Mixtape Redux

by laxap in Circuits > USB

48982 Views, 157 Favorites, 0 Comments

Mixtape Redux

mixtape.jpg
IMG_2678.jpg
IMG_2679.jpg
IMG_2664.jpg
As a teenager, in the gone all-analog era, I spent hours and hours making mixtapes. It went like this:

If you like somebody, make and give this person a mixtape. If you want to show your rebellion and test your parents, make yourself some mixtapes and manage to have them played in the car. All the time.

USB flash drives, today, are as handy as cassettes almost were yesterday.

A few years ago, I saw a cardboard mixtape-shaped USB drive case there, and found the USB idea quite neat. But I wanted something more, well, authentic.

And very recently, I wanted to share music with a person I like.

The above intro picture tells it all, you now have the whole concept. Really want more details? read on...

Needed Stuff

IMG_2617.jpg
Materials:
  • A compact cassette. A model assembled with screw, not heat staking. So that you can open it.
  • A cassette box.
  • A cheap USB flash drive, with a physical size that can fit into the cassette, as described in the next step. The keyring hole position should be placed so as to ease the placement of the pivot, if possible using one of the cassette's small holes (see step 4).
  • You will also need one small (M2) screw, and two nuts.
Tools:
  • Screwdriver
  • Cutter or X-Acto knife
  • File
  • Drill press (or Dremel) to adjust the USB flash drive
  • Flat pliers

Gut the Cassette

IMG_2618.jpg
IMG_2621.jpg
IMG_2624.jpg
IMG_2626.jpg
IMG_2628.jpg
IMG_2630.jpg
IMG_2636.jpg
Open the cassette. Keep only the shell halves, and the screws.

Remove some inner ribs, carefully enough to not damage the outer sides of the shell:
  • Mark fracture lines with the X-Acto
  • Fold and tear off the ribs, with flat pliers
  • Remove unwanted remains with a file, until it has room for the USB flash drive to move quite freely

Adjust the USB Flash Drive

IMG_2641.jpg
IMG_2642.jpg
If needed, enlarge the keychain hole, so that the screw can cross it.

With a large drill bit, carefully make room for the nuts.

Add a Pivot

IMG_2646.jpg
IMG_2647.jpg
IMG_2644.jpg
IMG_2649.jpg
Cut and file the free end of the screw to the proper length:
  • long enough to enter into the other shell half's hole,
  • not too long, so that it won't scratch the cassette box.

Remount the Cassette, Adjust the Box

IMG_2637.jpg
IMG_2663.jpg
IMG_2660.jpg
Close the cassette, and tighten its screws.

Due to some slight excess space taken by the USB flash drive, I had to remove some ribs molded into the box, so that the box and cassette won't grip.

Basically, we're done. All the rest is obvious (copy songs into flash drive, make a label).

In the old days, we spent hours making nice labels, minimizing the gaps between songs, fading song ends, etc., making mixtapes true works of art. We now want to apply a similar (digital) perfectionism, so please read on...

Create the Playlist, Export and Order the Songs

Playlist.png
Playlist.png
The objective is simple
  1. Make a playlist
  2. Export it as MP3 files, on the computer
  3. Copy the MP3 files onto the USB flash drive

It seems easy, but there are some unexpected pitfalls... Here are some tips.

Possibilities

There are many many ways of creating MP3 mixes these days. Usually you use your computer's music player; most players offer export features. Although not an Apple fan-boy, I'm using iTunes.

Tips

DRM:

I purchased very few songs on iTunes, protected by DRM. I soon realized it sucks (cannot play MY purchased music on MY other computers). I solved this by burning them (as WAV) to a CD (a CD-RW is great for that) and re-importing them.

MP3 export:

Given the capacity of the USB flash drive and the number of songs you want, lossless format will take too much space, so MP3 is the way to go. The quality loss (if you can notice it) shall remind us that, in the cassettes era, "lossless" was hopeless.

I didn't quickly find a player able to export in other formats, and it was a bit late at night to play around with the command line (mplayer/gstreamer), so I found TuneClone which works great together with iTunes. TuneClone pretends to be a CD writer; it intercepts track writings from iTunes, converts them and orders them into a directory of your choice.

Songs ordering:

I wanted the songs to be playable sequentially (like a cassette) to match the playlist, and importable hierarchically, with artist and album names. So I exported the songs twice:

- all songs in one directory, each song prefixed by a sequence number;
- in a hierarchy by artist / album / song.

File names:

Also some players may put "dangerous" characters (from the album/song names) into directory or file names, like quotes, column, semi-column, parenthesis brackets,... It's usually a good idea to remove these characters.

They may also (especially for classical music) produce extremely long names (containing the composer name, conductor, orchestra, soloists, album, movement, tempo, etc.). It's a good idea to shorten them and keep only the essential information.

Create the Label

IMG_2665.jpg
IMG_2669.jpg
Print a cover label with the playlist (the sequential version, if you include the two orderings, as described in the previous step).

If you have more time than I just had, combine the list with a nice cover artwork.

Yesterday: done manually, or with a typewriter, or with an Amiga + matrix printer... you name it. Today: done with e.g. OpenOffice and a laser printer.

Create a Booklet

booklet.png
Wanting to add some more info about the songs, I created a booklet.

To make sure the album artworks were here, I used CoverScout to import them into iTunes, prior to making screenshots.

I made screenshots of the playlist (showing songs with album artwork), displaying the wanted info, then imported the screenshots into a drawing software (e.g. OpenOffice draw), and overlaid some text containing a personal note for each song.

Because a printed version would not fit into the cassette box, I made a PDF file that I copied into the USB flash drive.

Done!

IMG_2669.jpg
IMG_2680.jpg
IMG_2673.jpg
IMG_2677.jpg
IMG_2675.jpg
IMG_2678.jpg
IMG_2679.jpg
Final touch: add a hand-written label on the cassette. Only side A is used ;-)

Admire your work, and give it to your friend!

Look for the reaction. "Oh, a tape! Mmh... where is my Walkman?"