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Cassettes are coming back in a big way. They never totally died in the underground metal world, especially black metal, but they’re bigger right now that at any

Cassettes are coming back in a big way. They never totally died in the underground metal world, especially black metal, but they’re bigger right now that at any time in my 20-ish years of recording and releasing music. They have a few benefits: extremely cheap to make and ship. Easy to store in a small apartment, car, pocket. More durable than a CD. Imperfect and grimy in a way that feels appropriate for underground music that celebrates rawness. My new album was released at the end of September and it’s selling well across all formats but the only ones where we’re sold out: limited edition vinyl colors and — you guessed it — cassettes. After years of fighting it, I’m finally getting a new tape player for Christmas. I’m a digital audio guy but so many albums that I want to listen to can only be found on YouTube or tape and I want to support the bands directly. I can get a modern unit complete with rechargeable battery and Bluetooth for $160. https://www.wearerewind.com/ https://www.wearerewind.com/ Finally, I can use my AirPod Max headphones to listen to a $6 raw black metal cassette as the Dark Lord intended.

glxxyz 3y ago
New tape decks are poor quality, even wearerewind which puts it in a cool package uses the only new mechanism still manufactured, same as everyone else: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WleZGWAebsY&t=33s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WleZGWAebsY&t=33s . It may be fine for some genres though ;) The only way to play cassettes with high fidelity is to use a vintage tape deck, some of them are amazing.
BLKNSLVR 3y ago
> More durable than a CD This irks me. Not that it's not true, but that tapes come with protective packaging intrinsic to the tape itself, whilst CDs are the raw media that you actually touch with your fingers etc. CDs, way back when, were touted as the future not only because of their increased capacity for sound quality but also, ironically, their durability. Would CDs be actually more durable if they were also packaged with a small plastic exterior that was insertable into the player, like tapes? (Tape as raw medium isn't very durable if treated the same way as a CD. Tape needs that plastic exterior to even be viable).
- c1sc0 3y ago
  That you are describing is called MiniDisc.
- hinoki 3y ago
  CD caddies existed for a brief time. I think early drives were much more sensitive to dust and scratches. https://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/842/retro-scan-of-the-week-cd-rom-caddy https://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/842/retr...
- lelanthran 3y ago
  This actually existed; I remember, back in my youth, handling an optical disc for a Sun machine that was packaged the same way that floppies were - within a hard plastic enclosure with a little sliding mechanism that was activated by pushing the package into the slot (exactly the way 3.5" floppies worked).
  - genewitch 3y ago
    Also DVD-RAM, when in the writer, had a shell. The single sided ones could be removed from the shell easily and put in a DVD drive (I do not recall if they worked in a regular DVD player) One of the biggest wastes of money, for me. I got way more use out of my minidisc stuff, which is another optical disc in a case. In fact I still have my net-MD recorder/player, and it works fine.
    - devilbunny 3y ago
      Oh, if only they hadn't jacked up MiniDisc with all the copyright-related stuff. A beautiful replacement for the convenience of cassettes (portability, battery life) with most of the benefits of CD (better sound, can't be eaten by the motors). Unfortunately expensive and never took off in the US.
  - rickdeckard 3y ago
    Yeah, my first CD-ROM drive was like this [1], the enclosure could be opened to place the CD inside. The drive came with one enclosure, I'm not aware that anyone (including me) ever bothered buying additional enclosures. This surely wasn't helped by the fact that Audio-CD's (with their mechanical trays) were already widespread and produced at large volume without such a cartridge-enclosure... [1]: https://www.clous.cz/wp-content/gallery/creative-cr-521-c/Creative-CR-521-C-3.jpg https://www.clous.cz/wp-content/gallery/creative-cr-521-c/Cr...
LeoPanthera 3y ago
Caveat Emptor. The "We are rewind" player is absolutely awful quality. There are any number of reviews of it around, here's one from a respected YouTuber: https://youtu.be/WleZGWAebsY https://youtu.be/WleZGWAebsY

glxxyz 3y ago

New tape decks are poor quality, even wearerewind which puts it in a cool package uses the only new mechanism still manufactured, same as everyone else: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WleZGWAebsY&t=33s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WleZGWAebsY&t=33s . It may be fine for some genres though ;) The only way to play cassettes with high fidelity is to use a vintage tape deck, some of them are amazing.

BLKNSLVR 3y ago

> More durable than a CD This irks me. Not that it's not true, but that tapes come with protective packaging intrinsic to the tape itself, whilst CDs are the raw media that you actually touch with your fingers etc. CDs, way back when, were touted as the future not only because of their increased capacity for sound quality but also, ironically, their durability. Would CDs be actually more durable if they were also packaged with a small plastic exterior that was insertable into the player, like tapes? (Tape as raw medium isn't very durable if treated the same way as a CD. Tape needs that plastic exterior to even be viable).

c1sc0 3y ago
That you are describing is called MiniDisc.
hinoki 3y ago
CD caddies existed for a brief time. I think early drives were much more sensitive to dust and scratches. https://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/842/retro-scan-of-the-week-cd-rom-caddy https://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/842/retr...
lelanthran 3y ago
This actually existed; I remember, back in my youth, handling an optical disc for a Sun machine that was packaged the same way that floppies were - within a hard plastic enclosure with a little sliding mechanism that was activated by pushing the package into the slot (exactly the way 3.5" floppies worked).
- genewitch 3y ago
  Also DVD-RAM, when in the writer, had a shell. The single sided ones could be removed from the shell easily and put in a DVD drive (I do not recall if they worked in a regular DVD player) One of the biggest wastes of money, for me. I got way more use out of my minidisc stuff, which is another optical disc in a case. In fact I still have my net-MD recorder/player, and it works fine.
  - devilbunny 3y ago
    Oh, if only they hadn't jacked up MiniDisc with all the copyright-related stuff. A beautiful replacement for the convenience of cassettes (portability, battery life) with most of the benefits of CD (better sound, can't be eaten by the motors). Unfortunately expensive and never took off in the US.
- rickdeckard 3y ago
  Yeah, my first CD-ROM drive was like this [1], the enclosure could be opened to place the CD inside. The drive came with one enclosure, I'm not aware that anyone (including me) ever bothered buying additional enclosures. This surely wasn't helped by the fact that Audio-CD's (with their mechanical trays) were already widespread and produced at large volume without such a cartridge-enclosure... [1]: https://www.clous.cz/wp-content/gallery/creative-cr-521-c/Creative-CR-521-C-3.jpg https://www.clous.cz/wp-content/gallery/creative-cr-521-c/Cr...

LeoPanthera 3y ago

Caveat Emptor. The "We are rewind" player is absolutely awful quality. There are any number of reviews of it around, here's one from a respected YouTuber: https://youtu.be/WleZGWAebsY https://youtu.be/WleZGWAebsY