Audities - More interesting & unusual recordings

if you've been here before you may remember a few months ago I put out a video about some rare and unusual tapes I'd collected over the years there were things in there like the American Airlines in-flight entertainment from the 1960s at the world's smallest pre-recorded music album well this video is a sequel but it doesn't just feature tape so I'm not going to call it Audie tapes - I'm going to take up a viewer suggestion from the last one and call it oddities now picking up where that one left off you may remember in the previous video I featured the first pre-recorded music release on DCC for 20 years well I also showed you my DC c-17 5 machine and mentioned how it was knackered for want of a better term all the writing had come off because the plastic had gone sticky and apparently the belt had come off as well I found out later on I couldn't charge it because they no longer make the rechargeable batches for these well dr. DC see the guy who made that tape that I featured in the video offered to repair it for me and unsurprisingly I took him up on his offer and this is what came back a few weeks later it looks as good as new he's used a number of parts offered older machine to repair by you can see I've got all my writing back now and it's not sticky and he's also giving me a new inline remote control done a remanufactured battery for me as well so I can now finally charge this thing up and use it outside the house he made a video about this and I'll link to it in the video description and apparently replacing the belts requires own soldiering quite a few parts which is a bit of a hassle so I'm glad he did it rather than myself it looked a little bit complicated and talking of complicated one thing I should have mentioned in the past but I neglected to was the marvel of miniaturization that is this record and playhead would you believe it has 40 different heads in there there's 18 for DCC recording 18 for DCC playback in another 4 for analog tapes to play in both directions it's not a reverse machine but it doesn't swap the heads around it could be argued that the DCC 175 is the most sophisticated of all the DCC players it's certainly one of the rarest the word many of these made and there's probably even less are now so it's great to have one that's still functioning but I'm not really here to talk about the DCCC one-seven-five even though I have done for a couple of minutes I'm here to talk about what else came in the box when he sent it back to me and it's another version of Jeremy haydn's blue wicked album but this time on an even rarer format than minidisc and DCC his one-upped himself and released the first ever pre-recorded commercial album on el cassettes and if you haven't heard of it before al qussair is a high-quality audio tape system which used quarter-inch tape inside a large cassette body for excellent quality sound introduced to the market in 1976 book wasn't a success now I did a video on it about three years or so ago and in that video I also featured DCC and that is where the connection comes in because dr. DCC saw that video decided he also wanted to get hold of an al qussair machine subsequently did and there has produced this album on the format now the idea of an artist releasing a small number of promotional copies of their album on unusual formats as a way to generate publicity it's something that I've championed for quite a while now I've mentioned it over the years in various videos and in this typo ladened sweet from january 70 where i suggest them i want to think about realizing a handful of copies of their album on all mini disc DCC or el cassette and just a couple of months ago somebody asked me what format would I like to resurrect and I said el cassette brilliant quality analog format that never had a single album released on it what's up my to being accurate back in August it's inaccurate error because there is a single album released on the form and I'm holding it in my hands now so let me get it out to the shrink-wrap and we'll have a good look at it now of course with no template to go on as to what an album release on this format would look like they had free rein to decide and I think done an excellent job here this is how I would imagine a pre-recorded el cassette looking if the format ever take it off with pre recorded albums I'd certainly have collected these look at the label on there that's an excellent piece of work as well just perfect Saul rare Abril this is what you'd expect we've got tape coming out to the top there in al qussair of course they go this way up so that is the right way around and of course got a label on both sides there you'll notice that the cord is here the orange right protect tabs have been pushed in to stop it accidentally being recorded over now getting older blank L cassettes isn't always easy of course they don't make them anymore so you're dealing with new old stock on eBay and they do show up from time to time but offered astronomical prices and then once you've got them you'll need to disassemble them to apply a level of lubrication inside all the reels otherwise they'll squeak because the original grease or whatever it is that's supposed to be there has dried out by now so let's have a listen and see how we get on [Music] and I'm happy to report there's no issue with squeaking the recording has been done to a high standard but I should mention of course this is electronic type music so it will have originated from a digital master if you want to hear more from the artist I'll have links to him in the video description text box now because this hasn't come from a tape duplication facility they're using standard length blank tapes this is a 60-minute tape which means 30 minutes per side I think they've rearranged the tracks around a little bit to best fit them on there because on side a you're just left with two minutes of 50-odd of blank space at the end and side B has a minute and a bit on something so very well done well thought-out well put together there'll be links to information about this in the video description text box as the will for all the other things in this video but let's move on to the next thing that wants to show you a couple of years ago I made a video about the stereo micro cassette and in that video I described how in the film a Clockwork Orange they'd used mini cassettes as a prop to depict the audio format of the future now in reality no music was ever released on mini cassettes however as far as micro cassettes go well there were a handful of titles that were sold mail-order for a very brief amount of time for people to play in their Shogun music muff this was a set of headphones with a built-in micro cassette player now because I'm always on the lookout for a set of those cassettes I've got a saved search in eBay which looks for stereo micro cassette LG yet it hasn't found any of those however it's led me to the next item that I'm going to show you and it comes from a chap in Russia who customized his cassettes and he's made a prop replica of the tape that's used in a Clockwork Orange now of course this isn't an official release this has been done by one chap to appeal to a very select audience but he's done a really good job it's got a printed J card in there listing what's on the tape you can see the label on the tape it does look like it's come from a proper release you wouldn't know this was just one bloke putting these together let's compare it so there one hour to the movie and as you can see very similar designs of course we've got different track titles on here he does do a different versions of this and of course the one in the film was a mini cassette worse this is a micro cassette but being a micro cassette means I could actually play it so I'm going to get my micro cassette machine out and we'll see if this really does have the four seasons on it and if it's in stereo so let's have a listen and spot the schoolboy error the tape was the wrong way around you see on a micro cassette the tape goes from the right hand spool to the left-hand one which is opposite what would happen on a normal compac cassette let's give it another go [Music] yes it's although it's in stereo dis exactly as stated on the inlay and on the label it's very well recorded on top of that as good as I've heard a ferric micro cassette tape sound now of course this is just a prop replica but it's always nice to have a fully functioning proper etiquette as well I'll link to his eBay store in the video description text box now let's move on to something a little bit older you may recognize these three interiors of tape they've appeared in a couple of our videos over the years the first time I showed them was in the video for the tsubame bill which was a portable tape player which had large cartridges which contained two 3-inch reels of tape most recently you'll have seen them in the mail call video that was a video about long distance communication system where you sent your messages through the post on tapes and that's what these three inch reels were for in an era when it was prohibitively expensive for most people to make international or long-distance phone calls you could still hear from relatives you just had to record your audio onto tape and send it to them through the post they were most popular in the 1960s now after the first video when I mentioned that these were old used tapes and had some previous recordings on them I was asked if I could play back some of those recordings so I'm good to do that now however these tapes were reuse multiple times and this one starts off with a recording from the early 1970s of a woman practicing a really dry speech I can't promise you a sunny day by the sea but I can promise you a day that will be both interesting and informative your copy of the Midland axis organization chart should give you some idea of the status of this department within the Midland Bank Group okay so let me cut CID here because it's pretty boring I'll explain what was going on she was practicing a speech she was going to use on a coach taking schoolchildren from London down to the access office before the launch of the access card in the UK so I could date it so subscibe round about October 1972 before because it seemed like it was just ready to launch and she was taking them to southend-on-sea which is where the headquarters were hence the hilarious joke about I can't promise you a sunny day at the seaside now I want to move on to the older recordings because that was a more interesting there's somebody that's living in Canada that's a lady with two children her husband's in the forces over there in the air force out there there's another family over in the UK and they're communicating back and forth using these tapes the thing that I found most interesting about this was the way they were discussing various health issues at the time let's start off by wait how heavy do you think you'd have to be to have to go into hospital and carries dad is out there hospital now he wasn't sick he just had to lose a lot of weight he really got them done up to 198 pounds so and they put him on a crash diet but I think he lost about 30 pounds which helps over 197 pounds nowadays had to go into hospital the hospitals would be very busy indeed now let's move on to the subject of teeth and when they're talking about teeth here and having them done they're talking about having them removed I'm glad you're all fixed up with your teeth now mom I know it takes a bit of getting used to and I'm sorry to hear you lost so much weight although maybe you aren't so sorry I've got to get my teeth fixed and seriously thinking of having it done in the next two or three weeks so that'll probably put me out of action for a while but I'd like to get it done before I seriously think about getting a job now given the evidence of what's going on on this tape she's got her children they're singing songs which is communicated back with her parents I can't put this one as any older than in her forties and she's having all her teeth take it out now let's hear what dougie back in the UK thinks about that dougie is uncle Doug yet he seems like a quite a fun guy when you get them in they'll be listening the neighbors bless you laughter watch him yeah we flash it right I'll leave this one there and we'll come back to dougie later on in the video I've got to fess up about something though the machine you're looking at on screen of course wasn't the one that those tracks were being played back through it was through this device here I played them on this two track reel to reel recorder at seven and a half inches per second recorded the output into a PCM digital recorder and then put that into audacity slow down the speed reverse one of the tracks that just did the volume levels here's what it sounded like while I was listening to it back to the present day a video that I put out regarding endless loop tape sparked something in the imagination of Gerald Clues after he'd seen the video he got in touch with me to tell me about his project called progress occur he's a drum teacher and a proficient drummer of course based in Germany but this progressive a--they is something that he's got together with his friends they've come up with this idea of making tracks that just feature the best part of the track so it's got 40 seconds or less for each track he's but four of these onto a two minute endless loop tape and he sent me a copy I just thought it was such a bizarre thing I had to show it to you and let's have a quick listen to it [Music] I'm always amazed when anything that I've done has any kind of knock-on effect in the real world so when Jarrell got in touch to tell me about this I just have to show it to you again links in the video description now the final thing involves hip-hop and vinyl I was contacted by the hip-hop group jazz spastics they wanted to know would I like a copy of their instrumental hip-hop record called scratch-and-sniff now the unusual thing about this album is that we've got 17 tracks on here and each of them correspond with a smell and the smell is in the scratch and sniff book that accompanies the album so when you reach that particular track you scratch the appropriate parts on the page onions smell the smell you need to for that but take the record interesting idea except I don't have a sense of smell I'm afraid it died off a few years ago and despite numerous operations and seeing the best specialist it won't come back so I said to them I'm probably not the right guy to review this and they said well don't worry about it the reason we really contacted you was because we've used some audio of one of your old videos on a couple of our tracks I did a video a while ago about the RCA Victor tape cartridge system in a way it's a precursor to the L cassette now after I've done that video I uploaded the whole of this demo tape and they used some samples from that on their midnight method album the intros on side a and side B user in fact let's just have a listen to one of those saying that was great nobody notice the second speaker for really big stereo sound like this which reminds me place a more stereo music these recordings will always retain their original quality let's hear more so you can't believe her happiest baby to hear that some samples off a demo tape I uploaded to YouTube have found their way onto a vinyl record anyway just sent me their back catalogue anodized cassettes and it really is the kind of stuff that I like listened to which is a nice coincidence kind of mellow hip-hop a little bit like people under the stairs very clever lyrics I mean if you're into this kind of stuff please just go and have a listen I'll put a link in the video description and that brings us nicely to the end of this video in which you've seen a functioning proper etiquette from a future that didn't happen the first-ever album released on L cassette at a two minute endless loop tape that contains four songs I think we should finish this one off by letting good old uncle dougie singers out my face is called discovery I thought sorry never reached land so well along the way with my shirt Inspiron my shirt tail in my hand well what do you think of Eddie [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Techmoan

Views: 359,676

Keywords: Techmoan, 4K, audities, odditapes 2, music, elcaset, first, microcassette, stereo, lp, vinyl, tape, rare, recordings, endless loop, old, audio, unusual, vintage, cassette, retro

Id: lVyanU3GgG8

Length: 19min 6sec (1146 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 30 2017