
Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off - oska
https://www.fastcompany.com/3067073/musics-weird-cassette-tape-revival-is-paying-off
======
everyone
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 only reason to use them is some
form of conspicuous consumption, signaling how cool and wacky u are.

additional, if u really want a kooky old physical medium go with minidiscs!
They were amazing!

~~~
lb1lf
>(...)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

-This, with all due respect, is a myth. Much as I love my LPs, by any objective criteria the CD (or any digital media) beats them handsomely. Dynamic range, frequency response, noise floor, channel separation - even on the best mastered, half-speed cut, heavy vinyl albums noise and distortion is orders of magnitude larger than on any competently mastered CD.

Note 'competently mastered'; it is unarguably true that some recordings are
destroyed during mastering for CD as part of the so-called loudness wars; this
problem is less of an issue when mastering for vinyl as the audience buying
LPs often do so precisely to escape from the loudness wars and the problems
caused by it.

However, this is a defect by decision; it is not due to any inherent
limitation of the CD medium compared to the LP.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
I thought it was an inherent limitation in LPs (track skipping probability
increases with loudness) that meant they are not mastered into oblivion like
CDs?

~~~
lb1lf
-If you wanted to, you could master an LP with 0 dynamic range; it would work just fine. (Provided the average signal level was low enough to keep the needle from going haywire attempting to follow the LF grooves)

What quickly becomes a problem for LPs is too much energy in the LF/bass
region, which will cause the needle to skip and jump all over the place.

The RIAA correction curve is a measure to alleviate this problem, as it
strongly emphasizes low frequencies on playback (and, inversely, reduces them
before cutting the master disc, leaving much less LF content in the grooves
than would otherwise be needed for accurate reproduction.)

I suspect (Mind, this is just a guess) that when someone says an album has 'a
separate master for vinyl', what they are really saying is that someone took a
copy of the album master before it was sent through the last loudness war
compressor - and sent that copy to the LP plant, using the compressed-as-heck
master for any other format.

~~~
beat
There's a lot more to mastering than "sent through the last loudness war
compressor", for cd as well as vinyl. Not a guess - I've sat in the room with
a mastering engineer while working and talked to him about it.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Do elaborate, please! :)

~~~
beat
Mastering at album-length is largely about _coherence_... making a bunch of
separately recorded things with often wildly varying sounds sound like a
single piece of music. It involves a combination of gentle compression and
brickwall limiting, broadband equalization and high-Q deep-cut equalization.
Some of it is visual metrics (especially looking for frequency problems), and
some of it is just ears. A good master will sound good on _any_ playback
equipment. This is where I point and laugh at all the people lauding the
"accuracy" of their favorite medium. Speakers and amps are the limiting
factor, not the medium! I've been dinged by a mastering engineer for
accidentally having a 32hz synth tone (a sub-bass sound) on a mix. He eq'd it
away. My mixing system couldn't reproduce it - hardly any can. But it wastes
tremendous power and distorts amps and speakers, so out it goes.

For cd, it's usually brickwall-limited to no more than 10db max dynamic range
(often no more than 6db). This makes things sound "better" on typical playback
equipment, which is... not good, compared to the sound of live instruments in
a room.

Vinyl is a different beast. It needs RIAA equalization on the master (which is
reverse-eq'd by the playback equipment) to managed the size of bass grooves
and keep the needle from jumping out of the track, and to make the highs
physically big enough for the needle to pick up well. Dynamics are constrained
by the physical limitations of the media. So it's a separate master.

That's not a big deal, though. The constraints of vinyl slot in quite well
with the constraints of speakers and amps! This is why vinyl, despite its on-
paper inferiority, can sound as good or better than digital.

But in the end, it's all about the speakers. I mix on a pair of Tannoy System
12 speakers and an old UREI studio amp that would be the envy of many hi-fi
nerds - but I don't consider a mix done until it sounds good on my stock
iPhone earbuds and shitty car stereo. Mix to the output, not the medium.

------
gumby
I can't believe they wrote this article without mentioning the Dead Kennedys
and their album "In God We Trust, Inc". The cassette version came with all the
songs on the A side. The B side says "Home taping is killing record industry
profits! We left this side blank so you can help." I still have mine
someplace, with some corporate machine music recorded on the B side.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_We_Trust,_Inc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_We_Trust,_Inc).

~~~
woofyman
There's a bow wow wow song "c30 c60 c90 go"

------
zo7
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 effort to find and obtain it. CDs offer a similar
experience, but it's _too_ similar to digital to be worthwhile, so cassettes
have taken off because it's a cheap and easy way for labels and artists to
sell something physical. It sounds bad, but it's interesting to listen to and
if you want to listen to a higher quality version you can find it online. (and
if you can't, the choice of tape as a medium was intentional by the artist)

It's weird to me whenever the move towards analog is written off as some vapid
millennial/hipster trend. The dominance of digital and streaming services has
stolen this experience from us, and we are fighting to get it back.

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
>The dominance of digital and streaming services has stolen this experience
from us, and we are fighting to get it back.

I used to collect books. It was a big part of my life.

Now I pretty much only buy books on Kindle. I almost sort-of miss buying
books. But only in theory. In practice I much prefer having my current library
_in my pocket at all times._

Same with music. I have my entire library on my hard drive, and I can copy
large portions of it onto my phone and/or the USB flash drive I keep in my
pocket. I don't touch the physical CDs unless I think a rip didn't work right,
and then only long enough to re-rip the music. When I buy new music I don't
even get physical CDs any more.

Mix tapes? I could potentially just stick that same USB drive into a friend's
computer and copy all the music he thinks I might want to try out. Many
_hours_ of music, in a few seconds of transfer. Try that on tapes.

Not that I'd do that, of course, since it would be illegal, and I certainly
wouldn't post about doing illegal things on HN. :P

Playlists also do exist, and I use them. I do miss the ability to transfer a
playlist to someone else -- they don't transfer very well, given their
dependency on paths to the music -- but not enough to wish for tapes back into
my life. Besides, when I make a playlist today, my "mix" often has many hours
of music in it; I've had playlists with over 40 hours of music, and I enjoy
hitting "shuffle" and listening to all the songs in a different order.

But the point is, while I believe you that "people" want do interact with
physical objects, I think it is a minority of people who want that. A very
small minority. Because the digital experience is just strictly _better_. And
most people, especially people who've been stuck using tapes because they were
the only option at the time, realize that tapes in fact suck.

~~~
guitarbill
> In practice I much prefer having my current library in my pocket at all
> times.

This. Once I got a Kindle, I actually read _more_. Because you know it's
convenient and has a build in light. Spotify let's you publish/share
playlists, so that's also sorted.

The only issue I have is that you don't really own anything. I just de-DRM
Kindle books and assume that the availability of songs I like to listen to
will increase in the future because royalties will cost less for older songs.
Who knows what I'll be listening to in 10 years time?

I'd also say not having a collection of <x> as a proxy for <personality trait
y> has made my house more welcoming, less pretentious and makes moving easy.
Not saying that you can't have a collection for pure enjoyment, or that
everybody who has one is compensating, but if you think your collections "says
something about you", it probably does but not in the way you want.

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
I've been on Pandora forever, but not Spotify. Maybe I should defect.

------
beamatronic
I'm surprised to see no mention here of recording songs from the radio. I used
to do this quite a bit. Of course sometimes you would record a little before
or a little after the song, getting DJ's talking, callers, ads. Those tapes
now have a little bit of historical information that isn't available anywhere
else.

------
niftich
The article makes a very astute point: that people are attracted to the
physicality, the tangibility of "analog" things. Whether out of nostalgia
(because we've been there) or retro fascination (when we haven't lived it
firsthand), we can develop an emotional connection with a single physical
objects that succinctly and permanently hold an abstract concept in a physical
package -- like a letter, a book, a music record, or a photograph.

In the digital world so much of what we produce, consume, and interact with
has no physical manifestation what we can strongly identify with. The computer
is an abstract filing cabinet which can display what you're looking for on its
own screen, or plays abstract 'music files', or streams 'video' from
subscription apps. We're essentially asking the computer to recall these
things from its "memory", and luckily, they remember with exact accuracy much
more than a human would. While we can experience these things, we can't hold
them in our hand; we can't share them in a self-contained, self-describing
form (like handing someone a book) -- if we can share them at all.

(Originally posted by me on 'Tom Hanks about Typewriters' [1])

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12208662#12211034](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12208662#12211034)

~~~
slfnflctd
Yeah, sharing a link to a book or an album doesn't exactly have the same heft
as handing or shipping a physical copy to someone. I think it's good to prefer
physical (when possible) with stuff that's more personally important.

------
caidh
I still remember my first 'data' medium on my first computer was cassette
tapes, the same ones used for regular audio. Dear God they were slow...
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette)

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

~~~
clock_tower
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-based company, which did more business in 2014 than at any
other point since its factory opened in 1969."

------
losteverything
School to nj one 8-track: Steve Miller's greatest hits. Over and over big ol
jet airliner

Rented car in salt lake. Only cassette: Aqua "I'm a Barbie girl" over and over
through grand tetons and Yellowstone.

No streaming memories.

Sorry. Cassettes are life recalling and totally cool despite "issues"

------
taylodl
If you want an analog music medium then reel-to-reel tape is king. There's
nothing like it and its sound is unparalleled. You can even use reel-to-reel
for creating echo and delay musical effects.

------
jedanbik
Tapes can be driven/sequenced by control voltage - I think that's pretty cool.

Here's an example:

[http://www.ondemagnetique.com](http://www.ondemagnetique.com)

------
santaclaus
I listen to a few bands that will only release on cassette, followed by maybe
a vinyl pressing. If you are lucky some generous soul will upload to
youtube...

From a marketing perspective the strategy seems to foster a sense of rarity
and exclusivity (sort of like Snapchat's Spectacles). You are only part of the
in club if you go through the effort of obtaining a (physical!) tape and the
means to play said tape.

------
robhanlon
For smaller artists/bands/etc, it's a lot easier to get a small run of tapes
than a small run of vinyl. If you're not sure you're going to make any money,
then a tape can be a fun way to get some physical product for cheap that has
some (perhaps questionable, perhaps nice) character to its sound. You also get
more of that "album feel" because they're difficult to seek through.

------
fsiefken
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-tape. The linear user interface is very simple.
My car only has a tape deck and a radio... it didn't have anything else.. so
now I use a 3.5 audio jack cable to tape converter thingy to play my podcasts
from my phone through the tape adapter to get the audio to my carspeakers.
There is a very annoying periodic tick I have no clue were it's coming from
but at least I am downward compatible... come to think of it - now I can play
all those tapes I have stuffed away somewhere!

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
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?

~~~
alistoriv
For starters, not everybody can afford that kinda stuff. The comment you're
replying to even talks about how his car only has a tape player and a radio.
This cassette revival is primarily happening with young people who are in
college or have otherwise low paying jobs (or no jobs). A lot of young people
have old used cars with cassette players. For people in bands, as well,
putting out music on a cassette is the most cost effective way to put out
music physically.

And to address the bit about the phone, you'd be surprised how fast phone
storage fills up with other stuff. My (admittedly several years old) phone's
8gb storage is more than half filled by system bloat so I have to use an sd
card to put music on it. And that's not even including apps. This,
unfortunately, isn't really an option anymore for the vast majority of phones
(with the notable exception of most Samsung phones).

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
$5 gets you a gadget that will stream music from a headphone jack into a tape
player in a car. I had one for my last car; it worked great. Or are these
folks so poor they don't even have a smart phone? "Free with plan" Android
phones can easily play tons of music. Yes they fill up, but many do have an SD
card option.

Or you can spend $15 on an MP3 player (or pick one up at a thrift store for
less). Considering tapes cost more than digital tracks, you'd save enough by
buying digital to pay for the MP3 player and the cassette adapter by just
forgoing a couple of tapes.

As to "cost effective": Blank tapes cost _way more_ than blank CD-Rs. A quick
search finds 30 name-brand discs for six bucks [0], and I've seen them less
than $0.01 each in bulk. [0b] Tapes cost nearly a dollar each.

Almost everyone, in college or otherwise, needs to have a computer, or has
access to one (libraries!), and most inexpensive computers have CD-Rs. If you
_don 't_ have a CD burner in your computer, one costs less than a decent
cassette recorder. $11.99 on Amazon will get you one, in fact. [1]

And it will be faster to make copies onto CDs, and the copies will be strictly
better, than using tape.

Tapes are simply a retro "style" thing. They're not cheaper, and they suck.
Trying to justify them in any way just doesn't work.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-Branded-
Recordable-30-Disc-9...](https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-Branded-
Recordable-30-Disc-95152/dp/B000FN476U)

[0b] [https://www.amazon.com/Smartbuy-700mb-80min-
Recordable-1000-...](https://www.amazon.com/Smartbuy-700mb-80min-
Recordable-1000-Disc/dp/B00K6NDNPA)

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-XuBlack-External-Supports-
Co...](https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-XuBlack-External-Supports-
Computer/dp/B01MTKMDVA)

------
sandworm101
Cassettes might be fun for young people, but those of us old enough to
remember when they were the only real option couldnt care less. They sounded
bad. They required complicated mecanical trickery to use. They broke,
sometimes taking the player along with them. Good riddance. CDs were better in
every single way.

Also, the cassette-playing tech today is far better than it was. Listen ro
them without noise reduction tech. Scan for a song without silence detection.
Then come back and brag about your vintage sony walkman.

~~~
to3m
Good riddance? Good _fucking_ riddance, more like.

Tapes are shit. Hiss, flutter, wow, head misalignment, Dolby NR. "Ah, which
Dolby NR?" \- well, _exactly_. And we haven't even got onto Type I vs Type II
vs Type IV, and your C120s that snap if you so much as look at them, and the
tapes that get tangled and snagged and melted in your car stereo, because
they're right next to some air ducts that blow fan-assisted hot air from a big
lump of hot metal barely half a metre away.

Also, tapes are a useless size. CDs hold like 70 minutes. So you have a C60,
and it's not enough, or a C90, and it's too much - even assuming you don't
have any bin-packing problems.

Honest to god. Tapes. TAPES.

If you like the sound (what _is_ wrong with people??), then for God's sake, at
least record from your stupid tape deck to the PC, then FLAC it, because then
at least you'll avoid that fast forward and rewind nonsense. Battery life on
MP3 players is a lot better too.

I don't know what to say.

EDIT: classic quantity/quality tradeoff: exchanged intemperate language for
the FLAC suggestion

EDIT 2: I think this is the first time in a long time I've seen the word
"weird" used in a link and it's actually appropriate

~~~
sandworm101
The one tiny upside: total lack of DRM. It isn't much, but it is something
worth saying.

~~~
djrogers
> total lack of DRM

Well yeah - there's no D so you can't have DRM. Tapes have a built in
mechanism to prevent rampant copying though - they degrade with each
generation.

------
Tiktaalik
I bought a 1990 Mazda Miata recently and I've been pretty pleased that I can
buy tapes from local indie bands at their shows to play in its tape deck.

------
fergie
Music that was popular in the late '80s and early '90s always sounds good on
tape. Any sort of Hiphop or heavy metal especially.

------
j-g-faustus
I enjoyed cassettes. I still have a bunch, and a cassette player in my car.
And I never use them over streaming audio from my phone. Why? Because this is
2017 and I'm not a hipster.

------
caf
The economic advantages mentioned all apply just as much to CDs as to tapes.
Unlike vinyl, you can pretty cheaply record your own CDs at home.

------
qzxvwt
do you really think all art should be universally accessible and as convenient
as possible? do you really think you can have meaningful experiences with that
mindset?

------
tapes
i love tapes.

