I dig tapes from japan. I have no idea if they still sell them over there but I used to have a japanese pen pall. She sent me a mix tape and the tape it self was so awesome. and in this rubbery slidey cover.

japanese have awesome stuff.

there's no "practical" reason, i suppose, but tapes sound cool. they are very warm and fuzzy sounding and... i dunno... they just have a cool sound to 'em. i love making mix tapes and relistening to them. making my own remixes/edits/cuts for in-between song segues and whatnot. fun.

and yes. japan is ridiculous. especially with video games.. when video games are released there, it's like a religious holiday.. all the castlevania games that come out come with art books and cd's and shit... god damn..

This should be the easiest trick to significantly reduce tape hiss, at the very least trackdown some chrome tapes, I tried to find some of the next quality level tapes above regular chrome this past spring when my DAT was busted (TDK SAX, Maxell XL2S) without any luck...probably could've found some old stashes on Canal Street.

I never seemed to see much use for it but your system might not be well grounded and the tape heads need to be demagnetized. You can certainly buy that shit off the net if not locally.

I can't recommend Dolby too much, if you've ever used an equalizer you can hear how much of the good sound just gets chopped off.

If you have unlimited funds hunt down a used Nakamichi home deck. They will be like Hudson motor cars, there will always be someone to repair them.

are you using the right kind of cassettes for your decks, if you are using crome tapes and your tape machine doesn't have a crome switch, that will cause extra noise, also same with metal tapes etc. amp and speakers could also be making the problem worse than it actually is if you have some speaker hiss present at all times. the dolby options are on the machine and don't remove an audible amount then there isn't much you can do. clean the heads of your machine. were the tapes fresh or used. what is the bran and model number of your deck?

and here is some good info from a well know engineer and author http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1996...html?print=yes

Thanks for the info terminal pharmacy.
I bought brand new Maxell 90 min tapes. Couldn't find 60 min ones.
The deck's Sony (double). Can't remember the model number. I'll check when I get home.

Does anyone know where I can buy a box of 60 min blank tapes (without labels) in Europe?
Prefably in different colours.

Thanks.

there's a nice store on ebay.
tapeline

Thanks a lot jico. That's exactly what I was looking for.

Also: making mix tapes is so much better then mix cds. You really gotta put some love into a tape man.

i love it how tape traders had this strict police against using noise reduction.
tapes r good for the warmth. also it's more fun to make than a cdr on Nero.

If you have ever done a with/without comparison you would insist on no dolby.

Its why wise traders now refuse to have anything to do with MP3's and downloading.

you guys are so retro, depends if you have done an a/b with an proper outboard noise reduction unit.