New music on an 8-track tape in 2021 & a $400 Soundesign!?
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- "Indie-infused, lo-fi, instrumental chill-pop" from Savannah Grand released on 8-track and cassette: commontimetape...
Also showing how the resale value of a Soundesign 8-track/cassette deck dramatically increased after I featured it in a video.
#8track #tape #soundesign
A new release on an old format, you know Techmoan already has his copy
Techmoan must have one of these. I noticed this album is available on Spotify as well. So no need to buy it if you have Spotify premium.
Not necessarily, 8 tracks weren't very big in Europe.
I beat him to it. Muhahaha.....
@@F40PH-2CAT yes but Techmoan has plenty of 8 track playerssss.
Flippin’ eck.
In 2022, They Might Be Giants released 250 copies of their most recent album (Book) on 8-track.
30 years ago is only 1991 now, it's crazy.
That was a great way to roll into 2021...thank you for another great entertaining and informative video!
I suspect the original 8 track fade out and in was probably because they were dubbing them at high speed and if they were a bit off in the timing you'd end up with a jumble of track content right at the splice. I always liked the way you could get a mostly interrupted track change on a real-time recorded one.
Ever since you've put this soundesign on UA-cam, the value shot up.
Happy new Year VWestlife, thanks for all the videos this past year and my best wishes to you.
8-track was a superior format compared to cassette because 8-track cartridges make better ice scrapers.
Though it wasn't reliable.
Out of the thousands out there, "Indie Infused Lo-Fi Instrumental Chill Pop" is a new genre I never heard of. Haha! I was expecting Vaporwave, but nope.
Fortunately, being lo-fi , the sound will be just fine on 8 Track.
That is cool. There has been an 8-track following community for some years now, maybe 10 or more, before the cassettes. Happy new year!
REALLY good to see you got the 8-track part working again. This is one of my favourite 8-track decks because of that digital track indicator.
I remeber my bother and I had an 8-track tape-to tape recorder. The run through of songs was a thing you do to get the most out of your tapes. We did learn how to fade in and out, but mostly did run and gun like was done on this tape.
Ohhh cool based in Florida! Always glad to support local music I'm going to have to get a release of theirs for sure.
Wow!! My grandparents had the full Soundesign setup with that exact deck. Brought back memories immediately. I remember sneaking in and playing with the buttons... turning it on and getting in trouble from the scratchy volume knob giving me away 😄
The reason why the track changes had the fades and pauses on original tapes is because of the way the tapes were duplicated. They were duplicated on reel to reel like machines, and then the tape was spliced and wound into the shells and sensing foil was applied. Additionally, all four programs were duplicated at once with an 8-channel head. The silence allowed for a margin of error in this process. Seamless track changes would require very precise splicing of the tape, something these high-speed duplicating machines were not capable of. These smaller releases are likely duplicated in real time on a home recorder one program at a time with the tape in the shell, allowing for seamless track changes.
Besides VHS, they show Viewmaster. Hey, Savannah Grand, release it on Viewmaster, too! 🤪
And also 2 AT&T branded mobile phones. I know one of them is a Motorola Motorazr v3, maybe even a v3xx. 🥴
In 80's, Soundesign was the barrel-bottom brand sold at KMart. They usually had the cassette, AM/FM, turntable, speakers in one package. If the cassette died, you were stuck with a system that had a broken cassette.
There were a few brands worse, but not many. Yorx is the only one I can remember.
@@theclearsounds3911 lenoxx sound, Craig, morse electrophonic, all come to mind.
@@unclehogram Craig wasn't all that bad. I'll agree with 100% on the others, though. Electrophonic was the brand that was given away on all those game shows. Yeah, I forgot about those brands. Thanks for reminding me.
Thank you for introducing me the band, i really enjoy their stuff and looking for more
I wonder if 8 tracks will be the next retro format to make a comeback? that would be cool. The 8 track is sold out now, but the music is actually pretty interesting and something i wouldn't not listen to, so I might have bought one lol.... I can definitely understand not wanting to take the time to make 4 sets of songs fit snugly on each track, even with a time calculator I find it to be a lot of work making mix 8 tracks. It's still fun though lol
I seriously doubt 8 track will ever have the resurgence that vinyl or cassettes have had for one simple reason- people are lazy and don't want to do maintenance and 8-track tapes and players require it. From the very beginning, it was a format that you had to "take care" of. Since the actual tape in an 8-track is twice as wide as a cassette, there's a lot more graphite going past the tape head and therefore the heads need to be cleaned far more often than the head in a cassette deck. And then there's the fact that pressure pads and splices go bad in the tapes. The tapes can sound great if they are maintained and the players are cleaned and aligned when needed. But, you know, people want to just pop something in, not work on it.
I, on the other hand, I'm a total dork who loves working on that kind of shit and so I have hundreds and hundreds of tapes and about 20 working players
So now there is a VWestlife effect to go with the techmoan effect. Please do a video on Technics sl-10 and sl-7..I have 2 each I am restoring and would like top dollar. :D
Happy new year 2021!
I have about 10 of Those audiopak tapes in white that my dad recorded on about 50 years ago. Still work and sound good to this day...
I have a few Audiopak branded 8-track tapes and they’re all Capitol brand blank tapes which were made by Capitol Records where they made blank tapes in the 1970’s. Same goes with Columbia Records where they made blank tapes as well. I do not know that two major record labels were manufactured blank tapes back in the 1970’s on 8-track, reel-to-reel, and cassette.
There was another brand made by Audio Devices called Audiotape, and it was a blank reel-to-reel tape for recording, and Audiopak also made blank cassettes too. Back then, they made Audiodiscs where they made blank acetate records, and that was from the 1950’s.
Happy new year from Malaysia, VWestlife.
"what this would have originally COME with"
That's how I've always recorded 8 tracks. Just let it run, no fade outs, no rearranging tracks, just recording straight through and if it changes tracks suddenly right in the middle of a song, so be it.
random fades are way worse it’s unbelievable people thought that was the better option i think formats like Apple Lossless and wav not on a cd are the best way if you want pretty much zero possibility of the need to rearrange or shorten anything but almost the same quality as tape or vinyl though it gets tricky when you have a format with different sides like compact cassette and especially double lp so I wonder if vhs is one sided yet can be rewound why weren’t 8-tracks made that way
It may be a sound design but it is a beautiful unit and well worth the money now day I see the price of it going up a little higher
I agree on a VHS release. VHS hi-fi on properly working equipment has much better fidelity than most any other consumer analog format. If ripping and burning CDs and later MP3s hadn't become common, maybe hi-fi VHS could've become a way to make better recordings at home.
unfortunately they were subject to drop-outs in the hifi audio stream unless you used a virgin tape recorded at SP speed. 2 hours or so max. recording time in hifi. never fast-scan forwards/backwards or pause this tape as that will accelerate wear/drop-out accumulation.
There even were PCM converters which would let you play (and RECORD!) 'CD standard' digital audio from/on VHS, back in the late 70s, early 80s, even before the CD was out :)
Goes to show that it was the convenience of CDs that won people over, rather than fidelity, as barely anyone cared for that system and AFAIK there were no pre-recorded releases.
@@westelaudio943 Toshiba made a deck with one built in that recorded PCM in place of video, and Sony of course had the PCM-F1 adapter.
Although I would have never paid that for the unit, I'm happy they got what they wanted for them. I thought your tape sounded great. This is one of the best bass response tapes I heard in this format. Thank you for sharing.
Right at 7:22, it changed from program two to three w/ minimal interruption. So now fade-out/fade-in split tracks here!
Good video. Also interesting on the Dolly Parton 8-track Christmas release.
What a trip down memory lane... Thanks!
Very cool! A local band called Ocean City Defender (which is a fantastic band name if you get the reference) did a very small run of their EP on 8-track a few years ago, but the sound quality was pretty bad unfortunately. I didn't get the details on how they did the duplication, but Savannah Grand did a great job.
That was awesome of them to do that along with other artists that also done that... I might down load the stream and record it onto my own 8 track tape...
That's really cool. Plus seeing the vhs and view master slide disks on there along with cassette on label . a new 8 track . very cool.
It was probably produced with Garage Band or Logic.
Fixed a old 8 track recorder from the early 80s a few weeks ago,recorded a few pink floyed songs over a old perry como tape that I got from fle Market for 25 cents sounds great.
That amazing song at 6:46 is called "I Couldn't Think Up A Title For This Track, So Here It Is"
I worked at a radio station in the late 80’s. Part of my job was to copy the commercials and song singles from reels or records to Fidelipac cartridges or carts - basically an 8-track cartridge with only one, big track. After magnetically erasing the cart I would have to listen to the blank cart until I heard the ‘wow’ from the tape splice. Then I would stop the playback and the cart was ready to record. You didn’t want your commercial or song to have that ‘wow’ in the middle of playback. There was an inaudible tone put at the start of each track so when the commercial or song was over the tape would continue to play until the deck detected the tone and would stop the tape. In that way the tape was all cued up and ready for the next time it was needed.
Wonder if they’ll ever be a day that we can buy new 8-track equipment and tape cartridges again? Awesome thanks!
They would be chinese junk
@@HDXFH you are absolutely right
I hope not. Some things are just better off dead.
Starting the new year with a new vid. Nice!
Happy New Years to you Sir. Love your channel man. It's awesome 👌
they sound pretty good.....its cool to hear on 8-track as well..when i was a kid i had a nice portable 8 track with a shoulder strap...loved it.
We lived on 8 tracks back in the 70s, especially in cars and with portable players. Glad to see 8 tracks in 2021.
@@tarstarkusz for us, when we were out of the house, we pretty much used 8 tracks exclusively. Hanging on the corner with our portable players and those who had cars in our circle had them equipped with 8 track players. This went on pretty much through high school (1976-1980). It was a different story at home though as we pretty much listened to records and cassettes.
@@tarstarkusz Downside which could never be corrected with the endless loop design is NO REWIND in order to immediately replay a track. And only the better 8 Track players and recorders even featured Fast Forward, which wasn't much better than 2 or 3 times tape speed anyway. In the mid to late 1990s, using either the Akai or Pioneer 8 Track recorder, I would often make 8 Track "mix tapes" of dance / house / hip-hop "just because"... now if I did it, most of the newer generation wouldn't even know what an 8 Track cartridge is !
According to Wikipedia, 8 track sales peaked in 1978 and then declined each year after. Weird because, for our crew back then, while we had excellent home stereos like Pioneer, Marantz, Akai, Sansui, Kenwood, etc. and while we all had and listened to cassette decks at home, outside, especially in cars, it was 8 track. Actually, at home I listened to records most and the only cassettes I listened to were live Grateful Dead shows, lol.
@@tarstarkusz funny you should say that because, honestly, I don’t remember too many friends cars having cassette decks.
I know emucow, he knows his stuff, he will give you quality.
I have Ghosts live album Ceremony and Devotion (2017) and Prequelle (2018) on 8-track. I feel AC/DC dropped the ball by not releasing there 2020 album power up on 8-track. They released it on cassette,Vinyl,CD and digital download but not 8-track. We need some new music on reel to reel.
Check out Dead Media Tapes, we did that Prequelle tape. Also manufacture reels for several artists. Have several also released on the Dead Media Tapes bandcamp. Reels have been gaining more traction in the last couple years. Making more of them.
facebook.com/deadmediatapes/
price rise rage - the Techmoan effect!
or you could say: after the Techmoan effect, the VWestlife effect... ;-)
you can use baking soda as a super glue "activator". will add some body to the joint as well
That unexpected track change is so aesthetic
I was actually hoping for customary fade out, the click of the track change, then the fade back in.
When I was a kid I recorded Bob Seger album on 8 track from lp record and remember song firelake,fire"click" lake in middle of song,everytime I here that song on radio i expect to here click to.
Assuming you haven't left the tape engaged in the hot cab of your 1974 Chevelle when you parked it, the splice point is where the cartridge will fail. The section of tape will fold, the adhesive will gum up the playback side. You will lose a couple of inches of the music on 4 songs when you splice it back together. Copy it to another medium early.
My sister had Bat Out of Hell on 8 track and I still remember the fade out on Paradise By the Dashboard Lights. 😄
The only problem I see with not fading between track changes is if, say in 25 or so years you have to redo the sensor splice, you're going to lose some music.
9:15 - And you're not going to ask for a ViewMaster release? It's on the cover too! LOL
That's a nice transition from Program 2 to Program 3. Like you, I remember "the fade" and honestly, I like it better without the fade.
Man, my John Denver "Rocky Mountain High" tape always got stuck right after the Program change - right smack dab in the middle of "Goodbye Again" from Program 1 to 2, that's the only song they jumped across Programs with, and I used to sing along right up to the word that it would stop on, and then have to mess with the tape to get it whirring on again, whirring up the lyrics as I went along. It took me a while to learn to sing it normally after I bought the cassette! LOL
Very cool to see this! Great looking Soundesign unit. I am looking to incorporate one of my 8 track decks into my stereo set up. I find them at thrift stores for a few dollars, usually around $4.00. I even have an 8 track recorder bought off Ebay a while back which will be neat to make new carts. I just need to figure out how to use the thing as of yet as the manual did not come with it.
Mark Ronson released an 8 track about a year or two a go. It was made by this guy who uses old 8 tracks, peels off the old labels, tapes over them and puts new labels on them.
That's a gorgeous combo machine. I'd love the Sanyo one you showed briefly during the last video, but it turns out they only sold them in the US and Japan, and shipping something that heavy to the UK, only for it to probably turn up in pieces, isn't really an option.
So I'll just have to enjoy these decks vicariously via the power of UA-cam!
The quality of that recording surprised me tbh. Like most people I'm used to 8-track being quite muddy and warbly compared to vinyl, but I now wonder how much of that is just down to ageing tape and badly aligned decks.
Now THERE’S a business model destined to succeed.
came here for retro tech, left with a new artist rec ;)
I have some of the higher-end 8-track decks, such as the Wollensak 8075A, 8055, and 8050, Pioneer H-R 99, Akai/Roberts 808D... however, my most used 8-track player is a Soundesign 4411 AM/FM/8-track. I have it hooked up as a deck to the stereo. Has no extra features, but sound quality is decent, and I have plenty of parts for it as the transport they used is common among the lower-end players.
Ahh Audiopak, we used Audiopak carts at our stations. once went to pick up pallets of them at their plant in the early 1990's in Winchester Virginia.
Capitol Records had a record stamping plant in Winchester, VA.
Soundesign, York, Craig and Lloyd's was for those who were too cheap to buy Sony, Pioneer, Panasonic/Technics.
Sweet man,that is so awesome 👌, keep up the good work man
Mr. VW may jump-start the old 8-Track era. If you couple that with the new genre: "Indie infused Lo-Fi instrumental Chill Pop", then we have something to look forward to post-Covid.
That super glue reminds me of "Bob Smith Insta-Cure" which is the same principle, but comes in different viscosities, can highly recommend !
looks like I need to pick up my own copy,as soon as I can get a 8 track player.
The cartridge format was used extensively in radio well into the 90s because it was high fidelity tape, running at 7 ips that always stopped at the start of the commercial, jingle or song. Referred to as carts, an inaudible stop tone laid down when you started recording on it meant the tape was always cued up to be ready for the next play, (unless the last person using it pulled it out of the cart machine before it hit the stop tone). There was also an optional secondary tone, called a sec tone that would trigger the next event in an automation system. Carts were made in 20, 40, 70 second lengths for short bits like commercials, and up to several minutes for music. Many stations had everything on carts because it was the most convenient format. The 7 ips tape speed meant the frequency response was pretty good, up to 15kHz, the upper limit of FM broadcast sound.
Watch Wolfman Jack use carts in American Graffiti. ua-cam.com/video/yuVQG0BJjpw/v-deo.html
The 8-track could have used an inaudible tone to change track instead of the fragile metal stripe. And a multi-track head instead of the clunky mechanism. May be in an alternate universe they did it...😌
Yes! I saw the video just one hour after it was released
I might have already commented on here before that 8tracks are my 1st go to format then cd & then vinyl...growing up my parents only had 8tracks in the 60's & 70's...i recently bought a brand new 8track player with cd & usb as well as a dual cd/8track for my Explorer...theyve never stopped making 8tracks...i recently got the latest McCartney..Sting..Gary Numan on 8track & Cheap Trick put out 1 of their recent albums on 8track too...i was playing an 8track the other day & the person thought I was playing a cd or vinyl...they were amazed 2 find out it was an 8track...8tracks sound great if u take care of them like u do with cds or vinyl & if u take care of your player....i know a lot of people who luv 8tracks & is their go 2 format....
All these old formats getting a revival I am desperate to see Laserdisc make a return.
They don`t even exist in statistics of sold phyisical formats. They are only collectibles. Future is in upgraded versions of a compact disc (like japanese SHM-CD and hi-res M-QA) and vinyl. Here is the money, not in 8-tracks, laserdics and philips cassette tape. I would also like to return in more analog past (even new vinyl is in 90% digital remaster), but reality is different.
@@peterregorsek1504
Many Laserdisc releases in the 90s were also from digital masters.
Beta stereo would have a way better sound than vhs. Played back through a good sony beta player, it would be very good.
Reel to Reel was discontinued by Columbia House in 1984 and replaced with the compact disc option
Happy new year to all of you :-)
Wow, bring back the 8 tracks, cassettes, and VHS tapes!
Listening this on Sony lbt-xb80av and it sounds amazing and the bass is so deep and clean
I wonder where Common Time is sourcing new 8-track tapes? I'd love to find some new stock and a variable speed 8-track recorder to add some noisy ambiance to my music production process.
It's actually very good music, I like it a lot! It's better than what I was expecting!
just subscribed. Got sucked in with 8 track and sound design. Really tired of pundits disrespecting Sound Design. May not be a Macintosh, but they filled a niche for people my age back in the 70's whom desperately wanted a stereo, but had no funds.
That is a particularly nice unit you have. I keep banging on my old 8 track gear. Plastic head mount breakage is a big deal.
Needlejuice Records does 8-tracks too. I think they have a few in stock.
Really liked the tunes!
There's a very simple reason for the short interruption: It was actually recorded with an 8-track recorder unlike the mass-produced 8-tracks of former decades. This is also the reason, why your tapes sounds so good and the tracks are well aligned. Back in the days, the 8-track tapes were duplicated by the use of special reel-to-reel machines with 8-track tape heads. The machines would run at high speed, likely around 16x, and record the album several times onto the final tape. Normally, they would use a low-frequency timing signal to indicate where the tape should be later cut. Because the cutting position was never that precise, you would have to leave some blank space before and after to ensure everything was there in the end. The final step was then to actually wind the pre-recorded tape into the final cartridge. Even though it was mass product, rejection rates used to be pretty high.
Whenever I recorded on the Realistic 8tracks usually the 90 minute ones, I would just let it switch while still playing, easier that way. Usually was able to fit 2 records on one cartridge. 45 minutes between two track switches..like recording on a 90 minute cassette. Good times! Lol
A second run of the cassette tapes is up for pre-order on the CTT bandcamp.
Nice to see you're also an 8 track enthusiast! That's what I'm doing now that I basically totally got out of the computer hobby. lol Got four albums coming in the mail infact. XD
Happy New Year to VWestlife hoping this year is a good one for you just saw this video that sound design really looks fantastic I remember when in High School 8 tracks were popular and having a boom box that played 8 track was cool in my day though I was never a fan of 8 track they were always too bassy very little treble but being hispanical the music sounded ok cause a lot of the Spanish albums I had were always high in treble it always bothered me why they mixed it like that but on 8 track they sounded better and on that method of fixing the tape head I wish I had nerve to fix my pioneer 8 track player it was very nice it also had soft eject and when you put it in it would load the tape. The plastic part was also broken but did not know how to repair but now I know thanks again for this vid waiting for next one JRo
The audio sounds pretty good considering that all is retro of the past. Beautiful deck.
enjoy your vidoes man keep it up i always rewatch the same videos bc i miss stuff i hope you stay safe keep it up :)
Meh, the music isn't my bag, but that deck is splendid. I got an original 70's GE Loud-Mouth II 8-Track radio from a thrift shop for $.50 (paid by the pound,) and I hope to do a video on it soon. I'd really love to donate that to your channel, VWestlife! It's in fully working order. I even bought the obligatory Boston 8-Track to go with it.
cool
back to THE classics
*He steps out of his house on the first of January:* Aaahhh! Happy new year! Time to buy a new 8-track album!
We use to have an 8-Track recorder and I suspect that's what they did with this tape using a computer plugged into the audio input jacks. The downside is that it would be slow and only one could be recorded at a time.
Btw, a permanent fix for the plastic head bracket crack is to wrap sensing foil tape 2 or 3 times around the frame of the bracket. Like a brace. No other corners will ever crack. Pop a hole in the top with a toothpick where the screw goes and put the scree in which will make sure the sensing foil tape never comes off, like a stake. Done this with 15 or 20 decks in the past.
The VU-Meters have some strange frequency filters...
Happy new year vwestlife !
I re-enforce the splice in 8 track cartridges on the reverse side of the tape from the sensing tape side with Scotch magic tape. The re-enforced splices do not come apart.
I bought TO HELL WITH THE DEVIL by STRYPER on 8 track from COLUMBIA HOUSE RECORD CLUB in 1989, that was the last year COLUMBIA HOUSE RECORD CLUB carried 8 track tapes
btw, can you tell me what NRC actually is? and "special tape"?
2020 was awesome and I hope you have an even better 2021
I find it interesting that they sent it to you in a Caseology box, which was probably what they had lying around to send it to you in.
1:06 🥴
1:48 They probably used Logic Pro, which is basically the pro version of GarageBand.
Hey VWeslife. A very Happy New Year to you. I hope that 2021 will be a really good year for you. Let's all hope & pray for 2021 to become a far better year than 2020 has been for us. What do you think?😀
2020 was pretty good for some! :)
Ghost made a few 8 tracks of their albums (haven’t watched the full video yet so not sure if you mentioned it)
the tape might be cut to size, I wonder if they did something like taking the whole album length, deviding by 4 and then figure out how long the tape would have to be.
maybe I'm overanalyzing it, but that's what it would seem to be to me, why it's lighter than a normal 8track
Since we're looking at cool retro media, how about a PCM release on VHS?
I can play that, I’m down.
Serious technical question here, can digital PCM on VHS be combined with VHS Hi-Fi? That would be great for compatibility. You'd have linear, Hi-Fi, and digital all on the same cassette.
Just in today, another 2021 8-track release. Comedy band Power Salad (heard on The Dr Demento Show) has released their 2017 LP "Vaudeville" on 8-track. So it's been on lathe-cut vinyl and now on 8-track, though still not CD! So if there are any tapeheads still out there, this is your area! More info at powersalad.bandcamp.com/album/vaudeville
I didn't know 8-tracks could sound so good.
Ryan S. If you have the proper equipment they can sound amazing.
The bass sounds good sounds nice overall