Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with cassettes

Ccaasseetteess

god particle — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:05:31 -0800

Where are the best places to buy tape cassettes in Philadelphia? I know there are a few record stores in Philly, but do these places (or any others) sell tape cassettes? I just recently got a tape player and I'm having a lot of fun with it, but want to find more cheap/obscure/fun tapes to listen to.

Old tapes worth keeping.

typewriter — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:19:18 -0800

How should I store these 20-year old cassette tapes with historic value? At some point, I plan to transfer the information on the tapes to a digital format and googling tells me it won't be insanely difficult. I've also read this question/answer but I think I am not comfortable sending out the tapes due to some sensitive content. In the meantime, I want to keep the tapes in the best condition possible so that when I have the time/resources to do the transfer they will be in good shape. The microphone used seems to be quite high-quality, as there is a lot of audio detail that obviously I would like to preserve. In a standard home environment, what is the best storage solution for these tapes?

Help me convert my old tapes and records into mp3 format

Lockeownzj00 — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 17:04:06 -0800

We were rearranging the shelves in my house today, and we found a bunch of old tapes from my
Dad's friends from when he lived in Spain (he was born there, as was I). His friends mixed
a bunch of bands together to make this very cool-sounding tape, and the thought struck me: Why not
rip this? (edit: also found bunch of old tapes my brother made of a punk radio station. woot!)

Of course, I lack the knowledge required.

So my question essentially is: what sort of process, programs, and materials is one required to
go through to convert these tapes to mp3? Would the machine I'd have to buy also double as a
tape-pl-ayer itself? What about records? I've been wanting a record player for a while, and I've
been wanting to rip some records as well. Are there record-rippers which double as players? Are
there record/tape player/rippers all combined into one machine? How complicated is this process?
How expensive does it have to be? I don't want to end up with really badly ripped files, but I
don't want studio equipment, either. Basically, what do I have to go through to get good
sounding, 192-320 kbps mp3s from my tapes and records that I could then distribute via
BitTorrent? Thanks.

Cassette Tapes

gnomeloaf — Sun, 06 Feb 2005 09:42:01 -0800

I'm looking for a music store that has a reasonable selection of cassettes of current release LPs. [+] My husband has a cassette deck in his car, a huge cassette collection, and no interest in CDs or MP3s. While he tends to rely on what he's already amassed for music, there are a handful of newish albums he'd like to get a hold of in his preferred medium. Locally (predictably) he's had no luck.

Metal is the genre of choice, but please feel free to share any resource.

What do I do with my unwanted cassette tapes?

emptybowl — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 06:01:00 -0800

What do I do with my old cassette tapes? [MI] I'm getting ready to move, and went through my old cassette tapes to weed out all of the ones that I already have on CD or on my MP3 player. So, now I have a big box of cassettes that I don't need anymore, but that represent a large chunk of my teenage years. There's some store- bought albums, but most of them are *ahem* "backups" of albums. It just feels wrong to throw them all in a dumpster or something, given all the time and care I put into them. It would be nice to give them to someone, so that they can enjoy them as much as I did, but it's an antiquated technology with outdated music on it. (I checked with my brother, and he was uninterested, but he's a weirdo that doesn't listen to any music.) Anyone have any ideas of what I could do with 200 or so cassette tapes? Hell, anyone here want them?

Car Tape Player

vraxoin — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 08:05:22 -0800

The cassette deck in my car is so noisy that when I'm listening to books on tape on the iPod, all I can hear is the clacking and ratcheting of the tape deck as it gnaws on the cassette adapter. What can I do? [more inside] I gave up on iTrip when I never found a station that would stay clear throughout my commute. Here's the question: can I make this thing any quieter? Or is there some way I can take a soldering iron to my cassette deck (factory 2001 Camry) and turn it into an aux input so that I can go direct?