A bit of a gamble/nostalgia buy, but I pulled the trigger on a very Boards of Canada-vibe tape player/recorder. A never-opened National (pre-Panasonic) tape recorder from around 1973-74. Somebody had it stored in their house here Japan never used. Has all the cables and mic and stuff. The person opened it to make sure it worked, so fingers crossed. It should be here this week. It was actually quite pricey when they were released so it will be interesting to see what the quality is like.
The old school mic could be fun. It also says on the box that it comes with the cables to record from TV, so hopefully that means a standard line in of sorts and isn’t some weird proprietary cable.
Thanks! Random find on Mercari. It comes tomorrow. Fingers crossed. There is a blue one on Handoff Net Mall, but it’s a bit worn and doesn’t have any of the accessories. They say it works but are calling it junk.
Brilliant scouring. That is what I expect from a mantle like Dimensions Tomorrow - awesome name!
On Mercari…. You say… a bit worn… oooo
Could be great before going kaput (no idea how to spell that word! Lol)
Then fix her up and away we go! But wait, I already have plenty of cassette players lol so maybe I’ll skip this one. (Checking now because I’m a cassette whoarder… that is how spell that one though, right!? )
It arrived in as good of condition as advertised (as expected in Japan). Basically new old stock from the 1970s. I might leave the box out as art for the studio (BoC vibes). I need to try recording some stuff from the mic (internal and external) and line in later. The speaker on it sounds surprisingly decent and I wasn’t expecting it to come with an AC cord. Feels like a weird artifact, like something out of Fallout. My wife loves it, so that’s always good.
Yep! Strangely enough someone uploaded a copy of it to YouTube. They made the instructions for how to use it into a kids song. “The red button is for stop”, “Don’t hit eject while the tape is playing”, “If you’re recording something when your mom calls, hit the red button to stop”, etc. Pretty cute if you understand Japanese. My wife loves it. Haha.
The cassette player even has a name “Snappy” Very Japanese. Very 1970s.
Most of the cables and stuff were still sealed in the original plastic. Pretty amazing.
Being brand new must mean your cassette’s audio is better quality than that YT version (muffled/muted in left channel) - def worth getting a clean recording! You might be the last person to have a clean copy of it
result, I just did a “does anyone want to sell me a 4-track for cheap” call out to my friends and now have a long term loan of a Fostex X-26 and a gift of a Yamaha MT-400 (providing I digitise some old tapes for the former owner.)
Analogue madness here we come. Just been watching youtube clips on making tape loops…
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