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Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

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Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#41

Post by everyone »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #35
everyone wrote: post #13

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 fact that you could easily record onto cassette was a BIG bonus. I really liked minidisc for about 2 years, but it was gone in a flash.

The minidisc players themselves were amazing at recording too. Mine has built in compression and normalization when recording. I've recorded a load of gigs with a tiny clip on mic powered by an AA battery. I got very good sound quality, better then any bootleg Ive heard not taken of the mixing desk.

Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#42

Post by taeric »

zo7 wrote: post #36

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…

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.

Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#43

Post by caf »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #25
at-fates-hands wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 ). They were also anything but "compact" compared to cassettes. And are you old enough to…

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.

Well, those 60 year old vinyl records that are still playable were no doubt treated pretty reverentially by their owner over that time.

CDs that were handled as carefully as people handle vinyl have lasted at least as well (I don't have any 30 year old CDs but I do have some just getting to 20 years, and those still play fine).

Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#44

Post by maxxxxx »

zo7 wrote: post #36

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…

Good point. That's probably like driving stick shift vs. automatic. Automatic may better but stick shift "feels" better.

I have noticed that with writing software. I sometimes think it would be really nice to have something tangible you can touch as a result of my work.

Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#45

Post by Nav_Panel »

mrob wrote: post #33
Nav_Panel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 multiface…

If the sonic characteristics complement the music then write it to tape during production before transferring it to a medium with accurate sound reproduction. You don't need every listener to have their own tape hardware (which might not suit the music as well as your own).

A lot of our feelings about music are bound up in our expectations of the medium. When I listen to a digital recording, I expect it to be pristine. There can be a feeling of inauthenticity when the sonic characteristics don't match the actual playback medium. This feeling can persist even for separate analog media, such as listen to compilations of old 78s distributed on an LP.

If you feel you can overcome this, by all means do so -- people often rip their cassette tapes and share. But putting the album on a cassette tape or on bandcamp or on vinyl sets an expectation in terms of fidelity, and violating that expectation can disappoint some listeners. It's a similar reason for why "fake vinyl crackle" is seen as incredibly cheesy.

Regardless of my (personal, hipster) feelings, the technique you mention is relatively commonplace.

Also, for some artists, the unpredictability and randomness can be seen as part of the experience, but it takes a very particular/unusually postmodern sort of artist to get away with that.

Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#46

Post by [deleted] »

clock_tower wrote: post #29
RileyKyeden wrote: post #19

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

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-b…

[deleted]

Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#48

Post by sago »

RileyKyeden wrote: post #19

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

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.

Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#49

Post by taeric »

maxxxxx wrote: post #44
zo7 wrote: post #36

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…

Good point. That's probably like driving stick shift vs. automatic. Automatic may better but stick shift "feels" better. I have noticed that with writing software. I sometimes think it would be really nice to have something tangible you can touch as a result of my work.

Is automatic better nowdays? I thought the physics sided on manual. Granted, I also thought it was ultimately a wash.

Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#50

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

fsiefken wrote: post #17

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-ta…

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?

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