Squeaky cassettes

Fair enough guys 

Actually, that's right - 'fair' is all we ever wanted out of this. None of us are trying to diddle record companies or anybody else out of receiving fair remuneration if they are genuinely entitled to it. In the case of copying cassettes, or even old vinyl to a more modern format all we are generally doing is enabling people to play the music that they've already purchased the right to enjoy in private on modern technology. The basic principle, and this is the one that the record companies have accepted (otherwise they wouldn't grant permission freely for it), is that you have paid for a licence to listen to that performance - not a format licence at all. They are perfectly happy to grant this, because almost invariably it involves material that isn't available in a newer format anyway - I think that all restorers would charge more for a service like this than it would cost to purchase a newer copy if it was available, so they just don't get requests like that (or if they do, they point out what I just said).

The Publisher with "We're not particularly interested in protecting your music" on his letterhead,

I didn't think that any of them were even that honest. The honest statement would actually read 'We're only interested in making as much money out of your music as we can - by any means...' 

"without passing anything on to you..."

Starting by reply #5, the discussion drifted away from technical to copyright and lawyer`s problems. Eventually, this is of little help to Havoc, since I do not know if he came to a solution of his technical issue. I am preserving some of my old cassettes (mostly recorded myself - thus no copyright item !) and doing so I recently found a very unusual type that looks and works exactly like a miniature reel to reel recorder. The amazing quality is that the reels run very smooth and have no friction. Although it will not be a very easy manipulation to wind the tape on such a shell, I am very sure then that the problems are gone. Unfortunately I do not remember the producer of these cassettes.

Sorry again - the problem was disclosed by MusicConductor !

Starting by reply #5, the discussion drifted away from technical to copyright and lawyer`s problems.

That's the problem with threads that get hijacked by somebody with an agenda. As for those cassettes, there were several manufacturers who did this, I believe...

Got a few Teac casettes like that.

That's the problem with threads that get hijacked by somebody with an agenda.

I'd like to know what. If you don't want me on the forum Steve, please do say so.

Got a few Teac casettes like that.

That's the problem with threads that get hijacked by somebody with an agenda.

I'd like to know what. If you don't want me on the forum Steve, please do say so.

Not you, silly! The starter of the copyright bit, which is what Bert was referring to.

Oh, sorry. Sometimes the finer bits of the english language do seem to escape me.

Sometimes the finer bits of the English language do seem to escape me.

So do I ! The English native speaking majority of the forum sometimes disregards that for the other part the English to native conversion has some bits lower resolution and therefore the signal often disappears in the noise ! I hope you don't want to exclude us from the community !

[I hope you don't want to exclude us from the community !]

The English native speaking majority of the forum sometimes disregards that for the other part the English to native conversion has some bits lower resolution and therefore the signal often disappears in the noise ! I hope you don't want to exclude us from the community !

Don't be daft - of course we don't. One of the downsides (disadvantages) of speaking the lingua franca as a mother tongue is that it makes one worse at everybody else's language, and also makes us lazy - so we use idiomatic or vernacular language (sort-of patois, if you like), sometimes without thinking about it. I think that sometimes, even the Americans have trouble with it too - we understand them better than they understand us; for this I blame imported American TV entirely. I do recall one thread here which has a good example of an American not understanding common English terms - it was really rather funny if you are a UK resident. You can read and try to make sense of it here. Look for the 'skip'.

The reason for the laziness is quite easy to understand, though - which of the large choice of second languages do the English choose to learn? Faced with what is often an impossible choice, it's either the nearest one, or more likely, none at all. I 'learned' French at school, but although I can read it off the page and get the gist of it up to a point, I really can't speak it properly. I think that for a lot of Europeans, it's slightly different - they start to teach English in schools at a pretty young age compared to the age we start our kids learning anything foreign, so they have something of a head start.

The other problem with not using idiomatic language is that sometimes it makes writing rather tedious, and often it takes a lot longer to do. And generally it reads rather tediously, too.

So the bottom line is that I will continue to write the way I do, and you have to ask if it's not clear. Alternatively and possibly additionally you have to learn as much about my English as you can! In fact, I generally write pretty reasonable English, so I've been told; I could show you an awful lot worse...

So the bottom line is that I will continue to write the way I do, and you have to ask if it's not clear. Alternatively and possibly additionally you have to learn as much about my English as you can! In fact, I generally write pretty reasonable English, so I've been told; I could show you an awful lot worse...

It's certainly not my wish or intention to change the way you use your language. It's yours. I simply express my problems that sometimes come up by reading your text and trying to understand.
I feel English writing is often much more easy than reading and understanding. (I say English and not American). And you are much more forgiving about errors than the French are. In a small country like Switzerland we all are used to learn and speak German, English, French, and mostly Italian also, as we have to adapt to our neighbours. Thus most of as are able to conduct some 80 - 90 % of these languages, but lack the subtleties of the rest. Correct German is a learning process also, as our dialects are far from the written German and have a different grammar as well.
The British have a particular way of coding and I often feel what they say is not exactly how they think. I remember a situation in a pub where we had a party and I was calling the waiter to set the level of the ambient music lower as we could barely understand each other. Followed by - PLEASE ! The waiter obviously was offended and did not react. My British colleague told me that I was impolite by saying that in a such very direct manner - yet I did not know how to code it.
Apart from that I admire the sense of particularity on the island. For example the rope running on top of the old doubledeckers for ringing the driver for a stop. Extremely simple and efficient. Easy maintenance. . Zürich's newest street cars had a lot of problems when people pressed the buttons for stop. The doors did not open or jammed and the tramway could not continue it's ride. Plenty of service costs. Another rather sophisticated memory is that a genuine British wash basin has two water taps: One with steeming hot water - the other one with cold water. I never caught the way a British person washes hands in the toilet but I assume they do !

BTW: I am deviating from the basic topic again !

While we may be deviating, communication on forums is sometimes hard. Part of it is that you are not using your mother language, part is missing visual clues. While I admit that these days I do read and write a lot more english than dutch/flemish, getting the whole meaning isn't always straightforward. And english is rather easy compared to German (for me at least). With english it is easy to get the literal meaning of words but they have a lot of going on between the lines and alternatives just because the choosing of particular words. German is plain hard to get even the literal meaning. Once you manage that you are past the hardest part. But I'm far from even that. My french is a bit worse than english. Certainly writing it. The accent is horrible in any language.

For example the rope running on top of the old doubledeckers for ringing the driver for a stop. Extremely simple and efficient. Easy maintenance. . Zürich's newest street cars had a lot of problems when people pressed the buttons for stop.

That's a whole other issue. While the UK is nothing else than a living museum cutting edge technology isn't always the best answer for simple problems either. Just yesterday I wondered if it is really necessary to replace a perfectly good email client by a database that has a backend running on it that is querried by a server that answers to a client (email) application. To me that's a solution looking for a problem.

To me that's a solution looking for a problem.

While I understand what you are saying, I seem to recall the same was said about the laser when it was first invented - now we can't do without the things.

... and who was it who said 256K or memory was "enough for anyone" and which company said they thought there was a worldwide market for "maybe six" of their computers?

The point being, you never can tell .

Back to the original topic, although this particular difficulty is certainly different than the one that has been mostly discussed. I just had a cassette I wanted to get onto the computer. Running it in fast forward and reverse to, hopefully, equalize the tension, produced a loud squealing noise. Looking through the little window, it appeared that tape was touching both front and back faces at the outer edges of both reels. This did not improve with running back and forth or any attempts to shake or tap it down.

Taking the cassette apart seemed necessary, although that wouldn’t guaranteed success. There was a high static charge between the tape and the shell. Put the removed half shell within a couple inches and the loose tape would jump to it, getting more tangled by the second. I don’t know how this came about, I don’t recall ever seeing it before. A few blasts from a Zerostat settled it down and the tape subsequently wound evenly and played with complaint.

Despite what you've always read about sticky shed syndrome being restricted to studio master open reel tape I think this is what you're probably up against with your squeaky tape, in which case the solution is the same - you need to bake the tape. I've cured a number of squeaky cassettes by popping them in an oven at 55C for a couple of hours. No need to take them apart or respool them or anything - just the application of gentle heat. I've never known it to fail.