Update: Thank you guys on this, want 100% sure what to do, but overall clear communication of conditions is probably the best way to go.
For the different medias we’ll have a “shit to mint condition” or STM for short: for Vinyls, CDs and of course Cassettes. For those medias that are under like a 3/5 we use restorative methods like normal cleaning and deoxidation. If we do end up in a situation where we need to restore a cassette beyond our capabilities it’ll be marked 1/5 to 2/5 and sold cheaper with reference to a cassette restoration service or a guide on restoring them themselves, which may include info to replace tapes if they so wish. anything way past recovery / not worth recovery can be used as up-cycle arts for local artists or in house (basically just us messing about haha)
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Ok, so we’re planning on opening a music+Alternative store in the near future and one of the medias were wanting to stock are cassettes especially since they’re becoming more popular. However to anyone who knows about cassette tapes, they are extremely susceptible to yk. dying
While our stock atm is small, we already got one that is completely fucked on one side of the tape (muffled to no audio in one ear on both A and B sides) effectively the cassette is not good for sale. We’ve looked over some posts and some say to replace the tape and re-record the album, however they’re all personal collectors, not sale. While the tape is dead, it’s not authentic or original if it’s repaired or well, realistically tape being replaced. If it was our personal collection no worries! But this is marked for sale. Maybe if it’s marked as “repaired” or something? Idk how other music stores handle this.
So long story short, would it be ethical to replace the tape and re-record the album and keep or for sale (and also marking it as repaired)? Or take the L and keep for our personal collection? We’re leaning on the latter, but if were over thinking things lmk thx
Cassettes are a shitty medium for long-term storage. They degrade pretty fast even when stored under perfect conditions.
So only sell cassettes made up to a few months ago. If you want to trade in used stuff, do vinyl or CDs.Most of the music medias will be new actually! But we still want to have some older/vintage stuff too :3
I understand as an alternative retailer you may be under pressure to extract value when you can, but reselling a re-recorded cassette to the general public is a legally shady, and ethically questionable. There are plenty of reasons for customers to expand their cassette collections, but sound quality is probably low on that list. I’ll also bet that the risk of a potential bad customer experience is not worth the risk - especially when customers are from a niche collector market that talk amongst each other.
Honestly our standing isn’t to extract the dollar, but rather the quality of what were selling. If it’s more of a collectable thing and not to be listened to then yeah no issues. Thanks, would there be a good grading system that we can follow for that format so people aren’t surprised by tapes not sounding as good as new ones/mint?
I have an operations-based question for you. Can you recoup the cost of staff time and materials for cleaning cassettes, or possibly re-recording them (if you did that or provided that as a service)?
Also, as somebody who used to love listening to cassettes in a car that had a tape deck, I would totally be interested in buying new cassettes of modern music. Are there any self-made cassettes that you could sell without getting in legal trouble? Like music that is released under creative commons or that’s in public domain?
Maybe you could have a DIY tape creation station where somebody buys a CD from you, uses your tape deck to copy it onto a blank cassette, and then sells you back the CD?
It probably wouldn’t make a lawyer happy i bet!
Heyo!! So we’re basically that employee! Haha We’re going to be online first and the only employees will be us and our partner, but once we have a physical store the restoration will be handled by again us and whoever has time and is trained.
As for new cassettes, they will be available with proper licensing intact! We’ve thought of doing small playlists, but it would be for small local bands who’ve given proper consent and licensing with a good recorder (or ordered with a good local manufacturer)
For DIY stuff we’re going to be selling players and blank tapes, however we’ll not be buying stock from customers, though we’ll allow refunds with restock fee or free replacements for store fault damaged products.
It’s ethical to sell anything, as long as you’re completely upfront and honest about any issues you’re aware of, perform your due diligence in identifying any issues, and price it accordingly.
Thank you, we’ll look into maybe a grading system for the different medias!
Why even consider taking the L? Sounds like you should be getting your money back. Who sold the tape to you, and how did they represent it?
This cassette was from a small mom and pop shop, we got it cuz it was a but cheaper than average and we don’t mind getting a few “in the door” albums cuz our main income would be other stock. But taking a full L would be, well an L lol.
And no disrespect to that shop, he had it stored all cassettes in a proper manner, just probably slipped the quality assurance check. Theres no way to refund it either way and we’re not mad at the shop keep tbh
The record store I frequent has a section for records that are scratched to the point where they’re nearly unplayable on one side, but the other side is still playable. They’re usually really cheap since they’re the duds that come along when the owner purchases used records in bulk.
I rarely see anyone in that section, though, and I’ve never bought one of those records myself. I think the owner just has it because she has the space and wants to give the unwanted records a chance even if it’s unlikely anyone will ever buy them.
You could probably make such a section for damaged or re-recorded cassettes if you’ve got the space. Just make sure to clearly label them. Usually the damaged records at my local store have post-its on them that describe what exactly is damaged - you could probably do the same.
This is a great idea and we do have a similar idea, however it would be a free broken box and unpopular music media can be for 1€ or free with a player and sold as testing medias (good enough to just test if your equipment works but really not a great album) kind of thing
Both? Rip it digitally, rip via dubbing, sell the OG as is and offer dubs and maybe even cleaned up versions. A friend was selling Spotify playlists slapped on tapes for a bit, the worst of both worlds to me but peeps seemed to like them.
I’ve got Portishead - Dummy in my deck at the moment, the tape is as old as the album is, I’ve binned most stuff that got this distorted but Dummy with ancient tape distortion is aging like a fine wine.
Distortion is fine, but it’s completely gone on one side and isn’t much fine wine. Ig we could preserve the original tape in some way and have it retapped for listening. As for selling playlists, without music rights it wouldn’t be possible in our position, though its something we’ve thought of. Thank you for the idea!!
Have you tried any of the restoration techniques? It doesn’t sound like sticky shed (baking required), but more like oxide degradation or shedding (old age) Cleaning the tape, and trying a tape player that has tone control (equaliser too, but less so) to see what you can get out of it and backing it up. That whole process excites a few people, so you could actually sell the tape as it is, but would have to let them know first. Or you could give up DIY and invest in tape restoration professionals, whom I don’t think are too expensive for obvious reasons.
But there are people that will pay for degraded tapes to try and restore them, and would have higher end audio equipment to play them on etc.
Search around for guides and whatever you think may be the issue, try those first if you don’t fancy replacing the tape in the cassette.
Right now we’re in VERY early stages of everything, so we haven’t tried anything just yet (excited to do so!) Also forgot oxidation is a huge issue! May be that since the cassette is a bit discolored. Thanks!
Great idea, good luck with it all and I hope you succeed. 👍👍
Thank you!!! Can’t wait to announce it :3
Dead or damaged media can repurposed and sold as an new thing. Art and craft items using old vinyl, cassettes, floppy disks, etc. as a medium to create something new is growing in popularity too. If you can find someone making that kind of art at a show, I’m sure some kind of mutually beneficial arrangement could be made so that you both can profit off that dead media.
Oo thats a really good idea! we’ll keep an eye out and maybe even do some in house stuff too :3
To me this is a question of audio fidelity. What source would you use to re-record the tape? While it’s not unheard of to use a digital source, depending on the year this cassette was pressed it might have been a high quality analog master tape. It’s unlikely that you’re going to reproduce the exact same experience that the listener would have had from the original tape. And if you’re selling to audiophiles, they’ll know if it sounds off.
No, realistically it would be impossible to replicate the exact without the master. So far from other suggestions we’ve got:
Use other restorative methods first, cleaning and de-oxidizing, etc. Maybe grade the medias so people know what they’re buying. If we do end up replacing the tape itself, have the original tape preserved and mark it as “replaced tape” but only if the customer wants to do so or better yet find references to another company able to restore them better than us.
Are you sure it’s a good idea when there are already a few semi-famous stores like Bandcamp or Subvert out there? Is it for your band only? And who is “we,” is it serious?
We have DID, we as in I if you need to. And no were not a band, were wanting to open a store lol.
The cassettes in question are old and no longer in production, while new cassettes are going to be stocked, we also want some older vintage ones too, ones you can’t get on Band Camp. Physical media is growing in popularity where we are.
Though the question in short was: would replacing the tape on a cassette thats marked for sale be a good or bad thing?
Small companies repackage cd jewel cases and sell them as new albums all the time so I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
We see, we’ll have to find some (not work around) but rather some way to make the experience for customers better with buying cassettes while also staying open/preserving the original tapes.
