Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

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yomptepi
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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby yomptepi » 11 Jan 2019, 20:37

bobzilla77 wrote:
It's ultra niche hipster indie collector mentality at its purest. Nothing wrong with that. But it is not to do with music, sound quality, ease of reaching the audience, cost reduction or anything practical.


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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby never/ever » 11 Jan 2019, 20:43

Quite.
Just like the suoerdeluxe and resurgent vinyl market, another tool to fleece the music lover of their hard-earned.
Sadly enough, for a large part it is their last resort and physical product slowly is dying out.
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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 12 Jan 2019, 05:56

My next album will be released on "Brown Wax Cylinder"
Only one copy!

regarding the trend, how can all those youngster have a working player?
Or do the cassettes come with a digital download?
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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby ` » 12 Jan 2019, 10:17

Affectation writ large as YT says above.

While I fondly remember the fun of home taping albums and doing mix-tapes for friends, actually buying original label release cassettes was a complete waste of money as the sound quality was almost always bad.

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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby harvey k-tel » 12 Jan 2019, 14:17

GoogaMooga wrote:How about upstart bands who can't afford to press vinyl or CD? Cassettes are a viable option if they want to share their music.


They've got this thing called the "internet" these days.
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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby GoogaMooga » 12 Jan 2019, 14:55

harvey k-tel wrote:
GoogaMooga wrote:How about upstart bands who can't afford to press vinyl or CD? Cassettes are a viable option if they want to share their music.


They've got this thing called the "internet" these days.


Sell physical
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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 12 Jan 2019, 15:25

GoogaMooga wrote:
harvey k-tel wrote:
GoogaMooga wrote:How about upstart bands who can't afford to press vinyl or CD? Cassettes are a viable option if they want to share their music.


They've got this thing called the "internet" these days.


Sell physical


And that is without cost, or what are you saying?
You asked about bands who can't afford the cost for vinyl or CD
and you answer that with "sell physical" !?

The so called "internet" is the way to go, if you can't afford vinyl/cds
Bandcamp is a good example! All free!
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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby GoogaMooga » 12 Jan 2019, 15:32

You are forgetting that some people might want to sell physical for the charm of it, and if CD or vinyl is too expensive to press, cassettes could be an option, like in the good old days. Only someone upthread said that wasn't the case anymore. So it's all moot.
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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby KeithPratt » 13 Jan 2019, 11:21

I think the issue is that formats like tape can sound great with quality equipment. Yet back in the eighties most people didn't have access to that sort of thing and when CDs came along, the jump in quality with the new format, combined with ease of use, was almost quantum.

A friend of mine started putting out tapes on his label back in 2008 as he was able to get hold of Nakamichi decks for virtually nothing.

There is something in resurrecting old formats that had been consigned to the dustbin because of "progress". We all know for example that Betamax was superior to VHS, but "lost the war".

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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby Ghost of Harry Smith » 14 Jan 2019, 01:56

bobzilla77 wrote:
GoogaMooga wrote:How about upstart bands who can't afford to press vinyl or CD? Cassettes are a viable option if they want to share their music.


Not anymore. That was a valid reason to do cassette releases in the 1980s and 90s. Today almost no one in your target audience is likely to have a working cassette player. And cassette duplication is more expensive than CD printing, either homemade or at the pressing plant.

It's ultra niche hipster indie collector mentality at its purest. Nothing wrong with that. But it is not to do with music, sound quality, ease of reaching the audience, cost reduction or anything practical.


It seems more prevalent with some genres and aesthetics like noise, minimal synth, hauntology, all that aren’t undermined by a bit of tape hiss. In fact it might add something to the experience.

My friend has released tapes with his improv guitar-noise duo. He says he does this because listeners want something tangible when they’re impulse-buying at the merch stall, along with a download code for MP3 or Flac tucked inside. They’ll use the latter and just keep the former as a memento. He says getting tapes made is much, much cheaper than vinyl and on par with CD, however the CD as artifact is simply not valued by most of his age group (20-somethings). They don’t own CD players so a CD has no more or less utility to them than a tape, while the latter seems to have more of an aura of rarity /collectibility. My theory is these kids grew up seeing so many DVDs, CD-Rs and CDs getting scratched, useless and then binned, that they unconsciously resent their disposability as a waste of resources, time, etc. So they like tapes because a scratched bootleg copy of Monsters Inc or The Incredibles wouldn’t play when they were 7 or 8!

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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby yomptepi » 14 Jan 2019, 16:37

Ghost of Harry Smith wrote:
It seems more prevalent with some genres and aesthetics like noise, minimal synth, hauntology, all that aren’t undermined by a bit of tape hiss. In fact it might add something to the experience.

My friend has released tapes with his improv guitar-noise duo. He says he does this because listeners want something tangible when they’re impulse-buying at the merch stall, along with a download code for MP3 or Flac tucked inside. They’ll use the latter and just keep the former as a memento. He says getting tapes made is much, much cheaper than vinyl and on par with CD, however the CD as artifact is simply not valued by most of his age group (20-somethings). They don’t own CD players so a CD has no more or less utility to them than a tape, while the latter seems to have more of an aura of rarity /collectibility. My theory is these kids grew up seeing so many DVDs, CD-Rs and CDs getting scratched, useless and then binned, that they unconsciously resent their disposability as a waste of resources, time, etc. So they like tapes because a scratched bootleg copy of Monsters Inc or The Incredibles wouldn’t play when they were 7 or 8!



You are crediting the shallow cunts with far more intelligence than they deserve. They are just hipster scum looking for something which looks good with their latest selfie on Instagram. Nothing more. They deserve contempt. Nothing less.
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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby Robert » 14 Jan 2019, 22:28

Just read an article in the paper over the weekend that cassette sales five folded in recent years

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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby Robert » 14 Jan 2019, 22:33

Toby wrote:I think the issue is that formats like tape can sound great with quality equipment. Yet back in the eighties most people didn't have access to that sort of thing and when CDs came along, the jump in quality with the new format, combined with ease of use, was almost quantum.

A friend of mine started putting out tapes on his label back in 2008 as he was able to get hold of Nakamichi decks for virtually nothing.

There is something in resurrecting old formats that had been consigned to the dustbin because of "progress". We all know for example that Betamax was superior to VHS, but "lost the war".



Not to mention the little known V2000

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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby yomptepi » 15 Jan 2019, 01:09

Robert wrote:Just read an article in the paper over the weekend that cassette sales five folded in recent years


from 0 to 5.
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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby Ghost of Harry Smith » 15 Jan 2019, 01:15

Jeez Yomp remind me not to tell you that I’ve still got some VHS tapes of rare films on my bookshelf. You’ll string me up for hipster crimes.

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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby trans-chigley express » 15 Jan 2019, 04:35

Ghost of Harry Smith wrote: My theory is these kids grew up seeing so many DVDs, CD-Rs and CDs getting scratched, useless and then binned, that they unconsciously resent their disposability as a waste of resources, time, etc. So they like tapes because a scratched bootleg copy of Monsters Inc or The Incredibles wouldn’t play when they were 7 or 8!


but CDs are far more durable than tapes which frequently get mangled up in the mechanism, at least mine often did.

I knew a guy with a HUGE music collection entirely on tape as he preferred it to LP. His house was full of shelves lined with thousands of cassettes. It always seemed like a terrible choice to me and I wonder if he hung on to them or ditched the whole lot when CD came out. I know he hated records because they got scratched too easy and considered cassette to be superior in quality. I disagreed with him but he'd never be swayed. It used to take him an age to make his own mix tapes recording from tape to tape with all that forwarding and rewinding to get the song he wanted.

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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby never/ever » 15 Jan 2019, 10:06

Interestingly enough, I had to repair a cassette that got stuck in a player today. Operation succeeded, except for a small piece of crumpled tape which probably will have a lot of wow and flutter on it now.

As with everything in life, a lot of things will last a lifetime if you treat it with care.
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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 15 Jan 2019, 10:22

Never had any problems with my cassettes during the cassette era.
Made some transfer during the last few years, and they played fine!
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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby Deebank » 15 Jan 2019, 11:42

never/ever wrote:Interestingly enough, I had to repair a cassette that got stuck in a player today. Operation succeeded, except for a small piece of crumpled tape which probably will have a lot of wow and flutter on it now.

As with everything in life, a lot of things will last a lifetime if you treat it with care.


But even if you don't...

We had cassettes that were knocking around our car for years - left out in the heat and cold and sun etc. They seemed to play OK.
CDs get trashed in no time in our car though sadly.
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Re: Cassettes? Is that a thing again?

Postby GoogaMooga » 15 Jan 2019, 12:01

During my hostel years in London it was all cassettes. And my trusty walkman. Bought a pair of tinny speakers to plug in. The vinyl just sat there, in Denmark, until 1993. Then I sold it all, having switched to CD in 1990. Cassettes went a few years later, when all that peripatetic hostel living was over and done with. Even got a decent trade because it was right before the prices plummeted.
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