Comments on: What should I do with all these tapes?

By: Atul Rana

Atul Rana — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:59:18 +0000

[PS: The same goes for photos. Scan them all.]

Back in the midst of time (1999) when scanners were about I came up with an idea…to scan photographs and email them to friends. I discovered a few of those shots last week and put them up on facebook and started tagging people and response has been sweet :-)

So I agree old shots should definately be scanned and digitised…having photos on paper limited how you could share memories on paper…but digital makes that distribution almost effortless and more people than ever can now get involved!

By: Tim Clarke

Tim Clarke — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 23:02:38 +0000

I realized I needed to do this awhile ago. I only have a few cassettes archived so far. It’s all about finding the time.

Here’s an example of your Long Tail idea, Andrew – Beatnik Turtles. They’re a band that did this. Last year they released a song a day as a daily podcast at http://www.thesongoftheday.com and are still going. It’s all under CC license.

They wrote or I heard them on a podcast say some songs up there are older ones they digitized and remixed from their old multi-track cassettes.

So that’s a 4th reason to do what your saying: if you have older multi-tracks digitize them so you can remix and remaster with new technology (or make the multi-tracks available so others can remix them!).

By: Chris Conway

Chris Conway — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 12:22:47 +0000

A band member is doing just this with his tape collection and came up with 3 of my songs I;d forgotten I;d written.
I have a mountain of tapes going back to schooldays. I started with the cassette albums I released that had masters on DAT and I;m releasing the remastered albums on CDr., But I guess I ought to look at the cassettes now…

By: What should I do with all these tapes?

What should I do with all these tapes? — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:52:55 +0000

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By: Milton

Milton — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 03:07:47 +0000

Interesting coincidence that you post this #36 question of digitizing cassettes. I just finished digitizing three tunes off of an old tape.

As I was unpacking boxes from moving (like 6 months ago!) I came across one of many boxes of old tapes. I went through and collected all the old tapes out of the various boxes and began the process. I only made it through three! I have been spoiled by the rapid pass “Bounce” used in my DAW. I couldn’t manage to get past three real time passes before I needed to stop listening to myself! (That and they are dirty, dirty, dirty recordings straight out of a Ensoniq into a tape deck. Not exactly pro by any means.)

I would guess I have around 20 plus tapes of original music and another 50 plus of old DJ sets. There are also some old DAT and ADAT tapes in a friends possession that I need to get my hands on.

By: Henry Gooderham

Henry Gooderham — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:21:31 +0000

Archiving is important. Doing the analog tapes and obsolete digital formats now is going to be easier and cheaper while the equipment is still maintainable. Look out in 5 years from now.
But, just as important, do not discard the originals. Store them properly because the digital formats are even less reliable than analog. CDs start degrading after ten years and after a certain point they are unplayable. At least tape still plays on a tape machine and the signal is still useful (if the tape was stored properly).
True archiving is a matter of transferring to the most robust format available at the time, and doing it all over again periodically when the format becomes obsolete.

By: karen

karen — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:57:12 +0000

same – I’ve been digitising cassettes and VHS tapes..with an eye on the DAT box …. it’s a very nostalgic process for me ….. it also clears some space as I see that some of the things I am hanging onto really are crap

I think that’s a good skill to develop too by the way – making calls to throw bad tapes etc away ….. i get to choose what shite to NOT leave in my ‘legacy’.

I find some goodies though – here’s an example – I recently put a gem from 2002 online – a one off live collaboration of punk comedy from a show at the inaugural Dunedin fringe fest – hiliarious – playing with the Auckland band that was known as ‘Afghanistan’ long before 2001 – http://www.karenhunter.com/collaborations/general-hospital.html

…… wasn’t intended on pushing my wagon – just seems appropriate

By: Universal Indie Records

Universal Indie Records — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:44:11 +0000

I recently started doing just that. I took a bunch of old stuff that I had on cassette from 1990 – 1997 and released it as “The Lost Tapes.”

I still have a ton of music on cassette, dat, old voyetra, s950 and mpc60 floppy disc.

Not quite sure to when I’ll get around to it all…