The end of tape?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Steve Hoffman, Nov 5, 2002.

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  1. Dan C

    Dan C Forum Fotographer

    Location:
    The West
    I've enjoyed your site for some time now. How can I not love a label that signed Squeeze and The Police? :love:
    Welcome aboard!
    Dan C
     
  2. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    Let's put it this way, Luke, my main concern is compatability. I want my music CD-Rs to play in anything I can shove them in, and I get that with 80 min blanks. Data? I won't even trust DATA to a CD/RW!

    BTW, I check to see what software/ardware will support what. I athink Nero does now support the 90+ minute blanks, but I won't use them. Besides, I have an HP burned that won't burn a blank for more than 79 minutes, and a Plextor that will not overburn, and I do not use any software that supports it.
     
  3. -=Rudy=-

    -=Rudy=- ♪♫♪♫♫♪♪♫♪♪ Staff

    Location:
    US
    Hi, Dan! A&M's not too bad for a little hole in the wall that started in an L.A. garage in the early '60's! ;) The Corner has been a long, fun ride for all of us, and if anything, it has helped a lot of us explore and collect music we'd otherwise never have heard of. I'd welcome any Police or Squeeze discussions--don't let our "A&M Classic" type of discussions scare you away. :)

    Must be coincidence: I just got an e-mail today from one of the persons who runs www.thepolicefiles.com , a popular Police website. And I'm sure you may have stumbled across Mr Bill's site, www.irscorner.com (sort of a 'sister site' to mine) by now.

    I think the most difficult issue I can think of is how all of the great record labels have disappeared on us, and what happens to the music. Today, A&M is just an office at Interscope. IRS has changed hands at least once. Verve is part of Universal (as A&M is) and is losing a lot of its reissue programs since the Polygram takeover. Other favorite labels of mine have changed to where they're just a marketing arm for the "beat of the week." It's a shame there's so much music left in the vaults that may never see light of day on CD! Our generation still remembers LPs, but my kids will just think of them as those big funny black things Daddy puts on that odd contraption called a "turntable".

    And unless we're out here talking about those great old contraptions, our vinyl and tape, CD reissues and the great music we've all listened to, it'll turn into a footnote in the music history books.
     
  4. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    Rudy, Polygram was taken over by Segrams. Then Segrams took Universal. Universal was taken over by Vevindi.
     
  5. -=Rudy=-

    -=Rudy=- ♪♫♪♫♫♪♪♫♪♪ Staff

    Location:
    US
    ...or something like that. ;) I had the order a little differently, but the end outcome, alas, is the same...
     
  6. Sckott

    Sckott Hand Tighten Only.

    Location:
    South Plymouth, Ma
    Thanks for coming by, Rudy. Stay if you'd like! IRS still stands as a very important move in musical history. Without IRS, alternative "rock" woulnd't have been very strong.

    It's sad that A&M isn't such a huge force in new music and new material. I knew a few people who worked at PGD, and they did a great job at promoting A&M product. I didn't have anything to compare it to, but when PGD called, I always answered them.

    There was a girl there in my neck of the woods called Sue Waters, if I remember correctly. She was such a great person. Made other record weasels look like....weasels and worse.

    Ah, Island, A&M and Motown in one house. Those were the days.
     
  7. GoldenBoy

    GoldenBoy Purple People Eater

    Location:
    US
    I agree with that statement completely. It's the same way I felt and feel.:righton:
     
  8. GoldenBoy

    GoldenBoy Purple People Eater

    Location:
    US
    Believe me, I always check out of curiosity. It's easy when you go online to any of the big retailers like Amazon and Amazon UK, Tower.com, HMV - you name it. They all list the different formats available whether it be vinyl, cassette, or CD. As far as the Spice Girls - uh, who cares?:p
     
  9. Dan C

    Dan C Forum Fotographer

    Location:
    The West
    A&M was so unique, even for indie labels. Very successful and yet still a music lover's label. Even after it was sold to Polygram, there always seemed to be factions at the label that would take risks on less-than-commercial artists. Del Amitri, Suzanne Vega, The Innocence Mission...great and subtle stuff. I almost cried when I saw the Rolling Stone article after Universal assassinated the label. They printed the photo of the black band over the old A&M sign.
    IRS' legacy is superb as well. REM and The Alarm comes to mind right off, as well as Concrete Blond. Classic stuff.

    And in keeping with the thread ;) , I believe we all have one or many A&M chrome cassettes somewhere in our collections. They tended to sound pretty good as far as commercial releases went. However, that BASF tape was delicate. One pass through a half-assed tape deck and that was that.
    Dan C
     
  10. -=Rudy=-

    -=Rudy=- ♪♫♪♫♫♪♪♫♪♪ Staff

    Location:
    US
    Dan: I had a "Black Tuesday" (or Thursday?) page in the Gallery, if I recall. That was a sad day! I admire whoever went up on top of the A&M rooftop and put the black band over the letters. What's even more sad is I had driven by there on a trip back in 1998 and, not wanting to stop in rush hour, never got a picture of the place. Just sort of assumed it would always be there. The Geffen label was also disbanded on the same day. If Alpert and Moss selling out in 1989 wasn't the end of A&M, the infamous Universal day certainly was.

    An A&M engineer, Stephen Barncard, was going to put up a tribute page to the A&M studios on his site, but I haven't seen it go "live" yet. His site is at http://barncard.com .

    The last two A&M cassettes I bought were a Billy Crystal "Mahvelous" tape, and a tape by little-known (and long-forgotten) Rosie Vela. I did not play them often, and only played them at home on a good deck, and they didn't sound bad considering they were cassettes. I only bought Vela's tape because I was convinced it would never appear on CD. (And yes, a year later, it appeared on CD.) That recording was more memorable for the sidemen and producer (Walter Becker, Donald Fagen, Gary Katz) than Rosie's performance. Closest thing to a Steely Dan reunion I could have wished for at that point...

    And somewhat haphazardly wandering back on topic, A&M Japan is doing all of the good reissuing. August brought us all of the Brasil '66/'77 releases on CD, nicely remastered. And at the end of October, they also released some (or maybe all--I can't confirm) of these albums on limited-edition vinyl. I want to get all the CDs eventually, but I'm still tempted to get one of the vinyl pressings just to see how it sounds in comparison. I have the first Brasil '66 album, Herb Alpert Presents, on a Mobile Fidelity vinyl pressing, and it's very revealing and sounded far better than any of A&M's 60's era reissues on CD. I don't have that CD yet, but I'm hearing from others that it is as detailed as that MoFi LP.
     
  11. nin

    nin Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sweden
    Believe me, I always check out of curiosity. It's easy when you go online to any of the big retailers like Amazon and Amazon UK, Tower.com, HMV - you name it. They all list the different formats available whether it be vinyl, cassette, or CD. As far as the Spice Girls - uh, who cares


    Well, but you can miss albums too even if you look at those places. I think it's too bad. But as I said before, the 661,000 LP's for USA is not correct, and most of my friends ONLY buy new vinyl's and no CD's.
     
  12. sgraham

    sgraham New Member

    Location:
    Michigan
    Yes, spherical and conical are the same. The M44-7 is a .7 mil stylus, which is the maximum size specified for playing stereo records. It won't win any awards for tracing, but might be relatively gentle on those polystyrene 45's.

    Golly. They've been selling that very same cartridge since at least the 1960's!
     
  13. sgraham

    sgraham New Member

    Location:
    Michigan
    I bought a box of the 99 min disks to try out. So far I have found a few burners that would record them, but only up to 79 mins worth, so it's a dead loss at present.
     
  14. -=Rudy=-

    -=Rudy=- ♪♫♪♫♫♪♪♫♪♪ Staff

    Location:
    US
    They still sell that one?? Incredible! My grandfather had a couple he used to put on his Garrard turntable back then! I still have one, in fact, and use it with the 78RPM stylus to play the few relics of shellac I still have around here.
     
  15. Sound

    Sound Member

    Location:
    .

    Yes guys, me also. I still have them (and the great memories) also.
    MAR's and MAXG's after that period.
     
  16. -=Rudy=-

    -=Rudy=- ♪♫♪♫♫♪♪♫♪♪ Staff

    Location:
    US
    Last batch of metal tapes I bought were Sony, but can't remember what they were called. If it's any indication, the last metal cassettes I bought were before they came out with "CD length" tapes.

    Used to amaze my friends with the TDK D90 tapes. They used to wrinkle up their noses because they were so cheap, but after a trip through my Harman Kardon deck with the proper bias setting and just a touch of EQ on the high end to compensate for rolloff, they sounded great! And for being so inexpensive, they seemed to outlast a few other more expensive brands.

    Coolest metal tapes:

    The TDK metal tape that had the cast-aluminum shell and clear side panels. The record-protect tabs were removable, and they were the quietest cassette mechanism I'd ever heard, smooth as silk. Expen$ive, though.

    A Teac metal tape that actually had little "reels" inside the see-through shell. Wasn't impressed by the tape stock, but it sure looked cool. :)
     
  17. Sound

    Sound Member

    Location:
    .
    Yeah Rudy,
    Those were the MAR's.
    The 60 minute MAR's were the tops.
    The MAXG's came after the MAR's, they weren't clear, but the sound was as good. They retailed for around $20 blank.
    I still have 3 sealed blank ones. Every year or so, I'll pull one out to record a new masterpiece just for the fun of it.
    dennis
     
  18. -=Rudy=-

    -=Rudy=- ♪♫♪♫♫♪♪♫♪♪ Staff

    Location:
    US
    My TDK memory is definitely rusty. ;)

    I remember now--I had a couple of MA-R, and at least ten MA. In my Harman Kardon, the MA ended up having a hotter high-end, even after all the adjustments were made. I rarely bought metal tapes, though, unless the tapes were for home listening. Recorded most for use in the car, and although I had a top-end Sony deck back then, I still was not comfortable putting the expensive tapes in it. Once 1986 rolled around, I bought one of the first Sony in-dash CD players, the CDX-R7 (this was the model with the tuner; the CDX-R5 was CD player only). Got tired of taping a couple of CDs per week. Toward the end, I was using a lot of Sony UCX-90 (?)chrome tapes. They seemed to hold up best.
     
  19. :agree: I also like Let's Active, Robyn Hitchcock/Egyptians, Marti Jones, Dream Sydicate, Fleshtones, Matthew Sweet, Oingo Boingo, Captain Sensible, Garland Jeffries, Joe Jackson, The Dickies, The Tubes, Tim Curry, Yellow Magic Orchestra. A&M was good at signing/licensing artists to deals for North America such as Procol Harum, Split Enz, The Move, Stranglers, Mental As Anything.

    A&M signed many Canadian artists over the years; Chilliwack, Valdy, Sheri Ulrich, David Bradstreet, Payolas, Walter Zwol, Good Bros.

    Dan, I have a time-line correction for you. Suxanne Vega was signed to A&M Records in late 1984. Her debut album came out in the summer of 1985. Del Amitri were sgined to A&M in 1987. Innocence Mission were signed to A&M in 1988. Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss sold A&M Records to Polygram in the fall of 1989. Polygram's deal to buy A&M took effect in January of 1990, some 5 years and a month or so later after Vega was signed. But I do get your point. A&M signed a few good artists after the buyout. Gin Blossoms, Sheryl Crow.

    Check out the following Web pages on the history of
    A&M Records . The site iis divided into four pages, 1962-1969, 1970-79, 1980-89, 1990-2000.

    I cannot comment on their tapes as I mentioned in my previous post, I have only ever purchased 3 albums on tape. None were A&M artists.
     
  20. Sean Murdock

    Sean Murdock Forum Intruder

    Location:
    Bergenfield, NJ
    Yes, but is it still fine cuisine when you go to a posh restaurant and your filet mignon is just a Big Mac pressed into the shape of a steak? Because that's what you're getting when you buy a new-release vinyl LP these days -- the CD master pressed into the shape of a record. New release vinyl only exists for nostalgia purposes -- vinyl lovers want large cover art, inner sleeves, and the visceral thrill (however artificial) of holding a record again. I admit to purchasing the vinyl releases of the artists "vital" to me (Dylan, Beatles, etc.), but I never play 'em. I just kinda gaze at them every once in a while.

    Vinyl is as dead as Latin -- the few who care can still appreciate the language, but nobody's writing in Latin anymore.

    Sean Murdock
     
  21. Sean Murdock

    Sean Murdock Forum Intruder

    Location:
    Bergenfield, NJ
    Thanks, Steve, for posting that great article -- and it was good to read that so many others shared the taping obsession I went through in high school and college. (It never really went away; I just have less time now at 34 with a wife and 2 kids.) Even leaving aside mixtapes, of which there were legion, every album bought was accompanied by a ritual: 1. buy new album; 2. buy (or think of) an album to go on side two; 3. buy new blank 90 minute tape; 4. tape immediately, with b-sides filling out the tape if at all possible; 5. meticulously transcribe track lists to inlay card and affix labels. I can't fathom the time I spent hunched over my Emerson turntable/tape deck; I used it for 10 years until the pause button snapped off! <snif> I still miss it...

    There was definitely a masochistic thrill to making tapes: getting the levels right, hitting the pause button quickly -- but gently so there would be no "click" between tracks, finding that *perfect* track to end the side -- one that not only fit the time, but also the flow of the tape. Not so easy to do... I still get a perverse satisfaction when I think of my best side-enders -- not the cop-outs when you put "Her Majesty" at the end, but the fearless moments when you look at the *thickness* of the remaining tape and think, "Yeah, that's about 7-1/2 minutes" -- and it works perfectly. Ahhhh, bliss.

    That said, I will disagree with those who said there was no thrill in making CDRs. Maybe a certain adolescent rush is missing, but that's more old age than recording format. Me, I love making CDRs -- as a music geek (and graphic designer), it's several steps closer to my rock fantasies than tape ever was. I can hold a CDR in its case with my custom designed cover and feel that I compiled and designed a "real" album -- damn that's a good feeling. Plus, I don't have to worry about my pause button snapping off anymore -- I can edit and segue and crossfade and level-check to my heart's delight before burning. And after all that work, I've got a master copy that I can keep forever, without worrying about the wrinkly crunch of cassette tape death.

    Slightly OT: Has anyone seen the new Verbatim "vinyl" CDRs that look like a vinyl 45? I know Verbatim isn't the best ranked CDR, but these look very cool.
     
  22. nin

    nin Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sweden

    Well, I don't understand what you are saying?! I think that most people that buy new vinyl (like me) do it because they think it SOUNDS better, not for nostalgia purposes .
    And the thing about CD master is not correct. There ARE vinyl now mastered from digital master, DAT or even CD's, but most of the better "music" are from the original analog master. Like Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Wilco, Beck, etc

    Vinyl is coming back, STRONG, and it's NOT for nostalgia purposes.


    -Mattias-
     
  23. -=Rudy=-

    -=Rudy=- ♪♫♪♫♫♪♪♫♪♪ Staff

    Location:
    US
    I make two types of CDs. First type are compilations. I'll pick out enough favorites from various albums to make my own artist compilations, and often will do a slight overlapping of the beginning of a track and a fadeout. Or, I'll combine two CDs into one--I took my earlier Rolling Stones "Hot Rocks" CD sets and did this. Disc 1 of both sets together, and Disc 2 of both sets together, deleting "Brown Sugar" (since it's on the "Rewind" compilation) and one other song to make Disc 2 work. I call it "Ultimate Hot Rocks". Or, I recently put all four of my Stevie Ray CDs onto two. These compilations work great in the CD changer...I can fit more music in there! Sequencing and select tracks in mixed compilations is still fun, drag-and-drop easy, and I have a running total to know if they'll fit onto that 80 minute CD.

    Even a MiniDisc is neat to play with--don't use mine a lot, but being able to label each track, rearrange tracks, delete tracks and reuse them...and I can drop them into my portable MD player and walk around without it warbling (cassettes) or being bulky and skipping (CDs), and it runs for hours on one AA battery.

    The other CDs I make are transfers of LP or reel-to-reel. I used to put my vinyl through various analog filters in an attempt to clean them up...but the digital tools I have today are far better. It takes me literally hours to clean up an LP properly, but the end results are sweeeeeet. :D I usually do two LPs at a time and store them on one CD, storing it away as a 'master'. In some cases, I'll go to the trouble of making the art for the jewel box, based on the album graphics...and even make an "authentic" CD label for it.

    But not to rule out the older formats: I'll still throw together the odd compilation on reel-to-reel. (And if I could get a set of NAB hubs, I have a reel of Ampex Grandmaster 456 dying to be put to use. :) ) Nothing like threading up the reels and watching 'em spin. Haven't touched cassettes in years, but still have a couple boxes of mix tapes and album dubs. Some dance-mix tapes I made through a pair of turntables and a makeshift "mixer"...using my deck's microphone inputs as a second line-level input with a pair of special cables.

    What memories...
     
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