CASSETTE GENERAL

CASSETTE GENERAL

Literally what in the fuck am I supposed to do with these things

sell them for money when the band gets famous

Just ordered this tape

And what if they don't? What possible purpose do these things serve? I don't even understand the nostalgia thing. I grew up around the height of these things and they make my fucking skin crawl. There is literally nothing to miss about these things.

I'm gonna start a tape label this summer. Any tips?

I have 6 cassettes coming in from bandcamp orders :)

Yeah don't sell your tapes for any more than $5 or else it will look like cash grab

I was thinking $6CAD. Would I be better off pricing it $5USD? It's about the same amount of money I think

What kind of music are you going to be putting on your label?

Oh totally, thats about the same. Its just a shame to see small tape labels sell tapes for $7 or $8, there really isn't a reason for it besides trying to cash in on what is trendy right now

Do you think it would be better to use my local currency? Or would it not make much of a difference?
Experimental. I have two releases in the works for an electronic/drone album, and one that's modern classical/shoegaze. I'm talking to some people right now about making some noise rock and psych stuff

I don't think it would make a difference. If you are selling tapes out of Canada, then use CAD! I don't see any reason why not to

>Do you think it would be better to use my local currency? Or would it not make much of a difference?
Do you not have any experience with PayPal?

Do you have any contact info? I've been sort of interested in getting onto a label and I make shoegazey drone music.

I know how it works on a technical level. I was just wondering if it might be a little off-putting to listeners if they're shown the total in a foreign currency

They sound pretty good on my cassette deck and I get a physical release for cheap as shit. They also come with decent downloads for new releases.

What's not to like? Have you never looked at cassettes at a thrift store before? You can get a shitload of great albums for no money at all.

I usually prioritize releases. My absolute favorites I buy on vinyl. Albums I really dig I buy on tape. Everything else I stream or torrent.

I don't think I'm going to take submissions from people I don't know personally until I already have a few releases under my belt. I will definitely be posting the stuff on this board when I do release things though, so feel free to message me then if you see it. The working title of the label as of now is Under Eggplant Tapes

Where's the best place to buy blank cassette tapes?

alibaba has them for like dollars each

Does anyone know where to get metal/Type IV tapes or at least Type II?

duplication.ca or national audio company

I just put these out! Pretty happy with the way they turned out

Found National Audio Company. Okay so how do you make the tapes then? I have a friends bands music on my PC and he hasn't been able to find a good way to release it. I live in Portland so I think this might work for him but am not sure how to get it onto tapes/onto enough tapes to be relevant.

Yep, that is a cassette

those are so cute! :)

>Okay so how do you make the tapes then?
What do you mean by this? Plug an RCA cable into the input of a tape deck and dub the masters right on to the tape in real time

I guess I mean is there a cassette deck out there that can make a lot of copies at once?

Yeah, a cassette duplicator

Yeah it's called a duplication machine. They cost a lot.

> The best price for a small band and a professionally made cassette is $6 That's what I have always charged and for the most part always will. I am working with an artist who is in a large indie band and we will most likely be charging $8 for his tape but that is because it isn't a free album to begin with. The digital will cost 9.99

You'll need to get a high bias master tape first

Who are you quoting?
$6 is too much for a cassette. $8 is a straight up rip off. You can sell tapes for $5 and make plenty of profit

I've run a label for 3 years and never had one of these. You can use any tape as a master tape

No you don't when you are a label who is having them professionally manufactured and then splitting them with the band. Yeah $5 for a homemade tape makes sense. But if you are getting your tapes imprintted and the jcards printed professionally you are going to lose money at $5 a piece especially after bandcamp takes their share

When using a cassette duplicator that dubs at higher speeds than real time you really do need a higher bias tape that will dub on to the normal bias tapes, or else the sound quality won't be the greatest. Sorry to hear that people have potentially bought crappy sounding tapes from you

>Yeah $5 for a homemade tape makes sense. But if you are getting your tapes imprintted and the jcards printed professionally you are going to lose money at $5 a piece especially after bandcamp takes their share
Shouldn't this be the opposite? Shouldn't homemade tapes be charged at more than $5 because people actually put in work, effort, and their own supplies into making them?

No It is much cheaper to buy a ton of blank cds and print out labels and jcards. it ends up costing around 2.50 a tape. If you get them done professionally it costs around 3.50 a tape. That dollar makes a big difference if you want to make any semblance of a profit.

But what do I know? I've only sold 400 tapes at $6 a piece in the past year

I think it's that at mass production costs, you have to sell a certain minimum to make a profit again. Like if you make 100 tapes a month you spend more per unit through the company than if you made 1000 per month.

not but what is your label out of curiosity? If you're selling that much you must be putting out pretty good music, I would like to check some of it out

...

>But what do I know? I've only sold 400 tapes at $6 a piece in the past year
Thats literally 4 small releases in an entire year, big fucking whoop. I bet most most tape labels that are ran by more than one person sell at least that number if not more

find me a label selling that volume and charging less than $6 i dare you. I know you cant. Only people who charge $5 are unestablished labels and people selling homemade tapes

t-thanks for the link?

Recently discovered these guys on YouTube the are sooooooooo good

what's this?