Super 8 Tracks?

[fogo]

Some really great posts from everyone here and thanks to Super8man for sparking this little retro nostaliga trip that we're all on...

Funny thing is, a couple of years after my dads mate Barry (couldve only been Barry, couldnt it?) with the Lotus Europa showed up at the house with his 8 track, another friend, turned up with a Landrover 109 Station Wagon Safari. This was 74 or 75. There was to be no 8track here tho. Steve, who incidentally was not only a great surfer, but a pioneer shaper in the Bournemouth area, had kitted out the landy and was about to depart the land of UK for India, overland, surfing as he went. The reason for his visit? As a gift to my dad before leaving he dropped off a cassette player...he took one along with him himself, with the intention of sending regular 'messages' home by cassette tape...I can remember the excitement of watching my dad unpack the latest tape to reach home from some far flung place, and then listening to Steve's commentary from a windy beach...great stuff....and pleasant memories....

ade

[James E]

I have ZERO IDEA, where Jim is comming from. I had a home 8 track that was one of the early component type receivers w/ AM/FM 8 track RECORDER w/ a seperate turntabe and had other inputs as well. It also had dual mic inputs for stereo live recording to 8 track. We used it mostly to record or own tapes or singing in our house. Virtually <i> everybody </i> I knew had a similar type of component/ reciever 8 track in the 70's/ early 80's. As Mike said, we all made our own mix tapes to listen to on our portable units and in the car. Even despite the dubiousness of splitting songs between tracks. With some skill one could simply order them such that they wouldn't be split, or at a least only had a slightly early fade out, which was no big deal. I had far more exposure and use of 8 tracks then I did of super 8 back then......
(Note the groovey new avatar. Since that seems to be the thing to do lately...)

[einzelhaft83]

I just thought I would share my memories of 8 and 8, (track and super) that is. I have always been interested in recording both sound and visuals. My "home stereo" was an Emerson all-in-one that included a cassette, turntable, tuner and 8 track recorder. I purchased blank 8 tracks at Gemco, Sav-On, and Von's, all Southern Cal chain stores. This would have been around '77-'79. I recorded 8 tracks for friends, and would also record "store bought" cassettes to 8 track and back to cassette for use in the car. Not the best fidelity but it was a way to add music to my collection. My first super 8 was a Kodak instamatic, fixed focus in about 1970. Still have the films I shot with it! So it seems many have the same interests....

[Jim Carlile]

Sorry guys, I don't know anyone anywhere who recorded their own 8-tracks at home. And I knew lots of heavy duty music people.

While I'm sure that a few low end stereos might have featured some kind of gimmicky 8-track home recorder in the late 70's, I'm not talking about Yorx, Electrophonic, Sears, Realistic, or any of that kind of Mickey Mouse junk. Those folks also had silly Quadraphonic setups and those psychedelic light poles, too, which were a total bust as well. Never mainstream.

I never saw blank cartridges anywhere in So Cal-- of course, I never went to Gemco or White Front, either. It would have made absolutely no sense to do so-- cassettes were far superior, cheaper, longer playing, the portable units sounded better, so much so that you had to be kind of daft to want to record 8-tracks at home or use them for home use.

I mean, with cassettes so popular and good-sounding, who would do it?

Also-- I thought most you guys said that 8-tracks were a bust? It seems a bit of a contradiction to now be talking about how much you used them.

[super8man]

People's memories of 8 tracks (and insert any other technology here) are a lot like global warming and CO2: its all the rage now but in time we will fondly look back on it like 8-tracks; everyone will claim they were never really into it and only a few low-end hucksters did any research.

And like life on this planet, EVERYTHING is a BUST in the long run: think super 8, 16mm, cassette tapes, VHS, DVD, BluRay, HDDVD, MP3s, etc....but what I DO notice is revisionist history is very common like when saying an old girlfriend was just a friend and nothing serious...yet at the time you (not you, the generic you) were very serious with that girl. It's like that.

But seriously, here are some brands to ponder the senseless of companies back in the day...

Hitachi:


Midland:


Panasonic Receiver:


Sony:


and others, etc...

And, just so we compare apples and apples, here's a period correct tape recorder:



And just to correct a few stereotypes, 8-tracks did NOT stretch - the continuous loop prevented that....but cassette tapes DID stretch due to the very fast rewind and fast forward speeds - and let's not forget the autoreverse that required the tape to be under tension in order for the tape to reverse. 8-tracks were most likely a victim of poor availability of technology compared to the later times (1980s) when cassette tapes dominated. Better electronics came along to aid the further dominance of recording technology, think Dolby here. Then came CDs in the early 90s and the first thought I had was how to record from them - cassette tapes were not efficient because in order not to break the album, you had to have 90 minute tapes (45 minutes per side) and then the tape was too THIN to be trustworthy in the car for extended use - and EVERYONE I KNEW talked exactly that about cassette tapes - they were too thin and subject to stretching.

Don't get me wrong, I am not pushing this technology or revising its history. I am merely pointing out it is very viable and a whole lot of fun. The fidelity is good and after you get familiar with it, you start to understand it too had certain benefits other formats do not.

Oh, here are some blank tapes plainly in existence to ponder what people were really thinking back in the day:



and



and



Cheers,
Mike

[super8man]

Oh, the QUAD reference is interesting...8-tracks actually COULD do REAL QUAD because QUAD decks and their tapes (same tape, just a notch in the plastic housing) recorded 4 SEPARATE and DISTINCT channels of music on the 8-tracks available...in otherwords, an 8-track with 4 programs of stereo sound became an 8-track with 2 programs of QUAD (4) sound...very very cool...there were even some decks that had an Atari-like joystick to balance the sound...very very very cool.

Today it's all digital and surround sound etc...back in the day, YOU controlled the music...

[James E]

If you want to buy some 8 tracks brand new check this out:
http://www.jackbergsales.com/electronic ... -track.htm

Outrageous prices of which I don't know any one who would pay them. Someone must, otherwise Jack Berg woldn't be is business.

[super8man]

That guy may be selling to movie studios, etc - those who need period pieces and don't care about the price...his name has been around for a LONG time on the net...same old stuff though...nothing special...

[Rick Palidwor]

[quote="Jim Carlile"]

Super 8 man you've got nothing but home units and wierd portables. Nobody had those-- 8 tracks were for the car! Who ever had them at home? Everybody had them on the road...
quote]

I had a home 8-track player.

Another common use of 8-track technology - up until very recently - was in radio stations. Ads, bumpers and stuff were commonly on 8-track-style cartridge. You hit play and they were there and they stopped at the end, cued for the next usage. Also, sound effects people in radio and theatre loved these cartrdiges for the same reason. They always automatically re-cued themselves. In both of these examples they were not actually 8-tracks - they were full 2-track stereo. It was the cartridge/loop design that was valued.

Rick

[James E]

Right concept Rick, wrong cart. They were not 8 tracks but 2. Stereo. (Before 8 tracks there was also the very short lived 4 track which become the "carts" I'm reffering to here.) They were reffered to simply as "Carts". They were anywhere from 30" to any number of minutes in length. They would play then FF to the begining of the loop automatcially. They were largely used for commercials. And as radio stations transitioned into CD's from phono records, records were recorded onto carts and played elimiating all record use on air altogether. Then as recordable CD's became affordable they eliminated carts as well. Carts were also used for overnight automated radio play w/ automatic changers. They were huge crazy rigs full of carts that went around on a type of chain conveyor. Something that can be done now w/ about 7 or so CD's full of music. Now 1 if you use MP3's. None if you use a computer!
Cheers,

[super8man]

My fancy home unit will play 8-tracks in the following methods:

1 track then stop

1 track endless loop

4 tracks then stop

4 tracks endless loop

The fastforward will stop on the metal track change indicator if "track stop" is selected...very cool. Basically, I could use this like you described above for the radio station!

[super8man]

3 million records, cds, and 8-tracks...yes 8-tracks...it proves this guy is crazy...did you check out his desktop icons????

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0230084120

[Jim Carlile]

Some of you guys must have lived in an alternate universe, where Panasonic, Realistic, and Morse ruled the world.

I was there back then-- and nobody recorded 8-tracks at home-- it wasn't until the late 70's that home recording units were even bundled into cheap equipment, and by that time, 8-tracks were outmoded, because car-stereo cassettes started coming into fashion.

Before that time, cassettes were unheard of in car stereo units because the mechanisms in both the tapes and the players were unreliable because of vibration.

What people would do is take their boom boxes or portable cassette units in their car-- there were adaptors that would plug into the 8-track car deck, but more often you would just either tie into the car speakers or use the player itself.

Here's proof: if recording 8-tracks at home were so popular, how come few home stereos had 8-track recorders? How many had cassette recorders instead? Considering the total domination of 8-tracks in cars, that would have been the featured equipment, not cassette recorders.

I challenge you guys to find any moderately higher-end equipment-- meaning home stereo units-- that had 8-track recorders in them (meaning Sony or above....) It would have been very rare. The reason? Nobody used it or wanted it. It was primarily-- at best- late 70's lower end, gimmicky junk.

I'm sure there were some discrete components around, but they were novelties that never sold. And Super 8 Man, Wollensak was junk. Schools throw it out every day.

What started this thread was the claim that 8-tracks were a bust. Now I'm hearing how popular they were to do at home! One of the things that's aggravating these days is to hear younger people who weren't there telling those of us who were around what the 60's and 70's was all about. Like the myth that the 70's = disco.....or lava lamps...

[super8man]

Sony???



And what I find irritating is people ignoring facts based on evidence (picture posted) and claiming the world is flat.

So, unless only the Nakamichi and Sony tube amp folks (big $$$$ items) participated in home recording, then it counts? No sir, I disagree...If you lived in California back in the 1960s, by definition you were seeking something new in the world...back east and in the midwest things were different. California WAS an "alternate universe" back then...elsewhere, things were different...

I do observe a tendency for humans to have selective memories when it comes to things that have happened in the past though. This much I believe to be true.

Not trying to rewrite history...just observing what's out there...

Like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Know-Much-Ab ... 0380712520

Perhaps I could get Mr. Davis to do a new title:

"Don't know much about 8-tracks" or a more generic version "Don't know much about consumer choices" and let him settle the score in a consensus building fashion.

[downix]

Anybody here have a high-quality 8-track to digital recording space?