h a l f b a k e r yExpensive, difficult, slightly dangerous, not particularly effective... I'm on a roll.
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The tape inside a dictation microcassette is the same width as the tape inside a standard compact cassette. The speed of a standard cassette is two times 2.4 cm/s and four times 1.2 cm/s. The tape goes the other way for a microcassette. Therefore by using your computer to speed up MP3s to four or two
times normal speed while playing them in reverse while recording a length of tape on a standard tape deck (4.8 cm/s) it becomes possible to dub music to microcassette at a higher speed.
All you have to do is record this altered sound (2 or 4 times normal speed in reverse) on any old standard cassette and then wind that length of tape into a microcassette cartridge. You probably waste most of the time getting the tape from the standard cassette into the micro.
Add to the fact that most home standard cassette decks are of higher sound quality than a microcassette run at 4.8 cm/s (lower wow and flutter, better azimuth) and your mixes will sound great.
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wow old school technology, i seem to remember a lot of twin tape players had high speed tape to tape recording, everything sounded like the chipmunks while it was copying as it didn't mute the speaker.+ |
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//and your mixes will sound great// Um, I highly doubt it. |
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Maybe you could construct some kind
of cassette-shaped caddy into which
you could place your micro-cassette.
That would save all the splicing of tape. |
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Why not? It worked for VHS-C. |
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I guess I'm a little confused; what advantage does a microcasette player have over a solid-state MP3 player? Even a crummy little 16MB unit could probably hold as much music as a microcassette, at comparable quality. |
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I think it comes down to how much
you've got invested
(both financially and emotionally) in the
old technology. |
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The cost of gear required to do this all effectively probably exceeds the cost of a 'toy-level' MP3 player, especially since the audio is going to sound pretty crummy. Music encoded at at 15/16"/sec or 15/32"/sec is not going to sound very good, especially since the bias and Eq of a full-sized tape deck aren't calibrated to match a microcasette deck. |
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Just as an experiment, try taking an audio file, doubling the pitch, and recording it to the microcassette deck at "high" speed. Then play it back at "low" speed. Tell me if it sounds any better than one simply recorded at low speed. |
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The 2.4 cm/s dub from PC to microcassette deck sounds pretty good, but has more wow and flutter. |
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[supercat] Try getting a 180 or so MB MP3 player with a built-in speaker for under $100, and memory chips that cost less than $2 each chip. |
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The closest thing I can find is NetMD, and there are no pocket sized models with a built in speaker. You have to pay more than $100 just so you can get a line-in, and over $200 for one with a microphone input. |
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I have an MP3 player I bought for $20 with 16MB built in (it can use MMC cards for expansion, but I've never bought any). I consider it more of a toy than anything else, but a 32kbps monophonic MP3 should give sound quality as agood as a microcassette, and 16MB would be enough for over an hour of recording. |
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// possible to dub music to microcassette // |
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I cannot think of a single reason why someone would want to do this. |
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If you want high fidelity, you could take the tape out of 90 minute microcassettes, splice them together and wind it into a standard cassette. You would end up with a 180 minute standard cassette at 1-7/8 inches per second. Good luck playing it in the car, though. The tape is so thin you can see through it. |
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