A Global Shortage of Magnetic Tape Leaves Cassette Fans Reeling (wsj.com)

A reader shares a report: Steve Stepp and his team of septuagenarian engineers are using a bag of rust, a kitchen mixer larger than a man and a 62-foot-long contraption that used to make magnetic strips for credit cards to avert a disaster that no one saw coming in the digital-music era. The world is running out of cassette tape (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternative source). National Audio Co., where Mr. Stepp is president and co-owner, has been hoarding a stockpile of music-quality, an-eighth of an inch-wide magnetic tape from suppliers that shut down in the past 15 years after music lovers ditched cassettes. National Audio held on. Now, many musicians are clamoring for cassettes as a way to physically distribute their music. The company says it has less than a year's supply of tape left. So it is building the first manufacturing line for high-grade ferric oxide cassette tape in the U.S. in decades. If all goes well, the machine will churn out nearly 4 miles of tape a minute by January. And not just any tape. "The best tape ever made," boasts Mr. Stepp, 69 years old. "People will hear a whole new product."

Comments

Doin' it wrong, son.

[geekmux]

"Now, many musicians are clamoring for cassettes as a way to physically distribute their music."

Don't you idiots know anything? Vinyl is where it's at in 2017. GTFO with this new-old cassette bullshit.

Fuckin' Millennials. Can't even do pointless hipster retro right.

Re:I still use them

[DontBeAMoran]

I buy music from iTunes, burn it to CD, rip it to MP3, press a vinyl, scan the vinyl at 1200dpi, fax the scan to myself, save it in JPEG at 20% quality, use software to reconstruct the audio and record the end result to cassette tape.

Sometimes I don't even notice if it's the cassette tape playing or if I'm just listening to an empty AM/FM channel.

Re:Nice Pun

[DontBeAMoran]

I only got the "leaves cassette fans reeling" part.

Re: I still use them

[DontBeAMoran]

Shit, you're right. It should have been:

I buy music from iTunes, burn it to CD, rip it to MP3, 3D-print a record with nylon filament, scan the 3D print at 1200dpi, fax the scan to myself, save it in JPEG at 20% quality, use software to reconstruct the audio and record the end result to cassette tape.

No, not cassette

[boudie2]

I'm holding out, waiting for them to bring back elcaset.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: I still use them

[MightyYar]

Did you feel like a real man?

Only when I stuck my dick in it.