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Personics

Posted by Luminator (A) on July 22, 2017 at 19:07:41

Because the Personics system was never popular or widely-available, we audiophiles can be forgiven, for not knowing about it. However, in the late-80s, it was one of the few commercially available services to make "mix tapes."

Going to school in San Francisco, I was always amazed that the kids who lived outside of the City (in towns such as Daly City, San Bruno, South San Francisco, Pacifica) were the ones who came up with dance music. I don't know how, especially in those pre-internet days, they discovered all the new and underground dance, R&B, Hi-NRG, hip hop, new jack swing music.

When I became a junior (1987-88), I was finally able to venture out, and meet my schoolmates at Serramonte and Tanforan. In the evenings, many of the homes would have parties. There, I learned how some of my friends were able to network, and get in touch with DJs, who were feeding/playing this stuff. Those DJs typically had "not for retail sale" 12" vinyl. Some of the bigger DJs played at my high school dances. It would take a few weeks or months, before some of that music appeared on the radio, if at all.

A number of my friends and teammates attended San Francisco public schools, but did not actually live within the City. In those days, that was against SFUSD policy, and probably still is. However, these kids simply used relatives' S.F. addresses, and were never caught. I was happy to have friends living outside of S.F. Through them, you got to expand your culture.

I want to say it was April 1988. I visited a freshman friend, Jenny, who lived just above Serramonte. She had a small pink Sony boombox in her room. She pressed play, and was thoroughly engrossed in emotionally singing "Forgive Me For Dreaming" by former Star Search winner, Elisa Fiorillo. With her come-hither look, Jenny was making me nervous. So I backed up, and said, "Man, where do you come up with this stuff?"

Jenny pressed STOP, and popped out a custom-made Personics cassette tape.

After that, Jenny and I went to Serramonte. For the life of me, I can't remember the store. But it had the Personics system. You put on some headphones, and could sample a bunch of songs. You made your selections, and put them in order. The clerk would figure out what length of tape was needed. Within minutes, the clerk produced a mix tape, complete with labels. IIRC, it used Dolby B noise reduction.

Because Personics was a Silicon Valley company, it did have a presence (albeit small) here in the Bay Area. In those days, audiophiles were not interested in cassettes, so they overlooked, or did not care about, the Personics system. But several of my high school friends had a lot of fun, going into stores, sampling songs, and using Personics to compile those mix tapes.

With today's downloads, iTunes, and NAS (Network Attached Storage), no one needs a mix tape. Still, Personics is kind of interesting, from an academic and historical perspective. And thinking about Personics does bring back memories of the wide variety of popular music available in the late-80s.

Forgive me for dreaming,
-Lummy The Loch Monster

• Forgive Me For Dreaming   (Open in New Window)

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Atma-Sphere Music Systems, Inc.

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