# Ever record TV/radio to audio tapes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 1, 2011, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481 "2011-07-01T06:12:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/21 "2011-07-01T20:46:32Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > This is different from #23 “[The Hesitating Blues](http://www.amazon.com/James-Reese-Europes-Infantry-Fighters/dp/B000QZZVEO)?” Yes. Plus it was a vocal in 60s jug band style, but none of the jug band versions I’ve found, under several titles, are it. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/22 "2011-07-01T21:00:52Z")
WFMT’s Midnight Special is broadcast on Saturday nights and used to be rebroadcast on Wednesday afternoons. In the early 70s they played Buffy Sainte-Marie’s [My Country 'Tis of Thy People You’re Dying](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTqV1pnQoos) and I wanted to record it. I had Wednesday off from school so I sat with the Craig reel to reel listening intently so I’d hit record without missing much. Fifteen years later I was at work listening to the rebroadcast of the previous Saturday’s show that I had missed, but the playlist was familiar. I was sure that it was the same show and it was confirmed when Buffy started her jeremiad. But can I remember the names of people I’ve gone to church with for ten years? ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/23 "2011-07-01T21:30:27Z")
Of course I recorded stuff off the radio! It’s how you make an awesome mix tape! To this day, I cannot hear the end of Counting Crows’ “Mr Jones” without expecting to hear Big Mountain’s version of “Baby I Love Your Way”. I used to record myself, too - my cousin and I lived far apart and we would send tapes of ourselves talking, instead of being pen pals. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/24 "2011-07-01T21:35:15Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Somewhere I have a 3-3/4"/sec, 1/4" reel to reel of a song I haven’t found since, despite the help of the SDMB, a version of “The Hesitation Blues,” recorded off WLS-FM around 1969. Youtube and album purchases have helped me find most of the rest of what I recorded. > [@dropzone](#): > > Yes. Plus it was a vocal in 60s jug band style, but none of the jug band versions I’ve found, under several titles, are it. Holy Modal Rounders did a version in 64 ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/25 "2011-07-01T21:35:50Z")
Not it. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![River\_Hippie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/river_hippie/32/26_2.png) [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/26 "2011-07-01T22:21:26Z")
Back in the day I was an early adopter of cassette technology when everybody I knew was still using reel to reel and eight track. I used to record Midnight Special and Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. Also lots of audio stuff from FM and cable TV before VHS became popular. I still listen to old cassettes frequently but the mono tapes I mentioned above are long gone. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/27 "2011-07-01T22:34:37Z")
Oh my yes! In the days before VCRs that was the best you could do. I remember holding my GE cassette recorder up to the speaker of the TV and record. Gilligan, Trek, Space 1999, Six Million Dollar Man, fond memories. As for music my tape recored had no radio, those combo units were way beyond my price range so I had a set up with the recorder stood up beside the radio waiting for a good song. It’s funny most of the songs had clipped beginnings because you had to hold the record button down then press the play button at the same time to engage the recording head. This took a couple seconds so if the song didn’t have a long intro you were always missing the first couple of seconds. My old tape recorder was almost exactly like this one. [http://thumbs2.ebaystatic.com/m/mYGPZe4Z3wp2ZTcYDcl7DaA/140.jpg](http://thumbs2.ebaystatic.com/m/mYGPZe4Z3wp2ZTcYDcl7DaA/140.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/28 "2011-07-01T23:13:21Z")
Some Doctor Who episodes exist only as still photos and homemade audio tapes. > [@](#): > > Telesnaps (still recordings of some of the film prints) still exist for many episodes, as do the scripts. Ironically, illegal audio recordings of missing Doctor Who episodes, made by fans, were welcomed at the BBC with open arms, as they were desperate to have any kind of recording at all for the programs they had lost. Many of these home-made audio recordings have been commercially released. > **[SpiritsSpace.com is for sale | HugeDomains](https://www.hugedomains.com/domain_profile.cfm?d=spiritsspace.com)** > > Find a domain name today. We make it easy. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/29 "2011-07-01T23:32:58Z")
Beaker Street on KAAY, “The Mighty Ten-Ninety” Spirit _Great Canyon Fire_ comes to mind. I think that is where I first heard Black Sabbath. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/30 "2011-07-03T04:20:37Z")
Put the microphone up to the speaker? My older brother showed me how to take off the back of the TV and hook up the recorder to the speaker wires! Much better sound and no need for silence! Our family’s earliest recorder was this Revere model. [Revere model T 1120 reel to reel tape recorder! - YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96edKFUA_Ko). My older brother recorded one tape that I played over and over. Among other things, it contained two episodes of “X Minus 1” (“Early Model” and “Man’s Best Friend”) and one of “Sleep No More” (readings of “Evening” by Zona Gale and “The Flowering of the Strange Orchid” by H.G. Wells). The next was a Wollensak almost exactly like this one [1962 Wollensak T-1515-4 reel-to-reel tape recorder - YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAZHl3iN0jk#t=4m13s). It could play (not record) stereo quarter-track or half-track tapes, and it could record and play quarter-track mono. On this I recorded - Mary Martin’s 1960s “Peter Pan” (now available on YouTube) - Carol Burnett’s 1964 “Once Upon a Mattress” (YouTube has only “Shy”, regrettably [Carol Burnett - Shy (1964 Version) - YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouL9ZMzEZ4k)) - “Becket”, the Burton/O’Toole movie. Using Scotch’s extended-length recording tape (3 hours per side at 3-3/4 ips) I also recorded many tapes of classical music from WFMT on the stereo system we acquired. I recorded a lot of stuff from their “Midnight Special” as well. I remember some of my earliest encounters with many performers from that show: Tom Lehrer (“In Old Mexico”), the Goons (“Ying Tong Song”, “Another Lot”), Second City (Severn Darden’s “Metaphysics Lecture”), Stan Freberg (“Green Chri$tma$”), Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (“Beyond the Fringe”). Also many leftist folk singers who I accepted uncritically. Finally I bought a Viking 433 deck [Viking 433 Reel-to-Reel Tape Recorder with Speakers | #115326083](http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/viking-433-reel-reel-tape-recorder-115326083) (just looking at that picture reminds me how much I loved it). I continued with the classical music and Midnight Special. I also recorded classical LPs that we had to avoid record wear and scratching (similar to how I just completed ripping all my CDs to MP3s, 40 years later!). Eventually the deck developed a recurrent problem where it would play fine but recordings would have extremely lousy sound. From the sound I guessed that the bias circuit was failing somewhere, but I didn’t have the electronics background to find or fix the problem. I’d take it in for repairs and it’d fail again a few months later. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/31 "2011-07-03T05:22:02Z")
I made lots of “mix tapes” by taping songs off of the radio (missing the first few seconds of each song, of course). When I was about 13, I got a radio / cassette player which had a VHF audio receiver as a Christmas present, making it easier to record the audio from TV shows. I remember frequently taping the audio from “Battlestar Galactica”, so I could listen to it again during the week (it was many years before we had a VCR). ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/32 "2011-07-03T10:50:35Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > I made lots of “mix tapes” by taping songs off of the radio (missing the first few seconds of each song, of course). > > When I was about 13, I got a radio / cassette player which had a VHF audio receiver as a Christmas present, making it easier to record the audio from TV shows. I remember frequently taping the audio from “Battlestar Galactica”, so I could listen to it again during the week (it was many years before we had a VCR). I taped _Galactica_, too. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/33 "2011-07-03T12:11:12Z")
When we got our first cassette recorder I made a mix tape of TV theme songs. Very high tech: I would place the microphone next to the TV speaker and instruct everyone to be quiet. I specifically remember capturing The Munsters, Hogan’s Heroes, and Love, American Style. I also remember getting SO pissed off at my brother who dared to talk while I was recording the theme from The Odd Couple (I had to wait an entire week to get another opportunity for a ‘clean’ recording). All told, I had around 10-15 themes on that tape. mmm ---
**Author:** ![C.Montgomery\_Burns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@C.Montgomery\_Burns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C.Montgomery_Burns)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/34 "2011-07-03T18:32:08Z")
When I was a kid, I recorded both “Inspector Gadget” and “Heathcliff” from Nickelodeon. Later, I used to record “Home Improvement” and “Mad About You” a lot (they played back to back on a local station). I later recorded dozens and dozens of episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway. I didn’t have a VCR. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus\_alba](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quercus_alba/32/4061_2.png) [@Quercus\_alba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus_alba)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/35 "2011-07-03T22:34:08Z")
There was a top 40 song back in the mid 70s that was basically a comedy routine, in which the announcer used short clips of popular songs to create an interview. Anyone help me remember this? My sibs and I thought is was so hilarious (forgive us, we couldn’t have been more than 13, and we didn’t have cable TV, videogames, or Internet to enlighten us…) that we started making our own such interviews using our little record collections and a portable cassette recorder. Oh man we were stupid back then! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/36 "2011-07-03T22:43:53Z")
In the 60s, I would sit for hours with may reel-to-reel’s microphone in front of my transistor radio, trying to capture my favorite songs off the radio. In the 80s, I got some cool recordings on cassette tape off KFAT (now defunct) when they did their “Fat Fries”. I still have the Jerry Jeff Walker one-- that was fantastic. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/37 "2011-07-03T23:23:58Z")
> [@Quercus\_alba](#): > > There was a top 40 song back in the mid 70s that was basically a comedy routine, in which the announcer used short clips of popular songs to create an interview. Anyone help me remember this? Any chance it was [this?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDNlSpKLEEo&feature=related) And don’t make fun of yourself for your childhood skits, that’s a sign of great imagination! Way better than staring at video games for hours like today’s kids. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/38 "2011-07-03T23:24:10Z")
> [@Quercus\_alba](#): > > There was a top 40 song back in the mid 70s that was basically a comedy routine, in which the announcer used short clips of popular songs to create an interview. Anyone help me remember this? Sure do! You’re thinking of [**Convention '72**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaf2w14xaRg) by The Delegates. I remember spinning that 45 over and over again. mmm ETA: Or not (now that I see **installLSC** ’s entry). ---
**Author:** ![Jaledin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/39 "2011-07-03T23:37:05Z")
Yeah, when I was a kid – I think I had the A-Team theme on an audio cassette. I still do it, just with a hard drive instead of a cassette. When I listened to a lot of radio, some Sarah Palin snippet would come on, or that tune “Popcorn” and I’d “hit record,” or when watching a movie, “Never was such a man for split pea soup” or other lines from great movies. Still have all those on HD somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481/40 "2011-07-04T00:33:10Z")
I didn’t, but in the early '70s, my brother would record episodes of Star Trek on cassette tapes by putting his portable tape recorder up next to the TV speakers. We would listen to them on long car trips. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-record-tv-radio-to-audio-tapes/587481.md?page=3)