How is the audio quality on cassette tapes? is their only purpose nostalgia and looking "retro" or are they a practical platform for listening to music on?
Well, it's a practical platform if you're looking for a portable analog format to listen to music on. It's definitely lower quality than pretty much all other formats, though...There's more background noise...More of a hiss.
>>61882561
The quality is lower and the sound is unique. It will put a colour on the songs you're listening to and if you like these colours it may be something for you. Different types of tape provide different colours. In terms of whether they are practical (in terms of storage/space consumtion, quality)- no they are not, but neither are record players.
Pretty shit quality.
But I think it's fun to make mixtapes, even though I'm the only one who will ever listen to them.
>>61882697
>>61882639
>>61882585
I'm happy you three anons got right to the point in telling OP the consensus on this format.
OP beware, they're pretty tumblr memory at this point and getting very overpriced because of it. There was a time every cassette at a shop was less than 3 dollars.
It's real cheap to produce cassettes as an artist/label so that's why a lot of people are doing it now
>>61882561
you trying to get into blackmetal?
>>61882561
with a good quality tape deck and a good quality type II or IV tape you can make very good, but not perfect, recordings of CDs and records. there will be slight deficiencies in the frequency extremes and a slight overall loss of fine detail but on the whole they can sound very good. reproducing that quality depends on the fine adjustment of the heads so recordings always sound best played back on the machine they were made on because a different deck will probably have its heads aligned slightly differently so played back on something else they usually wont sound quite as good
pre-recorded tapes are a completely different kettle of fish, they have never been anywhere near as good as the potential quality of a properly done home recording.
cheap tape decks including portables like in your pic dont sound good and are not capable of the high quality recordings of a good deck
when tapes were commonplace, that was what they were used for, a decent quality and affordable home recording format, because there were no other options. reel to reel machines were very expensive and impractical for most people because of the size and hassle of the tapes. even after CD came out you couldnt buy CD recorders for years and then when you could they were very expensive (kept that way by philips and sony who owned the tech and also had interests in the music business; they didnt want people to be able to make bit-perfect copies of CDs) and only dropped in price after home PCs with CDR drives became commonplace and made their continued artificially high price pointless. nobody who wanted quality reproduction used tape as a format for playing pre-recorded music. they made copies of their own CDs and records to play in the car, they borrowed albums off friends and copied them. sales of albums etc on tape were driven by kids with a radio cassette player in their room and adults who were casuals/didnt care about the quality.
>>61883078
they sell fucking cassettes at urban outfitters.
To me part of the fun of buying cassettes is getting limited run releases.
My dad says they're better than vinyl or CD
>>61882561
I use them because they're cheap. I have a friend who works at a media duplication place so I get boxes of blank tapes for free. That way when I'm playing a show, I can have tapes to sell within' a few hours notice.
>>61883212
>Mr wonderful
WOW that was a bad album
>>61883257
>Action Bronson
What did you expect?
>>61883270
I like Bon Appitite… Bitch!!!!!!!!!! Tho
they can also just be the cheapest way to buy a new album and come with a download which is a bit ridiculous
>>61883212
honestly id buy a rtj2 cassette tape
Hilarious to see people complain about 128kbps and then listen to cassettes unironically.
Tiny little tape is as lossy as it gets. You're lucky if you can listen to it 50 times.
>>61883225
>>61883302
price is literally the only excuse for using tapes. otherwise you're just autistic
>>61883316
this is plain stupid
>>61882561
i dont think id buy a bands album on a cassette but i like to record my bands on cassette sometimes because it has a unique sound i like
i wouldnt transfer digital to tape unless i found that it had a nice effect that might be useful laser. i would digitaze my bands cassette recording to digital to preserve the sound.
what is the sound?
id have to go back and heard some tracks to describe properly, but its unmistakable
In saying all this, is there really a certain genre or style or band etc that work best for cassettes?
>>61884004
Stuff that's already lo-fi
80's pop
Blackmetal
vaporwave
>>61884014
>blackmetal
how come?
I like to collect black metal demo tapes
i've noticed that cassette have been the main format for experimental/electronic/ambient releases
yea its shit.
it as always been considered shit but hey it was portable and affordable in the 80's and early 90's
and for cars it was more reliable than 8tracks
>>61884004
Dungeon Synth
>>61884028
BM is meant for cassettes as that used to be the most convenient way to do recordings in the forest during the winter.
>>61884028
Lo-fi/noisy anyways, if anything being on a cassette makes it closer to what most artists in the genre are looking for
Also, know that your cassettes WILL sound worse over time.
If you're planning on digging them out for a nostalgia hit twenty years down the road you might be in for an ugly surprise
>>61884028
not that guy, but much of it is made lo-fi intentionally
When will reel to reel tape become the new trend?
>>61885061
Tfw no tefifon comeback anytime soon.
>>61886402
that looks cool as hell
I like recording with them but I'd only use high bias tapes. The normal type wears out quicker
It's not great. I imagine low-fi, dream pop, and old school punk would sound pretty cool. However, any music with actual details and texture would sound like trash. You'd miss half of the music.
>centipede hz through a cassette tape
>>61884028
can confirm black sounds great on cassette
>>61887411
black metal*
All i can say is my dad still listens to his mixes from '81 in the car and they sound fine
>>61886402
King of Hipsters - The Post
>>61882561
Cassettes have a distink warm sound to them found in the hissing and cracking, though it is most likely the lowest quality analogue sound you will get. For me however it's extremely nostalgic, and I feel listening to HiFi remaster of songs I would listen to on cassettes are not as fulfilling as those beautiful cracks and hisses. It makes the sound beautiful by being imperfect.
Listening to cassettes with stolen library headphones if the most /fa/ thing ever.
