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Since we are here on the aptly named RetroGameTalk forum, I was curious if there are any pals around here also huge fans of the good ol' cassette tapes and cassette players, especially the Sony Walkman series around. If so, share your experience and gems, may it be game music or any other genre in this thread.
If not, feel also free to share stories of how you got to experience this type of music media and the many, many perils that came with that
My own "short" story with tapes and the medium itself:
Coming from a not so rich family and the country being slightly lagging behind, tapes followed me around on the old Golf IV and everywhere in my country up till the mid to late 2000's. The idea of having a full deck of tapes lying around, putting them into the player, swapping the tape side felt fascinating back then. I vividly remember my dad going to the weekly bazar just to get a bunch of "recent" folk music tapes for the long trip back home (which was taking close to 20 hours of driving). Of course, like with any type of media, it would become obsolete, to be succeeded (at least in my country) by CD players and ultimately, like everywhere else, digital music. When we began to renovate part of our home, I found a small shelf with close to a dozen of these tapes lying around. Finding the next best cassette player online just gave me some very abhorrent and stale cassette players like this:
Being a younger lad, and absolutely remembering that these type of cassette players used to look radical, I ended up finding a quite used, but functional Sony WM-2011 (not the year it was made in):
And when the tape was inserted, I noticed that I placed it in the wrong direction and it stopped. People which used to complain about USB ports had it easy - swapping the tape without any Auto Reverse was like reloading a weapon in a video game. And then the music played and it sounded quite... unusual. Mind you, the tapes were collecting dust for close to 15 years and were not stored in the best condition. Noise, missing almost all highs and lows, but after a while, it started clicking. Not the tape or the player - something inside me when I listened to it. The tracks exuded warmth, character, memories of a bygone past and of course, that one word which is regurgitated on every corner of the web by now: nostalgia. The tape having its quirks, the crystal shell looking as rugged as it can be, the (depending on the tape) lovely looking insert. It all felt like I regained something which I had missed and forgotten for such a long time, and I think this is also the same experience other friends around here might have, and, of course, bigger artists and platforms.
Some music genres even thrived with this kind of medium, too. Vaporwave probably being one of the forerunners for bringing a renaissance to this type of medium, as well. Even modern companies jumping on that bandwagon and retroactively releasing game OSTs on tape, as well. Case in point, Power Stone got a tape release in 2020! And it's not just Capcom, you can find Tales of Symphonia, or other official (and unofficial) cassette renditions of video game OSTs on even older medium than the game console these games have been released on!
And then there are the tape decks, the Boomboxes and finally, the infinitely various types of Sony Walkman models. From the almost-alien D(irect)D(rive) Walkman models, all encased in metal with such nice craft, up to the flashy, yellow-coloured Sports Walkman, these devices have become such a cornerstone for Sony, they maintained the brand name for even modern MP3 (and some absurdly expensive) players. Finding some well-kept and high-end models is quite hard, and expensive as hell, with examples like the WM-DD 100 going on Ebay for close to four-digit sale prices.
Tapes are naturally not the end-all-be-all of music formats. Far from it, naturally. The tapes, like all forms of life, degrade over time, can easily be damaged, hate magnets like the plague, can have abhorrent noise if recorded unprofessionally or on bad tapes and lose a lot of sound quality just by being on this type of medium. And it's not just the tapes, the Walkman are also culpable for having a plethora of flaws. Worn-out belts, very fragile internal components, exhausted capacitors are just a few of the many flaws these devices can have. And don't think the high-end DD-models are safe either: the gears on these drives, depending on some models can break quite easily, including that of the four-digit WM-DD 100 beast. So what do you need to repair such an issue? Soldering skills as a bare minimum (here is a "fun" step-by-step on how to change and maintain the gear on that Walkman: https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/sony-dd-series-step-by-step-repair-guide-for-beginners.1605/)
So what's the takeaway?
Cassette tapes are great. They serve as a stellar reminder of how music was used to be listened to in the past and if some people like, even in the present (if you like specific music genres). Are they perfect? Far from it. Are they practical? Absolutely not. Should you spend all your finances on getting the most expensive gear just to listen to them? God, no. Unless you absolutely want the ultimate music quality, maybe, but you can get non-Sony cassette players for close to 50 bucks and these come with Dolby Noise Reduction, Auto Reverse, MegaBass, and all other quirks which do not require you to have a PhD in soldering PCBs. Funnily enough, the first player outlined in this comment, despite looking as ugly as [Insert Modern company logo here] comes with all these features and it even is able to capture music, too! But I think part of enjoying this tape of medium, or any type of medium which is severely outdated compared to modern alternatives is that it can give you a glimpse or, if you experienced that era yourself a flashback into the olden days in which you could not just pick your favourite track and play it on repeat. That and among many things of course is that it just looks cool as hell, too.
If not, feel also free to share stories of how you got to experience this type of music media and the many, many perils that came with that
My own "short" story with tapes and the medium itself:
Coming from a not so rich family and the country being slightly lagging behind, tapes followed me around on the old Golf IV and everywhere in my country up till the mid to late 2000's. The idea of having a full deck of tapes lying around, putting them into the player, swapping the tape side felt fascinating back then. I vividly remember my dad going to the weekly bazar just to get a bunch of "recent" folk music tapes for the long trip back home (which was taking close to 20 hours of driving). Of course, like with any type of media, it would become obsolete, to be succeeded (at least in my country) by CD players and ultimately, like everywhere else, digital music. When we began to renovate part of our home, I found a small shelf with close to a dozen of these tapes lying around. Finding the next best cassette player online just gave me some very abhorrent and stale cassette players like this:
Being a younger lad, and absolutely remembering that these type of cassette players used to look radical, I ended up finding a quite used, but functional Sony WM-2011 (not the year it was made in):
And when the tape was inserted, I noticed that I placed it in the wrong direction and it stopped. People which used to complain about USB ports had it easy - swapping the tape without any Auto Reverse was like reloading a weapon in a video game. And then the music played and it sounded quite... unusual. Mind you, the tapes were collecting dust for close to 15 years and were not stored in the best condition. Noise, missing almost all highs and lows, but after a while, it started clicking. Not the tape or the player - something inside me when I listened to it. The tracks exuded warmth, character, memories of a bygone past and of course, that one word which is regurgitated on every corner of the web by now: nostalgia. The tape having its quirks, the crystal shell looking as rugged as it can be, the (depending on the tape) lovely looking insert. It all felt like I regained something which I had missed and forgotten for such a long time, and I think this is also the same experience other friends around here might have, and, of course, bigger artists and platforms.
Some music genres even thrived with this kind of medium, too. Vaporwave probably being one of the forerunners for bringing a renaissance to this type of medium, as well. Even modern companies jumping on that bandwagon and retroactively releasing game OSTs on tape, as well. Case in point, Power Stone got a tape release in 2020! And it's not just Capcom, you can find Tales of Symphonia, or other official (and unofficial) cassette renditions of video game OSTs on even older medium than the game console these games have been released on!
And then there are the tape decks, the Boomboxes and finally, the infinitely various types of Sony Walkman models. From the almost-alien D(irect)D(rive) Walkman models, all encased in metal with such nice craft, up to the flashy, yellow-coloured Sports Walkman, these devices have become such a cornerstone for Sony, they maintained the brand name for even modern MP3 (and some absurdly expensive) players. Finding some well-kept and high-end models is quite hard, and expensive as hell, with examples like the WM-DD 100 going on Ebay for close to four-digit sale prices.
Tapes are naturally not the end-all-be-all of music formats. Far from it, naturally. The tapes, like all forms of life, degrade over time, can easily be damaged, hate magnets like the plague, can have abhorrent noise if recorded unprofessionally or on bad tapes and lose a lot of sound quality just by being on this type of medium. And it's not just the tapes, the Walkman are also culpable for having a plethora of flaws. Worn-out belts, very fragile internal components, exhausted capacitors are just a few of the many flaws these devices can have. And don't think the high-end DD-models are safe either: the gears on these drives, depending on some models can break quite easily, including that of the four-digit WM-DD 100 beast. So what do you need to repair such an issue? Soldering skills as a bare minimum (here is a "fun" step-by-step on how to change and maintain the gear on that Walkman: https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/sony-dd-series-step-by-step-repair-guide-for-beginners.1605/)
So what's the takeaway?
Cassette tapes are great. They serve as a stellar reminder of how music was used to be listened to in the past and if some people like, even in the present (if you like specific music genres). Are they perfect? Far from it. Are they practical? Absolutely not. Should you spend all your finances on getting the most expensive gear just to listen to them? God, no. Unless you absolutely want the ultimate music quality, maybe, but you can get non-Sony cassette players for close to 50 bucks and these come with Dolby Noise Reduction, Auto Reverse, MegaBass, and all other quirks which do not require you to have a PhD in soldering PCBs. Funnily enough, the first player outlined in this comment, despite looking as ugly as [Insert Modern company logo here] comes with all these features and it even is able to capture music, too! But I think part of enjoying this tape of medium, or any type of medium which is severely outdated compared to modern alternatives is that it can give you a glimpse or, if you experienced that era yourself a flashback into the olden days in which you could not just pick your favourite track and play it on repeat. That and among many things of course is that it just looks cool as hell, too.
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