Category Archives: Cassettes

Introducing Voice-Grade Blank Cassettes

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Blank tapes / Blank cassettes from Duplication.ca
Our blank cassette services need no introduction. We load the blank tapes to your custom length and offer a variety of awesome coloured shells, from completely transparent to a shimmering gold. Our Super Ferro normal-bias tape allows for a frequency range of 20Hz to 20kHz, and if you need an extra boost in bass and noise floor, we have a high-bias chrome option fulfill your audiophile needs. With that said, variety is a key component of Duplication.ca, so we’re proud to offer a budgetary option for those looking to release their audio on cassette.

Introducing our Voice-Grade custom loaded blank cassettes! This economical tape is best used for spoken word recordings, as its volume output is 4 to 5db quieter than normal-bias, but is also useable with music. Like our other blank tape options, we will load the cassette to your exact desired audio length, and you have a wide variety of funky shell colours to choose from.

Ideal for comedy releases, spoken word, poetry, podcast Patreon gifts, art installations, lofi music, folk, ambient, and anything else with a quiet recording range!

Click here to receive an instant quote on blank Voice-Grade cassettes!

AAAMYY Etcetra EP manufactured at Duplication.ca

Make sure to poke around the online store for everything else you need for a cassette release. Cassette cases, sticker labels, printed J-cards— we’ve got it all!

Cassette Round-Up: May 2019

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Every day when we walk into the Duplication.ca offices we’re greeted with a pile of awesome cassette releases waiting to be mastered and duplicated. This May we still found ourselves in a transitional stage between a never-ending gloomy winter and burgeoning hot summer. In other words, a great month for zoning out to broad range of music blasting out of our cassette decks. Here are a few of our favourites:

Various Artists – “The Mondrians” c42 + c46

A double cassette release featuring an incredible line-up of ambient-electronic composers (Ian William Craig, Norm Chambers, Connect_icut, Alexandra Spence, to name a few) interpreting the works of de stijl artist Piet Mondrian. Packaged in our awesome side-by-side double cassette boxes.

Kool G Rap & 38 Spesh – “Son of G Rap” c56 

38 Spesh and Kool G are looking to bridge generations of New York rap bringing out certified OGs from N.O.R.E. to Dipset-affiliate Vado. NYC hip hop is alive and well on this album. Limited edition tapes came with gold horizontal obi-strip.

Benjamin Hinz – “DEEP” c22

If you like your psychedelic rock brooding and slow, like it’s struggling breathe under the pressure of the ocean’s weight, then check out this 22 minute ripper. Housed in our customizable printed Maltese Cross cassette boxes.

C. Reider – “…a trustable cloud” c54 

Composed entirely out of free sound banks, instruments, and effects processing available in web browsers. It’s an outsider electronic trip, with the J-card artwork suggesting that this is the soundtrack to a Google Deep Dream.

Surachai – “Come, Deathless” c62

Mixing elements of industrial, power electronics, and even acid house, “Come, Deathless” is richly textured and may scare you half to death. Sounds like Autechre woke up in a miserable mood.

Do you have an album you’re aching to release on cassette? Take a look at our cassette duplication calculator to see all of our awesome shell colours and printing options. We’ll provide with you an instant quote, and free shipping to the United States and Canada!

Place your cassette order today

50% off Digital Download Cards at Duplication.ca

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Why choose between a physical album and a digital release? Have both with our Digital Download Cards!

We’ve slashed the cost of our digital download cards by 50% until the end of June! Take this opportunity to package digital download cards and hosting services with your next physical release, that way no fan is left without a way to listen to and purchase your music. You can even sell the download cards individually from your merch table without the need of a physical release!

Our cards come in two sizes: 4″ x 2″, or 3.5″ x 2″ (standard business card size) printed on thick and durable 14pt cardstock. All you have to do is upload your audio in a compressed folder (ZIP or RAR) with a maximum file size of 500MB. For only $10 you can add custom artwork. Just upload your image using our templates and we’ll add the codes!

Click here to order Digital Download Cards and save 50% until July 1st, 2019!

Duplicate Cassettes at Home with Duplication.ca

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Turn your home into a Duplication Station through Duplication.ca!

When you’re running an indie music label, every penny matters. Duplicating tapes at home is a great financial solution for those who aren’t afraid of rolling up their sleeves and recording by hand. Duplication.ca has all the accessories you need to package great looking and sounding cassettes in the comfort of your living room!

Blank Cassettes

Goes without saying that the first two items you’ll need are a cassette deck and cassette tapes. To say that we can supply with you with cassettes is an understatement— we have dozens of different shell colours and models to choose from and we can load them to the exact length of your album. Our normal-bias tape is intended to handle loud music, allowing you to boost the recording volume a little bit more before distortion.

Take a look around our blank cassette page and find which colour suits your music best!

Tab Plugs

Those who are experienced with multi-cassette duplicators know the hassle of placing scotch tape over every tab-out cassette and subsequently carefully peeling them off. For only $2.50 CAD Tab Plugs are a simple and inexpensive solution to this issue! Just pop in the plugs and your cassette recorder will override the tab recording lock.

Add Tab Plugs to your cart today!

Cassette Labels & J-Cards

Open up your image editing application and get started on designing your cassette label stickers! Our online shop is stocked with blank stickers for you to print at home on laser or inkjet, or you can cut out the middle man and we’ll print your labels for you!

View our Printed Cassette Labels options

We also have blank J-cards which pre-perforated for easy folding. You can design your cover using our downloadable templates and print directly at home or the photocopier. Like the cassette labels, we can also print and cut your J-cards using our high-quality laser press.

Click here for blank J-card pages

Tape Deck Maintenance

You’ll want your cassettes to sound as good as they look, so it’s important to regularly clean and maintain your cassette deck. We have specialized tools in our online store for this exact purpose, such as our Level Calibration tape, Speed Calibration, and Cleaning Fluid. You can make your recording and playback decks sound brand new, and fix detrimental issues like wow and flutter.

View our Cassette Maintenance products

All that being said, we have the equipment and facilities to supply wonderful sounding cassettes with gorgeous packaging. Our recording decks are fine-tuned to provide loud playback with a frequency range of 20Hz to 20kHz. If you want the best, look no further than our cassette duplication services.

Click here for an instant quote on cassette duplication and receive FREE SHIPPING to the United States and Canada

October 2018 cassette round-up

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On a personal note, I love October. I love the crisp autumn weather, I love secluding myself at night and binging on horror movies, and more than anything I love stepping on crunchy leaves while listening to new tapes on my Walkman. Here’s are some personal favourite Duplication.ca jammers from the month of October!

R. Stevie Moore – “Homers” c62

Outsider artist R. Stevie Moore returns with this reissue of his 1973 self-release. If you’ve never done the deep dive of the weird ‘n wild world of RSM this is as good as any place to start!

Andrew Weathers / Blaine Todd – Split c44

A melancholic but surprisingly relaxing split cassette that wavers between post-rock and experimental folk. Fans of Six Organs of Admittance and Jackie-O Motherfucker will love it.

Plastic Cactus – “Moth Eyes” c17

Atmospheric dry desert rock, and like a mirage it moves into psych ‘n surf territory. Full of rad Thee Oh Sees style riffs at 0.6x speed!

Courtney Barnett – “Tell Me How You Really Feel” c44

If you can’t dig Courtney Barnett you can’t dig nothin’. A+ Melbourne slackerdom, and if that doesn’t sell it for you, maybe the Kim Deal backing vocals will.

Appropriate Savagery – “Elegant In Its Brutality” c26
Anasisana – “Sad For The Rest of My Life” c34

Another gorgeous batch by California label Casement Exchange. Both tapes swing between chaos and beauty, must grabs for fans of minimalism. Can’t choose between the two of them, they’re both quintessential October graveyard wandering music.

Thinking of joining the analog cassette realm? Check out our online cassette duplication calculator for an instant quote! FREE STANDARD SHIPPING to the United States and Canada.

So what’s the diff between Real-Time and High-Speed cassette duplication?

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When entering your cassette duplication order, the first question you face is whether you want to duplicate real-time or high-speed. So what’s the difference? With real-time cassettes we load the tape according to your longest side length. From there we duplicate directly from your audio files, allowing us to use a high quality 24-bit source, even higher resolution than CD. Our frequency range is 20Hz to 20kHz, meaning that we can maintain extreme highs and lows while still dubbing at a loud volume and with low tape hiss. Each cassette is manually quality controlled to ensure the A-side sounds correct.


Our Tapematic 2000 loads tape into cassette shells for real-time duplication.

High-speed is the economical choice. The cassette is loaded into a digital bin and then duplicated continuously at high speed onto bulk 8,200 foot pancakes. Each tape is separated by a cue tone, which the Tapematic loaders use to locate, cut and load the tape into the cassette shell. Each cassette is consistent in quality with a frequency range of 20Hz to 16kHz. By being able to duplicate higher quantities at a faster rate we are able to offer a lower price per cassette compared to real-time, and just like real-time we are able to duplicate the cassettes at a loud volume with low tape noise.


Our high-speed loaders and duplicators running through a batch of cassettes in a matter of minutes!

 

Now that you know the difference, the only question that remains is which is the right duplication speed for your release? Compare the prices alongside all of our cassette shell colour and packaging options using our online calculator! We’ll supply you with an instant quote and free shipping to the United States and Canada.

September 2018 cassette round-up

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Let’s take a gander at some of our favourite cassettes we listened to this past September. A very upbeat month before we get into the October gloom ‘n doom!

Lucid Sound Driver – “Night Light” c42

Instrumental dream-pop that’s sure to set the vibe right. Grab your Walkman and save this one for the last night bus home.

Coping Skills – “Worst New Music” c30

Not only is this possibly the best album title and cover art this year, the music also rips! Teenage Fanclub for the internet content mill age.

Shoshana Rosenberg – “A Gold Ring in a Pig’s Snout” c30

Beautiful cassette consisting of revolving bass clarinet tones. The room sound is audible, giving an impression of claustrophobia relating to its thesis of female oppression.

Velveteen Echo – “Submarine” c15

Dream-like and hazy indie pop from Miss Champagne Records. A little Galaxie 500, a little Grouper. Love their pad print design too!

Heathers – “Midnight is a Place” c30

Montreal 90s rock revivalists return with their second cassette release. At the right time and in the right place, this would be classic Sub Pop canon.

Thinking of joining the analog cassette realm? Check out our online cassette duplication calculator for an instant quote! FREE STANDARD SHIPPING to the United States and Canada.

August 2018 cassette round-up

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Hello all tapeheads! Here’s a look at some of our favourite cassettes fell into our production line this month. Some are funky, some survived the pit, and one in particular is very kvlt.

Mortiis – “The Song of a Long Forgotten Ghost” c58

This is a reissue of Mortiis’ debut demo, a big departure from his black metal work in Emperor, instead opting to explore funeral dirge synthesis. Dig the dark forest etching on the matte black cassettes.

Wasterr – “Tape A” c9

It may be on the short side, but this cassette packs a hell of a punch. Melbourne garage rockers singing about fighting dads and smooching boys.

Moon Rise – S/T c40

You’ll have some trouble describing Moon Rise’s sound. Yes, it’s aesthetic, but it has the daring approach of PC Music, and the retro party vibes of The Avalanches. If that isn’t cool enough, check out their shimmering gold cassette.

Firearm – Dravecky c12

Bay Area hardcore as loud and tough as Dave Dravecky himself (SF Giants legend who broke his arm during a wild pitch!)

Satanic Panic ’81 – “The Sacrifice Hunter” c32

Synthwave maestros Satanic Panic emulate 80s horror VHS vibes in their soundtrack to The Sacrifice Hunter, a horror film so rare that… it may not even exist. Awesome use of our clear vinyl cassette boxes!

Thinking of joining the analog cassette realm? Check out our online cassette duplication calculator for an instant quote! FREE STANDARD SHIPPING to the United States and Canada.