Dude it’s sad what kids are subject too now. Endless ad spam and shit games. They’ll always be corpo brainwashed.

Are modern DJs musicians as compared to a classically trained cellist (sp?)? In my thoughts, not really.

Corporations. Stop giving them money any way possible.

I bet this is it

Trying to get away from corporate trash, so no more spotify or tidal for me. I am only trying to use :

SomaFM, totally donation based radio, very nice for long listening drives or work

Archive.org (AMAZING for so much stuff)

Bandcamp (actually support artists, there has been talk of them enshittifying though)

My own library of physical music.

However, when I had tidal, it worked well. I like to support artists though especially in today’s world.

That’s the problem. We can’t tell the difference.

But look at it this way. In 5 years nobody will be able to tell the difference between an AI image or AI music (boomers already can’t). So then what? When an art gallery prints a 30 ft tall AI image and people come look at it and how amazing it is, all while having no idea it was AI, what will be the point? The only art left will be live performance art, which could actually be a good thing in it’s own way. But the “at home” artist who only publishes works online will be dead, because there will be no way to tell the difference.

I see this view a lot and I agree with it, but how can you argue with anyone who says well, that’s what they said about synthesizers for music. Or ipads for art. Or computers replacing typewriters. Are you saying anyone who doesn’t hand write a book in cursive while solely learning the djembe from a scroll is not a real artist ? (Obvious /s but it’s kind of valid). Unfortunately we are the old man yelling at cloud, just 20 years too early. The future will laugh that there were AI detractors (in my opinion).

First rule of tape recording: don’t do it.

Second rule: it’s super damn fun so do it (and spend a lot of money)

I am really into tape recording and budget audiophile listening. Mostly all reel to reel, cassette is pretty crap tbh. I have 6 machines now. Something is so fun about the physicality of audio on tape that cannot exist anywhere else at that point unless you manually copy it.

Keep in mind this is for tape machines we can actually afford. Not 10,000 dollar Studers.

I always recommend starting with a used machine that’s been taken care of and fix it as you go. If you start with a broken one you may never get to have fun with it if you can’t fix it.

Kept note I mostly stick with 1/4" width tale machines as they are the most prevalent and affordable. Tape also a lot cheaper than 1/2 or especially 1" (studio quality, $400 per reel).

Brands to look for in my favorite order:

Otari Revox Akai TEAC/Tascam Sony (some bad, some good) Pioneer

learn the formats There are many different machine formats. The most common is 1/4" quarter track meaning 2 tracks, backwards and forward. Higher spec machines can do true 4 track forward only, or half track forward only (best quality). Pre recorded tapes need to be played on the machine fornat they are made for. Any 1/4" blank tape works on any machine.

Stay away from: Single motor units Units that have head wear (heads are not being made now. They can be refinished however if wear isn’t too high) Units that the owner knows nothing about Most Dokorder Most fostex Some sony

Look for: Knowledgeable owner Clean heads 3 motor Units Units with small defects that are probably user error (I see a lot of “wont play but will rewind” which is usually the tape being threaded improperly and not tripping the auto stop switch. )

Find a knowledgeable helper. That can be me if anyone ever wants to reach out.

Tape: i would not recommend buying used. You never know how it was stored.

Capture is a good new cheap brand of tape.
Don’t use ATR tape until you’re experienced and have a semi pro machine.

You’ll definitely want a mixer with your tape machine. Any 12 channel or so mixer is fine but I prefer Allen Heath for quality and price. The GL series is excellent.

I’m mostly referring here to recording and playing your own tapes. For listening to prerecorded tapes, I’ll say it’s very small market and you can only get new recordings for the most part on half track 15 inch per second tapes.

Wonderful read! Why was early computing so fun…I wasn’t even around for it so it’s not nostalgia. I think it was just better.

Question on this, how would you expect the millions of people that heat/cool their homes to get by? Or are you advocating for a return to caves ? Unless you’re saying shut those down to build nuclear/solar/wind, which also takes a lot of dirty manufacturing to build. It’s kind of a no-win with this many humans.

There’s unfortunately no possible way for the government to solve this issue. They can’t go door to door and take people guns. And people won’t willingly give them up because then they are vulnerable to attack. It’s sadly unsolvable. Higher regulations for new purchases would help but thathat doesn’t stop all the existing weapons.

It’s so crazy. Literally anyone can go to a store and buy one. I no joke saw a store the other day called “Dave’s guns” and the logo was the American flag on a cross. Reminds me of a certain quote regarding facism.

It’s scary knowing everyone else has guns, however the good news is, everyone on the correct side of history can also buy them…

Well I’ll say cassette quality can never really be good becaise of the slow speed and narrow width. . But 1/4" tape is about the best analog quality you can get (feasibly cost wise) if you go 15 IPS and half track (1 way play, no flipping).

If you want good sound for cassettes you can’t beat a Nakamichi deck, best there are.

Oh sorry, I meant more reel tape not really casettes, but I love the otari mx5050, and the teac 2340sx. Good machines and 1/4" tape is still affordable. PM me if you’d like more tape info, I love to share.

Im obsessed with tape storage, but for audio. Nothing more real than audio on tape! Luckily it’s catching on again. Music is so disposable now, I hope we can keep physical formats alive and keep corporations away from it (digital offers them unlimited control over us).