Things you bought for yourself as an adult that you couldn't get as a kid

[bugo]

Weed.

[bugo]

Fair chance I dumped $20 into Street Fighter II machine a handful of times before the SNES version came out.  That game had a really competitive scene at the arcade in Danbury, CT in the early 1990s. If you wanted to get good then you had to pay to learn how not to suck.

Blanka is a beast. A good player using him is nearly unstoppable.

[Henry]

I own far more video games that I've wanted now than I did when I was half my age (10).

Same is true for my CD and cassette collection. I remember ordering a ton of them from Columbia House, back when it was the big trend in retail. Since I can no longer play my old cassettes in my car anymore, I just record them to a blank CD and that way, I'm still able to enjoy them on a long road trip.

[Road Hog]

There were video games I could dominate with just a quarter for 3 hours or until I got tired of playing them in the 1980s. Cheapest entertainment ever.

Blows my mind that I could download those whole programs in 2 seconds on my modern laptop.

[GCrites]

You went to them. They didn't come to you like they do now.

[bugo]

Since I can no longer play my old cassettes in my car anymore, I just record them to a blank CD and that way, I'm still able to enjoy them on a long road trip.

You digitized analog cassettes? I can't say I've ever heard of anybody doing that. Do you rip them to .wav or .mp3 format? When I make CDs, I download .flac files of the songs and convert them to .wav files and burn them to CDs. .flac files are lossless and a CD burned with .wav files that were .flac sourced, so you get CD quality. CDs made from lossy formats like .mp3 sound noticeably worse than CDs made from lossless files, especially on a good sound system.

[1995hoo]

Since I can no longer play my old cassettes in my car anymore, I just record them to a blank CD and that way, I'm still able to enjoy them on a long road trip.

You digitized analog cassettes? I can't say I've ever heard of anybody doing that. Do you rip them to .wav or .mp3 format? When I make CDs, I download .flac files of the songs and convert them to .wav files and burn them to CDs. .flac files are lossless and a CD burned with .wav files that were .flac sourced, so you get CD quality. CDs made from lossy formats like .mp3 sound noticeably worse than CDs made from lossless files, especially on a good sound system.

I'd like to convert some of my mixed tapes to CD, but there's a problem: I typically used 90- or 100-minute cassettes and you can't fit that much on a CD. I have a Pioneer CD recorder hooked up to the main stereo system downstairs, so it records directly from the cassette tape (well, piped through a receiver, but you know what I mean) without dealing with file formats and other such issues.

[mgk920]

Since I can no longer play my old cassettes in my car anymore, I just record them to a blank CD and that way, I'm still able to enjoy them on a long road trip.

You digitized analog cassettes? I can't say I've ever heard of anybody doing that. Do you rip them to .wav or .mp3 format? When I make CDs, I download .flac files of the songs and convert them to .wav files and burn them to CDs. .flac files are lossless and a CD burned with .wav files that were .flac sourced, so you get CD quality. CDs made from lossy formats like .mp3 sound noticeably worse than CDs made from lossless files, especially on a good sound system.

I'd like to convert some of my mixed tapes to CD, but there's a problem: I typically used 90- or 100-minute cassettes and you can't fit that much on a CD. I have a Pioneer CD recorder hooked up to the main stereo system downstairs, so it records directly from the cassette tape (well, piped through a receiver, but you know what I mean) without dealing with file formats and other such issues.

Long ago I replicated all of my old cassette 'mix' tapes and use the .mp3 files in my car.  Meets my needs very well.

Mike

[1995hoo]

I should also have clarified that another reason why I would want to record the cassettes directly to CD is that when I made mixed tapes, I was very good at either minimizing or eliminating the gap between tracks. I have one tape where the final chord of one song cuts directly into the first sound of the next (just total dumb luck they matched up almost exactly to sound seamless). Maybe it's petty, but that's something I'd want to preserve. I suppose the solution is just to turn a particular mixed tape into a two-CD set, one disc for each side of the tape, if the cassette itself is too long to fit on a single CD.

Or I could, you know, just put the cassettes in the car and play them instead of complicating matters, assuming cassettes I recorded as long ago as 1989 would still play.

[Dirt Roads]

I have one tape where the final chord of one song cuts directly into the first sound of the next (just total dumb luck they matched up almost exactly to sound seamless).

A friend of mine was a disc jockey at a local radio station in high school, and he believed that a "Good D.J." should always know the first chord and note of every song, and match/queue it up perfectly with the last chord or final note of the previous tune.  He couldn't do it every time, and he would really get upset.

[GCrites]

I should also have clarified that another reason why I would want to record the cassettes directly to CD is that when I made mixed tapes, I was very good at either minimizing or eliminating the gap between tracks. I have one tape where the final chord of one song cuts directly into the first sound of the next (just total dumb luck they matched up almost exactly to sound seamless). Maybe it's petty, but that's something I'd want to preserve. I suppose the solution is just to turn a particular mixed tape into a two-CD set, one disc for each side of the tape, if the cassette itself is too long to fit on a single CD.

Or I could, you know, just put the cassettes in the car and play them instead of complicating matters, assuming cassettes I recorded as long ago as 1989 would still play.

One thing that always bugged me about Great White's "Twice Shy" cassette was the very long gap after the last song on side A and when you could finally flip it to side B.

[SectorZ]

I should also have clarified that another reason why I would want to record the cassettes directly to CD is that when I made mixed tapes, I was very good at either minimizing or eliminating the gap between tracks. I have one tape where the final chord of one song cuts directly into the first sound of the next (just total dumb luck they matched up almost exactly to sound seamless). Maybe it's petty, but that's something I'd want to preserve. I suppose the solution is just to turn a particular mixed tape into a two-CD set, one disc for each side of the tape, if the cassette itself is too long to fit on a single CD.

Or I could, you know, just put the cassettes in the car and play them instead of complicating matters, assuming cassettes I recorded as long ago as 1989 would still play.

One thing that always bugged me about Great White's "Twice Shy" cassette was the very long gap after the last song on side A and when you could finally flip it to side B.

It's like the cassette even knew playing "Baby's on Fire" was going to be in poor taste in the future.

[Max Rockatansky]

One I forgot to mention earlier was my wife's recent obsession buying vinyl records.  She's gotten big on checking for record stores wherever we go.

[GaryV]

A friend of mine was a disc jockey at a local radio station in high school, and he believed that a "Good D.J." should always know the first chord and note of every song, and match/queue it up perfectly with the last chord or final note of the previous tune.

Wouldn't that require all the songs to be in the same key? Or at least in keys with some kind of relationship (e.g. one song a 5th higher than the other)?

Some artist records a song in C, another in D, and they won't line up. And what if one of them is in a minor key?

[hotdogPi]

Some songs modulate in the middle, which gives more options.

[1995hoo]

One thing that always bugged me about Great White's "Twice Shy" cassette was the very long gap after the last song on side A and when you could finally flip it to side B.

Assuming you know what the last song is, why wouldn't you just hit the fast-forward button to run it to the end of the side? Of course I get why it would be annoying the first couple of times until you're familiar with the album to know when the side has ended.

[ZLoth]

I'm aware of a Sonic Analysis feature in Plex which analyzes your music library and provides smooth transitions when in random play mode. I wasn't able to take advantage of this until this year because the library wasn't available in FreeBSD.

[GCrites]

One thing that always bugged me about Great White's "Twice Shy" cassette was the very long gap after the last song on side A and when you could finally flip it to side B.

Assuming you know what the last song is, why wouldn't you just hit the fast-forward button to run it to the end of the side? Of course I get why it would be annoying the first couple of times until you're familiar with the album to know when the side has ended.

Busy doing other things and/or the FF feature is acting up

[JayhawkCO]

Something I bought for myself as an adult that I couldn't get as a kid - international travel.

[Rothman]

One thing that always bugged me about Great White's "Twice Shy" cassette was the very long gap after the last song on side A and when you could finally flip it to side B.

Assuming you know what the last song is, why wouldn't you just hit the fast-forward button to run it to the end of the side? Of course I get why it would be annoying the first couple of times until you're familiar with the album to know when the side has ended.

That's the inconvenience/annoyance caused by the dead space on one side of a cassette.  Thought you were old enough to have lived through that sillyness.  *whirrrrrrr--ktk*  Crap.  *goes in search of a pencil*

[1995hoo]

One thing that always bugged me about Great White's "Twice Shy" cassette was the very long gap after the last song on side A and when you could finally flip it to side B.

Assuming you know what the last song is, why wouldn't you just hit the fast-forward button to run it to the end of the side? Of course I get why it would be annoying the first couple of times until you're familiar with the album to know when the side has ended.

That's the inconvenience/annoyance caused by the dead space on one side of a cassette.  Thought you were old enough to have lived through that sillyness.  *whirrrrrrr--ktk*  Crap.  *goes in search of a pencil*

Not sure I follow your point. I get that you're referring to the occasional problem where the cassette tape would unravel for whatever reason, but are you saying that you refrained from fast-forwarding to the end of the side past the dead space for fear that the tape would unravel? Because I never did. If I wanted to fast-forward, I did so.

I didn't buy a lot of pre-recorded cassettes, though, for various reasons, including that they seldom sounded as good as the LP records. Plus some pre-recorded cassettes rearranged the track lists to better balance out the length of the two sides and I found that annoying. So I was more likely to use my own blank tape to make a copy of a record (or, for a while, a CD), and if I did that I often just added something else to the end of the side to fill in the blank space.

[Scott5114]

A friend of mine was a disc jockey at a local radio station in high school, and he believed that a "Good D.J." should always know the first chord and note of every song, and match/queue it up perfectly with the last chord or final note of the previous tune.

Wouldn't that require all the songs to be in the same key? Or at least in keys with some kind of relationship (e.g. one song a 5th higher than the other)?

Some artist records a song in C, another in D, and they won't line up. And what if one of them is in a minor key?

Every station has to break for station identification at the top of the hour, and then there's also ad breaks, DJ banter breaks, etc. So you can play songs of different keys before and after the break.

[Dirt Roads]

A friend of mine was a disc jockey at a local radio station in high school, and he believed that a "Good D.J." should always know the first chord and note of every song, and match/queue it up perfectly with the last chord or final note of the previous tune.

Wouldn't that require all the songs to be in the same key? Or at least in keys with some kind of relationship (e.g. one song a 5th higher than the other)?

Some artist records a song in C, another in D, and they won't line up. And what if one of them is in a minor key?

Every station has to break for station identification at the top of the hour, and then there's also ad breaks, DJ banter breaks, etc. So you can play songs of different keys before and after the break.

Admittedly, I know very little about music other than being able to follow the notes up-and-down the music scale.  That means that I'm pretty decent at sangin' in Appalachian shape notes, and I can hold my own sangin' baritone chords in Mountain music, where you improvise to find a pitch that blends in well (usually between the tenor and bass, but sometimes not). 

Anywhoosit, my D.J. friend was quite adept at "pasting" songs together on the fly, sometimes queuing up a song and skipping a few beats on the intro to get the right blend.  It was common to blend a 45 single with a 33-1/3 LP album track.  But one time when I was in the station, he said "watch this" and yanked an old 78 RPM and blended a rock song into a jazz classic by skipping notes at the end of one and the beginning of the other.  He was an electronic genius and ended up working for the phone company.

[Henry]

One thing that always bugged me about Great White's "Twice Shy" cassette was the very long gap after the last song on side A and when you could finally flip it to side B.

Assuming you know what the last song is, why wouldn't you just hit the fast-forward button to run it to the end of the side? Of course I get why it would be annoying the first couple of times until you're familiar with the album to know when the side has ended.

That's the inconvenience/annoyance caused by the dead space on one side of a cassette.  Thought you were old enough to have lived through that sillyness.  *whirrrrrrr--ktk*  Crap.  *goes in search of a pencil*

Not sure I follow your point. I get that you're referring to the occasional problem where the cassette tape would unravel for whatever reason, but are you saying that you refrained from fast-forwarding to the end of the side past the dead space for fear that the tape would unravel? Because I never did. If I wanted to fast-forward, I did so.

I didn't buy a lot of pre-recorded cassettes, though, for various reasons, including that they seldom sounded as good as the LP records. Plus some pre-recorded cassettes rearranged the track lists to better balance out the length of the two sides and I found that annoying. So I was more likely to use my own blank tape to make a copy of a record (or, for a while, a CD), and if I did that I often just added something else to the end of the side to fill in the blank space.

I remember the good old days of buying blank cassettes and using them to record from the radio (pausing every time the station went to a commercial break), school concerts and albums that I'd borrow from the library (which I rarely ever did). The opposite problem for me occurred when one side of the cassette would end in the middle of a song, and so I would have to wait for the next one to record again. When I digitized my tapes to CD, I made sure to omit the truncated songs so as to avoid the clumsy transition from one track to the next. Since the majority was 90-minute tapes (with 60, 100, 110 and 120 mixed in), I often found it challenging to fit all of my content, but having more CDs on hand than cassettes certainly helped my cause.

[1995hoo]

My Denon DRS-610 cassette deck, which I've had since 1992, is still hooked up to the main stereo downstairs, although I haven't used it in several years. When I was in college, visitors to my apartment were confounded when they saw it because they wanted to know why there were "two CD players." The cassette loads in a horizontal drawer (see image below found on eBay via a Google search) and when the drawer was closed, they thought it looked like a CD player.