what better way to celebrate the
beginning of a new year than by
opening a newly released 8-track tape
I saw this announced on the 8-track
subreddit recently
they only made 10 copies of
this so
by the time you watch this it's probably
not going to
be available anymore it's from a group
called Savannah Grand
and it's described as indie infused
lo-fi instrumental chill pop and it's
also available on cassette
and digital download and streaming on
Bandcamp
although the 8-track version contains
some bonus tracks
that are not available in the other
versions
so here it is they include a sticker
for Emo Cow Records
and there is the tape itself, sealed
so it looks brand new although I'm sure
the tape is probably new old stock from
30 or 40 years ago it says right on
there 8-track
tape cartridge as far as they know they
did not release it on VHS but
considering that it's on the
picture of the album cover they should
release it on VHS
but they did release it on cassette as
well 8-track exclusive four bonus
tracks
From Yesterday's Perspective is the name
of the album
there's the track listing I don't know
if these are going to be split up
between the four programs
on the tape or if it's possibly short
enough
of an album that all four programs will
repeat the same thing
but here it says all songs recorded
mixed and mastered by Savannah Grand
piano synths and MIDI instruments some
loops courtesy of
Apple so I guess they used GarageBand
or something like that
limited edition I got number seven of 10
and there
you won't normally see that on the
8-track tape a copyright date of 2020
although I should point out that
8-tracks never really went away entirely
the last mainstream commercial releases
were in 1988
from the Columbia House Tape Club but
throughout the '90s and 2000s and 2010s
there were always small
numbers of releases given away as
promotional items or sold at gigs by
bands
and I was surprised to find out that
Dolly Parton
released her Christmas album this year
on 8-track tape
and you can actually buy it on Amazon
although it costs 40 dollars
and the funny thing is it's listed as a
cassette on Amazon
because they don't even have a format
listing for 8-track tapes but I'm
here to hear this
on 8-track so let's open it up
so here we go
opening up the seal
so there it is and that's something you
don't normally see on 8-track tapes
a completely
smooth and perfect condition label
instead of the bubbling up and peeling
and fading
ones you normally see it says AudioPak
made in USA by Capital Magnetic Products
a division of Capital Records Incorporated
and that looks like a homemade
replacement of the foam
rather than what this would have
originally came with
which probably had already disintegrated
by now and it feels light enough that
I'm wondering if they split this up
between the different programs because
it doesn't feel like it has enough tape
in it
to fit the entire album on all four
programs I guess we'll have to find out
and the trouble is I'm not familiar with
all these tracks so I wouldn't be able
to tell
just from listening which one we're
listening to
especially these bonus tracks you can't
listen to online
and that is a rubber pinch roller I know
some of the really cheap tapes
used a hard plastic pinch roller I don't
know how anybody thought that was a good
idea
but this one has a real rubber pinch
roller
so it should play perfectly fine and to
play it on I'm going to use my beautiful
Soundesign combination cassette and
8-track deck which I'm happy to report
I was able to repair the 8-track deck
the plastic that holds the head in place
had cracked
first I tried regular super glue
I didn't think that would work and it
turns out it didn't because as soon as I
tried to tighten the head back into
place it just cracked apart again but
then I tried this stuff which I found at
the hardware store
this Loctite plastics bonding system
which claims to fuse hard-to-bond
plastics this actually does contain
super glue
but they give you this bonding activator
thing and that really seems to make the
difference because so far
it's been holding up perfectly and I
played a bunch of tapes on it
I readjusted the azimuth and the head
alignment and now that's correct
and now it sounds great and it works
fine so I'm really happy with it
and as for this Soundesign deck there
were two of them
on eBay when I uploaded my video about
it
one of them that was in excellent fully
restored condition
ended up selling for 380 dollars
which is absolutely insane because once
you include the shipping and tax
that means someone paid over 400 dollars
for a Soundesign but definitely one of
the nicest Soundesigns
ever made and there was another
one that was in not as good condition
not guaranteed to be fully working that
one sold for 172 dollars
also what I consider to be a pretty high
price for one of these because this
one I got for fifty dollars plus
shipping so that shows you how much
of an effect I had on the resale value
of this particular model. By the time you
watch this video there probably won't be
any more of these 8-tracks left but
I'll give you some samples of what it
sounds like in case you want to buy it
on cassette
or download or stream it so here we go
playing a newly released 8-track tape
in the year 2021
so that unexpected track change answered
my question about how they recorded this
they just let it run and if it happened
to change tracks in the middle of the
song
then so be it and I was actually kind of
surprised at how little
interruption there actually was compared
to
commercially recorded 8-tracks where
if they had to split a track between
different programs
you would hear it fade out then there
will be a couple seconds of silence and
then it would go
ker-chunk and change the track and then
it would fade back in
but this seemed to be much less
interruption doing this way just let it
run across the
track change and the sound quality was
actually pretty good
I mean obviously there's a lot of tape
hiss which is why I turned on the NRC
but otherwise the sound quality was
actually surprisingly good it had a lot of
bass and the funny thing is
because it's a so-called lo-fi album
that means they added artificial record
surface noise
to make it sound like vinyl even though
this is obviously
not vinyl so I'll include a link to this
album on Bandcamp
even if it's no longer available on
8-track it may still be available
on cassette and you can always download
or stream it and even if you buy
the 8-track or cassette you get the free
download and streaming
and Savannah Grand if you're watching
this get on that VHS release I mean it's
on the album cover
so why not