I suddenly feel very old..... --------------------- BBC Magazine gave 13-year-old Scott Campbell a gen-one Walkman in place of his MP3 player for a week, then gathered his impressions on the device: My dad had told me it was the iPod of its day. He had told me it was big, but I hadn't realised he meant THAT big. It was the size of a small book. It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette. Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn't is "shuffle", where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured. I told my dad about my clever idea. His words of warning brought home the difference between the portable music players of today, which don't have moving parts, and the mechanical playback of old. In his words, "Walkmans eat tapes". So my clumsy clicking could have ended up ruining my favourite tape, leaving me music-less for the rest of the day ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8117619.stm
Hahhahahha that's great, I don't feel old, that kids an idiot. My wife has 3 younger siblings, 10, 13, 15, none have been "trained" to use tape players, all CAN use them because they're not stupid and it's an easy concept. "There's no shuffle" really? I know a lot of people say "Oh you'd be surprised" but I am. Maybe because I happen to run into kids who realize history started a long time before they, their parents, so on were born? I dunno, whatever, I don't feel old because I could pick up anything that kid has and figure it out in a few moments, I could also go back and do the same with devices that were invented long before I was around. I'll feel old when I pick up a modern device and can't figure it out. It's like they looked for the dumbest kid possible.
Wow. That kid's lack of mental capacity is just horrifying. I hope his parents don't let him cross the street on his own. It would be interesting (and hilarious) to see his reaction were he confronted with a turntable.
That would be so awesome if there had been a walkman released with a genre specific METAL equalizer, and volume to 11. Seriously though he didn't realize a tape had two sides? Really?
I remember an old girlfriend of mine asking why the other side of the cd wasnt playing?... I also remember the first time I heard I cd playing. It was at a friends house and it was of the same album I had at home on vinyl...Bob Marley(and by I, I mean my Mum). And I remember it sounding so different to me, the timing was off or something. I couldnt figure it out maybe I was just used to mums wonky old turntable, a pioneer belt drive. Ah those were the days running around the loungeroom with the volume cranked up to 10.
Yeah but the activity of MAKING it adds something to it. The fact that you have to LISTEN to the entirety of each song while making it makes a big difference. You put different songs in different orders due to that because you can actually tell if they sound good/better next to each other. It's more than just "listening to songs" it's the order in which they're listened to. That's why making CD's or mp3 playlists aren't as fun, and generally lack something. Furthermore I'd argue that taping a song from a vinyl record still sounds better then a digital copy. I'm not the unibomber, all anti-technology, but to dismiss past formats all together makes things boring. And knowing someone put that kind of time into making a mixtape makes it all the better, I know they didn't just lazily say "I like this stuff" and slam it onto a CD or playlist without really listening to what they were doing. I love the tech we get from the "digital age" but it certainly causes a lot of lazy attitudes with no real passion for what's being done. I mean, I know I'm not the first to say any of this, but I say to any who "miss the mixtape" what's there to miss? Keep it alive, just keep doing it. I do. My friends get mad because they have to break out the tape deck, but screw them, it's worth it! Plus it's a bigger pain for them to fast forward something they think they might not like vs. just skipping it so they generally HAVE to hear it out, and in the end MIGHT like it anyway. But I was addressing him "missing" it when it's still pretty much something that CAN be done. If you prefer digital, which I do for certain things, than ignore all my above BS. Old man rant over.
Any time I make a mix cd for friends I listen to the mp3 order and rearrange them to make sure there is a "whole" to it before I burn. Same idea. And tapes suck. lol
I do that too, but I don't think a lot of people do sadly. As someone who has only had tape players in their car up until the last year, I have a love affair with tapes. There's nothing I hate about them. I listen to everything through, I listen to distortion-heavy music anyway so I don't need high/clear quality and it makes me feel like I'm better than other people when I get reminiscent about them. It also gives me a power high knowing that my friends can't just skip to the next track, I'm like a music dictator!
huge fan of mixtapes nothing like trying to cut off ends of one song to try to mix it into another(use to do this way before i realized with a 4 track tape player it was so much easyier) use to love getting mixtapes with the homemade covers and artwork on them plus the 180 minute tapes you can cram alot of music on one of those things plus there was alot of effort put into mixtapes ,stop,start plan out what song you wanted next not just this drag and drop shit
As an "old man" who still has his Discwasher brush and TDK cassette head demagnetizer I need to balance this: MP3s are the best thing on Earth! Yeah, I saved up money and built a modest stereo system as a teen and then scoured the LP (and then CD) racks for stuff, but man I do not miss ANY of that stuff in any way. No more lugging crates of LPs or CDs each time I moved. Tapes made sense when I could score them used and didn't have enough money, but whatever. I have bought lots of stuff online or bought some CDs and then ripped them and I'm happy as heck. I love my iPod shuffles—got two of them—and would never trade them for anything. And yes, audiophiles will always complain: News Flash... They ALWAYS complain. But right now outside of the cost of buying a computer (which most people have to begin with)the cost of a decent MP3 player is less than $50 and blows away the sound quality of practically all consumer devices that cost $50 before MP3 players existed. The worst issue? Having to get hard drive upgrades so I can store my collection. But with 500GB drives going for less than $70 whatever... Interesting experiment forcing old tech onto a new kid, but I tend to think folk who are anti-MP3 folks are a tad masochistic. I'm thrilling to have more freedom to listen and explore music without dealing with stereo system BS. But will say this: I truly do miss the old record shops that thrived up until the early 1990s. Bored or need to kill time? Hanging out at a record store was the equivalent of heading to a neighborhood cafe/bar nowadays. That social aspect... I want someone to revive that somehow. But everything else? No way Jose.
Hmm an mp3 shop I wonder wether that could work? Probly not... quality not good enough to pull in the audio snobs. Maybe when hdd are way cheap and mass downloading of wavs is possibleand there is a decent wav mixer/players. You could have it just like the old days where the owner amasses the albums/12's and you have a place to go and listen you could take your hdd along and download your songs on to it. I know you could do that at home , but there is def something great about going to your local shop and hanging out. I missed it when my last local closed. Vinyl is way too much anyway, I cant afford to collect and play out decent shit and compete with the big boys. Wavs are still too expensive aswell (for me anyway). But with mp3 Im a werld beater !! Just excuse the crappy audio quality is all My ears are so fucked over the years I dont always tell the difference anyways.
No argument there. My rant was more meant to be "Just because we have fantastic, new stuff doesn't mean we should dismiss the play-value of our old stuff. It's ALL fun!" I'll never get people who just dismiss past technology, but I just find junk like that interesting while STILL appreciating the new.
Yeah its probably one of the only episodes I really liked, I guessed you would have had to like it also. I have to agree looking forward is great but there is something way more captivating about the old technology. Vinyl still trips me out that someone even figured out how to put music onto it. I like that old technology had limitations for play and that they have ACTUAL labels and other info rather than just an artist and a song title. All of that nostalgia is great and it feels like there was actually some craft that went into it. Also when I play out I forget the names of Mp3s i download sometimes, but will never forget a cover of a record and there is nothing like having a physical copy of something. Why not just collect digital pictures of toys? You can still look at them as much and you can get one of those digi-frames that scrolls through them for your shelf too, not like anyone is playing with their figures too much anyways. Random but has anyone ever made a figure from recycled melted down records?
