Cassette dupe places?

[Terminus]

As my band has been getting way too many requests for physical copies and my ass is broke, I was thinking about doing something weird and wild and going with a 100-copy cassette run of our release and selling it for like a buck so all the lofi hipsters can has one. I was wondering if anyone here has done cassette runs of their stuff and if they knew of a good place to get it done, preferably on the cheap. I've been looking on the google box and it seems like they aren't all that much cheaper to get done than CDs at this point but maybe that's just the few places I've been looking at. Suggestions? I would go 8-track just to piss everybody off but that isn't in the cards.

 

[Terminus]

Did some searching and came up with what seems like a pretty cheap place

http://crypticcarousel.com/duplication.html

I'm not looking to have some uber professional thing to send to labels, just a little thing for fans so this looks pretty good.

 

[Red Phoenix]

Who has still a (working) cassette player nowadays? If going oldschool i would choose vinyl. Some heavy metal fans still use that.

 

[Clockwork]

Who has still a (working) cassette player nowadays? If going oldschool i would choose vinyl. Some heavy metal fans still use that.

You are right most people don't own cassette decks anymore but a lot of people still have them in their car!

A band I had toured with kept doing limited runs of cassettes and people were going apeshit for them. So my band went down to goodwill a couple weeks ago and snagged a dope deck for 12 bucks and recorded a fuckton of tapes of our new album. Probably cost us 30 or 40 dollars all things considered.

 

[rapucore]

You are right most people don't own cassette decks anymore but a lot of people still have them in their car!

I have it was stock in a 2004 Toyota Avensis.

 

[SocialNumb]

Who has still a (working) cassette player nowadays?

I do! What I don't have is a mobile or mp3 player.

 

[Terminus]

Who has still a (working) cassette player nowadays? If going oldschool i would choose vinyl. Some heavy metal fans still use that.

It's not necessarily to listen to it, more just as a keepsake. Most of the fans have it digitally already. Just me being quirky.

 

[Red Phoenix]

I don't know any place where you can buy cassettes anymore here in germany. But i have to say that i never looked out for it.

When it's not so pricy and your fans want it..why not Do you have a band website? Why not put a poll/vote on it and ask your fans that way or do a pre-order thingy? When offering such "quirky" ^^ things i would take care that there is a market and you're not going to remain seated on the tapes.

 

[Terminus]

I could do that. Only making 50, and it's only costing $140 shipped to my door (that I'll most likely make back some or most of) so why not eh? I'm not sure how old you are or if there's any nostalgia left in you for that time when tapes were the main medium to listen to music, but the nostalgia factor is what is making me do it. I actually want to have a professionally made cassette of my tunes. Sure some of them I'll just give away and they'll sit on a shelf but I don't mind that. It's just for fun imo, I'm not really worried about money or marketing in this particular case. If it comes out to a loss, meh doesn't bother moi.

 

[Red Phoenix]

$140 is not that much. I'm a pretty nostalgic person so i can understand why you do it. It's only because years ago a member of my band had a similar idea and he ordered on his own much more of these tapes, he payed around 1000€ and he could't sell a single one =D We laughed at him and he was fucked moneywise...

 

[Nuno Filipe]

only makes sense if your band is black metal because cassette is the Trve Kvlt

 

[Dave1978]

I've tried that tape-thing 2010.... gave them away for free at one of our shows... end of the story: Most of the people told me "Cool, thanks, but I haven't got a player anymore". I thought it would be a cool thing to do but it was just too nostalgic of me.

 

[Kellii]

Sounds like a waste of money ordering in bulk for something that might not shift. You could put that money elsewhere.

If you have an old cassette tape recorder you should consider making up a couple first yourself and see if they sell before doing it in bulk.

Edit:
If you do buy in bulk and worst comes to worst you could give them away free with Tee shirts etc... Even if people can't play it they will appreciate getting a wee bit more than what they paid for. And if they are already paying for you're merch they will appreciate it a hell of a lot more than if you are just giving it away to people free at gigs.