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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.
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.
There is no reason to use tape aside from "retro hipsterism". (isn't that redundant?) Tape sucks on SO many levels. Anyone who thinks it doesn't isn't old enough to have had to live with tapes. I can see it being kind of novel to someone once or twice but the charm will wear off fast. Seriously, tape has some use cases but playing music shouldn't be one of them. We used it back in the day because there wasn't anything better available.
meh, i just dusted off my minidisc player last week!
Cassetes have died long time ago and were totally pushed out by CD's.
CD's, at the same time, have been conquered by mp3/digital audios.
Now if you are talking about a bunch of retro aficionados, who collect vinyl, collect tapes, collect 35mm cameras. I am glad I do not hear that VHS tapes provide a more reliable image and have a soul.
Realistically, 140% increase is not enough to sustain increased interest in retro technology.
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.
Is this what they mean by fake news?
Who has disposable income?
You can buy a used cassette player at a garage sale for like 25 cents. The seller will throw in a pile of cassettes for free. Those of us old enough to remember the 1970s look at cassettes as garbage to be disposed of. There is no rational reason to use them, and the only reasons listed in TFA are BS like being "tangible", as if having physical clutter in your life is a good thing. Also, stupid metrics like "up 140%" are meaningless without giving the base number, which TFA doesn't.
So yearly sales went from 10 per year to 24 per year?
Haha, I kid, I kid.
What could be more "retro" than 8-track tape. Imagine pulling few of these out at your next hipster party! Yeah they play continuously and have a hearty form factor to hold the curiosity and make a case for art.
If this takes off, with my 8-Track horde I will be rich!
.....started this craze. lol :)
"Tapes were biggest mostly in noise and hardcore, where the fact that they were degraded was almost kind of an asset," says Keyes. "Because it made it sound muddier and screwed with the dynamics and the sound in an interesting way."
Translation the artistic works are so poor and of so little value its better if you don't look or listen to closely.
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I've been buying cassettes from local artists for some time now, simply because I like the form factor of the case better. They are a nice shape and stack nicer than the pile of CDs I also have. Most of the CDs remain unwrapped, just like the tapes remain unplayed. I buy these, obviously to support the artists, but as reminders to go online and play their free streams. That's how I actually listen to the music. The physical product (for me) is about artwork and reminders.
I have heard some of the non audiophile arguments for vinyl being popular, usually it is a collector piece with added inserts, special add-ons and larger better cover art. For photos some people just like film and film photography is something that people do because it is film, just like people still paint scenery even though photography does a better job of capturing it accurately. It is now basically art and carries its own unique characteristics that digital doesn't have it will likely be able to keep on like that forever. I still don't see a reason for there to be an uptick in cassette tape as there was nothing redeeming about it when it was new other than it was portable.
Time to offend someone
Clearly you haven't been paying attention. If you find a cassette deck for $.25 I strongly suggest you pick it up and throw it on ebay. My broken tape deck is selling in the neighborhood for $100 on ebay currently. I tried to buy an old 4 track recorder to salvage some band recordings I made in my teen years and I couldn't justify the expense at the current rate. They are selling for as much used as I paid for them new 25 years ago. http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html...
Unit for unit, on small runs, cassette tape is WAY cheaper than any other medium. You are wrong. Cassettes are not less expensive than pressing out a stack of CD's. If you aren't seeing that, you should find another outfit to press your CD's.
By every possible measure, CD's accomplish everything cassettes do and they do it better. I, literally, cannot think of one feature that makes cassettes better except that maybe they archive longer because they are magnetic vs optical.
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.
No, that would be from 10-14. Your numbers are a 240% increase.
Sorry but you are quite literally 100% wrong.
Essentially, yamaha MT120. I thought about just playing them in my standard tape deck and using software to flip it around and align the tracks but as I mentioned in my first post, my tape deck is broken too and I've been pissed about how expensive they are to replace. Getting back on topic though, I'm with everyone else in this thread, tapes really provide no value in this modern world. They were a hacky solution at best meant to solve the home recording problem. As a v1.0 they met the criteria but bring nothing to the party in 2017 other than sentimental memories.
>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.........
That's why thumb drives exist.. They don't skip at all.
Neither do MP3s. And the quality's better. But, I guess they're not "tangible."
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
That and they don't tend to blow-up quite as often....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
For a machine that will likely have had no maintenance and many consumable parts? If you don't mind paying half price adjusted for inflation for a used machine I've got 2000 Toyota Camry for sale right right now. Adjusted for inflation from what I paid new 2000 ($24,000) at half price (adjusted) that comes to $16,000. Current blue book is about $3000. I've probably got a washer/dryer set in a similar vintage I'm willing to make that same sweetheart deal on.
The internet is full of comments like yours so I'll pretend to take you seriously for a second. I think the reason the price is so high right now (whereas they were pennies on the dollar a few years ago) is obviously the market is hot but more importantly there is a scarcity problem. My very high end Sony ES apparently died without me realizing it despite being kept in a production setting, though never used. So many of the rubber and plastic parts have degraded on these machines in 20 or more years that many of them didn't make it into the new century. That of course and many probably went into the dust bin long ago.
Even if you want your music to pass through a "make it sound like shit" filter that is an analog cassette player, you should just run it through once and record the output onto your computer. (Bonus points if you just hold your phone up and use Voice Memo recording for extra shit sound.)
Then you can play it on your digital music player or phone without worrying about skips, while enjoying your godawful tastes in music.
whereas mod and stm files played just fine on 486 33mhz
Why UNIX?
Baby boomers retiring and trying to get their youth back.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
>For a machine that will likely have had no maintenance and many consumable parts?
In that case it's probably not in good condition - in which case I agree completely. There's no accounting for what collectors deem worthy of spending obscene amounts of money on. Heck, some idiot in Victorian England(?) supposedly traded an entire mansion for a handful of tulip bulbs.
Though I would also point out that anything still in good working condition after 25 years of use is probably one of the statistical outliers in the quality control spectrum and may well continue operating well indefinitely. Parts - that's a whole different issue, but a surprising number can be replaced without much effort from modern parts intended for other things, often with better performance.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I disagree about the physical clutter bit; I actually like having the real CDs for my music. I buy stuff on CD, then rip it to Ogg to be used on my various devices. However, there's some giant differences from cassettes:
1) CDs actually have excellent sound quality, better even than the MP3 digital downloads sold at places like Amazon.
2) CDs don't degrade when you play them.
3) CDs come with booklets that frequently have the lyrics, artwork, etc. Of course, cassettes do too, but theirs suck because the format is different. CD booklets are a nice format that's about 1/4 the size of an old LP booklet, and has a nice square aspect ratio. Cassette inserts have a terrible aspect ratio and (at least back in the 80s/90s when I used to see stuff sold both ways and was able to compare) is usually missing a lot of stuff compared to the CD version.
But you're absolutely right that there's no rational reason to use cassettes. There's absolutely nothing better about them compared to other formats. They're awful; the size is terrible, the sound quality is terrible (it was terrible even when they were current; I remember well the tape hiss problem), they wear out, you can't skip tracks, you have to rewind them, etc. This truly is a case of simple retro hipsterism, nothing more.
Neither do MP3s. And the quality's better. But, I guess they're not "tangible."
Well...let's see an uncompressed, unfiltered, band-unlimited, DRM-less analog audio stream from a cassette, or a compressed, filtered, band-limited CD or MP3?
Yeah...LPs and Cassettes are coming back b/c of how the CDs and MP3s are getting cut.
- Frequency bands deemed to high or low are cut off - removing high pitches and low pitches that while you may not be able to *hear* you can feel in some senses.
- Filters take this to another level and can often degrade it; sometimes these are used to keep people from copying them as extracting from the CD may add pops, glitches, etc (yes, I have a CD that way - no matter how good I rip it it sill has pops, etc b/c of the watermarks due to the filters applied).
- Compression is also applied, and usually is lossy. AAC, IIRC, was better than MP3 b/c it was lossless, but even then - CDs are compressed typically with lossy compressions.
Do yeah - digital tracks could be better than LP and Cassette but often aren't b/c of everything done by the studios. Yes, you can skip a lot of that stuff but then you get a lot less audio on CDs or the MP3s/AACs get to be a lot larger.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Speaking as one who lived through the period you are talking about, 8 track never really took off, except in cars. Cassettes were already big deal when I was in high school, and I graduated in '79. They just hadn't peaked yet.
In the 70s Chromium Dioxide tapes and Dolby started to appear on home stereo cassette decks, and by the end of the decade 8 tracks were largely displaced in cars by cassettes.
The thing that really made cassettes take off, however, was the Sony Walkman. That made it possible for the first time to listen to your choice of music, with reasonable fidelity, any time you wanted to. Around the same time boomboxes came in.
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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.
Well...let's see an uncompressed, unfiltered, band-unlimited, DRM-less analog audio stream from a cassette, or a compressed, filtered, band-limited CD or MP3?
I don't think any recording medium offers unlimited frequency bands, but CDs and MP3s do a pretty good job of covering the audible range. Most cassettes don't even come close.
I have a CD that way - no matter how good I rip it it sill has pops, etc b/c of the watermarks
Methinks the problem isn't with magic watermarks.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
I used to get the Maxell high bias tapes...can't remember the exact model, but those sure sounded good for the day
Maxell XL-II / XL-IIS?
I mostly used TDK SA-90. Very good sound for the price.
Still have two Nakamichi decks that I haven't used in years, but I still have tapes with music that I cannot find anywhere else, so I will play them again one day...
"... 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)".
It probably has a shitty DRM track to prevent your PC from "seeing" the music tracks. If you see a data track, look carefully at the disc under various lights and if you can identify the data track, black it out with a permanent marker (if clone cd, etc. fail) and then try ripping it. See: http://club.myce.com/f3/anothe...
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I mostly agree, but back in the day both my (high-end admittedly) home and car cassette players had a "skip track" function.
They searched for the silences between tracks, (so useless for some classical music pr jazz etc. arrangements), but otherwise worked, albeit slowly.
I listened to stuff recorded from records using high-quality tapes and Dolby B. In a noisy environment like a car, was fine.
In the home studio, not so much...
This sounds about right when I think back to the titles that my parents had. Stuff from the sixties was mostly on LP. Stuff from the seventies was a mix of LP and 8-track. Stuff from the very late seventies and eighties was on cassette.
Cassette was popular because it was small and because the physical media was reasonably durable compared to 8-track and its propensity to come apart at the glued seam. You could store at least half-again as many cassettes in the car for road trips. The audio quality wasn't the greatest but being able to have a dozen tapes in the glove compartment or center console to cycle through made up for it. It was also the first format that was easily portable, we had several knockoff-walkmans when I was a kid because it was an easy and cheap way to keep us entertained.
There is no reason to resurrect the cassette other than nostalgia. Having had to deal with tape decks in cars that ate tapes I have no problem stating that CD was much better, and solid state media is even better still for those stereos that accept flash media or USB media.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I've got 2000 Toyota Camry for sale right right now. Adjusted for inflation from what I paid new 2000 ($24,000) at half price (adjusted) that comes to $16,000. Current blue book is about $3000.
Does it have a functioning tape deck?
Number 1 reason cassettes were popular: you could record to them yourself.
Vinyl ruled most of the 80's. Cassettes allowed you to make your own mix tape for home, walkman or car. Prerecorded cassettes never came close to vinyl sales, except maybe with truck drivers, and I bet most of those were 'best of" mix tapes.
The maximum signal-to-noise ratio you can get from a cassette tape is between 60 and 65 dB (depends on the type of tape, Fe, Cr, Ferrochrome, Metal). The CD offers 96 dB. A cassette tape is really, really band limited. Above 16 kHz, it won't record anything meaningful. Below 50 Hz the same. A tape has not enough band reserves to even record VHF radio while preserving quality.
To add some context to that price you could buy a VW bug in 1968 for just shy of 2k.
http://www.adclassix.com/ads/6...
The compact cassette became popular for automobiles in the early 60's.
You could buy a high end tape deck for more than the cost of a brand new car.
Imagine spending 25k or more on a tape deck today, and you see what the value really looks like.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
A headphone jack? How retro!
E pluribus unum