Audio cassette sticker label guide

Posted on September 8, 2020 by duplication.ca

Sticker labels are an excellent choice for audio cassettes if you want to show off a killer design in vivid colours. Something to keep in mind when graphic designing is that our stickers aren’t one size fits all, we actually have a few models to choose from. Some mesh better with certain cassette shells than others. Here’s an overview of our different cassette label templates to make your next cassette duplication order even easier!

STANDARD WHITE

These smooth labels have diagonal corners on the top with rounded corners on the bottom. In addition to the regular matte stock is a high gloss version which gives your colours an extra shine. Our 12-up sheets (which is to say 12 labels per page) allow for full bleed, so you can make your images extra large to ensure no artwork will be cut off at the printers.

SQUARE BOTTOM CORNERS

These are similar to the Standard White labels, but instead of rounded corners they have square corners at the bottom. These do not allow for full bleed, so if you’re not careful with your home printing you may find that some of the artwork at the bottom of the label may appear at the top due to a shaky printer. For this reason we suggest using solid colour backgrounds, like the Mothra Stewart tape above (great band name.)

We have a variety of Square Bottom Corner labels! All of them are available on the cassette duplication calculator:
Glossy White Square Bottom
Brown Kraft
Clear Labels
Solid Colour labels

Ezekiel Tha Prophet

FOUR ROUNDED CORNERS (CL4RC)

Pretty self-explanatory, all four of the corners are rounded! They’re printed on matte paper, giving a visceral texture to your cassette. The labels are full bleed, so you need not worry when designing your artwork!

Visit our website to download sticker label templates and get designing!

Which label is right for your cassette?

Chum Out

All you have to do is look at the cassette shell! For example, the Chum Out cassette above is using our ‘Old Computer’ shell, which has beveled style frame. The frame cuts diagonally on the top corners, meaning that you will want to use either our Standard White or Square Bottom Corner style labels.

CL4RC02 Concrete Coloured Paint

Meanwhile, our black cassette shells have rounded corners across the edges, so you’re safe to use the Four Rounded Corners sticker labels without worrying about overlap! Of course, you could use the Standard White labels with this style of shell as well, it’s just a matter of personal preference.

If you have questions about particular shells, don’t hesitate to send us an email, we want to make cassette duplication as smooth of an experience as possible for you. Make sure to check out the cassette selection guide for high-res pictures of our cassette shells.

O rder cassette duplication with sticker labels and receive FREE SHIPPING to the United States and Canada

Want to print them yourself? Buy blank sticker labels through the online store

Four new cassette case colors from Duplication.ca!

Posted on July 13, 2020 by duplication.ca

How do you follow up a week of new cassette shell colours? You introduce a line of new cassette cases! Our new cassette boxes are bright and cheerful, just in time for a long and hot summer.

Each Norelco case is available as an individual item through our online store or as a packaging option when ordering cassette duplication and print.

Neon Pink Norelco cassette case from Duplication.ca

Neon Pink
For the post-club ravers who crave more unpredictability in their music.
Order online!

Burgundy Norelco cassette case from Duplication.ca

Burgundy
Mysterious and comforting, like the deep woods, or acoustic black metal.
Order online!

Lemon Yellow Norelco cassette case from Duplication.ca

Lemon
A relaxing cassette case for scorching hot days, feels like squeezing a lemon into a white beer.
Order online!

Pink Norelco cassette case from Duplication.ca

Pink
Unafraid to stand out, you spot this pink cassette case and you can hear the off-meter off-tune no wave riffs from SoHo.
Order online!

Want to personalize these new cassette boxes so they’re unmistakably yours? Etch your artwork directly on the case! We can laser engrave text and artwork to cassette cases and the cassette itself. You can add it as an option through our cassette duplication calculator, where you’ll receive an instant quote and FREE SHIPPING to the United States and Canada.

G et your music professionally duplicated on these tapes and receive FREE SHIPPING to the United States and Canada!

Duplication.ca will ship your pre-orders for you!

Posted on April 7, 2020 by duplication.ca

Save Time and a Trip to the Post Office

The fun part of running a record label is the curation, design, meeting talented artists, and watching the orders roll in. The not-so-fun-part? Packing boxes and making trips to the post office. Fortunately Duplication.ca has an awesome service exclusive to our clients: Bulk Mail Order & Distribution.

The way it works is that when you place your media duplication order (be it cassette, CD, vinyl, DVD, etc.), you can go ahead and begin taking pre-orders from your fans. Once your order is ready to ship, send us your pre-order list and we’ll ship them out to your individual clients with a tracking number, arriving within 14 days. That way your fans won’t have to wait for you to receive your new album, package them in individual mailers, and make your way to the post office. You’ll have peace of mind that we’re taking care of the heavy lifting, and you can monitor its movement with your tracking number.

Here’s our prices per individual shipment:

Shipping to the United States
12″ Vinyl: $7.25 USD
7″ Vinyl: $7 USD
Cassette: $5.75 USD
CD: $5.75 USD
DVD/Blu-Ray: $6.35 USD

Shipping to Canada
12″ Vinyl: $15.83 CAD
7″ Vinyl: $14.34 CAD
Cassette: $12.69 CAD
CD: $12.69 CAD
DVD/Blu-Ray: $13.44 CAD

All you have to do is let us know that you’d like us to take care of the pre-order shipments when placing a new order. Once your order is complete we’ll contact you and take a tally of all the pre-order purchases you have in queue. We can get your product anywhere in the US or Canada quickly and safely, with a minimum of logistics. Every aspect of the mailing is handled in our warehouse, including mailers, labels, shipping, tracking, and storage. We can also accomodate international orders and bulk mailing to distros/record stores, just send us an email for custom pricing.

Check out our CD Pressing, Cassette Duplication, and Vinyl services at Duplication.ca

What’s the difference between CD-Text and Gracenote?

Posted on February 3, 2020 by duplication.ca

Let your fans know who they’re listening to with CD-Text and Gracenote

Our CD pressing quote pages are filled with tons of packaging and printing options to make your CD stand out from the pack. A couple of add-ons that may have caught your eye are CD-Text and Gracenote. Both display album information to your fans when listening, so you may ask yourself, ‘What’s the difference between the two?’ Allow us to break it down for you!

CD-Text

CD-Text is embedded in the master of your album, meaning that it must be added to your album information before duplication or replication. Most commonly found in car CD players, CD-Text is used by CD players with an LED display. These CD players will read the information directly from the disc, displaying the artist name, song title, and album title. CD-Text can be added for both CD duplication and replication services, we’ll even send you a PDF with the CD-Text info before pressing to give you final approval.

Gracenote

Gracenote (formerly known as CDDB) is an internet database which sends CD metadata to iTunes. In other words, we upload information related to your CD, such as artist and track info, and when another fan pops their CD into their computer iTunes will automatically display the album information from Gracenote. Gracenote allows for more detailed information, such as year of release, composer information, and the choice from hundreds of genres (great news for all Two-Tone Ska Revival bands!) Duplication.ca has special access with Gracenote which allows us to lock the album metadata for editing, so nobody can change your album metadata without your approval.

CD-Text and Gracenote cater to two different pieces of technology, but you don’t have to pick one or another, both options are available for you to please your full fan base. If you need a DDP for a CD replication order, check out our new DDP Creation service through the online shop. You can use this DDP folder at any pressing plant, including the CD-Text and Gracenote options!

The Memory Empire by Atsuko Chiba, pressed by Duplication.ca

Double cassette album packaging now available

Posted on January 9, 2020 by duplication.ca

Are you releasing an album that’s just too big to fit on a single cassette? Maybe you want to package two albums together as a special edition? Duplication.ca has you covered.

Introducing Double Album Cases for Audio Cassette

Available in black or white, these double album cases snuggly fit two audio cassette shells. The album snaps closed and has an outer overlay film allowing you to slip in a graphic trapsheet for large-scale artwork. They’re made out of sturdy polypropylene, making them crack resistant despite its lightweight design. There’s even enough space inside to fit a booklet!

Grab them for only $0.38 USD each!

Sangre De La Luna duplicated and packaged by Duplication.ca

We also have single album cases, available in black or transparent editions (the latter allows for double-sided artwork.) Grab them individually in our online store or add them to your duplication order and receive FREE SHIPPING to the United States and Canada!

USB Cassettes: digital music with an analog design

Posted on December 20, 2019 by duplication.ca

USB CASSETTES
DIGITAL MUSIC WITH AN ANALOG DESIGN

Do you love the retro aesthetic of audio cassettes but need modern digital merch for your fans? Then revolutionize your merch table with our USB Cassettes! These USB drives are the same shape and size as regular audio cassettes, but with a moveable thumb drive that comes out of the bottom. At 8GB of space you can load it up with over 1,000 MP3s, 1080p video, FLAC files, PDFs, or any other data. We can supply larger drives on custom orders.

Click here to learn more about USB Cassettes

Best of all, you can personalize your USB Cassette with cassette cases, J-cards, pad print, and even full-colour UV flatbed printing. Now you can finally turn your digital release into a physical object for your fans!

Order USB cassettes today

Want to customize your order? Send us an email and we’ll supply a quote!

Best Cassettes of 2019: Duplication.ca Staff Picks

Posted on December 20, 2019 by duplication.ca

2019 has been wall to wall audio cassettes for the Duplication.ca team. We’re non-stop duplicating, printing, and packaging audio cassettes, to the point that we’ve been dreaming in high-bias. With so many jammers on high-rotation at the production facilities and Toronto’s Dupe Shop, to pick an absolute favourite of the thousands of cassettes we’ve duplicated in the past 12 months is an impossibility. But man did we try. Here’s our staff picks of just some of our favourite cassettes of the year.

Equip - Cursebreaker X duplication by Duplication.ca

Josh’s pick (Production, Toronto)
Equip – “Cursebreaker X” c32

Cursebreaker X is the latest album from Chicago synth/vaporwave artist Equip (Kevin Hein). This album is the full realization of the performance and musical aesthetics, culminating in a new stage costume including a Unicorn horn, cape and glowing Cursed Sword. It takes you for an immediate ride into a fictional RPG bringing in inspiration from Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy and Secret of Mana, fleshing out castles, valleys and skies with styles of Progressive rock, synthwave and Ambience compositions. Available exclusively at the legendary 100% Electronicon 2 festival, now just a myth. Break the Curse!

Sacred Bones Record Society - Robert Eggers mixtape, manufactured by Duplication.ca

Ashly’s pick (sales, Montreal)
Robert Eggers – “Sacred Bones Record Society mixtape” c60

Working as a companion piece to Eggers’ truly incredible horror film The Lighthouse (one of the best films of the year), this mixtape is a lobster trap of sea shanties, tales of shipwrecks, and isolation induced madness. May cause nautical hallucinations, siren calls, and flooding.

Oppression - Le coeur plein de rage, manufactured by Duplication.ca

Samm’s pick (Pad Print, Montreal)
Oppression – “Le coeur plein de rage” c33

Lo-fi, tough, and scummy black metal from the basements of Montreal’s east end, blending into post-punk and oi territory seamlessly. No real internet presence, email directly for a copy.

DJ Speedsick - Nothing Lasts, manufactured by Duplication.ca

Fae’s pick (Production, Montreal)
DJ Speedsick – “Nothing Lasts” c48

Harsh as Hell techno, heavy and soaking in mixer feedback. Imagine if the blood rave scene from Blade set up a residency in the midwest, and then make it a bit grimier.

Odd Person - The Flowers of Arcadia, manufactured by Duplication.ca

Ryan’s pick (Dupe Shop, Toronto)
Odd Person – “The Flowers of Arcadia” c30

The sounds of the rainforest dropped in the middle of electronic compositions. Mallets and percussions emphasize your surroundings as living, breathing ecosystems. These deeply engrossing new age arrangements serve as a healing potion for the cold edges of city life. Recommended if you dig Spencer Clark!

Robert Glasper, Fuck Yo Feelings, manufactured by Duplication.ca

Denise’s pick (Manager, Montreal)
Robert Glasper – “Fuck Yo Feelings” c84

Nearly filling up a c90 tape, the Fuck Yo Feelings mixtape is STACKED with guest appearances with legends like Herbie Hancock and new school maestros such as Denzel Curry. Robert Glasper delivers on his unique style of jazz and hip hop fusion, exactly what you’d expect after his work on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly.

CFCF - Liquid Colours cassette

Rob’s pick (Marketing Coordinator, Montreal)
CFCF – “Liquid Colours” c44

A revisionist look at corporate y2k-era IDM and jungle music, tailor made to soundtrack your Calvin Klein purchases, or day at the relaxation spa, or even choosing your souped-up car in a Sega Dreamcast game. Conceptually fascinating, sonically amazing. Somewhere between KLF’s ideological use of sampling and vaporwave’s critique of capitalism in the music industry lands Liquid Colours, a guide through consumerism in a pre-9/11 world.

Garret’s pick (Dupe Shop, Toronto)
Real World – “The Language of My Life is Written in Blood” c8

Viscous death metal, not for the faint of heart. Brutal riffs that will pummel your eardrums like a heavy weight to a punching bag.

Available at the Dupe Shop

The amount of talent that comes through the Duplication.ca production line is simply incredible. From hip-hop to black metal, from new wave to no wave, and from vapor to the occasional field recordings of glacier movements, we’re happy to boast that we’ve treated each tape with the attention and care it deserved. Can’t wait to hear what you all have in store for 2020! We hope you get to use your holiday break as an opportunity to cram your friends into a jam space and churn out a killer c20.

In the meantime take a look at our cassette duplication calculator for tons of packaging options, cassette shell colours, and FREE SHIPPING to the United States and Canada!

Happy holidays, tape heads!

Vinyl Jacket and Insert Promotion December 2019

Posted on December 17, 2019 by George

Buy direct from the print shop! Here’s a link to our current special offers.

Creating Pad-Print and Laser Engraving Art Using Canva

Posted on December 15, 2019 by George

If you need to create artwork using an online design service like Canva, here’s how you can go about it.

Our platemaker and Laser engraver operates at 1000 pixels per inch so we’ve created the pad print and laser engraving template as 5 x 5 inches with 1000 ppi resolution (5000 x 5000 pixels). The template files are found on our template page. For Canva you will need the JPG template like this one.

In Canva you can create a document of 5000 x 5000 pixels, then import this template image and resize it to fill the entire canvas. Your cassette art must be done only in BLACK, no colors. Change the transparency of the template to see what you’re doing.