4 ms·

what is the appeal of cassette sound effects / analog cassette sounds? is it nostalgia?

speedgoose 2mo ago
Nostalgia for sure, but it also makes the sound less perfect in a way that can be interesting musically. It adds harmonics, slightly detune everything, compresses, adds noise. It's a good tool to make a sound that sound very artificial, sharp, perfect, into something more soft and perhaps interesting to some.
- sandworm101 2mo ago
  Ie they sounded like crap. Those of us old enough to live through the tail end of cassettes loathed them. Just like records before tape, every time you played them they sounded a little worse than the last time. And you rolled the dice on whether your player would eat the cassette. CDs were like magic. Nobody should look back.
  - TrojanHookworm 2mo ago
    Those qualities are exactly what makes the casette/analogue sound appealing to some ('organic', 'imperfect' etc.) Sonic aesthetics cannot be reduced to a question of fidelity alone.
  - speedgoose 2mo ago
    I’m old enough. The bad sound quality is the point. It’s like emulating old video games. On a perfect display it doesn’t look very pleasing but if you add CRT and NTSC analog artefacts, it may have some charms.
  - LearnYouALisp 2mo ago
    No, it's not quite...
  - overfeed 2mo ago
    > Nobody should look back Vinyl has outsold CDs for many consecutive years in the recent past. A strong retro-trend is booming right now with (mostly young) people rebelling against things that are aesthetically too sharp or crisp. The imperfections you decry, are seen as "authentic". A few people are paying more for their wedding to be recorded on an old SD Camcorder rather than 8k. I suspect it's part of a whiplash against (tech) companies "ruining everything" and a yearning for a simpler time by people too young to have experienced it
    - sandworm101 2mo ago
      Simpler time my ass. Try organizing anything without email or cellphones. It was hell. Filming your wedding on vhs isnt nostalgia when you also have a hundred iphones in the room. Nostalgia would be using a VHS only to have it fail and your wedding video disappear... forever. It's up their with nostalgia for slide rules and cars without seatbelts: they seems cool now because you do not have to actually rely on such things.
  - LocalH 2mo ago
    Tell me you've never heard a good Type IV recording without saying you've never heard a good Type IV recording.

Nostalgia for sure, but it also makes the sound less perfect in a way that can be interesting musically. It adds harmonics, slightly detune everything, compresses, adds noise. It's a good tool to make a sound that sound very artificial, sharp, perfect, into something more soft and perhaps interesting to some.

sandworm101 2mo ago
Ie they sounded like crap. Those of us old enough to live through the tail end of cassettes loathed them. Just like records before tape, every time you played them they sounded a little worse than the last time. And you rolled the dice on whether your player would eat the cassette. CDs were like magic. Nobody should look back.
- TrojanHookworm 2mo ago
  Those qualities are exactly what makes the casette/analogue sound appealing to some ('organic', 'imperfect' etc.) Sonic aesthetics cannot be reduced to a question of fidelity alone.
- speedgoose 2mo ago
  I’m old enough. The bad sound quality is the point. It’s like emulating old video games. On a perfect display it doesn’t look very pleasing but if you add CRT and NTSC analog artefacts, it may have some charms.
- LearnYouALisp 2mo ago
  No, it's not quite...
- overfeed 2mo ago
  > Nobody should look back Vinyl has outsold CDs for many consecutive years in the recent past. A strong retro-trend is booming right now with (mostly young) people rebelling against things that are aesthetically too sharp or crisp. The imperfections you decry, are seen as "authentic". A few people are paying more for their wedding to be recorded on an old SD Camcorder rather than 8k. I suspect it's part of a whiplash against (tech) companies "ruining everything" and a yearning for a simpler time by people too young to have experienced it
  - sandworm101 2mo ago
    Simpler time my ass. Try organizing anything without email or cellphones. It was hell. Filming your wedding on vhs isnt nostalgia when you also have a hundred iphones in the room. Nostalgia would be using a VHS only to have it fail and your wedding video disappear... forever. It's up their with nostalgia for slide rules and cars without seatbelts: they seems cool now because you do not have to actually rely on such things.
- LocalH 2mo ago
  Tell me you've never heard a good Type IV recording without saying you've never heard a good Type IV recording.