13 ms·

Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

66 points by oska 10y ago

sandworm101 10y ago
Cassettes might be fun for young people, but those of us old enough to remember when they were the only real option couldnt care less. They sounded bad. They required complicated mecanical trickery to use. They broke, sometimes taking the player along with them. Good riddance. CDs were better in every single way. Also, the cassette-playing tech today is far better than it was. Listen ro them without noise reduction tech. Scan for a song without silence detection. Then come back and brag about your vintage sony walkman.
- milesward 10y ago
  I promise to stay off your lawn :)
- to3m 10y ago
  Good riddance? Good fucking riddance, more like. Tapes are shit. Hiss, flutter, wow, head misalignment, Dolby NR. "Ah, which Dolby NR?" - well, exactly. And we haven't even got onto Type I vs Type II vs Type IV, and your C120s that snap if you so much as look at them, and the tapes that get tangled and snagged and melted in your car stereo, because they're right next to some air ducts that blow fan-assisted hot air from a big lump of hot metal barely half a metre away. Also, tapes are a useless size. CDs hold like 70 minutes. So you have a C60, and it's not enough, or a C90, and it's too much - even assuming you don't have any bin-packing problems. Honest to god. Tapes. TAPES. If you like the sound (what is wrong with people??), then for God's sake, at least record from your stupid tape deck to the PC, then FLAC it, because then at least you'll avoid that fast forward and rewind nonsense. Battery life on MP3 players is a lot better too. I don't know what to say. EDIT: classic quantity/quality tradeoff: exchanged intemperate language for the FLAC suggestion EDIT 2: I think this is the first time in a long time I've seen the word "weird" used in a link and it's actually appropriate
  - nizmow 10y ago
    After reading the article I came here to have exactly this rant. Thanks for doing it for me. Also, I'm not sure where they were trying to go with the "tapes are cheaper and more convenient than vinyl! This is great for small indie bands!". Is this 1970?
  - maxxxxx 10y ago
    They should revive the old reel to reel machines like this: http://www.reeltoreel.de/worldwide/A700.htm http://www.reeltoreel.de/worldwide/A700.htm. That's bad ass.
  - sandworm101 10y ago
    The one tiny upside: total lack of DRM. It isn't much, but it is something worth saying.
    - djrogers 10y ago
      > total lack of DRM Well yeah - there's no D so you can't have DRM. Tapes have a built in mechanism to prevent rampant copying though - they degrade with each generation.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- donretag 10y ago
  And millennials wonder why people make fun of them. Cassettes were, and still are, terrible. They made sense since it was possible to copy from another format, such as vinyl/radio/CD even another cassette. It was the only format you were able to copy to (technically you could with 8-tracks, but you could not easily get blanks). Nowadays, if you really wanted a copy, straight to digital.
- anonova 10y ago
  > They sounded bad. Cassettes weren't _that_ bad. The problem is that there were essentially different grades of tapes and players that supported different noise reduction techniques, and people tend to remember the ones played back with low end gear. Here's a great video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVoSQP2yUYA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVoSQP2yUYA
- AndrewUnmuted 10y ago
  I am a young guy, but I'm old enough that when I was a kid my principle form of listening to music was cassette tapes. So I know where you are coming from here. However, I am also an audio engineer, and have mastered a lot of records for bands that have ended up releasing them as cassettes. In my opinion, your analysis lacks one or two components that are essential to the "cassette" experience: 1. Sonic Artifacts - Some bands dig the warpy, tinny sound. I'm not personally a fan, but I'm a bit biased. 2. Tape Compression - A lot of bands simply cannot, or choose not to, control their dynamics, causing clipping to occur. On an old-school straight-to-tape recording setup, this clipping will sound far better than the harsh, horrible digital clipping found in today's digital setups. 3. Playback Setting - In my experience, the typical consumer of today's cassette tapes is not playing the album through a hi-fi system. They're probably using a portable jambox that they took out of their mom's attic or one they picked up one day at their local Goodwill/pawn shop. Fidelity is nowhere near important to this individual, and they probably wouldn't fret very much if their junky/old equipment got damaged or stopped working.
- at-fates-hands 10y ago
  >> CDs were better in every single way. Well, not exactly. Talk about fragile. A slight scratch and its toast. Durable? Hardly. Not sure how many CD's I had to re-buy because of minor chips or the dreaded "pinhole of death" I can't count. Or what about the green marker urban legend (http://www.snopes.com/music/media/marker.asp http://www.snopes.com/music/media/marker.asp). They were also anything but "compact" compared to cassettes. And are you old enough to remember those long CD boxes (https://images.eil.com/large_image/Queen_A+Collection+Of+Empty+US+Longbox+Picture+Boxes-405761b.jpg https://images.eil.com/large_image/Queen_A+Collection+Of+Emp...) that were a total wasted of cardboard? Or maybe finally being excited to get your favorite artists old recordings on CD, only to buy the CD, rip it open and read on the back, "WARNING: The music on this Compact Disc was originally recorded on analog equipment, prior to modern noise reduction techniques. This Compact Disc preserves, as closely as possible, the sound of the original recording, but its high resolution also reveals the limitations in the master tape, including noise and other distortions." I agree that CD's were markedly better, but let's not forgot they still had some serious flaws themselves.
  - AndrewUnmuted 10y ago
    Precisely. Look at all the 60 year old used vinyl records that have survived and are still just as playable to this day. There's tons of them floating around. On the other hand, it's much harder to find even a 30 year old used CD that still plays fully and without error.
    - yarrel 10y ago
      A 30 year old tape may simply coat your playback head with iron oxide, snap, jam, or have lost its label as the glue has failed.
    - djrogers 10y ago
      The comparison is between CDs and tapes, not vinyl. Pull a 30 year old tape out of your closet and pray it doesn't leave little bits of itself all over your tape player....
    - caf 10y ago
- theandrewbailey 10y ago
  > They required complicated mecanical trickery to use. What? I haven't used a cassette in over a decade, but I still remember how they are used, and it didn't involved complicated trickery. Turn on and open the deck, slide in the cassette, close, and press play. Maybe rewind when you're done, and eject. Streaming music is arguably more complicated, but that's not stopping it.
gumby 10y ago
I can't believe they wrote this article without mentioning the Dead Kennedys and their album "In God We Trust, Inc". The cassette version came with all the songs on the A side. The B side says "Home taping is killing record industry profits! We left this side blank so you can help." I still have mine someplace, with some corporate machine music recorded on the B side. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_We_Trust,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_We_Trust,_Inc.
- woofyman 10y ago
  There's a bow wow wow song "c30 c60 c90 go"
tapes 10y ago
i love tapes.
everyone 10y ago
This word gets thrown around a lot but, hipsters! As others have attested there is nothing good about tapes. There are very good reasons why vinyl has survived (You can manipulate it with your hand when djing, and see the music on it, also its technically possible to get better sound quality than digital via high quality, high speed, vinyl and an all analog recording to stamping process) But tapes, no, they are shit. The only reason to use them is some form of conspicuous consumption, signaling how cool and wacky u are. additional, if u really want a kooky old physical medium go with minidiscs! They were amazing!
- Nav_Panel 10y ago
  > The only reason to use them is some form of conspicuous consumption, signaling how cool and wacky u are Disagree. 1. Sometimes the sonic characteristics of tapes DO complement the music. Typically for genres other than popular music or symphonic/classical/orchestral music (where absolute fidelity is king). 2. Physical media as opposed to digital media is, for some/many, inherently gratifying. It is a more multifaceted Thing, an object with a mass and volume and cover -- far more features than a typical audio file might possess. This point might not resonate with some on this forum (especially those interested in minimalism/efficient living), but ask around and you will find that for some people, this makes a dramatic difference. 3. Cassette tapes, as opposed to vinyl records, were extremely easy to produce in small quantities or at home (VHS tapes also have this property). This means that you can find many interesting/unusual cassette tapes (or make them yourself with relative ease). There are many recordings only available on cassette, and others very challenging to find on media other than cassette. Especially in our world of information hyper-availability, there is a satisfaction in enjoying or creating a tape that only a couple people (or maybe even only one) have ever heard. Some might point to this as a core tenet of "hipsterism," but I argue this isn't about conspicuous consumption, it's about appreciation of novelty (which is a core aspect of... intelligence/pattern recognition capability) and history/unique narratives. EDIT: looks like the article actually makes the same points that I did, but expressed differently and with a bit more contemporary context/narrative content.
  - mrob 10y ago
caidh 10y ago
I still remember my first 'data' medium on my first computer was cassette tapes, the same ones used for regular audio. Dear God they were slow... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette
beamatronic 10y ago
I'm surprised to see no mention here of recording songs from the radio. I used to do this quite a bit. Of course sometimes you would record a little before or a little after the song, getting DJ's talking, callers, ads. Those tapes now have a little bit of historical information that isn't available anywhere else.
fsiefken 10y ago
Tapes can do 110 minutes and sound just as good to non-audiophiles as cd's. You could put around 50 MB data on it, which translates in around an hour of high fidelity music (Opus codec or HE-AAC). You can't put a CD in your pocket, you can do so with a cassette. They have a much higher nostalgia value... With the fast-forward/backward, pause and record buttons you can more easy copy or record stuff to create a mix-tape. The linear user interface is very simple. My car only has a tape deck and a radio... it didn't have anything else.. so now I use a 3.5 audio jack cable to tape converter thingy to play my podcasts from my phone through the tape adapter to get the audio to my carspeakers. There is a very annoying periodic tick I have no clue were it's coming from but at least I am downward compatible... come to think of it - now I can play all those tapes I have stuffed away somewhere!
- nizmow 10y ago
  >You could put around 50 MB data on it, which translates in around an hour of high fidelity music (Opus codec or HE-AAC) How on earth are you supposed to play that back?
  - fsiefken 10y ago
    You have to put a decoding chip in the cassette device... or but the audio cable in the line-in of a pc and decode it there... but then I think I'd say, why bother. Stick with audio and analog for tapes (except when you are using a C64 and record data from radio or modem). Not sure if a wav decoder has been done for C64... Opus and mp4 are out of it's league (not sure about running it in an emulator on faster hardware).
- SomeCallMeTim 10y ago
  I always carry a 16Gb USB flash drive in my pocket. I can play music from it in both of my cars (USB ports), at most places I visit (plug it into a computer), and the music doesn't degrade with playback. Oh, and I could throw about 133 hours of high quality audio onto it and it would still be half empty. AND...my phone has plenty of room for another 8Gb of music, and to play that I just need to hit play; plugging it in to an amp or headphones is optional, but recommended. Why are we even having this discussion?
robhanlon 10y ago
For smaller artists/bands/etc, it's a lot easier to get a small run of tapes than a small run of vinyl. If you're not sure you're going to make any money, then a tape can be a fun way to get some physical product for cheap that has some (perhaps questionable, perhaps nice) character to its sound. You also get more of that "album feel" because they're difficult to seek through.
RileyKyeden 10y ago
Is this a submarine? None of the music aficionados I know talk about cassette tapes. They're all about FLACs and vinyl.
- clock_tower 10y ago
  I suspect so. A lot of references to relatively ordinary music-world people and phenomena, and then there's this: "Also last year, the National Audio Company — the largest cassette tape manufacturer in the U.S. — saw a 20% increase in its commercial tape duplication business (this doesn't include blank tapes or audiobooks), according to a company spokesperson. This continues an upward-sloping trend for the Missouri-based company, which did more business in 2014 than at any other point since its factory opened in 1969."
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- sago 10y ago
  They're probably recorded music aficionados. This is more a thing for prolific gig-goers, as far as I can tell. I'm not very prolific, but I have a couple. Both came with a d/l url. I don't own a tape player, but having physical correlates to information products does have something engaging about it. I suspect it is a trend we'll see more and more of, not just a tapes. c.f. Amibo, Steel/Tinbox games/bluray. I personally suspect the 'it sounds better' thing is post-hoc rationalisation, mostly, given how trivial it would be to record/recreate the tape-butchered sound in a digital format.
- zo7 10y ago
  Really? Every music aficionado I know collects cassette tapes.
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    From this corner of the world, tape looks like a local-ish hipster fad that's of interest in some micro-scenes. But there's a general nostalgia thing happening all over, and tape and vinyl seem to be part of that. When I switched from tape to vinyl in the 70s I noticed I enjoyed some of my collection less, even though I was hearing a lot more detail. I've often wondered if there's a psychoacoustic effect which forces your brain to work harder to parse sound on cassette. It's such a lofi medium I suspect your brain fills in the missing detail with what you'd like to hear. So it's more involving than (say) FLACl, which gives you all the detail you want - and then some.
niftich 10y ago
The article makes a very astute point: that people are attracted to the physicality, the tangibility of "analog" things. Whether out of nostalgia (because we've been there) or retro fascination (when we haven't lived it firsthand), we can develop an emotional connection with a single physical objects that succinctly and permanently hold an abstract concept in a physical package -- like a letter, a book, a music record, or a photograph. In the digital world so much of what we produce, consume, and interact with has no physical manifestation what we can strongly identify with. The computer is an abstract filing cabinet which can display what you're looking for on its own screen, or plays abstract 'music files', or streams 'video' from subscription apps. We're essentially asking the computer to recall these things from its "memory", and luckily, they remember with exact accuracy much more than a human would. While we can experience these things, we can't hold them in our hand; we can't share them in a self-contained, self-describing form (like handing someone a book) -- if we can share them at all. (Originally posted by me on 'Tom Hanks about Typewriters' [1]) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12208662#12211034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12208662#12211034
- slfnflctd 10y ago
  Yeah, sharing a link to a book or an album doesn't exactly have the same heft as handing or shipping a physical copy to someone. I think it's good to prefer physical (when possible) with stuff that's more personally important.
qzxvwt 10y ago
do you really think all art should be universally accessible and as convenient as possible? do you really think you can have meaningful experiences with that mindset?
zo7 10y ago
People don't want to just listen to music, they want to interact with it, own physical objects, and curate their own collection of music. The dominance of digital and streaming has left a gaping void in this, and this is a reason why vinyl has taken off – you can hold it, you have to interact with it to listen to it, it arguably sounds better, you have your own little art collection, and you have to put in much more effort to find and obtain it. CDs offer a similar experience, but it's too similar to digital to be worthwhile, so cassettes have taken off because it's a cheap and easy way for labels and artists to sell something physical. It sounds bad, but it's interesting to listen to and if you want to listen to a higher quality version you can find it online. (and if you can't, the choice of tape as a medium was intentional by the artist) It's weird to me whenever the move towards analog is written off as some vapid millennial/hipster trend. The dominance of digital and streaming services has stolen this experience from us, and we are fighting to get it back.
- taeric 10y ago
  Some people want this. There is clearly a large market that doesn't care and just wants to listen to some music. There is probably as large of a market that just wants background noise. Even in this... you are probably talking about a ridiculously small market. And the audio person in me cringes. At least records were high quality. Tapes are just terrible.
  - zo7 10y ago
    Oh of course, it's really just limited to just people who actively seek out music, go to local/DIY events and want to support independent artists/labels. The larger market that just wants to listen has their needs more than met at this point. (arguably at the former group's expense)
  - Fnoord 10y ago
    >> they want to interact with it, own physical objects, and curate their own collection of music. > Some people want this. Yep, thanks for making that point. > Even in this... you are probably talking about a ridiculously small market. A minority are physical collectors. I'm not sure how small or large it is though, but I'm sure its a minority. Owning a copy doesn't mean you own the music anyway. Also of importance is that people who listen to music on the move (during sports or workout) really don't want to mix music. Streaming audio is a compromise between full on DJing and listening to radio in the sense that the listener decides what he or she is going to listen to. So they may very well make their own playlists. But one can also pick a pre-made playlist which makes it more akin to FM radio (and you won't make your playlist during sports / workout either). The difference is the far more wide choice.
caf 10y ago
The economic advantages mentioned all apply just as much to CDs as to tapes. Unlike vinyl, you can pretty cheaply record your own CDs at home.
taylodl 10y ago
If you want an analog music medium then reel-to-reel tape is king. There's nothing like it and its sound is unparalleled. You can even use reel-to-reel for creating echo and delay musical effects.
losteverything 10y ago
School to nj one 8-track: Steve Miller's greatest hits. Over and over big ol jet airliner Rented car in salt lake. Only cassette: Aqua "I'm a Barbie girl" over and over through grand tetons and Yellowstone. No streaming memories. Sorry. Cassettes are life recalling and totally cool despite "issues"
Tiktaalik 10y ago
I bought a 1990 Mazda Miata recently and I've been pretty pleased that I can buy tapes from local indie bands at their shows to play in its tape deck.
fergie 10y ago
Music that was popular in the late '80s and early '90s always sounds good on tape. Any sort of Hiphop or heavy metal especially.
jedanbik 10y ago
Tapes can be driven/sequenced by control voltage - I think that's pretty cool. Here's an example: http://www.ondemagnetique.com http://www.ondemagnetique.com
santaclaus 10y ago
I listen to a few bands that will only release on cassette, followed by maybe a vinyl pressing. If you are lucky some generous soul will upload to youtube... From a marketing perspective the strategy seems to foster a sense of rarity and exclusivity (sort of like Snapchat's Spectacles). You are only part of the in club if you go through the effort of obtaining a (physical!) tape and the means to play said tape.
j-g-faustus 10y ago
I enjoyed cassettes. I still have a bunch, and a cassette player in my car. And I never use them over streaming audio from my phone. Why? Because this is 2017 and I'm not a hipster.

66 points by oska 10y ago

Cassettes might be fun for young people, but those of us old enough to remember when they were the only real option couldnt care less. They sounded bad. They required complicated mecanical trickery to use. They broke, sometimes taking the player along with them. Good riddance. CDs were better in every single way. Also, the cassette-playing tech today is far better than it was. Listen ro them without noise reduction tech. Scan for a song without silence detection. Then come back and brag about your vintage sony walkman.

milesward 10y ago
I promise to stay off your lawn :)
to3m 10y ago
Good riddance? Good fucking riddance, more like. Tapes are shit. Hiss, flutter, wow, head misalignment, Dolby NR. "Ah, which Dolby NR?" - well, exactly. And we haven't even got onto Type I vs Type II vs Type IV, and your C120s that snap if you so much as look at them, and the tapes that get tangled and snagged and melted in your car stereo, because they're right next to some air ducts that blow fan-assisted hot air from a big lump of hot metal barely half a metre away. Also, tapes are a useless size. CDs hold like 70 minutes. So you have a C60, and it's not enough, or a C90, and it's too much - even assuming you don't have any bin-packing problems. Honest to god. Tapes. TAPES. If you like the sound (what is wrong with people??), then for God's sake, at least record from your stupid tape deck to the PC, then FLAC it, because then at least you'll avoid that fast forward and rewind nonsense. Battery life on MP3 players is a lot better too. I don't know what to say. EDIT: classic quantity/quality tradeoff: exchanged intemperate language for the FLAC suggestion EDIT 2: I think this is the first time in a long time I've seen the word "weird" used in a link and it's actually appropriate
- nizmow 10y ago
  After reading the article I came here to have exactly this rant. Thanks for doing it for me. Also, I'm not sure where they were trying to go with the "tapes are cheaper and more convenient than vinyl! This is great for small indie bands!". Is this 1970?
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  They should revive the old reel to reel machines like this: http://www.reeltoreel.de/worldwide/A700.htm http://www.reeltoreel.de/worldwide/A700.htm. That's bad ass.
- sandworm101 10y ago
  The one tiny upside: total lack of DRM. It isn't much, but it is something worth saying.
  - djrogers 10y ago
    > total lack of DRM Well yeah - there's no D so you can't have DRM. Tapes have a built in mechanism to prevent rampant copying though - they degrade with each generation.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
donretag 10y ago
And millennials wonder why people make fun of them. Cassettes were, and still are, terrible. They made sense since it was possible to copy from another format, such as vinyl/radio/CD even another cassette. It was the only format you were able to copy to (technically you could with 8-tracks, but you could not easily get blanks). Nowadays, if you really wanted a copy, straight to digital.
anonova 10y ago
> They sounded bad. Cassettes weren't _that_ bad. The problem is that there were essentially different grades of tapes and players that supported different noise reduction techniques, and people tend to remember the ones played back with low end gear. Here's a great video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVoSQP2yUYA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVoSQP2yUYA
AndrewUnmuted 10y ago
I am a young guy, but I'm old enough that when I was a kid my principle form of listening to music was cassette tapes. So I know where you are coming from here. However, I am also an audio engineer, and have mastered a lot of records for bands that have ended up releasing them as cassettes. In my opinion, your analysis lacks one or two components that are essential to the "cassette" experience: 1. Sonic Artifacts - Some bands dig the warpy, tinny sound. I'm not personally a fan, but I'm a bit biased. 2. Tape Compression - A lot of bands simply cannot, or choose not to, control their dynamics, causing clipping to occur. On an old-school straight-to-tape recording setup, this clipping will sound far better than the harsh, horrible digital clipping found in today's digital setups. 3. Playback Setting - In my experience, the typical consumer of today's cassette tapes is not playing the album through a hi-fi system. They're probably using a portable jambox that they took out of their mom's attic or one they picked up one day at their local Goodwill/pawn shop. Fidelity is nowhere near important to this individual, and they probably wouldn't fret very much if their junky/old equipment got damaged or stopped working.
at-fates-hands 10y ago
>> CDs were better in every single way. Well, not exactly. Talk about fragile. A slight scratch and its toast. Durable? Hardly. Not sure how many CD's I had to re-buy because of minor chips or the dreaded "pinhole of death" I can't count. Or what about the green marker urban legend (http://www.snopes.com/music/media/marker.asp http://www.snopes.com/music/media/marker.asp). They were also anything but "compact" compared to cassettes. And are you old enough to remember those long CD boxes (https://images.eil.com/large_image/Queen_A+Collection+Of+Empty+US+Longbox+Picture+Boxes-405761b.jpg https://images.eil.com/large_image/Queen_A+Collection+Of+Emp...) that were a total wasted of cardboard? Or maybe finally being excited to get your favorite artists old recordings on CD, only to buy the CD, rip it open and read on the back, "WARNING: The music on this Compact Disc was originally recorded on analog equipment, prior to modern noise reduction techniques. This Compact Disc preserves, as closely as possible, the sound of the original recording, but its high resolution also reveals the limitations in the master tape, including noise and other distortions." I agree that CD's were markedly better, but let's not forgot they still had some serious flaws themselves.
- AndrewUnmuted 10y ago
  Precisely. Look at all the 60 year old used vinyl records that have survived and are still just as playable to this day. There's tons of them floating around. On the other hand, it's much harder to find even a 30 year old used CD that still plays fully and without error.
  - yarrel 10y ago
    A 30 year old tape may simply coat your playback head with iron oxide, snap, jam, or have lost its label as the glue has failed.
  - djrogers 10y ago
    The comparison is between CDs and tapes, not vinyl. Pull a 30 year old tape out of your closet and pray it doesn't leave little bits of itself all over your tape player....
  - caf 10y ago
theandrewbailey 10y ago
> They required complicated mecanical trickery to use. What? I haven't used a cassette in over a decade, but I still remember how they are used, and it didn't involved complicated trickery. Turn on and open the deck, slide in the cassette, close, and press play. Maybe rewind when you're done, and eject. Streaming music is arguably more complicated, but that's not stopping it.

gumby 10y ago

I can't believe they wrote this article without mentioning the Dead Kennedys and their album "In God We Trust, Inc". The cassette version came with all the songs on the A side. The B side says "Home taping is killing record industry profits! We left this side blank so you can help." I still have mine someplace, with some corporate machine music recorded on the B side. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_We_Trust,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_We_Trust,_Inc.

woofyman 10y ago
There's a bow wow wow song "c30 c60 c90 go"

tapes 10y ago

i love tapes.

everyone 10y ago

This word gets thrown around a lot but, hipsters! As others have attested there is nothing good about tapes. There are very good reasons why vinyl has survived (You can manipulate it with your hand when djing, and see the music on it, also its technically possible to get better sound quality than digital via high quality, high speed, vinyl and an all analog recording to stamping process) But tapes, no, they are shit. The only reason to use them is some form of conspicuous consumption, signaling how cool and wacky u are. additional, if u really want a kooky old physical medium go with minidiscs! They were amazing!

Nav_Panel 10y ago
> The only reason to use them is some form of conspicuous consumption, signaling how cool and wacky u are Disagree. 1. Sometimes the sonic characteristics of tapes DO complement the music. Typically for genres other than popular music or symphonic/classical/orchestral music (where absolute fidelity is king). 2. Physical media as opposed to digital media is, for some/many, inherently gratifying. It is a more multifaceted Thing, an object with a mass and volume and cover -- far more features than a typical audio file might possess. This point might not resonate with some on this forum (especially those interested in minimalism/efficient living), but ask around and you will find that for some people, this makes a dramatic difference. 3. Cassette tapes, as opposed to vinyl records, were extremely easy to produce in small quantities or at home (VHS tapes also have this property). This means that you can find many interesting/unusual cassette tapes (or make them yourself with relative ease). There are many recordings only available on cassette, and others very challenging to find on media other than cassette. Especially in our world of information hyper-availability, there is a satisfaction in enjoying or creating a tape that only a couple people (or maybe even only one) have ever heard. Some might point to this as a core tenet of "hipsterism," but I argue this isn't about conspicuous consumption, it's about appreciation of novelty (which is a core aspect of... intelligence/pattern recognition capability) and history/unique narratives. EDIT: looks like the article actually makes the same points that I did, but expressed differently and with a bit more contemporary context/narrative content.
- mrob 10y ago

caidh 10y ago

I still remember my first 'data' medium on my first computer was cassette tapes, the same ones used for regular audio. Dear God they were slow... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette

beamatronic 10y ago

I'm surprised to see no mention here of recording songs from the radio. I used to do this quite a bit. Of course sometimes you would record a little before or a little after the song, getting DJ's talking, callers, ads. Those tapes now have a little bit of historical information that isn't available anywhere else.

fsiefken 10y ago

Tapes can do 110 minutes and sound just as good to non-audiophiles as cd's. You could put around 50 MB data on it, which translates in around an hour of high fidelity music (Opus codec or HE-AAC). You can't put a CD in your pocket, you can do so with a cassette. They have a much higher nostalgia value... With the fast-forward/backward, pause and record buttons you can more easy copy or record stuff to create a mix-tape. The linear user interface is very simple. My car only has a tape deck and a radio... it didn't have anything else.. so now I use a 3.5 audio jack cable to tape converter thingy to play my podcasts from my phone through the tape adapter to get the audio to my carspeakers. There is a very annoying periodic tick I have no clue were it's coming from but at least I am downward compatible... come to think of it - now I can play all those tapes I have stuffed away somewhere!

nizmow 10y ago
>You could put around 50 MB data on it, which translates in around an hour of high fidelity music (Opus codec or HE-AAC) How on earth are you supposed to play that back?
- fsiefken 10y ago
  You have to put a decoding chip in the cassette device... or but the audio cable in the line-in of a pc and decode it there... but then I think I'd say, why bother. Stick with audio and analog for tapes (except when you are using a C64 and record data from radio or modem). Not sure if a wav decoder has been done for C64... Opus and mp4 are out of it's league (not sure about running it in an emulator on faster hardware).
SomeCallMeTim 10y ago
I always carry a 16Gb USB flash drive in my pocket. I can play music from it in both of my cars (USB ports), at most places I visit (plug it into a computer), and the music doesn't degrade with playback. Oh, and I could throw about 133 hours of high quality audio onto it and it would still be half empty. AND...my phone has plenty of room for another 8Gb of music, and to play that I just need to hit play; plugging it in to an amp or headphones is optional, but recommended. Why are we even having this discussion?

robhanlon 10y ago

For smaller artists/bands/etc, it's a lot easier to get a small run of tapes than a small run of vinyl. If you're not sure you're going to make any money, then a tape can be a fun way to get some physical product for cheap that has some (perhaps questionable, perhaps nice) character to its sound. You also get more of that "album feel" because they're difficult to seek through.

RileyKyeden 10y ago

Is this a submarine? None of the music aficionados I know talk about cassette tapes. They're all about FLACs and vinyl.

clock_tower 10y ago
I suspect so. A lot of references to relatively ordinary music-world people and phenomena, and then there's this: "Also last year, the National Audio Company — the largest cassette tape manufacturer in the U.S. — saw a 20% increase in its commercial tape duplication business (this doesn't include blank tapes or audiobooks), according to a company spokesperson. This continues an upward-sloping trend for the Missouri-based company, which did more business in 2014 than at any other point since its factory opened in 1969."
- deleted 10y ago
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sago 10y ago
They're probably recorded music aficionados. This is more a thing for prolific gig-goers, as far as I can tell. I'm not very prolific, but I have a couple. Both came with a d/l url. I don't own a tape player, but having physical correlates to information products does have something engaging about it. I suspect it is a trend we'll see more and more of, not just a tapes. c.f. Amibo, Steel/Tinbox games/bluray. I personally suspect the 'it sounds better' thing is post-hoc rationalisation, mostly, given how trivial it would be to record/recreate the tape-butchered sound in a digital format.
zo7 10y ago
Really? Every music aficionado I know collects cassette tapes.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  From this corner of the world, tape looks like a local-ish hipster fad that's of interest in some micro-scenes. But there's a general nostalgia thing happening all over, and tape and vinyl seem to be part of that. When I switched from tape to vinyl in the 70s I noticed I enjoyed some of my collection less, even though I was hearing a lot more detail. I've often wondered if there's a psychoacoustic effect which forces your brain to work harder to parse sound on cassette. It's such a lofi medium I suspect your brain fills in the missing detail with what you'd like to hear. So it's more involving than (say) FLACl, which gives you all the detail you want - and then some.

niftich 10y ago

The article makes a very astute point: that people are attracted to the physicality, the tangibility of "analog" things. Whether out of nostalgia (because we've been there) or retro fascination (when we haven't lived it firsthand), we can develop an emotional connection with a single physical objects that succinctly and permanently hold an abstract concept in a physical package -- like a letter, a book, a music record, or a photograph. In the digital world so much of what we produce, consume, and interact with has no physical manifestation what we can strongly identify with. The computer is an abstract filing cabinet which can display what you're looking for on its own screen, or plays abstract 'music files', or streams 'video' from subscription apps. We're essentially asking the computer to recall these things from its "memory", and luckily, they remember with exact accuracy much more than a human would. While we can experience these things, we can't hold them in our hand; we can't share them in a self-contained, self-describing form (like handing someone a book) -- if we can share them at all. (Originally posted by me on 'Tom Hanks about Typewriters' [1]) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12208662#12211034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12208662#12211034

slfnflctd 10y ago
Yeah, sharing a link to a book or an album doesn't exactly have the same heft as handing or shipping a physical copy to someone. I think it's good to prefer physical (when possible) with stuff that's more personally important.

qzxvwt 10y ago

do you really think all art should be universally accessible and as convenient as possible? do you really think you can have meaningful experiences with that mindset?

zo7 10y ago

People don't want to just listen to music, they want to interact with it, own physical objects, and curate their own collection of music. The dominance of digital and streaming has left a gaping void in this, and this is a reason why vinyl has taken off – you can hold it, you have to interact with it to listen to it, it arguably sounds better, you have your own little art collection, and you have to put in much more effort to find and obtain it. CDs offer a similar experience, but it's too similar to digital to be worthwhile, so cassettes have taken off because it's a cheap and easy way for labels and artists to sell something physical. It sounds bad, but it's interesting to listen to and if you want to listen to a higher quality version you can find it online. (and if you can't, the choice of tape as a medium was intentional by the artist) It's weird to me whenever the move towards analog is written off as some vapid millennial/hipster trend. The dominance of digital and streaming services has stolen this experience from us, and we are fighting to get it back.

taeric 10y ago
Some people want this. There is clearly a large market that doesn't care and just wants to listen to some music. There is probably as large of a market that just wants background noise. Even in this... you are probably talking about a ridiculously small market. And the audio person in me cringes. At least records were high quality. Tapes are just terrible.
- zo7 10y ago
  Oh of course, it's really just limited to just people who actively seek out music, go to local/DIY events and want to support independent artists/labels. The larger market that just wants to listen has their needs more than met at this point. (arguably at the former group's expense)
- Fnoord 10y ago
  >> they want to interact with it, own physical objects, and curate their own collection of music. > Some people want this. Yep, thanks for making that point. > Even in this... you are probably talking about a ridiculously small market. A minority are physical collectors. I'm not sure how small or large it is though, but I'm sure its a minority. Owning a copy doesn't mean you own the music anyway. Also of importance is that people who listen to music on the move (during sports or workout) really don't want to mix music. Streaming audio is a compromise between full on DJing and listening to radio in the sense that the listener decides what he or she is going to listen to. So they may very well make their own playlists. But one can also pick a pre-made playlist which makes it more akin to FM radio (and you won't make your playlist during sports / workout either). The difference is the far more wide choice.

caf 10y ago

The economic advantages mentioned all apply just as much to CDs as to tapes. Unlike vinyl, you can pretty cheaply record your own CDs at home.

taylodl 10y ago

If you want an analog music medium then reel-to-reel tape is king. There's nothing like it and its sound is unparalleled. You can even use reel-to-reel for creating echo and delay musical effects.

losteverything 10y ago

School to nj one 8-track: Steve Miller's greatest hits. Over and over big ol jet airliner Rented car in salt lake. Only cassette: Aqua "I'm a Barbie girl" over and over through grand tetons and Yellowstone. No streaming memories. Sorry. Cassettes are life recalling and totally cool despite "issues"

Tiktaalik 10y ago

I bought a 1990 Mazda Miata recently and I've been pretty pleased that I can buy tapes from local indie bands at their shows to play in its tape deck.

fergie 10y ago

Music that was popular in the late '80s and early '90s always sounds good on tape. Any sort of Hiphop or heavy metal especially.

jedanbik 10y ago

Tapes can be driven/sequenced by control voltage - I think that's pretty cool. Here's an example: http://www.ondemagnetique.com http://www.ondemagnetique.com

santaclaus 10y ago

I listen to a few bands that will only release on cassette, followed by maybe a vinyl pressing. If you are lucky some generous soul will upload to youtube... From a marketing perspective the strategy seems to foster a sense of rarity and exclusivity (sort of like Snapchat's Spectacles). You are only part of the in club if you go through the effort of obtaining a (physical!) tape and the means to play said tape.

j-g-faustus 10y ago

I enjoyed cassettes. I still have a bunch, and a cassette player in my car. And I never use them over streaming audio from my phone. Why? Because this is 2017 and I'm not a hipster.