Collecting Cassette Decks

Collecting Cassette Decks

This probably falls into the category of weird hobbies. Friends have asked me about it, so I figured it was time to write it down. Some history I grew up in the 80s and cassettes were a big part of how I experienced music. I remember recording bits of radio shows to create my own mixtapes. Furthermore, I also recorded records of friends and relatives to play on my Walkman. ...

April 22, 2025 · 6 min · Christof Damian

Friday Links 23-12

Many videos about urbanism from the last two weeks. The articles from LinkedIn about measuring developer productivity and happiness and the one about slack by Marting Fowler are also great. This week we also have a short "Music" section. Leadershipthedecider.app - a simple tool to choose a decision process … mostly useful for the overview of processes. ...

April 14, 2023 · 4 min · Christof Damian
The Big Digitization Of Cassette Tapes

The Big Digitization Of Cassette Tapes

Today I finally finished digitizing all of my techno and house cassette tapes. It took me a little bit over two months. Here are some statistics: 290 “a” sides278 “b” sides (sometimes the tapes broke after the first side)12 tapes which unusable41 tapes which turned out to be copies of CDs which are available to buy5 tapes were copies of stuff I have also on CDs which are not available to buy8 tapes had unreadable labels 249 GB in 16 bit 48khz WAVE filesthe whole list I probably still have some tapes flying around somewhere and my girlfriend also has some, but the vast majority of my music is digitized now. The music is mainly mixed techno and house DJ sets, from my friends like DJ Gomez, Motik and Nitin. A lot of sets are recorded from radio like HR3/HRXXL and Hithouse Stuttgart and in clubs around Stuttgart and Cologne. The most popular DJs are Sven Vaeth, Roland Casper, Richie Hawtin, DJ Hello, Dag, and Laurent Garnier. I used my little python tapetransfer script, which I wrote for this purpose. It basically waits until there is music and then records until there is a longer break, which is perfect for DJ mixes and rubbish for normal music CDs. I recorded everything with the same level, which means that some tapes are really quite now, but the alternative would have been to play every tape twice. If it turns out that some tapes are too quite I will record them again in 32bit and normalize. I probably write another script to find out the level of each wav file. In the end it didn’t take me as long as I expected, I usually managed to do one tape before work and maybe three in the evening and a bit more on the weekend. All that is left now is converting them to flac and mp3. The files have to be tagged and named more consistent. Another idea is to also scan pictures of all the tapes and add this to the music files. And listening to all of them again, but I already found some real gems.

July 5, 2009 · 2 min · Christof Damian

My music podcast selection

This are the music podcasts I am listening too at the moment. It is mostly techno, but also house and some dub. And whatever last.fm thinks I would enjoy. dailysessionhttp://dailysession.com/?feed=podcast DE:BUG POD - a netaudio podcasthttp://www.de-bug.de/pod/wp-rss2.phpelectro house & house & techno mixhttp://djbene.podspot.de/rssGalaktika Records Podcast: Minimal, Electro and House hottests tunes!http://www.galaktikarecords.com/podcast.xmlIbiza Voice Music Boxhttp://www.ibiza-voice.com/music/rss_podcast.phpLast.fm free recommended downloads for cdamian’shttp://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/user/cdamian/podcast.xmlMinimal(maximal) Techno DJ mixes by Louis de Bourbonhttp://www.graphicjuice.co.uk/podcast/podcast.xmlMinimalNethttp://www.minimalnet.org/feedMinus Podcast:http://m-nus.com/podcast.xmlNetAudio Russiahttp://www.netaudio.ru/feedResident Advisor podcasthttp://www.residentadvisor.net/xml/podcast.xmlStarfrosch - Free MP3 Download - Acidhttp://starfrosch.ch/download_music/acid/feedStarfrosch - Free MP3 Download - Breakshttp://starfrosch.ch/download_music/breaks/feedStarfrosch - Free MP3 Download - DJ-Mixhttp://starfrosch.ch/download_music/dj_mix/feedStarfrosch - Free MP3 Download - Drum and Basshttp://starfrosch.chdownload_music/drum_and_bass/feedStarfrosch - Free MP3 Download - Dubhttp://starfrosch.ch/download_music/dub/feed Starfrosch - Free MP3 Download - Electronichttp://starfrosch.ch/download_music/electronic/feedStarfrosch - Free MP3 Download - Househttp://starfrosch.ch/download_music/house/feedStarfrosch - Free MP3 Download - Minimalhttp://starfrosch.ch/download_music/minimal/feedStarfrosch - Free MP3 Download - Technohttp://starfrosch.ch/download_music/techno/feedthe fabric podcasthttp://feeds.fabriclondon.com/fabricpodcast I would upload the OPML file, but blogger.com doesn’t allow attachments.

September 23, 2008 · 1 min · Christof Damian
M_NUS @ BAM

M_NUS @ BAM

Went to see Magda, Gaiser and Richie Hawtin at the Red Bull Music Academy M_NUS @ BAM. It started at midnight, which is a more civilised time than the usual 3:00 we get here in Barcelona. Magda was very good, Gaiser was ok and Hawtin had his good moments. I think Hawtin now has the same problem as Sven Vaeth, he is just too popular and his productions and studio mix sessions are way better than his live sets. It is a pity, because I remember a lot of good parties with him a few years ago. The visuals were also especially good, I have to find out who created them. Also very minimal, abstract and like a good screensaver. It wasn’t a projection, but a enormous LED display wall with one part below the DJ desk. Very good times, can we have more of this please? 

September 21, 2008 · 1 min · Christof Damian