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Vintage Tape (Audio), Cassette, Wire and Magnetic Disc Recorders and Players Open-reel tape recorders, cassette recorders, 8-track players etc.

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Old 30th Jun 2020, 4:52 pm   #81
DMcMahon
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Default Re: Interesting things on old tape reels

Yes recognized it as Sunshine Superman. Quite funny to listen to some of the English Course material, with the somewhat old fashioned and quaint voices.

David
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Old 30th Jun 2020, 5:57 pm   #82
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English as a foreign language. Devoid of slang and confusing accents.
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Old 2nd Oct 2020, 1:49 am   #83
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Default Re: Interesting things on old tape reels

A few days ago I bought an Elizabethan Popular 200 from the Internet. The machine had been stored for a very long time and wasn't working. Inside was a reel of tape which contained a recording of a young lady's 21st birthday party (her name was given) and started off with greetings from friends and family. The recording was probably made in the mid 1960s. I contacted the seller offering to transfer the tape to a CD if it had any family connection. She told me that the lady was her Aunt who had now passed away but her brothers and sisters would love to hear the tape. It's on it's way to her now.
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Old 2nd Oct 2020, 11:54 pm   #84
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With a recent R2R purchase came three 5" reels of westminster tape that look in good condition, have not heard of this tape before, it is a Currys brand.

According to little slips of paper inside, there are various recordings such as Steptoe and Son plus The Black & White Minstrels etc, used to love Steptoe and Son on the TV, not sure if the comedy will seem the same without the visuals, will report later on findings.

David
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Old 3rd Oct 2020, 12:13 am   #85
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I found an old home-recorded reel recently, from a Grundig tape deck that I no longer have. I would be interested to know if there is anything still on it. I deny everything, of course.

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Old 3rd Oct 2020, 12:29 am   #86
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Default Re: Interesting things on old tape reels

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used to love Steptoe and Son on the TV, not sure if the comedy will seem the same without the visuals, will report later on findings.
Steptoe scripts were remade as radio versions with the same cast, and worked well. Galton and Simpson were masters of both media.
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Old 3rd Oct 2020, 3:24 am   #87
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On the subject of Stenorette tapes, there's a track called 'Stenorette 2000' by Stan's Cafe. I think the recording could have been quite sensitive to uncover...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTdK_nbMW-c
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Old 3rd Oct 2020, 12:25 pm   #88
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used to love Steptoe and Son on the TV, not sure if the comedy will seem the same without the visuals, will report later on findings.
Steptoe scripts were remade as radio versions with the same cast, and worked well. Galton and Simpson were masters of both media.
A few TV sitcoms have remade for radio including Dad's Army, The Likely Lads and more recently One Foot In The Grave, which chose some episodes without many, if any visual jokes to work around.

BBC Audio have released quite a few TV shows on an audio format over the years, I have a CD of non-visual Fast Show sketches I bought in the late 1990s from the same Cash Converters as I saw that late large screen Black & White TV, which I now think was a Portuguese made Pye.

Sorry for going a little off topic there.
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Old 3rd Oct 2020, 1:17 pm   #89
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I was donated some 10.5" metal spool tapes. A few contain programmes about
individual musicians from the swing era. The quality of presentation indicated that
it had been recorded in a proper studio, say local or hospital radio.
Two reels of a 3 hour 1974 school christmas concert all in live stereo probably a Revox.
All these 40+ year old LP tapes recorded at 7.5ips are Racal Zonal with no sticky or shed.
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Old 3rd Oct 2020, 1:21 pm   #90
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When Monty Python was originally on the telly I used to record it on an Elizabethan tape recorder. Obviously the visual bits were missing but since I had actually seen the episode I could use my imagination whilst listening. Probably the reason that I can remember some of the sketches so well after so many years. I still have the tape..... somewhere.

Peter
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Old 3rd Oct 2020, 2:57 pm   #91
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In the late-70s my father retired and helping with the task of clearing-out his offices I was given a couple of old "Fi-cord" reel-to-reel dictating-machines and a box of tapes that he'd used in the very-early-60s. I managed to get these playable, and he was amazed to hear his voice from 20-odd years earlier dictating memos, one of which was a rather pithily-worded response to be sent to the lawyers of one of his competitors, with whom he was in dispute over a patent.

He remembered the dispute - apparently the dictated letter had the desired effect.

Wish I still had the tapes - most people would find dialog about contract-amendments or the letter to write to a candidate after an interview telling him he'd got the job to be rather boring; personally I find this sort of stuff far more interesting than most 'entertainment'!
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Old 3rd Oct 2020, 3:54 pm   #92
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Thought I'd already posted this here but it appears not. Amongst a collection of derelict reels found in the loft, covered in 50 years of grit, I encountered many family gems from the past and this recording from Radio 390 made at school in 1966.

Steve
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Old 4th Oct 2020, 6:35 am   #93
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... the visual bits were missing but since I had actually seen the episode I could use my imagination whilst listening ...
I also used to do this in the pre-VCR era to record TV shows that I liked so i can second that. In cases where I've subsequently seen the show again, I get an odd (well, not so odd, really...) deja vu feeling - it all seems so familiar, yet not. Being audio only, it was easier to casually listen to a tape than re-watch a taped video recording, so the audio did really cement itself inside one's mind.

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Wish I still had the tapes - most people would find dialog about contract-amendments or the letter to write to a candidate after an interview telling him he'd got the job to be rather boring; personally I find this sort of stuff far more interesting than most 'entertainment'!
I agree completely. Alas it seems rather rare with 'found' reels. I find myself wading through radio and record recordings just to find a precious snippet of a family recording or some other live speech.

A Stenorette recording I had the opportunity to listen to a while ago had a recorded telephone conversation between two business associates (one German, one Swedish, the latter speaking heavily accented German). An interesting time capsule.

And many years ago I bought a Tandberg 2 which had a recording of someone obviously practicing a speech for a local society, several times over. Thanks to references in the speech I could pinpoint its time as sometime in the early 1970s, which was also interesting since I believe the recording was actually made on that machine, so it means it was in use at that time.

A wire recorder in very good condition bought at a local auction house came with a box of wire reels, which largely contain 5 or 10 minute recordings by the owner, presumably a local sales person, discussing the virtues of owning a wire recorder, apparently in family dwellings, so it seems he brought the machine with him to various friends and acquaintances and made the recordings as part of the demonstrations. Now, these make for another interesting time capsule, with dialects that are probably not heard that way today, and also interesting hearing peoples reaction to the machine, most seem to have been rather apprehensive it seems, probably largely due to the prohibitively large price tag and relative uninterest.

(The most common recording on old wire spools in Sweden seems to be a boxing match between Floyd Patterson and Ingemar "Ingo" Johansson, which Ingo won, becoming world champion in 1959. The fact that so many took the effort to record this at all indicates that must have been considered a major event, which is offset by it being so common that collectors such as myself degrade that recording now ("not that boxing match, again") when found).
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Old 6th Oct 2020, 5:56 pm   #94
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With a recent R2R purchase came three 5" reels of westminster tape that look in good condition, have not heard of this tape before, it is a Currys brand.

According to little slips of paper inside, there are various recordings such as Steptoe and Son plus The Black & White Minstrels etc, used to love Steptoe and Son on the TV, not sure if the comedy will seem the same without the visuals, will report later on findings.

David
Played side one of the tape that should have Steptoe & Son but it just has recordings of a family talking to a young child, that is disappointing so far.
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Old 6th Oct 2020, 9:15 pm   #95
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I got a load of five and seven inch reels a few years back in a decent job lot.

I was really excited about one particular reel as it said “Titanic Interview” it was on old scotch 1960s tape stock so I was hoping it was going to be something amazing like an interview with a Titanic survivor from the 60s or something.

Nope, I listened to the reel all the way through and it was just some guy interviewing two women at a village fete about their church flower arrangement.

Possibly the most boring thing ever. Clearly something was on this tape or reel and was recorded over at some point later.

Big disappointment
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Old 6th Oct 2020, 10:49 pm   #96
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...And many years ago I bought a Tandberg 2 which had a recording of someone obviously practicing a speech for a local society, several times over.
That reminds me of going through some cassettes (I know, Off Topic) a year or two ago, including some unpromising un-boxed ones which might have been thrown away, and finding my wife's Irish father practicing a speech he was to give to a visiting American family - the whole trip was apparently a Big Deal. And it was really good to hear him - he's been gone nearly 20 years.
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Old 6th Oct 2020, 11:01 pm   #97
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Possibly the most boring thing ever. Clearly something was on this tape or reel and was recorded over at some point later.

Big disappointment
This is why I always play back these unknown tapes on both 2 and 4 track machines. On numerous occasions, interesting recordings originally made on old half track units were later taped over using a more modern quarter track deck. Of course, the guard bands between the tracks are different so the original sound was not fully erased and can be recovered!
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Old 6th Oct 2020, 11:14 pm   #98
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I recently unearthed some location recordings I made with my Philips EL3585 battery tape recorder in 1962, steam trains in their last year of operation and a crossing of the Thames in the old paddle steamer Woolwich Ferry, where the public could view their steam engines in operation with only a handrail between you and them. Another reel has part of a French lesson clandestinely recorded at my school: the EL3585 would just fit in my briefcase! Unfortunately I don't have a working RTR recorder to play them on at present: my wife's Grundig is on the round tuit pile, but I do now have a Grundig service manual courtesy of a seller in Germany.

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Old 6th Oct 2020, 11:32 pm   #99
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It reminds me of buying old VHS tapes which were labelled for the first thing recorded on them which was long taped over. My family had a few tapes like this, one being used for the 1988 Olympic Games and another for the film Reds, which my parents took ages to get round to watching & we couldn't use it for anything else.
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Old 9th Oct 2020, 12:05 am   #100
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With a recent R2R purchase came three 5" reels of westminster tape that look in good condition, have not heard of this tape before, it is a Currys brand.

According to little slips of paper inside, there are various recordings such as Steptoe and Son plus The Black & White Minstrels etc, used to love Steptoe and Son on the TV, not sure if the comedy will seem the same without the visuals, will report later on findings.

David
Played side one of the tape that should have Steptoe & Son but it just has recordings of a family talking to a young child, that is disappointing so far.
Side 2 of that tape just contains continuous dog (s) howling, most disappointing.
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