Back in the nineties and noughties, the monthly non-Word music rags, mostly also now extinct, used to regularly sellotape little cassettes to their covers, often from single label sources, and often containing otherwise unavailable tracks or alternate mixes. I know this because I have a box of the darn things in my loft.
I also know that tape print-through is starting to make itself heard on these cassettes, particularly those that used el cheapo tape in the first place. That’s most of ’em.
With that in mind I’m setting out on a mammoth digitisation exercise using the ace NevaDuo USB gizmo that our friend @fentonsteve recommended some months back for those of us keen to turn our analogue tape stuff into ones and zeroes before it’s too late to retrieve it all.
So, as I won’t live long enough to get around to actually playing all of those little freebies again, I’m calling out to you lot to suggest the one that you found most excellent back in the day, so that I can concentrate on those to start with. The one that really had tracks worth hearing again, the one you’d maybe like to hear again, should a link mysteriously appear in your inbox to a newly minted digital copy of same.
Anyone care to shout out for a good ‘un?
The Creation one is particularly good, and contains the best (and otherwise unavailable) version of Kylie’s Got A Crush On Us by Teenage Fanclub
@fentonsteve
And you say you’re dull!
@fentonsteve I’m just taking the shrinkwrap off that one right now – it’ll be digitised on its very first play!
The TF track is apparently “Recorded live at a soundcheck at Coventry Polytechnic on January 15 1992”
It was, of course, recorded by BMX Bandits, including in their lineup a certain Norman Blake.
Wow I think I’ve got all of those tapes still in my loft
The Vox ones were excellent i recall. Definitely worth listening to
And the select ones were that good I even had made a Spotify playlist of a lot of them, including some of the ones you have here:
Looks like the Vox ones are the ones to save first, ta.
I still have a lot of these in the box of cassettes that have, for reasons of space, gone into the attic.
But from memory…that Columbia cassette has got a decent 1-2-3-4 of The Clash, Public Enemy’s Powersaxx (Fight the Power with sax in place of vocals), an early version of Spectators of Suicide by the Manics and then Eight Miles High. Inspired sequencing.
The Parlophone cassette is where I first heard Come Together, which made me think Blur might have something about them.
If you have the Select 12 cassette, it has the utterly wonderful Talkin’ With Myself (Electribe 101) and House Taken Over (The Hummingbirds), both of which are incredible songs and aren’t shamed by being either side of a Walker Brothers track.
From what I remember that Vox Story So Far cassette has Sparklehorse and The Jesus Lizard side by side – great – but followed by Shed Seven.
But the sequencing on that Island cassette is just bizarre…Tom Waits, Julian Cope, the not that bad baggy of Top’s Hi Baby Hi and then Anthrax.
If you have the original Select Red Tape, that’s a good one with 4AD on one side on Mute Records on the other.
But, to be honest, there’s little on any of these that you can’t get from Youtube at better quality. The pleasure at the time was hearing new tracks that weren’t getting much press (very much The Hummingbirds at that time) but most of the Select tapes are full of album tracks or B-sides padded out with classic rock.
Thanks for the insights – will have a butchers for the ones you call out as worthwhile.
Columbia – check
Parlophone – check
Select 12 – check
Story So Far – check
Island – check
Red Tape (and More Red Tape) – check
As to quality, if I rip these straight to wav files, surely the quality is likely to exceed anything available on YouTube?
Vox Box and Vox Phone Box are 2 I clearly recall being regularly bunged in the car stereo.
The Select Parlepnone tape led to my first Richard Thompson purchase (and the Steve Booker album the same day)
*lowers the loft ladder, gingerly ascends the steps with anticipation*
I once had shelves full of those.
Then I hade a wheelie bin full.
Then I had none.
That live and unreleased one I remember as being pretty good.
I’ve deffo got that – I’ll give it a spin!
I’m not sure if the links are still live, but the site is still up & the track listings there
https://pressplayandrecord.wordpress.com/
Oooh, @timbar, that’s excellent info! Thanks for this.
I think I’ll drag my entire box out of the attic and list its contents here at some point – if anyone wants things digitised as a result I’ll have a ripping time.
There was one from 1997 called Beat Up The NME, an hour long mix of big beat tunes by Fatboy Slim, at the high tide if that genre. A real moment in time, if you are partial to that particular genre of music.
This’ll be the chappie then:
I’ll do this one for sure!
That’s it yeah. I really enjoyed that one, and I went on to buy a few of those on 12 inch after first hearing them here. That Pierre Henry remix is really good, and I loved that Cut La Roc tune.
@arthur-cowslip – I’ve ripped this one, yell if you’d like a link to the wavs (one for each side of the cassette).
I had one where I first heard Link Wray’s “Rumble”, and became a life-long fan.
I think I remember that as well! Was it a compilation tape that came out after Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, with similar kind of music?
Abbatoir Dogs! As mentioned a few comments down. That’s the one.
It also had a track from Dave Vanian’s psychobilly band.
That’s ‘The Phantom Chords’, it says here.
A chum on a post-punk forum also has a Nuvo Duo (!) and has recently ripped many of these tapes. I can save you some duplication.
Message Help Required From “fentonsteve” & “Vulpes Vulpes” The Cassette Tape Issue has had me delving into my forgotten “Treasure Trove” i.e. Garage – to sort thru’ & find Forgotten Cass’s of bygone era/eras.
What I need to know about is “Neva Duo” etc found it on ‘net as German High Spec. professional musician attachment – have looked up ‘net for Cass’s converters & all I can currently find are “mini walkman type player/converters – little “tin box’s” that do NOT look substantial enough to do the job of several 100’s to convert. Since check ‘net came across MARANTZ PMD 300 CP certainly looks a better option???? Cheers & Thanks for any advice/help to make my cass converting easier.
That Marantz is a double-deck (I’m guessing you’re not going to be doing much tape dubbing) with a fairly crude USB output.
Find a second-hand Sony deck fitted with Dolby S. You don’t need to use Dolby S, which was a Sony-only enhanced system which didn’t take off commercially, but it required a high-spec deck to operate. So any cassette deck fitted with Dolby S will offer higher than average performance. There’s one on eBay for £44.
Buy an ESI Neva Uno (£50). Buy a pair of RCA to 1/4″ jack leads (£5).
Plug the output of the Sony deck into the Neva, and the USB from the Neva into a computer.
Hey presto! High-quality analogue playback captured in 24 bit digital.
G’Day Steve
Many thanks for the advice/info & the how to etc – I think I still have a Pioneer Cass. Deck hidden in the garage somewhere will have to dig it out & see if it’s still a “goer” – otherwise Ebay (Aus.) a good option, before buying the ESI Neva Uno – I take that a USB comes with Neva ? think I have enough leads lurking around to do as U suggest.
U R right about No dubbing just want to convert tapes digitally in to W.M.P.
Once again Cheers & Thanks for the help .
Jack.
I’ve had a quick look and the Neva units appear to come with a USB A (the normal rectangular plug) to USB C (the new ovoid plug) lead.
@fentonsteve
If Jack buys the Uno rather than the Duo model, doesn’t he have to be careful to buy a lead that takes two RCAs (left and right stereo channels) from the cassette deck to a single 1/4″ stereo jack (i.e. a TRS jack plug) plugged into the Uno?
In short: nope. Warning: this is going to get very dull, very quickly.
There are two ways to wire up a “TRS jack” (3-pole connector). TRS means T(ip), R(ing), S(leeve).
For a stereo “headphone”, which carries two channels of “unbalanced” audio, it is:
T = Left
R = Right
S = Common (aka screen, ground, 0V).
For a mono “balanced” signal, such as found on a keyboard instrument, it is:
T = hot (aka positive)
R = cold (aka negative)
S = screen
Musical instrument wiring refers to Channel 1 & Channel 2 instead of Left & Right, to reduce confusion (!).
Refer to https://www.esi-audio.com/products/nevauno/ and refer to the top picture of three in the “Features” section.
On the Uno, switch the 3 buttons on the top to the up position.
The Neva Uno has two balanced 1/4″ TRS inputs, one up the middle of the XLR (microphone) socket labelled “Line/Mic 1” and the other a balanced TRS socket labelled “Line/Hi-Z 2”. The third (right-hand) sockets is an unbalanced output labelled “Headphone”.
An RCA connector is unbalanced, a RCA to 1/4″ lead will have an unbalanced “TS” plug on the other end, where:
T = signal (connects to the RCA pin)
S = screen (connects to the RCA outer)
Something like this:
https://cpc.farnell.com/pulse/pls00251/lead-audio-2x-jack-to-2x-phono/dp/AV14463?ost=av14463
An unbalanced TS plug inserted into a balanced TRS socket will make a single-channel unbalanced connection (the Ring is connected to the Sleeve). Two required for stereo recording.
A stereo unbalanced TRS plug (e.g. from a headphone output) inserted to a balanced mono input will make a single, messed-up, mono recording.
uh. sorry. Wha? errr, oh yeah.
What that boils down to is that Jack can use the exact same lead that I’m using.
2 RCAs (left and right) to two mono jacks (left and right, or channels 1 and 2 if you must).
It’ll just feel a bit weird plugging one channel into the middle of the mic socket, and the other into the little 1/4 inch jack socket!
That’s the difference between civilian tech for recording tapes to disc (like what Jack and I are doing) and being a proper music engineer. Music engineers are weird.
Weird, or just dull?
The only difference between the Uno and Duo is the the number of microphone inputs. ESI used to make something called a U24, which had no microphone inputs, and was much easier to get your head around.
G’Day Guys – Steve & Foxy
Many thanks for info – Its like I’m back at “school” have copied & pasted all your “Comments/lessons” into a downloaded document that I can follow & learn what’s what when time is right for me.
I Hope U guys are still “mates” – vary opinions aside – don’t want to cause a “divorce” between U both.
@jack-kelsey
Don’t worry Jack – all sweet here between Steve and I.
Steve knows all the engineer stuff, while I’m just a duffer with a box full of leads and a pile of old cassettes!
BTW – I’ve sent you a link to the digitised Vox Box and Abattoir Dogs cassettes – check your messages in your profile page.
Thanks Foxy – Yes got an “email” with the “Box & Dogs” etc – have downloaded them – next thing is to upload to USB for the use in my car.
Like yourself got oodles of Pre-recorded & self taped Cass’s of owned LP’s to use in the old car’s Cass. player – now the new car is radio or USB use only.
Also just learning about “direct messaging” & how to use it – had to ask Admin “Where & How “etc.
I have a small selection of NME cassettes (and all the rest of them in digitised form). The Blue Note one is sensational, as are the Island Reggae one, the Ace Records one, the Chess blues one and the Imp/Imperial vintage R&B one. And not forgetting the live Stax tour one.
The NME tapes also had fabulous little booklets:
https://chickswithdisks.wordpress.com/2023/02/20/the-legendary-nme-tapes/
*Nothing* makes me feel 18 again like those NME tapes.
My favourite ever compilations and with me since acquired years ago.
Yes I’ve got some lovely NME tapes and in fact digitised “Neon West” quite recently.
New avatar, @Twang? Very nice…
Thanks Fitz. It’s good to keep things fresh round here.
Arf!
Spent an hour or so last night adding the artwork for some of the NME tapes to my digitised library.
I think this is my favourite afterword thread ever, thanks for kickstarting all those memories 😄
There’s a great Perfecto mix of Lemon by U2 on one – and Stars by The Real People is a gem and very obscure. Also a Fortran Five deep cut.
Real People are/were ace. Very underrated
I remember this one being a winner
https://www.discogs.com/release/112385-Justin-Robertson-Journeys-By-DJ
My post-punk chum has recently ripped that one.
Somehow I already have it in my library. Must have been on a blog or something, because I certainly didn’t do it myself
Here’s another good Vox one I remember
https://www.discogs.com/release/813597-Various-Abattoir-Dogs
I don’t recall the contents of any of these Cassettes from the time even though I would have had them – long since disposed of.
You did however digitise the NME smile Jamaica cassette for me a few years back now and very grateful as that was one of my favourite reggae compilations.
My new USB widget is much better than the one I used when I did that for you @SteveT.
The tape is very close to failure (it got played a lot back in the day) but I’ll have a go at re-doing it soon – when I do, and if it works out OK – I’ll let you know and send you a better version by the magic of the interwebbysuperhighwaything.
Thanks – you are a gentleman and a scholar.
@SteveT – the link I sent you (Mesage via this Forum) expires in a couple of days if you want the slightly improved wavs I’ve prepared.
Message Help Required From “fentonsteve” & “Vulpes Vulpes” The Cassette Tape Issue has had me delving into my forgotten “Treasure Trove” i.e. Garage – to sort thru’ & find Forgotten Cass’s of bygone era/eras. “NEW USB WIDGET”???????
What I need to know about is “Neva Duo” etc found it on ‘net as German High Spec. professional musician attachment – have looked up ‘net for Cass’s converters & all I can currently find are “mini walkman type player/converters – little “tin box’s” that do NOT look substantial enough to do the job of several 100’s to convert. Since check ‘net came across MARANTZ PMD 300 CP certainly looks a better option???? Cheers & Thanks for any advice/help to make my cass converting easier.
@jack-kelsey the NevaDuo gizmo is a little device that’s meant primarily for home musicians – you can plug mics and instruments into it and use its USB output to pass the racket to a PC or another device.
If you want to convert cassettes to digital files, you WILL need some form of cassette deck – you can pick up 2nd hand ones on eBay for not much money if you haven’t got one in your loft.
I use the NovaDuo like this: I use a cable that has RCA plugs at one end and quarter inch jack plugs at the other end to feed the line ouput from my cassette deck (the typical RCA plug outputs you’ll have on a deck) straight into the jack plug inputs of the NevaDuo.
Then I plug the NevaDuo USB output into my PC and capture the music/sound/whatever from the cassette into Audacity running on my PC. Once the tape has played to the end I simply use Audacity to ‘Export’ the file as a wav* file and there you go – a digitised cassette recording!
*Audacity will also let you Export to mp3 if you prefer.
PS if you want digitised copies of any of the ones I’ve already done, just PM me a list of titles and I might be able to give you access to, er, a ‘backup’ copy.
G’Day Foxy,
Many thanks for your detailed reply – which will help me enormously – once I get myself sorted – Does Audacity export to mp3 – let you download to W.M.P. ?
Thanks for your offer of copies – the only ones I have on your List are Vox Box & Abattoir Dogs.
I think I still have a Pioneer Cass. Deck hidden in the garage somewhere will have to dig it out & see if it’s still a “goer” – otherwise Ebay (Aus.) a good option, before buying the ESI Neva Uno – I take that a USB comes with Neva ? I just want to convert tapes digitally in to W.M.P. See my reply to Fentonsteve – Both of U R extremely helpful – Much Appreciated.
Once again Cheers & Thanks for the help .
Out of interest, why bother with Windows Media Player? Just download the open source VLC from the videolan website and use that to play whatever files you want – wav/flac/mp3 etc – it’s miles better!
https://www.videolan.org/
There is certainly a USB (USB C to USB A) lead bundled with the Duo model – I’d think it likely the Uno supplies one as well. The supplied one is a bit short for my set-up, so I’ve replaced it with a longer one from Amazon.
Search for this and you’ll find one that is suitable (it must be a data cable, not just a charger cable):
Siwket USB C Cable Type C Fast Charging Cable,[2-Pack 1M+2M] Braided USB C Fast Charger Cord 3A Data Sync
I’ve got the ‘Abattoir Dogs’ cassette and it introduced me to Sparkle Moore, who was touted as the female version of Elvis Presley, before she decided to settle down and raise a family. There’s a commercial on TV at the moment which plays about 5 seconds of ‘Flower Of My Heart’ .
That’s VOX GIVIT 11 according to its cover. It’s all stuff from the Ace catalogue. It’s on the inbound list here!
There was a really good one from, I think, Select that had a James track with Brian Eno, Transglobal Underground and Johnny L. It started with a live version of Impact (The Earth Is Burning) by Orbital. Would probably have been around 1995.
I remember that one! And here it is
https://www.discogs.com/release/126580-Various-Future-Tracks
Yep that’s the one – I spent a very happy summer driving round Europe in a Fiat Panda with that as one of five or six tapes. I really don’t want to hear it now as I know it won’t be as good as I remember.
There was a Peel session tape with Vox magazine (I’m going to guess in 1992) called ‘Radio Daze.’ 14 songs from different Peel sessions from 1969 onwards (I think). Here’s the tracklist-
10:15 Saturday Night- The Cure
The Prince- Madness
Mad Cyril- Happy Mondays
What do I get?- Buzzcocks
I’d rather go blind- Chicken Shack
The love parade- The Undertones
A13- Billy Bragg
Gigolo aunt- Syd Barrett
The beast- The only ones
Return- The Fall
Water- PJ Harvey
Beast Inside- Inspiral Carpets
Big Jesus Trash Can- Birthday Party
Neat Neat Neat- The Damned
I liked it so much I put a version of it on spotify
Yes indeed! Mighty!
I’ve got most of those Vox, etc tapes somewhere in my loft. I also have some freebie singles from NME, Sounds etc and one or two cds from various Q magazines. It’s been quite some time since I bought a music magazine – are these compilations still given away?
Mojo and Uncut still do cover CDs; mostly either current stuff they’ve been given to include, or themed stuff, which is often a mix of tracks you’ve already got and a few you will only want to hear once!
Getting some serious flashbacks from those cassette covers and song titles.
As mentioned above, the Vox Peel sessions tape was particularly good
Some other hard to find classics included the demo version of Fade Away by Oasis, which is easily the best version of the song and the original Lemon Interrupt version of Dirty. As I remember the Creation tape also had a lovely jazzy song by The Telescopes that sounded unlike anything else they did.
I’m gonna guess that the Telescopes song is ‘you set my soul’ that has a lovely bit of double bass on it.
That’s the one
I remember a tape of comedy sketches? Can’t remember if it was NME or Select or what, but I’m sure it had bits of Chris Morris, Victor Lewis Smith and (I think) some Alan Partridge.
This rang bells with me – I may have that one in the pile up in t’loft.
I deffo have two cassettes called ‘Great British Comedy – volumes 1&2’ here somewhere as well – they came from collecting vouchers in Panama cigar boxes as I recall. One of my numerous attempts to give up the gaspers by switching to cheap cigars, only to end up smoking 15 or 20 of the blighters a day instead of Camels. In the end cold turkey was the only real answer, but by then i’d got both tapes!
Select did one called Plant Of The Japes, might that be it?
A1 Bill Hicks The War
A2 Ben Elton Ben’s Fridge
A3 Trevor & Simon Pop Quiz
A4 Alexei Sayle Stoke Newington
A5 Emo Philips Schooldays
A6 Pete & Dud Father And Son
B1 Bill Hicks Flying Saucer Tour
B2 Arnold Brown– Betty Boo
B3 Larry Miller 5 Stages Of Drinking
B4 Jo Brand Sport / The Grand National
B5 Cleese/Atkinson/Palin/Jones Four Yorkshiremen
B6 Red Dwarf Kryten & The Skeletons (Voice – Chris Barrie)
Ah, that takes me back. I still know every word of Larry Miller’s 5 Stages of Drinking (“…six, if you live in a trailer park. We will deal with five…”)
i quite like this rather gnarly version of Free Again by the Fannies…
I used to buy both Vox and Select and don’t remember these at all! Doh.
A CD rather than a tape but the Trojan Explosion one from Mojo, along with the Justin Robertson mix that @Kid Dynamite mentions above, remains a favourite. https://www.discogs.com/release/534342-Various-Trojan-Explosion-20-Reggae-Classics
The Fatboy Slim tape was the cause of a hall of shame moment many years ago.
The band I was in had a gig in London and we were on our usual journey up the M4. Control of the tape deck was vigorously guarded by the drummer. Journeys were also often a uncomfortable experience due to the Roger Waters levels of sarcasm regularly employed by the main songwriter and singer.
Managed to persuade them to put the tape on, but could gradually feel the air turning more frosty as we progressed through side 1 up to a point where the current tune in the mix had a repeating sample of a voice saying ‘wicked’.
This was cut off in its prime as the drummer hit the eject button with such force the cassette shot out of the player, clattered over the top of the handbrake and into the rear footwell landing next to my feet.
The car went silent, only punctuated by the singer (having waited for maximum impact) to utter one word in his most cutting deadpan:
‘Wicked’
@clemfandango I’ve sent you a Dropbox link to the digitised Fatboy tape.
I was a big fan of The White Room tape that came with Q, and an NME tape called The Reading Present (or similar). I think I’ve also still got a few of these.
The tapes are prodding a lot of memories back to life. How about flexi discs? When I was 13, this flexi disc was an integral part of my record “collection” – about 5 LPs and maybe 15 singles, the LPs were presents and the singles bought from paper round money.
I think flexidiscs changed my life; I recall buying a very early Folk Roots, with a cooking vinyl flexi disc sampler on the cover, Oyster Band( as they still were) and Michelle Shocked on it. Probably why folk festivals still part of my annual calendar.
Surprised there’s no mention of The Factory Tape FAC305C. And you call yourself a bunch of nerds!
Oh yes, that’s fab (and, IIRC, contains a New Order track only otherwise available on the Married To The Mob OST).
That’s in my pile of candidate tapes – I’ve never been much of a Factory fan myself, and like the majority of the cassettes in my box-in-the-loft, it’s still shrink-wrapped! The ones I’ve digitised to-date have nearly all been unwrapped and played for the first time when being ripped.
Is it worth a listen then?