Mountains and mountains of tapes

[Kyung]

So I have a pile of cassette tapes. Right now, I'm at the Jenga stage. But some day, I will be reaching the landfill stage.

What do you guys do with all your cassette tapes?

Back in the day, my girlfriend would make tape mixes. Yes, some of the younger reporters are going tape mixes? What are those? Well, we used to make mixes of different songs that we copied off of our music cassettes and listen to them in the car.

Anyway, nobody does that anymore. It's all digital now.

I'm wondering if I should just run a big magnet over them and toss out. I hate to waste, but at the same time, I really don't need them. Anybody have a "green" way of handling all these tapes?

[C Cipolla]

Hello Kyung, I work in the office as an aide at school. Our court reporting school, West Valley College, still uses tapes for recording test dictations so teachers can verify student "productions" match what teachers actually dictated (which can sometimes vary from the actual written material they're reading from)... Recently, in the last three months, our huge stash of used tapes has dwindled, from some unknown reason. Perhaps new theory students didn't realize the tapes were for instructor use only or something. But, if you mail your treasure trove to West Valley College, Attn: Court Reporting Dept, I'm sure your tapes will get another lease on life... and be very much appreciated.

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

Ill take them!! LOL!
Ill even pay you to ship'em to me :P

[Kimberly Spangler]

How about calling your local court reporting school.....maybe they know of a "newbie" reporter who can't afford a $450 digital recorder yet and could use them? Just a thought.

And I'm with ya - mix tapes used to be so cool! :)

[Glen Warner]

Rhoda --

I used to make my own! I bought myself a dual-cassette boom box, and would buy tapes or check them out from the library and record various songs from them on 2 hour tapes ... then later, I discovered Sade. Had all of her tapes, made a nice mix tape, and the first 10 times I tried to listen to it, it put me to sleep within 10 minutes!

Needless to say, I don't have a lot of Sade in the car ....

--gdw
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"For a Good (steno) Time ...."
http://www.cheapandsleazy.net

[Rhoda Collins]

LOL, Glen! My first 'mix' tape I ever heard was my Mom 'paid' a guy in Olean, NY to record 8-track tapes that were mixes!! She drove our school bus and we had THE best tunes on it!!!!!!!!

[Glen Warner]

Kyung --

Oh, deposition tapes ...!

You know, on second thought, these might not make the best mix tapes/CDs.

Of course ... if you edit them just right, you might be able to create a good comedy bit ... you can play it at your next CR meeting!

--gdw

[Glen Warner]

Kyung --

Have you recorded the tapes onto your computer? If you don't want all the songs on the tapes you might want to go through them one by one, mark the tracks you want, and record those tracks onto your computer with Audacity ... then add them to your iTunes library.

This way, you can make your own "mix tape" on CD ...! I do that all the time. I have about 9 CD-RWs I reuse, with different songs each time (my iTunes library has about 300 songs in it ... plus another 200 of just paranormal talk radio).

As for getting rid of the tapes when you're done with this project, do you have any used record stores in your area? They may take them. If not, give them to Goodwill.

I don't suppose you happen to have a copy of Deodato's "Artistry" in that big pile of tapes, do you ...? Mine was on vinyl, and it's out of print. :o(

--gdw
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"For a Good (steno) Time ...."
http://www.cheapandsleazy.net

[Judy]

Christine,

Not an ignorant question at all. Videographers always give a set of cassette tapes to the CR at the end of the depo. From my understanding, some -- not all -- empoyers of videographers reimburse the independently-employed videographer for those cassettes. Sometimes it's a cost out of the individual videographer's pocket to provide those tapes to the reporters. If s/he can get reusable tapes to provide to the CR, it decreases his/her cost of doing business. So if a CR is going to a video depo and brings a bag full of tapes to the videographer, you might have made a new best friend (and having the videographer as your new best friend is always a plus). It's a win-win for everybody involved.

[Christine (Steno Nerd)]

Just curious (forgive my ignorance) -- Why would videographers want cassette tapes? Vintage?

[Quyen]

Kyung, you are so funny in your writings; I love to read them!

Yes, Judy is right. I bet the videographers would love to have them, as cassettes tapes are getting scarce and pricey. I have had several videographers ask for them back when I'm done.