Cassette: A Documentary

Having just run across this, I don't know much about it -- but it seemed like a good thing to post here, since they are getting near the end of their Kickstarter window.

Cassette: A Documentary

 

These "Kickstarter" things make me crazy, because they don't always explain what the hell the projects are about. Is this a history of the cassette, or is this more about eccentric people who still use cassettes in 2012?

I'd give 'em a coupla bucks if this actually went and did a history of the audiocassette, talking to the guys at Philips, Sony, Nakamichi, and everybody else who was part of that colorful story.

 

plus, if it were that, then maybe I would have a chance to cash in all these unused Maxell Max-points

 

Very cool!

 

I think this is the same film, but the link in post 1 takes me to an Asian website, so here's a current one:

http://www.cassettefilm.com/#home

There's a trailer on the site and it has some interesting talking heads. Early 2014 is listed for its release.

 

A friend of mine is the most obsessive taper I have ever known, taping every concert he ever went to, and he went to a whole bunch of them.

He spent New Year's Eve of the year the Maxell points program ended sending in all his remaining stickers, and racing the package down to the Post Office so it would be post-marked.

Back then, the top prize was either a trip to Hawaii or a camcorder. He, of course, took the camcorder. But he wasn't allow to get two camcorders, so he had to trade in the remainder of the points for cassette tapes - I don't recall, however many points for one cassette tape.

He received the camcorder, and later got a letter from the Post Office telling him to come by and pick up his mail, that it was too big to deliver to his home.

It was three very large mail-bags of cardboard envelopes filled with cassette tapes. Each envelope contained one tape. All individually addressed and stamped. You might think someone would have thought to just send the cases, but no, each one was individually mailed.

He was shucking cassettes for weeks.

 

I was lucky enough to stumble across a couple of these during the Last Day of Cassette (*sniff* -- even though I know Vidiot hates cassettes). I have to say these must have been the ultimate cassette. They must have weighted four ounces and had a SOLID metal casing. It was crazy.



Normally, I used nothing but Maxell XLIIS. Ah, those were the days. I need a pocket digital recorder....

 

I have a few of those. A dying technology reaches it's peak right before death.

 

Did you have a Nak deck back in the day, or just use VHS tape for music storage ?

 

Okay, I just saw last night that this was finally available on iTunes, Amazon and as a DVD or blu-ray. I watched it and enjoyed it. It is not very technical and deals more with the cassette as a cultural artifact and influence. They do delve into its early history, interviewing some of the key figures at Philips. It also looks at how cassettes helped propagate hip-hop in New York in the early 80s and looks at how new indy bands are embracing now it for its low cost and “cool” factor.

I would enjoy a more technical minded companion doc, but I suppose it would have a much more narrow appeal. Things not mentioned at all include Dolby noise reduction, though hiss is brought up. No coverage of the further developing of cassette fidelity with three heads, dual capstans or high bias cassettes. No mention of high end cassette decks. They show National Audio’s duplicating machines, but never discuss the technology. Techmoan covers some of these things in more depth on his YouTube channel.

That said, I still enjoyed this for what it is. It may end up on Netflix or Amazon Prime, but right now is only available for rent or purchase. Check it out.

 

One day Ken Burns will do "Recording Media"...in eight parts on Public TV....ok, that's my mad idea for the day

 

I had some of those back in 1988, I think their name was MA-R,they were great, the best cassette tape I ever used.

 

I owned 4 or 5 Nakamichi decks: the RX-505 auto-reverse deck, a Nakamichi Dragon, a CR-7A, and I think a CR-5A as well, plus the portable. And a Nakamichi digital PCM adapter for Betamax. When I recorded digitally in the 1980s, I generally used Betamax tape. Around 1992, I switched to DAT and wound up with about 7 or 8 DAT decks, all either Sony ES consumer or Sony Pro Digital. And I also had MiniDisc decks for a time as well, just for portable use (roughly 1998-2006). Since 2006, it's been all digital files and iPods, lossless on my Mac Mini server and 320kbps on the iPods.

The TDK MA-R tapes were phenomenally good.

 

Still own a Pioneer CTF-9191.

Have a case of Maxell tapes somewhere.

CD recorders obsoleted it for me.

 

Yup, those things sounded absolutely amazing. It's so sad to me that technology can have such stunning capability, but are crippled by crappy software. Must have driven mfg of decent cassette decks crazy. We have the same problem today. Well pressed vinyl that sounds fantastic and then the usual cheap garbage.

 

I just watched the doc and thought it was really good. So many aspects to cover....the film makers did a great job. Lots of memories.