The middle child of audio technology, neither as hip as vinyl or as modern as the MP3, the cassette lives on in a massive online shrine called the C-90 Project. Odds are, if you’ve ever seen a blank cassette, it’s stored in here or soon will be. We saw its colorful compact novelties back in 2005. Now, the site has grown and added features, including bi-lingual discussions in both English and Russian, plus organization by format (compact cassette, the standard size, as well as microcassette and minicassette) and brand. If you want to add to this collection, they welcome participants. History will thank you.

A couple of the odder selections here. Weirdly, I remember seeing both back in their day. (Hey, I guess TDK decided to add some Latino flair to their tape line.)

Project C-90. An Ultimate Audiotape Guide. (indeed … it’s even bigger than you think)

Continuing in the spirit of cassette tapes, here are two more cassette items.

Cassettes that Hold Your Change

Completely useless, but somewhat amusing: Designboom’s Cassette Wallet recycles old cassette shells into zippered money holders. If you’re looking to get your retro chic on, they’re $43. Or, if you find some lame tapes as you’re rooting throw your collection for the Cassette Jockey Competition at Maker Faire, you can try to figure out how to recycle it into something like this and sell it for $43. Via the Spanish-language JP-Geek, Sweden’s English-language Fosfor, and a site you already know about.

Cassettes for Analog Resampling

In the domain of the musically functional, Roland from Munich wonders if cassette players with pitch control could be the perfect addition to a digital studio.

Just saw your post about cassette players and wanted to ask if you know of any old commercially-available players that allow you to set the playback speed manually (maybe some professional model?).

Could really use that for sampling since I am not a big fan of the digital algorithms available.

I’d love to hear some reader thoughts on this.

No laptops. No CD players. No turntables. The Cassette Jockey World Championships will be cassette tape only. And the rules are tough: store-bought, commercial cassette tapes only. (Dig that Paula Abdul out of your closet — you know you want to.) Sounds dull? Think again: how you play those tapes is entirely up to you, and from what we’ve seen insane circuit benders and mad scientists of circuitry do to tape machines, that could get real interesting.

Mark Gunderson, aka Trademark G, is organizing the event at day one of the Maker Faire outside San Francisco, Saturday, May 19. You’ll need a ticket to the Maker Faire — but if you have even a slight shot at access to the Bay Area that weekend, I’d suggest you do that, anyway. (I’ll be there, lurking about, trying not to burn out sensors because I confused +5V and +9V.)

It’s an open call — and if you think you’ve got what it takes to judge, you should get in touch, as well.

Art of the Cassette Tape

Whether you’re going to the Maker Faire or not, I’ve also rounded up cassette tape creations from CDM stories past, just to get your tape juices flowing.

Homemade Cassette Tape DJ Mixers + Max/MSP PC
International Mixtape Project Sharing Tapes, CDs Worldwide
Warhol for TDK Tapes (Okay, video cassette tapes … maybe a VJ session should come next.)
Obsessive Cassette Tape Collection
Homebrewed Game Boy sequencer, via Walkman tape player
Put a Cassette Deck in Your Windows PC

Open Call for Cassette Jockeys

Here’s the full scoop on the “CJ” competition from Trademark G:

2007 Cassette Jockey World Championships
*** CALL FOR COMPETITORS ***

CALLING ALL: Cassette Jockies… Retro-Tech Lovers… Magnetic Media Monsters… Circuit Benders… Multi-Media DJs… Walkman Hot-Rodders… we want you at the:

2007 CASSETTE JOCKEY WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
at the Make Magazine Maker Faire!

Russian DJ Artyom has built his own DJ audio hardware out of wood and electronics, complete with dual cassette playback boxes. The cassettes feature pitch control (fine and coarse), pitch bands, a motor off switch, and more, and he’s custom-built mixers, cross-faders, and EQ.

Then, he hooks these boxes up to his PC and relaxes — wait, no he doesn’t. His PC is packed with custom DJ patches built in Max/MSP.

Full hardware and software details at Artyom’s site, including downloadable Max patches, in English (see also Russian content — I’m sure someone out there speaks Russian):

Self-made DJ equipment
Max/MSP DJ Stuff

Via the rich electronic music blog, Filter27: How to DJ with an old cassette tapes

See also: KDE-Head photo on flickr with specs

Updated: Doh! Tom at Music thing beat me to this in 2005. Slight CDM lag there. ;) Nonetheless, maybe somebody will have a look at those Max patches and get some new ideas.

Man, these lazy newbie DJs, embracing a new-fangled playback medium like cassettes and Max/MSP patches. They’re nowhere near as authentic as the oldskool DJs playing … erm … CDs … at weddings. ;)

Another gorgeous shot of his brilliant hardware-building work after the jump (so you don’t have to wait through glacial load times):

At two years old, the International Mixtape Project now features Israeli microhouse, Nova Scotia neo-soul, Bay Area hip-hop, and Congolese electro-folk, exchanged among 500 participants in 30 countries. Efforts like these fly in the face of both the recording industry’s lockdown on copying and the free-for-all digital filesharing services, neither of which, let’s face it, does much for broadening your musical horizons. IMP is just one of a few services, but it’s unusually accessible. You can sign up on MySpace:

Mix Tape Project

You send one compilation CD-R or (for street cred) cassette, and you get one in return. It’s nice to see mixes continue to flourish in the digital age, because it remains a wonderful way to get turned onto music — and find new musicians to support.

Via (the usually drivel-filled) Daily Candy. (Thanks, Jennifer, for separating the wheat from the chaff!)

Anyone on IMP already, or know of other such services?

Previous coverage of our cassette tape fetish: Warhol shilling for TDK (video tapes, but still, I do love tapes), a truly obsessive collection of blank cassettes, and (a must for participating in IMP) a cassette deck that installs in your PC.

It’s two, two, two times the nostalgia, as Warhol shills for TDK analog cassette tapes:

Warhol Japandering for Cassettes [Dailymotion video, via]

I love his trademark wooden speech as he struggles through the Japanese. Remember a world in which you could advertise for cassette tapes? Sigh. At least Japan is still hip, jamming on marimbas and analog synths in other news.

Gijs Geikes has been hard at work since we last saw his latest bizarre Walkman Tape Player / Game Boy Sequencer. A new model sync with the Little Sound Dj cartridge: plug in a Game Boy, and other goodies (like a Walkman tape player and Stylophone keyboard), and you can create wild, screaming patterns like this. (A must-listen, experimental punk/hip-hop chiptune creation.)

Gijs has schematics up, so adventurous makers, you can make your own. Or you can just go buy one of those nifty Stylphones.

SEQ05 Pictures, Sounds, Schematics [Gieskes.nl Instruments]

Updated: That link exceeded its bandwidth restrictions, but you can hear the sounds via a new link! (Thanks, Gijs!)
Related:
Gameboy Music with LSDJ: Workshops, Tips, Photos, MP3s

Okay, which is scarier — the fact that someone obsessively photographed hundreds of cassette tapes, or that you remember almost each individual design variation and are looking through them, feeling waves of nostalgia for mix tapes past?

Cassette Jam ‘05 (via Make: Blog

See also the somewhat befuddling Project C-90 (see sam bot).

I can’t wait for the “Vintage Blu-Ray Disc Graveyard” in 2046.

In follow-up to my story Tuesday about the new Dubstation from Audio Damage (and other assorted Dub links), ever-vigilant reader Adrian Anders is here with a couple of free VST alternatives. I still think the Dubstation may be worth US$40, but there’s no reason not to check these out, too, if you’ve got a PC. I’ve used the Retro Delay on my PC laptop; it’s fantastic. Take it away, Adrian:

ConcreteFX’s Tape Delay
[Download ZIP]
This SOB packs some major punch and has such original features as bit-crushing, distortion, 2 flutter LFOs, 2 multi-mode filters, and ducking, all inside the delay loop itself. Has to be heard to be believed how devastating the feedback on this delay can get. Not for the faint of heart (or ears).
Peep the other CoFX freebees [at a KVR audio post]. Ed: HUGE list there; check it out!

E-Phonic’s Retro Delay
What’s great about this delay is that the delay can be modulated (by the pitchbend no less!) in real time without the glitches in the audio normally associated with digital delay time-modulation. Furthermore, the delay also features the oh so neat reverb module that can create dub-style reverb->delay effects that I have yet to make with any other plug-in.

PC (Win) only (time to whip out that P4 you have hidden in your closet!) Ed: So THAT’S where my tricked-out P4 tower went! -PK

Thanks, Adrian. Got a favorite effect? Let me know. By the way, after my abysmally-incomplete Dub music roundup Tuesday (so I was in a hurry, okay?), you can expect a fuller story soon. Send your nominations for favorite artists + links if you haven’t already. Cheers! eers! ers! rs! s!

[Updated] Mac Plugin: Never fear, penniless Mac users. King Dubby for AU gives you a free Mac-compatible dub plugin; apparently some compatibility issues for some users so let us know how it goes. Thanks, Symbiotic!

King Dubby

Master chip musician Gijs Gieskes has outdone himself this time: his second Walkman tape sequencer controls the Game Boy music cartridge LSDJ via various knobs and circuitry. His typography is utterly mysterious (in other words, completely illegible), so here’s my translation:

It has got LSDJ sync, because it uses gwems lsdj pitch control as master clock . . . the red potentiometers determine the playback speed of the cassette deck, and the yellow potentiometer controls the clock speed.

In other words, the sequencer he built controls both a Walkman tape deck and a Game Boy. Check out this audio sample or this one to hear what all this sounds like. The effect is quite brilliant: a madcap tape deck scratch system with Game Boy music.

Forget records and turntables. Tape is the future, man.