Really digging the aesthetic of those We Are Rewind cassette players. How’s the sound?
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From what I could hear from various reviews the chassis is solid but sound is not so good, lot of wow & flutter, lots of distortion, lack of input monitoring or metering to set input gain and most importantly they seem to have a persistent hum in the output which would annoy me quite a bit.
Still good looking and useful using it as a very lo-fi effect though!
I might snag one of these sooner or later…
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Sound is reasonably OK although I haven’t listened to anything on tape in more than 20 years and my only tape right now is a DJ mix of 1970s Japanese tunes from vinyl. To me, it’s more about convenience than hi-fidelity (I’m restoring an older tape deck for hi fi needs). There is nothing I could see on the market made new in this class and even finding an old Walkman that has been properly serviced is probably going to be more expensive than this option. Plus you get a rechargeable battery, portability, bluetooth (if you want it) and the ability to record, while being made in Europe. And it’s built very solidly and just feels like a nice object. I think it would be a great second option if you are a serious tape person to complement something like a Marantz or older Teac.
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Not sure about the hum you mention…there is definitely something there, but I took it to just be a bit of classic tape hiss. Not distracting when I listen to at a decent volume over my speakers, but I need to try some more tapes to be sure.
the noise isnt distracting 99% of the time. the most obnoxious aspect is the pop that happens when you stop the cassette. i mostly use mine for playing tapes on the car speakers and its great for that.
i have also been getting into tapes again. got the we are rewind player first, then the itch started and i have a dual well kenwood deck in the closet and this nakamichi bx-100 as my main deck. been having tons of fun finding weird obscure tapes, i love how localized it all feels. lots of fun weird thrifting finds
also got my nephew a cheap cassette recorder for christmas and he is fully enthralled. made him a mixtape of some cool electronic music and hes been listening to it on repeat. hes also been having fun recording himself being a goofball. just ordered a lot of three potentially busted walkmen to try to refurbish so hes got a more usable option if his first one breaks. also an easy bday gift! made me realize how some vintage tech is great for kids. gets the joy of being the sole owner of a piece of tech, gets to use it whenever he wants (within reason), and he can see the physical mechanics going on inside. dude doesnt even care that its mono only.
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Christ on a bike!!! People pay good money for effects like that! If this were in a different thread then you could set up a GAS station.
Honestly, I was fearing that 
I bought a couple of recently released tape tings (cassette player and boombox) and the sound is super duper bad. They weren’t cheap either. I used one of them as parts so it’s all good and the boombox thing had loads of other functions including radio. Been meaning to run that through my Morphagene actually. Thanks for the reminder! But yeah… that’s why the top names still fetch a decent price innit.
I like how cassettes push you towards certain music and eras because simply not everything is available on tape. There is an abundance of 80s and early 90s hip hop out there, though, and I’ve been feeling nostalgic for that era: EPMD, Gangstarr, De La Soul, etc.
And then certain new artists that are committed to tape like @boboter and JD Twitch’s newer mixtapes make collecting them fun. My other mission is to get tapes of albums not available on Spotify, like Wally Badarou’s Echoes.
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i recorded this beat over the howliday tape using the we are rewind. may be a slightly unhelpful example because my beats are crammed with wow and flutter and distortion normally anyhow. to my ears, the only thing the we are rewind added is the digital hiss in the background and it kinda killed some bass response. this was a one take attempt, i didnt play around with levels much at all. one could probably dial in a better recording level on the source material to effectively use the auto rec level function. ive recorded other beats of mine to tape using the nakamichi and its definitely night and day. and the we are rewind cost me more!
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right! ive been loving all the rompler sounds im hearing in 80s and 90s tapes.
the hip hop tapes tend to be more rare in my location but ive had some pretty solid luck so far. really enjoying finding these sampler tapes from studios, get to see little bits and pieces from artists i never knew and never totally blew up.
i am also on the lookout for stuff that feels like it only ever existed on tape. got those motivation tapes from the late 60s which im excited to dive through for samples. found these two yesterday and im planning on recording over each one with my own beats but leaving some of the original audio in between
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That’s brilliant. Probably some wonderful sample material in there!
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I would never use “we are rewind” the way it’s intended (portable cassette player) as I don’t see the point of building a collection of cassette tapes to listen on the go (which might have been actually recorded well on a good tape) just to play them through a Fisher Price cassette effect.
But it’s a convenient portable lo-fi stereo effect that’s for sure, too bad you cannot monitor while recording or even just monitor the input!
sorry homie but this just is not accurate. its not that bad that is an over exaggeration. the video reviews that are available dont even display that so im not sure where youre getting that from.
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Here’s a couple of old, random photos taken in the last two years. Peep the cassettes in some of them. They are with the afore mentioned boombox.
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Want and neeeeeed!!!
I’ve got a box set of “Too Hot for Radio” somewhere. Looking forward to digging through that at some point. Never sample at all though tbh but I have thought of adding some atmospherics with some recently.
In all reviews I’ve seen that A/B compare source with the recorded material the result is something completely different from the source in frequency response, distortion etc. and it’s very apparent.
I’m sorry but to me that is enough to call it a toy cassette effect, the average portable cassette player from the 80s and 90’s sounds way better than that!
You might feel I’m over exaggerating, I suppose that depends on your perspective of how a good or even half decent cassette player should sound like.
There is also this video which from minute 18 to minute 23 compare this to different cassette players, this time in reproduction only.
In reproduction of a well recorded cassette is not as bad as it is reproducing internally recorded material, but still you can hear by yourself and judge…
alrighty here i did some comparisons to test my own perception. definitely noticable difference, not horrible for me. the warble tends to be more noticeable on the older tapes to my ears. recorded from the headphone out on the WAR at max volume and the RCA out from the NAK without noise reduction since the WAR doesnt have it.
sample from a brand new cassette released within the past couple years
NAK:
WAR:
from an old cassette of unknown quality
NAK:
WAR:
from a Boyz II Men tape I know is busted
NAK:
WAR:
from a type II tape that may have been unopened, i dont recall
NAK:
WAR:
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Thank you for recording this comparison, it’s actually very useful!
Honestly I’m liking WAR better than NAK for the most part, I even wonder if you inverted the names on the actual audio files.
Either way yes you are right, it’s not as bad as I thought def not a Fisher Price cassette effect like I heard on some reviews, would be interesting to also have a comparison recording/source.
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funny enough i was noticing the same preference for the WAR ones lol. nearly positive ableton got the names right, i cut off the main identifier of the WAR (the pop at stop) just to make things easier to export cleanly but im confident those are labeled correctly. i think the WAR recordings are a little bit louder too, didnt do any fine tuning on the level matching.
the nak sounds better through the receiver, but the recordings are 100% night and day better from the nak. ill do some recording comparisons later today too. i havent done any service on the nak either, just cleaned up the easily accessible insides. so not a perfect comparison by any means but its something!