BOC Maxima Cassette tape

[Samamdj]

Was wondering what your opinions are on the authenticity of this tape? I acquired it a while ago form a trusted source alongside an ‘a few old tunes’ tape (volume 1).

My only queries about it were that on the rear side, where mentioning what tracks are on the skam EP aswell it should say “4, 8, 15, 16” but my copy says “3, 8, 15, 16” clearly an error at track 3 is rodox video and not featured on skam. My thinking was that due to how primitive the techniques used were and how much copy’s vary, it must just be an error in production but a real copy due to all the tell tale signs of authenticity, a prominent one being that it’s on a tape called a Sony Position Chrome 90, a tape largely unavailable or even completely unavailable now to people who would be making a reproduction. The tape was said to have moved from Scotland to America then back to Scotland where it has ended up with me.

But I don’t want to ask for others opinions and then just tell you mine, I’m sure there are many in this forum who are far more knowledgable than me on the topic! I’d love to know what you guys think.


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[Cohesion]

Looks authentic to me, nice! Whoever does the handwritten inscriptions on on their stuff has a pretty unique slant (especially on the letter "A") and your pictures match up to it:



If you have a good cassette player and an audio interface, you might consider recording them and posting the rip online, since we're always looking for high quality versions of the early stuff, especially AFOT1 since there wasn't ever a CD version of it.

Shoot me a PM if you ever want to sell either one

[Samamdj]

Looks authentic to me, nice! Whoever does the handwritten inscriptions on on their stuff has a pretty unique slant (especially on the letter "A") and your pictures match up to it:



If you have a good cassette player and an audio interface, you might consider recording them and posting the rip online, since we're always looking for high quality versions of the early stuff, especially AFOT1 since there wasn't ever a CD version of it.

Shoot me a PM if you ever want to sell either one

Thanks very much for the detailed response mate!

Yeah, the handwriting is a great sign and you’ve basically just solidified that evidence there, cheers for the reference image.

As for recording it in HQ, of course. I’m a huge fan of AFOT, I’d want it in high quality on my phone to listen to when I’m out and about just as much as the next BOC fan haha. Right now all I’ve got is YouTube videos of it or internet archives which aren’t bad by any means but not as good as the album deserves. I’m away from home right now but looking into how it could get recorded in high quality without damaging the tape. If I ever do, have no doubt it’ll be up for everyone to listen to

Just got it this year, so as of right now it’s not for sale but yeah never know what the future will hold so will keep it in mind!

Thanks again.


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[Cohesion]

As for recording it in HQ, of course. I’m a huge fan of AFOT, I’d want it in high quality on my phone to listen to when I’m out and about just as much as the next BOC fan haha. Right now all I’ve got is YouTube videos of it or internet archives which aren’t bad by any means but not as good as the album deserves. I’m away from home right now but looking into how it could get recorded in high quality without damaging the tape. If I ever do, have no doubt it’ll be up for everyone to listen to

If there's a professional recording/mastering studio in your area, that would probably be the best option. Obviously that probably costs non-trivial money, so if you were to do it DIY:

- Track down a decent Japanese HiFi cassette player of 80's-90's vintage and make sure it has a stereo RCA line output (basically all of them do). Doesn't have to be expensive, just gently used and not damaged. Don't get one of those cassette-to-usb things from amazon, they're garbage.
- Use a tape head cleaner, this prevents wearing out what you're recording and can improve the sound quality a fair bit.
- Find a USB audio interface with a Line Level input that records at least 24 bit 96kHz quality audio into the computer, and some kind of software that can record audio (Audacity is a fine free option). For the actual recording, save it as a lossless format (e.g. .wav, not .mp3) and be mindful of the volume level going into the computer so that it's not so loud that it gets distorted.
- Don't do any digital denoising or editing once you've recorded it, in fact don't even bother slicing the audio into tracks, there's plenty of people who are super fastidious about tagging etc who will be happy to do this themselves.

Get a few worthless cassettes (your local thrift store will have buckets of them, guaranteed) and try dialling everything on those first; tape is fickle and actually decent cassette rips are pretty rare. If you gave the BoC community a new high quality rip of AFOT you'd be the recipient of eternal goodwill!

[ParticleGhost]

Very cool. How's the condition of the AFOT tape?

[Samamdj]

As for recording it in HQ, of course. I’m a huge fan of AFOT, I’d want it in high quality on my phone to listen to when I’m out and about just as much as the next BOC fan haha. Right now all I’ve got is YouTube videos of it or internet archives which aren’t bad by any means but not as good as the album deserves. I’m away from home right now but looking into how it could get recorded in high quality without damaging the tape. If I ever do, have no doubt it’ll be up for everyone to listen to

If there's a professional recording/mastering studio in your area, that would probably be the best option. Obviously that probably costs non-trivial money, so if you were to do it DIY:

- Track down a decent Japanese HiFi cassette player of 80's-90's vintage and make sure it has a stereo RCA line output (basically all of them do). Doesn't have to be expensive, just gently used and not damaged. Don't get one of those cassette-to-usb things from amazon, they're garbage.
- Use a tape head cleaner, this prevents wearing out what you're recording and can improve the sound quality a fair bit.
- Find a USB audio interface with a Line Level input that records at least 24 bit 96kHz quality audio into the computer, and some kind of software that can record audio (Audacity is a fine free option). For the actual recording, save it as a lossless format (e.g. .wav, not .mp3) and be mindful of the volume level going into the computer so that it's not so loud that it gets distorted.
- Don't do any digital denoising or editing once you've recorded it, in fact don't even bother slicing the audio into tracks, there's plenty of people who are super fastidious about tagging etc who will be happy to do this themselves.

Get a few worthless cassettes (your local thrift store will have buckets of them, guaranteed) and try dialling everything on those first; tape is fickle and actually decent cassette rips are pretty rare. If you gave the BoC community a new high quality rip of AFOT you'd be the recipient of eternal goodwill!

Glad I was directed to this forum, I’ve always known about it but didn’t realise it was so active and seems like the people on here know they’re stuff, this is some great information!

There is actually a recording studio with a tape set up and audio technician who deals in things like cassettes and reel to reels who I could contact nearby me.

Even if it was costly, if they can do it in extremely HQ, it’s worth it! And thanks for the step by step process on doing it at home, when you spell it out it doesn’t actually sound as bad as I thought and yeah the charity shops around about me have tons of old tapes I could test it on, good idea there.

Next I get the chance, I will dedicate a lot of time to getting these in HQ. At the bare minimum, there are going to be lots more images available of these tapes in high quality and of what people request to see about them very soon from me.

Thanks mate!


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[niski]

does not look outright fake which is a good sign. it moving to america and back to scotland is plausible especially with how the first wav rip of maxima dating back to the late 90s has 60hz hum on it. i noticed this liner also uses a symbol for the copyright and not just a (C) written exactly like this. also interested in the AFOT tape if you get a chance to show that one

[niski]

oh also

"it’s on a tape called a Sony Position Chrome 90, a tape largely unavailable or even completely unavailable now to people who would be making a reproduction"

just to clarify, this is not the name of the tape. that just says it's a chrome (type II) tape that has a runtime of (approx) 90 minutes.
but to my eye your tape appears to be a 1995-96 production SONY UX-S type II 90 min tape, identical model to the one used in the photos for this discogs listing: https://www.discogs.com/master/1047279- ... Boc-Maxima

the tape is easily available on places like ebay as a used one. however there is plausibility to this being real, as boc might have bought this in a batch of multiple tapes at the time. but this also gives it a chance to be fake, as somebody trying to fake it could have looked for an identical sony ux-s 90 from that exact time period and have found a match.

[deadfly]

The easy way to tell is to listen to it. The recordings that are widely available are pretty poor quality with a lot of distortion on some tracks. If the distortion matches the other rips it's fake, otherwise it could be real

[niski]

The easy way to tell is to listen to it. The recordings that are widely available are pretty poor quality with a lot of distortion on some tracks. If the distortion matches the other rips it's fake, otherwise it could be real

the quality is not that bad for a tape rip in case of maxima. the worst thing about it is tracks 1-4 being in mono and that is also the easiest way to tell if you've got a legit tape in your hands or not. distortion is a result of recording to the tape too hot, not a result of a bad rip and it can be very similar across multiple copies as a result if they used a near-identical setup for recording each of those.

other accurate ways to tell beyond the obvious mono stuff is by finding spots with characteristic dropouts and comparing if OP's tape also follows the same pattern of dropouts. if it does - likely fake.

[mGardener]

Please rip the tapes in WAV please, hopefully you can send it to a trusted restorer or to niski

BTW if niski says it might be real, then you might have the best quality tapes we have as of now

[Techboy]

"A"s are too consistently angular and there are some details missing from the tape case compared to the photo uploaded to discogs by electricluddite. I also don't think there would be misalignment on the short edge or a 3/4 transcription error

[superuser]

well-researched counterfeit, imo

hand-style doesn’t really match

[machinea]

These look to be verified by Mike Paradinas - he was the seller. Also this is my 666th post so I'll take that as auspicious.

[Samamdj]

These look to be verified by Mike Paradinas - he was the seller. Also this is my 666th post so I'll take that as auspicious.

Hey there, this post was by me and the copy’s sold by Mike Paradinas are also owned by me.


The copy in this post is not authentic. Really sorry. This was an earlier attempt for me to buy the tapes from someone else, who I soon after learned was trying to scam me in a very, very sneaky way. Sadly, no option to delete the post.

The new tapes however, are all from Mike Paradinas and genuine.

Cheers!


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[Samamdj]

THIS TAPE IS A FAKE, AND NOT THE ONE I PURCHASED FROM MIKE PARADINAS!

Sadly, I learned the seller was someone very good at making fake tapes and copying handwriting, I was so let down and in that forgot to leave that message on here, sorry guys.

On the bright side, as you may know, I got all three and they’re genuine from Mike! Check Reddit for more, amazing stuff!


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[2020k]

I acquired it a while ago form a trusted source

Famous last words in the BOC community.

[Samamdj]

I acquired it a while ago form a trusted source

Famous last words in the BOC community.

Yes, I was greatly wrong. So sorry! Glad I’ve got the genuine copy’s now


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[Cohesion]

I acquired it a while ago form a trusted source

Famous last words in the BOC community.

Yes, I was greatly wrong. So sorry! Glad I’ve got the genuine copy’s now


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I'm sorry I misled you into potentially thinking they were legit earlier in this thread. Offer still stands to help rip them though!

[Samamdj]

Famous last words in the BOC community.

Yes, I was greatly wrong. So sorry! Glad I’ve got the genuine copy’s now


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I'm sorry I misled you into potentially thinking they were legit earlier in this thread. Offer still stands to help rip them though!

Hey honestly it’s no worries! It was a collective, I also mistakenly identified the guy selling as a trusted source out of how keen I was on the tapes. No finalised transaction went through in the end so it’s all ok, even if it did, still no one’s fault

Cheers mate [emoji16]


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