If vinyl could make a comeback, why not? I'll be waiting for the release of Exile, myself. I wish them mucho success.

[www.creem.com]

oh, how trendy

Nothing like listening to your favorite album and then finding out the sequence has been shuffled to even out the times of each of the four tape tracks, with the longer songs interrupted by the KA-CHUNK! sound of the tape switching between tracks.

There were a lot of great things going on in music during the 70's. The 8-track format wasn't one of them.

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loog droog
Nothing like listening to your favorite album and then finding out the sequence has been shuffled to even out the times of each of the four tape tracks, with the longer songs interrupted by the KA-CHUNK! sound of the tape switching between tracks.

There were a lot of great things going on in music during the 70's. The 8-track format wasn't one of them.

You missed the worst parts! 1) After several plays, the sounds of diff tracks would start to bleed through to other songs. 2) After several more plays, the tape would get stuck in the player and wrinkled to a mess!

I have 8 tracks still.

Some Girls has extra verses on BOB.

And Pink Floyd Animals has extra verses on Pigs.

I am sure the technology is much better now than it was 40 years ago.

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georgemcdonnell314
I have 8 tracks still.

Some Girls has extra verses on BOB.

And Pink Floyd Animals has extra verses on Pigs.

I am sure the technology is much better now than it was 40 years ago.

I predict 8 track tapes will become the leading format in recorded music listening within the next 18 months...or something.

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treaclefingers

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georgemcdonnell314
I have 8 tracks still.

Some Girls has extra verses on BOB.

And Pink Floyd Animals has extra verses on Pigs.

I am sure the technology is much better now than it was 40 years ago.

I predict 8 track tapes will become the leading format in recorded music listening within the next 18 months...or something.

I used to have them. I got carjacked in Hollywood in 1982 & the only good thing about that was the 8 track player & all of my tapes were in the car.

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crholmstrom

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treaclefingers

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georgemcdonnell314
I have 8 tracks still.

Some Girls has extra verses on BOB.

And Pink Floyd Animals has extra verses on Pigs.

I am sure the technology is much better now than it was 40 years ago.

I predict 8 track tapes will become the leading format in recorded music listening within the next 18 months...or something.

I used to have them. I got carjacked in Hollywood in 1982 & the only good thing about that was the 8 track player & all of my tapes were in the car.

OK, you have to give a warning before a comment like that because now I have coffee on my white shirt.

In that article the guy dismissed cassette tapes by saying you had to eject them turn them over to hear the other side..

The last couple of cars I had with tape players didn't require you to do that.


I can recall a big deal being made in the early 80's when Bob Seger wanted one of his albums to also be released on 8-track. He said he was doing it for the Detroit auto workers who couldn't afford to switch the tape players in their trucks.


The strangest thing I ever saw on 8-track was John & Yoko's "Wedding Album"--not exactly the kind of sounds you'd want to hear in your car!

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treaclefingers

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crholmstrom

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treaclefingers

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georgemcdonnell314
I have 8 tracks still.

Some Girls has extra verses on BOB.

And Pink Floyd Animals has extra verses on Pigs.

I am sure the technology is much better now than it was 40 years ago.

I predict 8 track tapes will become the leading format in recorded music listening within the next 18 months...or something.

I used to have them. I got carjacked in Hollywood in 1982 & the only good thing about that was the 8 track player & all of my tapes were in the car.

OK, you have to give a warning before a comment like that because now I have coffee on my white shirt.

Sorry about that "coffeefingers"! ><

You missed the worst parts! 1) After several plays, the sounds of diff tracks would start to bleed through to other songs. 2)

that's because the heads become misaligned

which by the way will take more then a few plays on a quality deck

what you need to do to realign the heads is use the screw on the bottom of most decks that adjusts the head's height coupled with a head alignment tape

but these tapes are impossible to find so what you can do if you have access to a deck that can record and is in alignment is take a blank tape and record something on tracks 1 and 3 leaving tracks 2 and 4 blank

then with headphones play this tape back on a machine with the misaligned heads while playing tracks 2 and 4 adjust the screw on the bottom until you can't hear tracks 1 or 3 bleeding thru

After several more plays, the tape would get stuck in the player and wrinkled to a mess!

this is (a) because either the adhesive on the back of the sense foil that holds the two halves of the tape together has weakened to the point where when the machine is switching tracks the tape comes apart in the machine

or (b) you need to clean the oxide off the capstan because the built up oxide on the capstan has caused the tape to become pinched between the pinch roller and capstan causing the tape to be pulled into the machine

the solution to (a) is clean the tape and replace the sense foil with new foil tape before playing the tape

(b) is to clean the capstan every 7-10 tapes properly not with on of those terrible head cleaning tapes but with a gutted cart with the pinch roller removed (something you don't like for me a bill cosby cart) in the place where the roller was put a folded over cotton makeup pad dipped in 91% isopropyl alcohol and play this in the machine 30 seconds at a time flipping the pad around every 30 seconds and putting it back in until it comes out clean not covered in black oxide

100 plus 40 to 50 year old tapes later i've never had one eatin because i always do (a) and (b)

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dmay
If vinyl could make a comeback, why not? I'll be waiting for the release of Exile, myself. I wish them mucho success.

[www.creem.com]

i hope not 8-tracks being unpopular and not trendy is exactly why i can afford them

for instance i bought a sealed exile cart last year for $12 dollars

try finding a original sealed copy on vinyl for $12!

oh and as someone who records on 8-track with sealed blanks like these folks do

its not as easy as you think most the blanks i get are not in usable shape when you first open them

they almost always need new sense foil and foam pads which requies me to take apart the cart and put it back together without all the tape spilling out

if these folks are using old blanks as the article says and doing all the work to bring them up to working order then thats really some kind of dedication they have there

also just wanted to show this i assume prototype deck to folks here who are old enough to have used 8-tracks in the 70's

how cool would it have been to have one of these?

and would it have convinced you to use this format longer if you had one?

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ProfessorWolf

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dmay
If vinyl could make a comeback, why not? I'll be waiting for the release of Exile, myself. I wish them mucho success.

[www.creem.com]

i hope not 8-tracks being unpopular and not trendy is exactly why i can afford them

for instance i bought a sealed exile cart last year for $12 dollars

try finding a original sealed copy on vinyl for $12!

Yeah but now you got an 8 track instead of a vinyl album.

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treaclefingers

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ProfessorWolf

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dmay
If vinyl could make a comeback, why not? I'll be waiting for the release of Exile, myself. I wish them mucho success.

[www.creem.com]

i hope not 8-tracks being unpopular and not trendy is exactly why i can afford them

for instance i bought a sealed exile cart last year for $12 dollars

try finding a original sealed copy on vinyl for $12!

Yeah but now you got an 8 track instead of a vinyl album.

but i still have a unplayed new condition original 50 year old release of exile for $12

that i must say sounds a lot better then the cassette from 50 years ago

THE BASS IS AWESOME!!!!

Terrible format when we were teenagers. You'd get high, drive, then be desperate to find your favorite song on the 8-Track, forget it. The sound wasn't great either. I'd get 'purple ear'.

...ruined bubble labels after the first hot/cold day in your car....at least 2 cuts being split into two tracks...splicing the tape back together after your deck ate it (that is if you could pull enough out of your player to save it)? No thanks.

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shadooby
...ruined bubble labels after the first hot/cold day in your car....at least 2 cuts being split into two tracks...splicing the tape back together after your deck ate it (that is if you could pull enough out of your player to save it)? No thanks.

also using an iron to get wrinkles out the tape that's been ate

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24FPS
Terrible format when we were teenagers. You'd get high, drive, then be desperate to find your favorite song on the 8-Track, forget it. The sound wasn't great either. I'd get 'purple ear'.

The cases for ruined tapes did make excellent stash boxes though.

Had a girlfriend who would put her fingers inside the player to fix the alignment problem! Yep, putting your fingers into a precision piece of audio equipment always does the trick!

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crholmstrom

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24FPS
Terrible format when we were teenagers. You'd get high, drive, then be desperate to find your favorite song on the 8-Track, forget it. The sound wasn't great either. I'd get 'purple ear'.

The cases for ruined tapes did make excellent stash boxes though.

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ProfessorWolf

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treaclefingers

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ProfessorWolf

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dmay
If vinyl could make a comeback, why not? I'll be waiting for the release of Exile, myself. I wish them mucho success.

[www.creem.com]

i hope not 8-tracks being unpopular and not trendy is exactly why i can afford them

for instance i bought a sealed exile cart last year for $12 dollars

try finding a original sealed copy on vinyl for $12!

Yeah but now you got an 8 track instead of a vinyl album.

but i still have a unplayed new condition original 50 year old release of exile for $12

that i must say sounds a lot better then the cassette from 50 years ago

THE BASS IS AWESOME!!!!

DOOD!

I think there's a reason it's 'unplayed'!

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treaclefingers

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ProfessorWolf

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treaclefingers

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ProfessorWolf

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dmay
If vinyl could make a comeback, why not? I'll be waiting for the release of Exile, myself. I wish them mucho success.

[www.creem.com]

i hope not 8-tracks being unpopular and not trendy is exactly why i can afford them

for instance i bought a sealed exile cart last year for $12 dollars

try finding a original sealed copy on vinyl for $12!

Yeah but now you got an 8 track instead of a vinyl album.

but i still have a unplayed new condition original 50 year old release of exile for $12

that i must say sounds a lot better then the cassette from 50 years ago

THE BASS IS AWESOME!!!!

DOOD!

I think there's a reason it's 'unplayed'!

yeah cause it was sealed

Why bother?

8 track versions are on YouTube!

[youtu.be]

Look at this beauty

Yeah Yeah had Ya Ya's on 8 track .....

from memory it use ta flip over half way thru Sympathy



ROCKMAN

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GivenToFly15
Look at this beauty

that i don't have yet

really cool love the cover and how good the condition of the label is

this one didn't get baked in a car that's for sure

also the tracklist is

jumping jack flash/carol/midnight rambler/stray cat blues/honky tonk women/sympathy for the devil/love in vain/live with me/little queenie/street fighting man

very different from the normal tracklist n vinyl it's even different from the us version on 8 track too

wonder how well they edited that together



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2022-09-02 11:42 by ProfessorWolf.

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ProfessorWolf
You missed the worst parts! 1) After several plays, the sounds of diff tracks would start to bleed through to other songs. 2)

that's because the heads become misaligned

which by the way will take more then a few plays on a quality deck

what you need to do to realign the heads is use the screw on the bottom of most decks that adjusts the head's height coupled with a head alignment tape

but these tapes are impossible to find so what you can do if you have access to a deck that can record and is in alignment is take a blank tape and record something on tracks 1 and 3 leaving tracks 2 and 4 blank

then with headphones play this tape back on a machine with the misaligned heads while playing tracks 2 and 4 adjust the screw on the bottom until you can't hear tracks 1 or 3 bleeding thru

After several more plays, the tape would get stuck in the player and wrinkled to a mess!

this is (a) because either the adhesive on the back of the sense foil that holds the two halves of the tape together has weakened to the point where when the machine is switching tracks the tape comes apart in the machine

or (b) you need to clean the oxide off the capstan because the built up oxide on the capstan has caused the tape to become pinched between the pinch roller and capstan causing the tape to be pulled into the machine

the solution to (a) is clean the tape and replace the sense foil with new foil tape before playing the tape

(b) is to clean the capstan every 7-10 tapes properly not with on of those terrible head cleaning tapes but with a gutted cart with the pinch roller removed (something you don't like for me a bill cosby cart) in the place where the roller was put a folded over cotton makeup pad dipped in 91% isopropyl alcohol and play this in the machine 30 seconds at a time flipping the pad around every 30 seconds and putting it back in until it comes out clean not covered in black oxide

100 plus 40 to 50 year old tapes later i've never had one eatin because i always do (a) and (b)

…or just put a record on, stick a CD in or stream.

Jesus Christ.

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Bastion

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ProfessorWolf
You missed the worst parts! 1) After several plays, the sounds of diff tracks would start to bleed through to other songs. 2)

that's because the heads become misaligned

which by the way will take more then a few plays on a quality deck

what you need to do to realign the heads is use the screw on the bottom of most decks that adjusts the head's height coupled with a head alignment tape

but these tapes are impossible to find so what you can do if you have access to a deck that can record and is in alignment is take a blank tape and record something on tracks 1 and 3 leaving tracks 2 and 4 blank

then with headphones play this tape back on a machine with the misaligned heads while playing tracks 2 and 4 adjust the screw on the bottom until you can't hear tracks 1 or 3 bleeding thru

After several more plays, the tape would get stuck in the player and wrinkled to a mess!

this is (a) because either the adhesive on the back of the sense foil that holds the two halves of the tape together has weakened to the point where when the machine is switching tracks the tape comes apart in the machine

or (b) you need to clean the oxide off the capstan because the built up oxide on the capstan has caused the tape to become pinched between the pinch roller and capstan causing the tape to be pulled into the machine

the solution to (a) is clean the tape and replace the sense foil with new foil tape before playing the tape

(b) is to clean the capstan every 7-10 tapes properly not with on of those terrible head cleaning tapes but with a gutted cart with the pinch roller removed (something you don't like for me a bill cosby cart) in the place where the roller was put a folded over cotton makeup pad dipped in 91% isopropyl alcohol and play this in the machine 30 seconds at a time flipping the pad around every 30 seconds and putting it back in until it comes out clean not covered in black oxide

100 plus 40 to 50 year old tapes later i've never had one eatin because i always do (a) and (b)

…or just put a record on, stick a CD in or stream.

Jesus Christ.

short of streaming i do quite regularly

i just like the challange and enjoy collecting something different and affordable