Thursday 12 July 2012

Remember Tape Recorders?



When I was much younger I had a small cassette recording machine. It looked like a tiny piano (with a small keyboard affair at the front), and cost almost nothing.

I recorded all sorts, mostly hit records from the radio (naughty pirate Cro). I also recorded me playing guitar badly, and occasionally me singing badly.

We now live in an era of pocket-sized all-singing all-dancing gizmos, yet certain people seem never to have recorded, and listened to, their own voice.

Had the guy above owned the same simple recording machine as myself, would he have entered a singing competition? Methinks not; but wasn't he fabulous!


15 comments:

  1. Morning Cro - Great fun - what a scream! I still have a reel-to-reel tape recorder - I used to record myself singing all the time - listening back is a little embarrassing to say the least.

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    1. We still have some cassette tapes of the children talking when they were small. In fact my oldest recently asked me to look-out for them.

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  3. Ha, ha! Very good. I had one of those old tape recorders too.
    Tell me. How does a person record him/herself these days? I have no idea. No cassette recorders with microphones so what do you use? It seems that sort of thing has died out to be replaced with video-ing yourself using a camera or smart phone????

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  4. My ears, they buuurrrrrrrrnnnn!

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  5. I miss the yards and yards of glittering tape strung up on roadside hedgerows from being thrown out of cars by frustrated drivers when it unlooped itself inside their cassette players. It was so festive.

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  6. Oooh yes - we were talking about this only the other day. Recording fave choons from the Top 40 on a Sunday evening and trying not to cough, sneeze or emit any other noises whilst doing so. Good memories!

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  7. Sometimes they get some crazy-ass people on that show, (just to entertain us, I'm sure.)

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  8. I still have a tape recorder, which i've used now and then. I found it most handy when playing a fife and wanting to learn the harmony part to a tune. I record myself playing the melody then try playing the harmony part to it.

    I'm shocked at the number of people who go on these shows who are really appalling. I can't say much for their friends--if i sounded as bad and wanted to audition, i hope my friends would let me know the truth and save me some embarrassment.

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  9. Oh no...your post brought back some very embarrassing memories.

    I too had one of those tape recorders and had never heard myself sing before. So, at the tender age of 12 or 13 I recorded myself singing Donna Summer's "Hot stuff" and Foreigner's "Hot Blooded" (I'm dating myself here). I very unfortunately left the tape in the recorder and my Mother found it and she must have laughed herself silly to hear her 12 year old daughter singing somewhat inappropriate lyrics for her age...she has kept that damn tape as blackmail and still threatens to bring it out to embarrass me (at age 44)...I need to find that tape!!!

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  10. Some people are just so tone deaf that hearing themselves in any form will have no affect. It just doesn't register.

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  11. my dad had a reel to reel that my sisters I recorded on: we were newscasters reporting on disasters with all the attendant background noise. We had a blast!

    This poor guy may actually have still auditioned if he had a tape recorder -- he is sufficiently delusional that, had he heard himself, he would "Gosh, I sound just like Freddie Mercury!"

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  12. Ouch! I had to bang a couple of dust bin lids together to get that out of my head.

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