According to Yahoo!, cassette tapes are back.
When I started my company in 1995, cassettes were the format of choice for indie bands. As far as demos, one of the cool things about getting them on cassettes was that each one was different, and many were handmade. The demos I get on CD use the same (or similar) templates and almost all have graphics done by computer.
In my opinion, the best thing about 1995, compared to today, was that it took a bit more work to get something released. Home recording wasn't what it was, you couldn't burn a CD in just a couple of minutes, you couldn't easily do artwork like you can now, etc.
That was also the worst thing...
I've said it before and it's worth saying again, "What's old is new."
People said email would kill postal mail. It hasn't. For bands sending out gig info, postal mail works better than ever.
You could argue that cassettes work better than ever, too...assuming people have something to play them on.
Do you use cassettes? Vinyl? Why or why not?
One thing's for sure, there is no latency on a cassette-based rig (well, unless you count Tape Delay...!)
Some of my better demos were done on cassette 4-tracks, but now I use it only occasionally...I've converted all those projects to use on the computer, which is great because I can save my guitar performances and get rid of the crappy drum machine tracks.
But I've noticed there was more of a focus on the performance than the production in my old tapes, sometimes limits are good I guess. Having unlimited tracks and "real" drums via loops these days is awesome, and some productions just wouldn't work on a 4-track, but it does force you to get creative and concentrate on playing the parts correctly for the take rather than building that solo out of 42 tracks.
I'm not knocking that method, I build tracks from multiple takes and its really cool for releasing alternate versions as album-only bonus tracks. But most times there is more soul in a properly played part that isn't looped or constructed.
I think a lo-fi, homemade cassette would be a pretty cool promotional thing, but once everyone starts doing it no one will stand out. There's the cassette image generator which is a nice novelty for web sites: http://says-it.com/cassette/
Posted by: Donnie Christianson | March 21, 2009 at 12:21 PM