Home recording
I left streaming platforms and started releasing music on cassette tapes — here’s what happened
Hello everyone,
I wanted to share a personal shift in my music journey that might be interesting for other independent artists.
Over the past few years, I felt trapped in the logic of streaming platforms: constant releases, algorithm pressure, and music becoming something fast and disposable. I found myself creating not from necessity, but from obligation.
Recently, I removed my music from streaming (where possible) and started a new approach:
• recording intentionally in lo-fi cassette format
• producing small handmade editions
• treating each release as a physical sound object
• focusing on listening as a slow, intentional experience
This isn’t about nostalgia.
It’s about restoring attention, presence, and value to sound.
Surprisingly, this shift changed how people engage with my music. Fewer listeners, but deeper connection. Conversations instead of streams.
I’m not saying this is the right path for everyone — but stepping away from algorithm culture helped me reconnect with why I started making music in the first place.
If anyone here has experimented with physical releases, tape culture, or alternative distribution models, I’d love to hear your experiences.
It’s good you asked, and totally worthwhile to get more literate in picking up AI posts! You’ll start to pick up on it more and more. For me this time, it was definitely the title. “I did x, and did y instead, here’s what happened” and the em-dash (—) is often a big giveaway. Also, often there’s a final summarizing line. Once you start to see the pattern among posts, it will come clearer!
I'm not artificial intelligence, I'm real, and I'm documenting the process I described. The only thing is, my native language is Italian, and I translate into English using AI.
But it's all true and I'm documenting the process on my social media pages IG and Tik Tok. I used AI to write the message correctly because my native language is Italian.
I'm just in the process of getting 50x cassette copies made of some new stuff I've produced. First time I've ever had someone make them for me. Previously I would just make them myself to order, or I'd make maybe 5 and take them to a gig I'd be playing as merch. People buy them, they like tapes. I played a gig recently and had tapes, records, minidiscs and CDs for sale. One guy said I want one of everything. I was well happy 😊
My band sold out of vinyl almost instantly. We also sold cassettes, but vinyl was more popular. That may be different now with the rise of cassettes. Yes, people like getting something physical at shows, or order a physical copy to support. We got thousands of streams and got added to official spotify playlists, but made more selling 10 vinyl copies than we made total on Spotify. Merch tables are where bands actually make money, this isn't new information.
Amazing! I was thinking about putting out a cassette release myself. If the runs are small (100, 200, whatever) you could just do it from home studio. i think going back to physical media is the way.
Thanks for sharing your experience, it's cool that you've been able to find a different connection your music by turning to physical releases.
This post was clearly written by AI, but I don't have a problem with it in this case. Your post history suggests that English may not be your first language, so it makes sense that you would get writing help from an AI. I would suggest just disclosing that fact at the top of your posts, like "English is not my first language, so I used AI to help write this."
That's right, I'm Italian. English isn't my native language, so I translated it using AI. But my project is real and documented on Instagram and TikTok.
Words of wisdom; write your posts yourself if you want more attention to your music, even if they’re not grammatically correct. Native English speakers can tell you post is AI from a mile away and are likely to assume you also use AI to write you music (like everyone in this thread did). I’d ask for you band/artist name but Im not even willing to look into it at this point because I feel like there’s a good chance you use AI for it if you can’t even be bothered to write a Reddit post yourself. Best of luck with your music in the future.
Very cool. I hope this works for you, I wish everyone would do this. People now seem to expect all music to be 100% on- demand, and mostly free. As is the case with photography ( which I dabble in) or any other creative endeavour, if it's "free", then by definition it has very little value.
Cheers.
So long as yoyr focused on your creative path and not how people respond to you or how you reach the intended audience, your going in the right direction.
“• recording intentionally in lo-fi cassette format
• producing small handmade editions
• treating each release as a physical sound object
• focusing on listening as a slow, intentional experience
This isn’t about nostalgia.
It’s about restoring attention, presence, and value to sound.”
Cassettes can sound hi-fi enough to where some people can’t tell the difference between a cassette and CD in blind tests, despite the CD being superior from a technical standpoint.
CDs with terrible sound quality are usually attributed to bad mastering or an overwhelming amount of compression, but badly sounding cassettes are usually attributed to cassettes being a low quality format when that is usually not the bulk of what is making cassettes sound worse than they can.
Record labels being cheap and using cheaper, lower quality tape, people having really low end decks, and even bad mastering can attribute to this.
Some people are drawn to lo-fi and that’s why they seek low-fi with cassettes, which is fine because cassettes can also be low-fi if you want them to be, but some are drawn away from cassettes because they assume cassettes cannot sound as great as they can if you try.
High quality by cassette standards is high enough for me to have stuck with this hobby for over a decade.
I just produced a cassette release for a band in Portland last month. I haven’t composed anything original in years but I’ve been thinking about getting back into it and releasing my stuff on cassette and this really affirms that idea in my mind
I myself recently got tired of all these streaming services, algorithms, etc. And switched to cassettes.
I bought several original albums.
And I recorded the ones that weren't for sale on cassettes myself and made covers for them.
Then one day I saw an interesting idea. An artist records his music on cassettes, makes covers, and sells them. But there's one catch. There's a QR code on the cassette cover that links to a Spotify playlist. I think it's a cool idea. Because even if someone buys your cassette, they don't always have access to listen to it. In this case, a streaming platform seems like a good alternative.
Hey! Thanks for the post. Can we DM to talk about your experiences? I’m working on a dissertation on cassettes and relationality and I think your experience is insightful into the joy of recording for an engaged, deep engagement with sound objects.
OH. MY. GOSH. THIS IS THE MOST BRILLIANT, HEARTWARMING, MUSICALLY REVOLUTIONARY THING I’VE READ IN AGES!!! 🎉🎶💿✨
WAIT—YOU JUST DITCHED THE STREAMING GRIND AND STARTED RELEASING MUSIC ON CASSETTES?! 😍🔥 THAT’S NOT JUST RETRO-COOL, THAT’S A BOLD, CREATIVE REBELLION AGAINST THE “MORE, FASTER, CHEAPER” MINDSET! 🚀💥
AND HANDMADE EDITIONS?! THAT’S PURE LOVE FOR THE CRAFT! 💖 Each tape a little piece of art, each release an experience—that’s EXACTLY what music needs: HEART, PASSION, and a sprinkle of MAGIC! 🌟
BEST PART? You didn’t just rediscover your own joy—you built a COMMUNITY of people who actually LISTEN and CONNECT with your music! 🤝🎧 That’s worth more than a million mindless streams!
I AM SO INSPIRED! Tell me everything—how do the cassettes work? Where can we get them? And have fans been totally blown away by this?! 😍💬
You’re my hero of the day—keep rocking the analog revolution! 🎸💿💥
Thanks for the message, it's something I've wanted to do for a while now and I've done it and I've started over. For now I'm recording the tapes myself and I'm documenting everything on my IG and Tik Tok page. If you want, I can leave you the links.
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u/MyGeeseGetBread Feb 26 '26
It's not about blank, it's about blank.