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Re: 90s shows in poor sound

Messages in this topic: 53 View All
Don JudgeJan 24, 2013

I agree with that Simon.

I'd bet a pound to a penny that recordings with hiss, wow and flutter, high frequency, speed issues etc started their life as cassette or reel-to-reel recordings. We used to share recordings by sending casette tapes through the post.

Some may remember the dual-head cassette decks which enabled hi-speed tape-to-tape dubbing - of course that introduced even more losses.

My first exposure to Goon Show recordings was via a 2nd-hand Sony R2R tape deck (I still have it in the loft) and a microphone held near the speaker of the radio. Heck, most of them were absolutely dreadful but they were all I had at the time.

Then later along came the Internet and Usenet Newsgroups with access to access to mp3s, mostly ~6MB (even less sometimes!) Most of those were dreadful too but every now and then some half-decent ones at higher bitrates slipped through.

Ho hum - happy days...

From: Simon <simon.jerram@...>
To: just-a-minute@...
Sent: Thursday, 24 January 2013, 11:00
Subject: [just-a-minute] Re: 90s shows in poor sound

Maybe it's a technology thing. These days bottom end technology can record pretty well, but back then compact cassette was the mainstay with computers capable of mixing audio. In the effort to bring equipment prices down, quality and durability did too, and maybe some of the hobbyists recording these shows didn't have the cash to upgrade their equipment to anything better.

Or possibly someone was faced with a large collection of tapes and no space some time back and dumped them to computer at a time when acceptable recording standards weren't what they are now.

I have a couple of tapes of 90s radio shows (not JAM) in my attic back home, should I dig them out and see if I can digitise them?

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