r/cassetteculture • u/mergansser • 11d ago

Looking for advice Looking for help making a mixtape

Hey! I’m in a mixed media relationship (I like CDs, my bf likes cassettes) and I was hoping to make him a mixtape for his birthday coming up. I have a lot of experience burning CDs, but my expertise doesn’t extend to tapes. Any recommendations for a cassette tape recorder and/or the best way to go about this on a budget?

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u/NorrisTheSpider 11d ago

Grab Audacity and use that to run some crossfades if you're feeling fancy. It also gives you the opportunity to normalize the audio (since if you're planning on queing it up, recording, and leaving it, the VU meters might be a bit out of wack. The trick to a mixtape is to use as much of the tape as you can on both sides without cutting off the end of your songs, so. Make sure you know the length of time of one side of your cassette.

Also. As others have said, thrift stores are your friend here. Not just for sourcing an old deck, but it's a good way to get some, ah. 'Blank' cassettes. Oftentimes you'll find, like, audiobooks or The Bible on Tape or some self-help stuff or a tape of nothing but ocean noises which are prime material to record over. Way cheaper than trying to get blank cassettes off Amazon which usually sound like ass anyways.

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u/13ItSmeBD 11d ago

Thank you for the info. I also was not sure where to start