What! Are you under legal restrictions to say anything more?
Does anyone have any experience with the quality or worth of some of the new cassette decks on sale currently, such as TEAC W1200? My NAD 6325, which I have loved for years has died on me and it’s not worth the effort to repair I suspect.
I sense from ebay sales that most units on offer are either knackered or on their last legs: rubber perishes after all! And most are now knocking on 30 years+. I’ve got a stack of old tapes that don’t get listened to that often but it would be sad not to have a machine when the urge takes to listen to some 1990 jungle bootlegs.
Depending on your tape type you technically should master a bit differently, I would say just go for music grade type 1 these days, its still being made and sounds very nice. I generally just trial and error EQ settings until I get something that feels right (type 1 tends to cut highs especially if using noise reduction), you can also drive the signal a bit harder and get some tape compression if you are looking to have the tapes give a different experience than the digital, I personally think driving type 1 sounds quite nice. Quality wise it is usually best to record off of a digital master as well.
As far as a decent deck for duplication I would recommend just any three head deck will likely do, most likely a single cassette deck, as many of the double units are of poor quality. You can also take a look at the manual and go for one with very little wow/flutter. Actual duplication units are usually of really poor quality and realtime duplication on a decent deck will be your best bet. Pretty much anything you get that hasn’t been serviced will need service so that is good to keep in mind. No need to worry about feature that deal with type 3 or 4 unless you are wanted to recording things for your own listening pleasure.
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Sadly all new decks are pretty terrible, they basically all use components from the cheapest voice memo recorders as those are the only tape heads that continued to be made through out the years. Might be worth trying to learn to fix your NAD yourself, its generally just the belts that go first and that is an easy cheap repair. I would question how worth it, it is to bring to bring any deck that isn’t a 3 head into a repair shop though.
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Thanks a lot for that. It’s something I’ve had in mind for years, but still in the early planning stage. Any brands / models of tape deck to look out for? And any favoured cassette sources in the EU? Cheers.
Nakamichi are kind of the gold standard, but you could also keep your eyes peeled for some of the akai units, marantz, tascam, denon but yeah 3 head is mostly what you want to focus on.
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@kairos as far as suppliers go I’ve only used a few in North America, duplication.ca is what I use to get the stickers for printing and blank tapes cut to length. But I’m sure there are equivalents in Europe.
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Sadly, that’s as I thought. Such a gamble on old machines, I’ll keep looking, but so is everyone else. There are more faulty or “Looks OK, but not tested” listings than working ones.
They go for silly money too.
I’ve actually had a go at repair, thinking it was the belt but it sounds mechanical.
Belts are mechanical.
Hens’ teeth springs to mind. Unless you have one down the back of your sofa that you’re wining to sell? 
This thread isn’t for releases.
Please read the original post.
I will start a new thread so we can share our music that is on cassette.
Sorry to sound blunt.
LONG LIVE CASSETTE!!!
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Hey there, really sorry for my delayed response.
After careful consideration I’d like to pitch these questions at you for you to answer in your own time.
- Why would you want to start a record label?
- What are the aesthetics of the label?
- What equipment do you have/need to actually hold a physical release in your hands?
There are probably a million more questions that need answering anyhoo I’m going to list mine beneath 
- Because I want to give more exposure to artists that I believe in.
- Aesthetic wise, all artists that I wish to release need to be completely true to their musical voice. You would never see me releasing a copycat. The feeling I get when I hear music needs to strike the originality chord within me.
- I have a Marantz PMD740 and then could get the duplication job done but I went out and bought a single tape deck from ‘81. It’s cool with lit VU’s and reliable button functions. I did originally buy a twin deck Sony with duo record and a pitch knob. It didn’t work properly though. If it did, although not half as sexy as my ‘81 Denon, it would have eased the work flow. Luckily, I have a pitch knob on my Marantz, no pitch knob = half the happiness.
Musical things aside, a printer, paper, and a software design suite is also needed for me to carry out my workings. Design wise I bought the Affinity suite - incredible stuff for a one off payment.
I think that covers everything.
I am interested to hear your answers @kairos
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Thanks a lot of the reply. This feels like an interview 
. Yeah, I’m coming from a similar place to you, I think - The aim would be to give a tiny platform to some of the many musicians I’ve come across who really should be getting more exposure. To me, some genres lend themselves more to tape than others (Ambient/Noise/Experimental come to mind), though that wouldn’t necessarily be a limitation. A certain degree of originality is extremely important to me too.
All my cassette related gear is long gone, other than crates (and crates) of my old tapes. So phase one will be to track down a useful deck and do some test recordings through Ableton and some mastering plugins (the latter I have very little experience with, beyond tweaking the presets a bit). That’s something I’d want to work on, to make sure everyone’s as happy with the release as possible. Do you do any specific mastering yourself, or do you get help with that?
Thanks again for your thoughts!
Excuse me! I have been bluntly spamming, not considering the original intentions of the topic. I can rave on cassettes objectively too, but at the moment I have this box of tapes and I’d like to present it to connaisseurs of that medium , so where to share? 
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No worries! I completely understand, fella!
I started a new thread and you can find it here… coming across some gems! Our Music on Cassette
Big apologies for the lack of response until now!
Broke up for winter vacation, made a To Do list, and started getting through it…
One thing I’ve been wanting to experiment more with is cassettes or magnetic tape to be more precise.
After watching the incredible Amulets and Heinbach I ended up with this yesterday…
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The “inventor” of the cassette tape (the person responsible for it being created) died just a few days back.
He also had a lot to do with the creation of the CD too,
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