It was back in the '70's that my dad asked me to record some of his albums onto 8-track using my brother's Capehart stereo that included AM/FM radio, turntable, and an 8-track recorder. I surprised him by not splitting any songs . He was impressed and asked me why the pre-recorded 8-tracks weren't done that way. I informed him that they wanted to preserve the track order from the record. I finally proved to him that cassette was the way to go!

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

One of my main dislikes about the 8 track is the splitting of songs. Always drove me crazy.

Very cool project ! 😎👍

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching!

Living in the Netherlands at 54, I had never even heard of 8-tracks. Even though I was heavily into music, I can't remember anyone using them in the '70s. They weren't a thing at all in this country. That said, the compact cassette was invented right here, so I can imagine that format was pushed more at the expense of 8-tracks. I first heard of them in a Techmoan video. It got me interested because it's actually such a weird format. Tracks being faded out and faded back in, 8 tracks on a 1/4" tape that would normally hold 4 tracks in a R2R, the graphite lubrication, the necessity of replacing pads and splices, no rewind, the ingenious loop-around mechanics, etc. Add to that that it was a popular car format, so many cartridges, especially the beat-up ones, probably have been around to who knows where. They all have a history, even though it's unknown what. So I started looking and found a nice Akai deck. A rare find here because almost no one used them here. I got a few blank tapes and made some mixtapes with varying succes, there are a lot of junk tapes around. When I settled on a reasonably good tape, I did the exact same thing as you: I made a "the best of" compilation for an indie band I am a fan of, which sounded pretty good. They were absolutely thrilled to have their copy on a format they couldn't even play 😁 To solve that, I made a video of my deck playing the tape. You can find the video here, it's a direct feed from the deck outputs. I think it sounds pretty amazing for a deck and tapes that are approximately 50 years old. kzread.info/dash/bejne/Z4Fhk6eMn8fUoKg.htmlsi=h7ciYlEi4wAB8aMM Besides that I don't use the deck much except for playing some Christmas tapes at Christmas time for the nostalgia 😁. But it has been a fun ride. Nice to see you're doing the same. Thanks for your video!

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching! That's a really nice deck you have. I listened to a few clips and it sounds really good. I'll watch your entire video this evening.

8 tracks were basically a means for car owners to have recordable music in their vehicles until something better came along. It would have been interesting to see if Sony would have made a walkman player for 8 tracks if they stayed relevant longer.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

I will admit, they are perfect for cars. Pretty robust and easy to mess with while driving.

I absolutely love it ty so much

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

You're welcome!

I will have to go looking for a recorder and a blank tap. Thank you for the info.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching!

This Gentleman sounds a bit like Casey Kasem, the DJ who did the Scooby Doo voices.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

5 ай бұрын

I haven't heard that comparison made before. Maybe I should start hosting Top40 radio. Thanks for watching!

I record right past the sensor foil - a quick clunk during the tune is much less irritating than a fade out/in like they do on regular pre-recorded carts.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

5 ай бұрын

I agree. The fade out and fade in is one of the reasons I never liked 8track.

I love my akai gxr-82d 8-track player

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

That's a nice unit!

Lots of fun here, but I don't think i'll be returning to 8-Tracks anytime soon. I always enjoyed the format 50 years ago, but was happy to abandon it when cassette tapes took ovet.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

It was definitely a fun project, but not one I plan on doing regularly.

Hey there. Can you walk me through on how to custom make 8-track tape labels on your printer 🖨️? What will be the best program to use for that? Thank you!😀

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

I used Photoshop, but only because that's what I'm familiar with. I measured the total length and width of the label on the cartridge to get the dimensions. I like Photoshop because I can work on true print dimensions, so I was able to measure the width of the cartridge end and stay within those boundaries. At the time of printing, I did a test print on regular paper to be sure all the sizes stayed the same, then printed on label paper.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

I'll see if I can record a quick walkthrough of how I did it and I'll post it to the channel.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

@markcovington8159 that video is live on the channel.

just curious did audio books come on 8 tracks for the vision impaired cheers

@VintageElectronicsChannel

4 ай бұрын

That's a great question! I have never seen an audio book on 8 track. I'm going to research that though.

😔 Promo SM

Interesting, but 8 track was always pretty bad. No noise reduction, no three heads, poor tape formulations etc. The physical tapes were vastly inferior to cassettes. Nostalgic, but a format that deserved to die.

@VintageElectronicsChannel

6 ай бұрын

I agree, they never were a great format. I was actually looking at 8 track recorders recently, and stumbled upon one with Dolby NR. since I already owned a recorder and hardly ever use it, I didn't buy it, but I thought it was interesting. I had never seen one with Dolby up to that point. Apparently they're out there, but a bit hard to find.