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Tape lovers mix it up, old-spool Cassie White

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Updated October 26, 2010 09:53:00

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For a lot of people who grew up in the '80s and '90s, cassettes - and in particular the mix tape - hold a nostalgic appeal that outstrips their inferior sound quality and tendency to warp.

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But people who prefer their music on tape were dealt a blow recently when Sony announced it was to stop production of the humble Walkman; signalling the death knell for the iconic music player. The last batch has already been shipped out, and once they have sold out it means buying one will become a whole lot harder.

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many people.

However, according to reports from Japan, Sony will outsource production to a Chinese company on consignment for those hipsters who cannot quite move on.

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Sony blames the rise of iPods for the drop in sales of the Walkman, which sold about 220 million units after it hit the market in 1979. But there are still some people out there who are not quite willing to concede that it is time to press stop on the revolutionary portable player. After smashing his iPod to smithereens a few months ago, Darren Pauli dusted off his 15-year-old Walkman and says it has been going strong ever since. "I've always just gone back to it. I've bought various types of technology, like mini-discs, thinking that would be the next big thing in sound quality. But I managed to break that as well so went back to the Walkman again," he said.

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"You just can't kill it. You could run it over with a truck and couldn't kill it. Can't lose it either; it's guaranteed that no-one will steal it. "It's got a vintage appeal to it I guess, but from a practical point of view it's tough as nails and the batteries last forever - not a day or two like any of the other devices." And with the Walkman comes the cassette, which for many people, including Mr Pauli, holds a special place in the past. "I've got a whole series of tapes like this Metallica tape I had back in school that my mates recorded and we used to listen to on the bus," he said. "I've had it in my car and listened to the same tape that's just kept going for 10, 12 years. "All the way through it you can hear in various parts when mates I've lent it to have accidentally hit record when listening to it. "It's got a whole conversation between one of my mates and his brother and it's hilarious. "Right in the middle of a Metallica guitar solo it cuts to Gatecrasher, this electronic techno stuff, then goes back to it. It's something that's kind of personal with a hint of nostalgia. "I'll put it on with mates and we'll laugh because it reminds you of the old days." But despite the end of the Walkman there are still plenty of people out there who like it old school when it Generated with www.html-to-pdf.net

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comes to listening to music. The mix taped in particular seems to still hold romantic ideas of young love and taping tunes off the radio that you just do not seem to get with a mix CD or playlist. Evan Munro-Smith and his girlfriend do not have CD players in their cars, so they often make each other mix tapes. "When we first started going out it seemed like the classic romantic thing to do because my girlfriend was complaining she didn't have anything to listen to," he said. "So I got my computer and dad's old cassette recorder, plugged them in and put together a whole lot of songs that I really like. "With a CD you can skip tracks you don't like but with cassettes you have to fumble with it and sort though. "They sound pretty terrible as well; the quality is bad. Once we were driving around in my girlfriend's car listening to a mix tape I made her and for some reason it played it at a higher speed, so every single song is pitched up a tone - it sounded really funny. "But it's got that classic feel about it. It's like vinyl ... it comes down to that classic appeal; the chic of the old format, rather than the new digital MP3 files. It's more personal." Topics: music, arts-and-entertainment, human-interest, australia

First posted October 25, 2010 15:20:00

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