WAS weird to hear again as haven’t seen said friend for 21 years! It was just chit-chat ...no mobile phones, social media so that was quite a nice idea  :)

I have spent the day digitalizing two compilation cassettes that I made for my sister in law's 30th birthday party. These tapes were made in April 1987 and I have not seen or heard them since the night of her party. I was 23 when I made them and digging back all the way to 1957 for some of the source material. My own music collection was much less comprehensive than it is now and I had only just acquired my first CD player. I had very few CDs so all but about two of the songs on the tapes were copied from vinyl album tracks, a few pre-recorded cassettes but mostly my 45s, dating as far back as 1963 (I had been given some old records by a neighbour when I was about 10, many of which were older than me). Sam Cooke, Ben E King and Marvin Gaye had come to my rescue by having reissued singles in the charts recently which filled out some of the earier years. Otherwise for the period from 1957 - 1962 I'd had to buy a couple of cheap MFP and Pickwick compilation LPs (where I first grew to love the music of Eddie Cochran amongst others).

I was excited and it has been fascinating to hear these tapes again, knowing that it was an almost entirely analogue experience and the limitations of the source media would be clearly audible so to preserve the authentic listening experience from April 1987 and especially from some of those very old singles, every click, crackle, rumble, pop, wow, flutter and piece of tape his has been lovingly retained on the digital copies. Bliss.

*shudder*

This is exactly why I continue to embrace CDs.  I know I'm out of step with most other old music fans with this.

Jules

No you're not.
I cacnt fwthom the idea of cassettes being remotely fashionable, i have problems with wondering why anyone would pay £25 for an lp rather than  a tenner for the cd.
    I like cds but since i joined Amazon music i find little need to own physical copies of most records.

I think part of it for me is that on everything that was released before the CD age, the background noise was part of the experience of hearing those records for the first time and for a long time afterwards. It has become part of my DNA along with the songs themselves so in some cases the music doesn't sound quite right without it. My memory or my subconscious or whatever it is has been programmed to expect a crackle after 20 seconds or a pop after a minute & a half. For example, The Kinks You Really Got Me just sounds too clean and pure on CD compared to my 1964 mono single, which was the first way I ever heard it.



In a way you have answered your own question there Jim. It is about fetishising the physical artefact. It is not about the music. A vinyl album is a nice thing to hold, to look at. Mostly new albums are released in coloured or patterned vinyl which gives them an extra physical appeal but they almost all come with a download card and it is the download that actually gets listened to.

I don't buy very much vinyl but I am occasionally guilty of craving the physical object even though I will rarely listen to the format (though I am getting great pleasure from listening to my old vinyl albums from time to time even though they have mostly been replaced in digital format). During 2019 I was enticed by South of Reality - The Claypool Lennon Delirium (orange & purple vinyl), Souvenir - OMD (clear vinyl) and White Xmas Lies - Magne Furuholmen (white vinyl). The first of these in particular is a joy to own in this format for the artwork alone.

It is is hardly a surprise that materiality become ever more important for a small number of people, particularly those people who a) used such objects in the past or b) have grown up in a world where music exists largely in computer code.  Loving cassettes (or CDs or Vinyl) is not specifically about listening to music on those objects (although that can be important for some whose ears can tell the difference) - it's about what the cassettes represent.  If you don't get it, please don't waste too much precious energy trying to do so. ;) ;D

Yes, exactly. Apologies for slightly hijacking the thread to talk about vinyl but when I used to blog I wrote one about my fascination with record labels. I made the point then that my music fandom did not begin with the music. It began as a toddler with a fascination with the physical object, the pieces of round, usually black plastic and the variety of coloured designs in the centre, along with the hardware that played them (in our house a mono record player, possibly made by Ferguson. It was red with a grey vinyl hinged lid and had an auto change facility). To a large extent that love of the object and later on what it represented as a repository of the music I loved has never left me. I imagine it is the same for those who love cassettes. It is not about what they do but how they look and feel and for older afficianados what they represent as part of their life experience.

 For some of us, the preference for physical over digital product partly comes from the relative lack of disposable cash around then. If an LP cost a good chunk of your paper-round money you'd want to get every ounce of value from it that you could - audible, visual, even tactile value. If someone had said to me then "you can own this but you can't hold it" my response wouldn't have been polite!  ::)

'They' do have some very clever methods of parting us from our cash, don't they?  And the artists still get eff all.  Same old, same old...

I abandoned vinyl when CDs became prevalent. I had just bought an album of acoustic guitar on the Wyndham Hill label and, on my fairly decent stereo of the time it was perfect the first time I played it. Then I played it again and the pops and crackles from static drove me bananas. That was my last record.

As for cassettes, all the different DOLBY hiss removal systems that I tried were marketing hype. At that point my hearing was good enough to detect wow and flutter as well. Especially in the car.

CDs, DVD-A and digital music files don't hiss, crackle or pop. That's enough for me.

Just recently I have been having much fun with this Tascam Porta One which I bought back in the 80s to tape band rehearsals...I think I paid almost £300 for it which was a major outlay at the time :o...It actually still works great, although to be fair it has been stored away for over 20 years... ::)...As a complete technophobe I am loving the simplicity of the cassettes, but how long it will survive is anyone's guess?...I do have spare rubber drive belts!!... ;)

I have one of those! Slightly later model I think. I still have all my 4 track demo tapes too. Endless fun bouncing down from one track to another to accommodate more than 4 instruments (I was recording solo). Like yours, mine has not been fired up for more than 20 years, about the same length of time since I last picked up a guitar.

I got offered one of those Tascams for £100 the other week.  Didn't have the cash (ironically because I've spent so much on cassettes recently) but regretted it instantly.  There are a fair few on eBay though.  £300 in 1983, for instance, is over a grand now... (£1019.96 at 2019 prices according to the Bank of England inflation calculator).

It's been great fun Gub and has actually rekindled a love for playing an instrument again...I have been using a tiny Blackstar Fly amp (just £50 :o) which is superb and has an emulated line out for silent recording (I so wish these existed back in my youth :o), and an elderly Alesis SR16 drum machine which has some pretty decent natural drum sounds considering its vintage... :)

It's incredible that it's now possible to purchase a brand new mini digital Tascam Portastudio for a little over a £115  :o...Nice to see that there are still some cassette versions on ebay though...I'm guessing folk probably hung onto them having forked out a lot of cash ;D...So glad I still have mine...:)

I have been trying to build up a complete collection of all of the officially released episodes of Just A Minute (a task begun long before the recent passing of Nicholas Parsons). Oddly, even though these did not start being issued until 1992, some of them do not seem to have ever been released on CD. There is not a lot of rhyme or reason to it as Volume 2 had a CD release but Volumes 3 - 5 only appear to be available on cassette.

Anyway, I have recently been filling gaps in my collection with the cassette versions of five missing releases, having tracked down a copy of Volume 1 which seems to be incredibly rare. Most of these have been pretty cheap. A couple much less so but they have all played beautifully.  :)

And while we are on the subject, somewhere in my house I have a cassette copy of the album Swimmer by The Big Dish but I cannot find it anywhere. I wish I could as it now seems very expensive to get hold of on CD and it is a great album.

You could always download them and put them on tape yourself...  ;) http://www.bennewsam.co.uk/JAM.html

Yes, I am aware of that site and do listen to recordings from it from time to time but I guess this is a collecting thing. I wanted to own copies of all of the actual releases. I am surprised that this and the JAMMER site have not been closed down. The latter operates and internet radio stream of episodes. There must surely be copyright issues?

Anybody got an opinion on the authenticity of these (don't worry, I'm not thinking of buying them)?  I'm fairly convinced they're not what they say they are, but I'd be interested to know what others think.... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254516371405?ul_noapp=true

They look wholly legit. We used to get these sorts of things from friendly reps all the time, although why anyone would want some thirty year-old cassettes of widely available albums for fifty quid is another matter!

Fair enough.  The answer to your question is that they're rare, innit. Otherwise why would anyone buy promos of any kind, white labels, acetates etc etc?  Ultimately, this is no different.  It ain't to play, is it?  ;) ;D

I had the pleasure of recording at Abbey Road once, and our tape was presented to us in the exact same style as the one pictured there with the zebra crossing on.

Jules

Well, quite. But when you can get a vinyl test pressing of Full House for under a tenner, fifty of your English pounds for something run off while a lab assistant made a cup of tea and then ran some cardboard through a printer seems...outre.

No offence to anyone who duplicated cassettes for a living at one point, by the way.  ;)

Lol  ;D

Did I know this?  If I did, I've forgotten...tell me again, Jules

Ebay is spamming me with ads for cassettes now!  ::)

Lol

I was in a band and the drummer knew a lad who was starting as a producer-in-training at Abbey Road.  He was the green light to get some experience, so we recorded there for free.  Just two songs, but we used studios 2 and 3.  Number 2 hadn't changed from the old photographs, but 3 had been modernised.

Anyway the whole experience was a huge thrill.  One of my life's highlights, for sure.

The trainee producer was Guy Massey.  He went on to work on some big name projects, including remastering The Beatles.

Jules

Oh, happy happy days...old stock of Feeding and Yes Sir found in Dial House  :)

https://crass.bandcamp.com/album/yes-sir-i-will

https://crass.bandcamp.com/album/the-feeding-of-the-5000

No idea why I woke up thinking of phrases associated with using cassettes. E.g.

I haven’t used that one for ages so make sure you fast forward and rewind it first, to tighten it up!

Can I borrow your pencil? No- not the round one!

It’s spewing out all over the place-what’s it doing to the innards?

Thanks Mum! I was just taping the top 40!

Yes, it got cut off! But I started taping it again, on side B.

HA HA whenever I hear Summer In The City now I always expect to hear mum's voice halfway through. ;D Mind you that was reel to reel.

We had a cuckoo clock in the living room that used to go off once on the half hour. Top of the Pops started at 7.25 so the second song of the night always featured “Cuckoo” followed by frantic whispering “you were supposed to stop it!” “No, you were!” etc etc. My favorite was David Essex “Hold me close, don’t let me go, cuckoo”  ;D

Oh, yes, Brij - and there used to be a song called Pick up the Pieces. I was recording Pick of the Pops (I think) in the dining room, and in the background you can hear someone noisily washing the dishes in the kitchen!

Cassettes, word of mouth, and a bit of luck, were the key in the door to getting pub gigs in the 1980s/90s...I still have a few cassettes (probably 2nd/3rd generation copies) recorded at rehearsals on various cheap devices, and later a Tascam Porta One which really upped the game... ;)

I actually really miss those times and the innocent DIY nature of it all...Nowadays I'm guessing the process would involve some sort of video blog uploaded to Bookface/Instagraph... :-\ :-\

Absolutely. “We’re trying to get a gig”
“Do you have a YouTube clip we could look at?”
“Filmed at a gig?”
“Yes”
“Well, we’re trying to get a gig...”
[repeat to close]

I remember that! Recorded from that massive Sony radio! (Pick Up The Pieces was by Hudson Ford https://youtu.be/GXhwRo3ZSBI great bit of slide guitar!)

Dan Donnelly has a new band called The Wooden Faces. As an experiment they have recorded their debut album twice, once entirely analogue and once entirely digital. The analogue version is now being released on cassette (with a free download of the digital version). The digital version is also being released as a stand alone download.

I ordered the cassette yesterday, though Dan's record company say they will not be able to dispatch anything until lockdown eases. This will be the first cassette I have bought for about 30 years.

Welcome aboard! :)

If anybody is interested there is a decent looking original Gottle on eBay (not mine)... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/184279143604?ul_noapp=true  Fairly certain the case is much newer.

Just found four Whippersnapper cassettes on-line.

Strangely, despite enjoying them live, I've never owned any of their music. Thought I'd remedy that but  Vinyl and CDs were quite pricey. The tapes were reasonable enough though. Looking forward to them arriving.  :)

Listened to a home made cassette of 3 radio interviews last night, all from the early 2000s:

Bernie Taupin, Arthur Brown, Joan Baez.


:

I'm rather pleased with this one.  I don't even think it's listed on discogs.  £3 (plus postage).

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174266727849?

A favourite album of mine. Have you got something to play it on David?

Lol.  These things aren't really for playing - they just 'are'.  I can listen to it on my phone any time I want  :) Having said that, I would like an 8-track player....so that I could if I wanted to.

You could probably find one online. There are actually people out there who used them i hear.

I bought a cassette !

The Sweet Liberty album by Garva that I had that went bad and can't find a replacement for, came up on eBay on tape, and is now mine. It doesn't contain the bonus tracks, but it's a step in the right direction.

 :)

Garva! Now that's a blast from the past. I've got Sweet Liberty too. It's a good listen.

They were excellent live, the one weekend I saw them (Chester Festival some time in the mid Nineties, I think!).

That's about when I used to see them. The guy that played the low whistle in that band played at Cropredy one year, either with Fairport or Vin Garbutt...the memory eludes me.

I have an 8 track player in my car, and a spare in the garage. Can't get them working at the moment. I have loads of tapes to play on them, if I ever get them working.

Paul

Several for sale on Ebay, from £30.

Ah 8-Tracks! I don't know about over there, but in my youth whenever you went in someone's car between say the years of 1974-1981 they were always in the floor wells of any car you went into. And it always seemed to be the same ones-Aerosmith, Boston, Eagles, Chicago, Kansas, Journey! We had one at home until I headed off to college, which would have been 1986. I'm not joking when I tell you I still miss that CA-CHUNK sound when switching between programs.

I've just been going through some cassettes I've picked up recently.  Found this with an original sticker.  £11.20 in '88 is worth £30.25 at 2019 prices  :o

Note to self: people tell untruths about cassettes on eBay and Discogs.  They say they've tested it - but they haven't, what they mean is they've had a look and superficially it looks in great condition.  But if a tape hasn't got a pressure pad in it, it simply won't play so they certainly haven't played it (or if they did that play caused the pressure pad to drop out and they'd have known about that).

In future I'm making it a golden rule to ask everybody I purchase from the specific question: Is the pressure pad in place?  If it isn't - I might still buy it, but at least I won't be disappointed (Two nice Island pinks arrived today - RT (guitar, vocal), and Sandy's Rendezvous.  Two different sellers, identical issue with both.  Oh, and two very different responses too...

Did you get refunds okay?

I got the offer of a refund from a very nice seller.  The other one was exceedingly dismissive and suggested the fault on the cassette was somehow mine.  I do know how to replace pressure pads, so I think I'll probably keep them tbh, but you live and learn.

The problem with replacing the pads is that so many prerecorded tape cases were glued together rather than using screws which makes them hard to take apart without damaging them.

Indeed.  This is literally just the pad though, not the bit (don't know the technical term) that the pad sits on that you need to separate the cassette to fix.  In theory (and occasionally practice!) it is possible to glue the pad back on with the tape still in one piece.

Not bought anything from Ebay in a number of years, it's a den of thieves I'll stick to Amazon.

Back in the days when this was important (I wanted to actually play the cassette regularly :)) I used to bust open the knackered original shell, and transfer the tape reels to a surrogate blank cassette shell which usually had a far better mechanism than the original I'd just sacrificed.

I think anyone who is selling a cassette ought to know it's no good without the pressure pads. Being rude to you might have been another way of being disingenuous.  I'm impressed that you know how to replace pressure pads though. I wouldn't know how to do this.

Get a pad off another casette, carefully loop the tape away from the area, use tweezers to crazy glue pad onto the metal 'bar', when dry, wind back tape with a pencil, PITA but done.

Yes!  That is indeed the theory.  The practice is often a little different.

Piece of cake once you get the hang of it, way back DJ's used to record 'air scope' tapes on cassettes...the bit where we actually talk.
I have boxes of them and have mended many successfully.
Any ex aeromodeller or electric train freak should have no problems. :)

That's me as well.

There is an article about cassette tapes on the Discogs homepage at the moment!

Copy of the The Other Boot on eBay at the moment at a decent price (it's not mine)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164255620651?ul_noapp=true

Digging through a box yesterday, I found a load of NME cassettes including the C81/Rough Trade tape. The others number from NME001 (Dancin’ Master) through to NME032 (Pocket Jukebox 2) complete. Then there were 2 more tapes - numbers NME036 and NME037 (Indie City 1 and 2). Anyone know if this set of 35 cassettes is worth anything...there’s a lot of interesting and rare tracks on these tapes!

Just work your way through Discogs and eBay and have a look..they're definitely worth something - I suspect there are a few that are more collectable than others... e.g. https://www.discogs.com/Various-Dancin-Master/release/952541

https://www.discogs.com/search/advanced

Thanks David...I have found that my most valuable cassette in this collection is the first one (C81) which has a price tag of £9.72 😁 Also found a small collection of cassettes from Vox magazine (serial numbers GIVIT1 to GIVIT12)

I have some of those too. First place I ever heard Creep by Radiohead.

My latest "I can't quite believe I've just spent that" purchase

As I have been digitizing my old casstette tapes and have come across some Gregson and Collister tapes, brand new and unplayed. I picked these up in a sale for no money really, probably 50p each.  I have 2 x A Change in the Weather, 2 x Love is A Stange Hotel (wonderful album) and a copy of the Last Word (one of my favourites)  If you want one or two, message me and they will be yours. Obviously first ask, first gets....  

As in lots of money, or hardly any?

Jules

Coincidentally Ronaldo have a cassette Change in the weather.  It was given to me a lot of years ago.Thankyou  for reminding me.🙂

Lots.  They don't come cheap.  I spent £125 on a cassette a couple of months back.  This was £38.  Some people will have their mind boggled by this, but I honestly reckon they're good long term investments.  The £125 one (Dr Strangely Strange - Heavy Petting) costs £500+ (very plus) for an LP in a similar condition and there is (literally) no other copy of it available anywhere.  Even one of the band thought it was a fake, but it's not...(and has been authenticated by the band biographer).

I should add that most of the cassettes I buy cost pennies (or no more than a couple of quid anyway).  But I quite often buy, say 25 tapes for a tenner, keep the two I want and flog the rest for £2 to £5 a pop.  I only need to sell a handful and I'm generally well into profit.  There's a surprising amount of people in this market place.  

Sorry don't know a Ronaldo. Auto complete godammit.

**** me up the arse with a big stick!   :o

Jules

Now here is a phrase I did not expect to read on TAW while eating my breakfast!  ;D

Interesting response.  I do find it odd though...nobody bats an eye at people spending £1k on a record.  Anyway, these tapes are far far rarer than the vinyl which is far far more expensive.  I call that a bargain.  But go figure!

I do.

But I'm not knocking you.  I'm merely flabbergasted.  I know you know what you're doing.

Jules

Lol ;D  I'm going to quote that to SWMBO...

My quest to complete a Fairport tape collection doesn't save me from albums I'm not even very keen on.  I've just picked up WKWTTG ('97) on Woodworm (WRC025).  Does anybody else have this on cassette?  Reason I ask is because it's not on discogs.

Noticed the forthcoming reissue of Rolling Stones : Goat's Head Soup is in multiple versions, including cassette.

Thanks for that  :)

Here's the link btw if anyone is interested.  https://uk.therollingstonesshop.com/*/*/Goats-Head-Soup-2020-Limited-Cassette/6LAO0000000  All the big boys are in on this game now - the last Who album etc etc

Didn't even know this one existed...

What's the label on that David? I have the vinyl edition with the same cover art.

... Stony Plain.

Yep, that's it.

Released under licence from Woodworm in Canada

Had the hangman lost his jollies?

Exceedingly chuffed to have just bagged an Island pink Henry the Human Fly....  :)

May I ask how much it set you back, david?

I'll message you  ;)

I've seen the individual cassettes before but not the complete set and book...

This is too niche even for me, but someone might be interested?  [I'm not the seller] https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/303720453915?ul_noapp=true

I was delighted to find a copy of Herb Pederson's Lonesome Feeling album on cassette in a local charity shop, earlier on today. It set me back a mere 50p.

I've long enjoyed his two Seventies albums so it's fantastic to have something "new". Not too many Herb originals but the covers, including Gordon Lightfoot's It's Worth Believin', are well done and it's a lovely, laid back listen with impeccable harmony vocals, as you might expect,

An Indian "Beat the Retreat".  Why?  No idea...  ;D

Not cassettes, but I didn't know where else to post it. People with insane record collections:

https://slate.com/culture/2014/06/eilon-paz-photographs-record-collectors-in-his-book-dust-grooves-adventures-in-record-collecting.html

What is this 'insane' of which you talk?  ;) ;D

Lol! You crazy people (well, men, mainly!) with your 96 different versions of DSOTM, I mean, I only have 3 versions....  ;D

Chuffed with this one that arrived today...

Is that the cassette version of a white label?

Nope...it's a second 'pressing' (wrong word, release?) cassette (I've never seen a first)...there's quite a few Island pinks that use the same format.

FASCI   NATING !

I know - that's weird, isn't it?!

They've unhalfed the brick.

Jules

It made me think of those bootleg tapes you used to find in markets - not quite getting all the details right. My favourite was a cassette a friend found called "Tubural Bells"...

I had a Turkish bootleg cassette by Pink Flyod.

They sound like a Welsh Pink Floyd tribute act

it would be Pinc though. Or even Pync...  There is no letter "k" in written Welsh.

I've seen this lot...they're decent actually. https://www.facebook.com/pincffloydtributeband/

I think they're due to play locally to me, although the dates keep being put back and I can't keep up with it  :-\

Re casettes, my husband is going to comandeer his Mum's old player. We were quite excited until we realised we threw out nearly all our old casettes about 15 years ago...  :'(  'spose I'll have to get on Ebay....

I once had a cassette of Five Leaves Left that looked like this. I think it was the first Nick Drake thing I bought. Eventually gave it away when I got a vinyl boxed set.

I'd humbly suggest you shouldn't have  ;) ;D  https://www.discogs.com/Nick-Drake-Five-Leaves-Left/release/10513630

Would the same advice apply to the gatefold vinyl version I sold for £12 when I was a student?  Pink Moon too.

Thanks for the link. I've let a few later to be valuable albums go at various times David. Im philosophical now. I think people mean stoical when they say that.

And I still have my Island Nick  Drake vinyl boxed set,  which must be worth a penny or 2    :)

I'm sure I can beat you on that score: Throbbing Gristle box sets of cassettes which sell for around $5k these days, sold for £100, and don't even get me started on the Spriguns albums....  Aaaaargh!

Cripes You mean you have one or you used to ?

Leafing through the new issue of Mojo yesterday I noticed that amongst the formats being made available for a new reissue of Nancy Sinatra's Boots album is 8 Track Cartridge!  :o

We have truly crossed the rubicon.

I saw this in Record Collector.  I did LOL  ;D

Nah. That was crossed when Jon Boden released a wax cylinder version of Last Mile Home.

I see that the new Elbow album is being released on vinyl, CD and cassette. They're all at it!

I've got quite a large collection of newly released cassettes these days...if I want to chuck some money at the artist I buy the cassette and then generally stream the album.  Most of them are still sealed.  Be worth a fortune one day.  At least that's what I'm telling my new Grandson  ;) ;D

I thought David and other cassette nerds would appreciate this exchange from Twitter about the cassette for Close to the Edge by Yes...

Excellent...yes, I've got a few of them!  Kind of a ridiculous system as they don't stay put at all.  It was informative to me as well in realising that in the US particularly they also started printing on cassettes a whole heap earlier (early 70's certainly, possibly even earlier - '71 I can certainly prove) as opposed to exclusively using paper labels.

Our new (20-year-old) car has a cassette player and a friend gave Wendy a shopping-bag full of cassettes. All well and good. Lots of "Just A Minute!".

Then I thought it might be an idea to record some albums post 1980 onto some of them.

Ideally what I'd like is a cassette recorder I can connect to my PC (USB, preferably) but some searching has led me nowhere. Does such a thing exist?  

I bought one a few years ago in Aldl. Great intentions but never used it .. not sure if they still do them but they do exist. PM me if you want the details

There are several on Amazon  at a quick glance...who knows what the quality is. E.g.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cassette-Converter-directly-Computer-Dedicated/dp/B076PFJKRJ/ref=asc_df_B076PFJKRJ/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310879851560&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5091253960326218775&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=t&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=20342&hvtargid=pla-566340717046&psc=1

Thanks, Lubiloo, I saw those. they are players, used to convert from cassette to digital as far as I can tell.

What I want to be able to do is record cassettes from USB.

Ah.....a subtle difference ....too subtle for the non techno-minded such as moi  ;D

Andy Can you not just connect it up via the headphone mini jack connection via a cable mini jack to what ever input is  on your cassette recorder? I have used that method on my tascam 4 track tape recorder a couple of times with mp3's of some band stuf to rehears against at home.

I don't have a cassette recorder of any sort, haven't for years.

I have digitized many cassettes. I just connected my a standard cassette machine to a standard hifi amp (a few quid from Ebay) and then used to line out (rec)  from the amp to my line/mic input on the PC. Any recording software will then take care of the digitizing. Many use Audacity (free), I use someting cheap, but makes track naming easier. It works well, I can make MP3 recordings relatively easily and then burn CDs or just make a playlist and add to my Itunes library.

But I want to record cassettes

You want to record music which you have in digital format ONTO the cassettes so that you can play them in the car, yes?

Yes

You may be able to pick up a cheap mini hi-fi at a charity shop with a stereo input, you'd just need the right cable then.

Sorry Andy, lazy reading on my part. My solution is to have a nice but cheap amp handling all my computer audio, both in and out. It was less than £50 on Ebay. I just use the line out from the amp into a second hand cassette recorder. I used to make many recordings of special church services onto tape from MP3s for people.

This sort of adapter will work with a phone/mp3 player's headphone output, straight into a car cassette player (or some cassette players):

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/323101442215?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20180816085401%26meid%3Dbaf4aa1abbb449d7af0118af643c1e26%26pid%3D100970%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D15%26sd%3D323101442215%26itm%3D323101442215%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2380057&_trksid=p2380057.c100970.m5481&_trkparms=pageci%3A990dd982-65b9-11ed-9ab1-d647c8a6f592%7Cparentrq%3A80ce94661840a6e5774863d4fff67616%7Ciid%3A1

It just puts a tape head in contact with the one in the cassette player and if you're lucky and they're aligned properlly with each other, they can work quite well. They've been around for years and they were always a bit hit and miss. Whether they trigger the cassette player's autostop/autoreverse (thus rendering it unusable) is something you can really only find out by trying it.

I don't have anything to connect that to.

Could these guys help?
https://www.cassette-to-cd.co.uk/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAsdKbBhDHARIsANJ6-jduR6hRfPLIcEFMTmCZOaWgkj6NPb6mZkos9x91HoLls_GjzVxzw9YaAnxPEALw_wcB

Andy, this seems to do what you are looking for; Mp3 to cassette as well as the opposite. Not sure what the quality will be like but it seems to be the only inexpensive unit around designed for that purpose.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/DIGITNOW-Cassette-Personal-Recording-Converter/dp/B07DLWCBKJ/ref=sr_1_17?keywords=cassette+recorder&qid=1668644262&sr=8-17

No.  They offer digitisation of cassettes. Not what I want.

Can't quote your reply, GugGub, but there's a review saying that it does do what I want, but very badly. So I'll carry on looking.

Thanks for all the replies.

ive done it semi successfully by running a cable from my PC headphone jack into my cassette MIC IN jack.

Yes, it looks like I'll have to buy an old-fashioned cassette deck.

Not always easy to find ones that record these days.. I used to use a cassette adaptor and plug my MP3 player in that way. You can get decent ones that work very well. The Bluetooth ones are useful.

I'd recommend any of the last generation of Pioneer or Sony cassette decks, presuming you won't want to splurge on something like a Nakamichi.

Jules

I have 2 Nakamich decks - the real expense comes when one needs servicing. I used to use them a lot, but less so now.

Been trying to complete my Robin Williamson collection but I'm still missing:

Songs of Love and Parting ('81)
Rory Mor and the Gruagach Gaire ('82)
Music for the Mabinogi ('84)
Legacy of the Scottish Harpers ('84)
Legacy of the Scottish Harpers Vol 2 ('86)
Music for the newly born ('90)
Fireside Stories One ('91)
Fireside Stories Two ('91)
Robin and John Renbourn - Wheel of Fortune (Flying Fish) ('93)

If you have/know of any do let me know.  A few of the cheaper ones are available in the US on Discogs but the postage just makes it uneconomic...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/apr/20/fun-way-consume-music-why-sales-of-cassette-tapes-soaring

I was half expecting your name to pop up while I read this, David!

While I still pick up second-hand cassettes, I bought my first new one in a long while today: the debut album by The Red Locusts, which came out a couple of years ago. I've been on the lookout for it for a while on CD but it's tended to be either unavailable or prohibitively expensive so I was delighted to find the cassette at a reasonable price.

They are a band set up by Rick Springfield alongside Matt & Gregg Bissonette to play homage to The Beatles and power pop bands of the Seventies and Eighties. That sort of thing is not normally my bag (which is why I didn't want to pay a fortune) but I usually find something to enjoy in Rick's writing, and happily that's the case with this album. It's a lovely, breezy Summer listen.  :)