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Cassettes Are Back, and Booming (fastcompany.com)
Long time reader harrymcc writes: By now, it isn't news that vinyl albums continue to sell, even in the Spotify era. But a new report says that sales of music on cassette are up 140 percent. The antiquated format is being embraced by everyone from indie musicians to Eminem and Justin Bieber. Fast Company's John Paul Titlow took a look at tape's unexpected revival, and why it's not solely about retro hipsterism.
Remember, if you sold 1 last and you sold 2 this year, you increased sales by 100%.
I've seen this game far more than I'd care to count on the sales side.
Sorry, it's not a complete explanation.
I'm an indy musician.
I don't have a lot of cash, and I don't have a lot of sales.
Unit for unit, on small runs, cassette tape is WAY cheaper than any other medium.
Cassette audio fidelity (or lack thereof) is a fine match for my typical output.
And for people who want digital fidelity, I include a slip of paper with a download code.
But yes, from a marketing and artistic standpoint, having a physical product on offer for those who want it is important, and no, streaming and digital downloads alone don't satisfy that need.
Yes, I was around for cassettes the first time. I was around before CDs. I know all the arguments, and have lived through them. Your casual dismissal is just incorrect.
You can get 100 CD's (printed disks in jewel case) for $139 does anyone do small cassette runs for less than $1.39/piece?
Blank CD-R's are 10 - 20 cents a piece in bulk if you have a very small run and want to record your own.
And more importantly, how do you find fans that still own cassette players? I don't even own a CD player anymore, all my disks get copied digitally, then they get packed away in a big CD wallet, never to be seen again. The last time I bought music from a small indie band, they emailed me a link where I could download it.
TFS says the sales are up 140%. What if they were up by "only" 40%? Wouldn't they raise from 10 to 14?
10 to 24 is a 140% increase, or 240% of the original value.
I do a lot of work with indie bands anything from musical arrangements to graphic art I don't know any that are selling cassettes. They like to go with CDs because they are cheaper and ship faster, digital download cards are really popular too.
Doesn't a CD-R cost like 50 cents? Is recording a cassette really cheaper than burning a CD?
Oh god no, they're waaaaaaaay less than that:
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=n...
600 discs for $83 is 0.13 per disc and there are lots of similar deals.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
>They are selling for as much used as I paid for them new 25 years ago.
So, considerably less than half-price in inflation adjusted dollars? That sounds reasonable for used products in good working condition.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
But, back then, you didn't BUY pre-recorded cassettes...those just sucked.
To get the best quality out of them back in the day, you recorded your vinyl album onto them....I used to get the Maxell high bias tapes...can't remember the exact model, but those sure sounded good for the day.
Now.....if they brought back Reel-To-Reel tape and tape decks again, I might be interested in that.
I never got one back in the day, but I sure wanted one...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Oh man. Buy a cheap USB interface for your computer. Get a copy (free, full version, not limited in any way) of Cockos Reaper. You'll never look back. For $50, you can get something that has a decent mic preamp and you'll be able to multitrack like Sgt Pepper.
Go to Guitar Center when they have a sale or look on Amazon. Then, you get a free account at Soundcloud and you'll be able to distribute your music without having to use any physical media at all.
You are welcome on my lawn.
whereas mod and stm files played just fine on 486 33mhz
Why UNIX?
This. Many years ago I took a relatively high end 3 head cassette deck (around 500 bucks which was a fortune back in the 70's) and hooked it up to a spectrum analyzer to get distortion and response curves. Lets just say anything above about 8KHz was a disaster. Yes relatively flat if you kept the levels at about -30db, but then the noise floor was right below. At reasonable input levels of -10 or -5 db, it was anything but flat. Wow and flutter was not good either. There was a reason why pro's used reel to reel for master tapes.
Well...let's see an uncompressed, unfiltered, band-unlimited, DRM-less analog audio stream from a cassette, ...
Clearly you've never mastered audio for cassette output. Typical compact cassette tape will start rolling-off around 12-14kHz; chrome tape will get you 16kHz; metal will get you close to 20kHz. Tape ain't the holy grail, as limitations of the medium impose compression, filtering, and band limitation (just in the analog domain.)
I just checked, and I can get 100 CD-Rs for $12 retail all day long. So my band can release a single on CD in an audio-CD format, or as a data disc with a raw uncompressed bit file. I can master this from the kitchen of my apartment, just like the article says.
In spite of the article claiming "this isn't another display of analog hipsterism," oh yes it is.
"... meaningless without giving the base number ..."
From the report the article was based on:
"There were 11,489 cassettes purchased during the Holiday Season (an increase of 140% over 2015)".
Everyone. Disposable income is simply income after taxes and social security. If you had no disposable income you'd be begging on the street for food.
You're probably talking about discretionary income, which is income after taxes, social security and basic living costs, but even then we're still talking about nearly everyone. You got cable? You have discretionary income? Mobile phone? Yep discretionary income.