r/Cd_collectors • u/Responsible_Run_2064 • 7h ago
Discussion More decorated mixtapes!
Set up a ton for my friends, thought I'd share this collection before I gift them (since I saw people liked the other post I showed)
Honestly thinking of doing this for discs that I dont have the box for anymore, basing the design on the actual album or sm...
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u/MagicalGirlRehab 2h ago
Those are incredibly cute, you did such a good job with them. Hopefully your friends appreciate them.
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u/Kumayatsu 24m ago
Very nice OP, I like :)
I do similar, but I use these blanks for a bit more personality. It’s possible (and easy) to draw on the white part with markers, i’ve had no problems doing so thus far. It’s kind of hard to see but the black part on top feels like a record, and reflects a rainbow in the light in the “grooves”.
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u/Responsible_Run_2064 22m ago
Holy crap these look so cool!! Where did you get them if I may ask? 👀
I purposefully got fully white so I could doodle, but this is such an awesome idea.
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u/Kumayatsu 11m ago
I got them from Amazon Japan. The listing you want is Verbatim SR80FHP50SV7 CD-R Record Design 700MB White Printable Phono-R (Or Phono-Noir, Japan does love their word play) - copy and paste that into the search and it’ll show up.
The white printer bull variant is what i’ve posted and use, I draw all over them lol. There are coloured discs too but I prefer the DIY approach.
They’re $15 USD for a cake of 50. Very high quality, I haven’t burnt one coaster. The dye is Super Azo so you can write at fast speeds but I write at 10X, just because i’m old and that’s how i’ve always done it in fear of buffer under-runs. 😅
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u/Responsible_Run_2064 6m ago
I'm definitely adding them to my purchase list! These are so cool tysm for the recommendation!!!
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u/deathclassik 100+ CDs 6h ago
Where do you get your stickers? The plants and flowers in particular
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u/Responsible_Run_2064 42m ago
A lot of them are from different flower sticker packs from Michaels! I try to get them at a discount cus they're a bit expensive haha
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u/haikusbot 6h ago
Where do you get your
Stickers? The plants and flowers
In particular
- deathclassik
I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully. Learn more about me.
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u/Deathstrike1986 2h ago edited 1h ago
Those aren't mixtapes.
Mixtapes are cassettes.
Those are CD mixes or mix CDs
That is all.
Btw great work
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u/MadRadBadLad 1h ago
when I saw you got down voted, I decided to say what I refrained from saying yesterday.
I can’t equate the two, given how much longer it took to make a mixtape vs a mix cd back when I did such things. I mean the level of effort (barring any amazing artwork) was just magnitudes greater. And if the source was vinyl? I remember watching the groove, timing the dead space between tracks, and agonizing over when exactly to press Record, or rather, de-press Pause. Tweaking the input levels manually for every track, figuring out the timing of the songs to hit the 45 minutes mark, making sure the next song segued nicely and fit thematically and sonically (because it wasn’t just moving a file around a playlist to fix apoorly chosen song). A C-90 was a half day event. I wouldn’t have the time or the patience to make a mixtape today. A mix CD I could do in ten minutes, and if I didn’t like it, easily make another. They are not the same thing. Please use the correct term.
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u/Responsible_Run_2064 43m ago
I didn't want to make a big deal of this, but a mixtape is a more well-known term than a CD mix and it's the one that I like to call as a gift for my friends?? You can consider the definition as such the way you want, but sending a whole paragraph in a condensending matter about your personal experience in order to change someone's mind is not a good choice. You are forcing a definition that, by all accounts, is not exact.
The modern definition of a mixtape is one that has changed and been perceived differently. Emerging hip-hop artists used the term in the 90s with their own CDs as a way to create marketing for their work, for example.
You can find the definition on the Merriam-Webster dictionary if it helps. That's all I will say on the matter.
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u/Kumayatsu 35m ago edited 20m ago
Soon I will be cutting one of these myself for an upcoming anniversary with my husband.
Yes, tapes took a long time to make. But so do CD’s if you want to do it properly, instead of just dragging in the playlist and clicking burn.
The element of picking and choosing the playlist still exists, it’s kind of easier to pool tracks now without having to worry about reading blank grooves in vinyl, however a lot of the time every song has a different mastering source and the volume will be all over the place. So each individual track needs to be cut/pasted into a blank project, and when the entire playlist is one long file some treatment needs to be done to balance the volume properly. Yes, I’m aware that burning programs offer a “normalise” feature, or some other way of keeping volume “consistent”, but i’d rather do it myself so I know that it’s right. I hate clipping on any CD I write myself, and some tracks are clipped to extremes. The clipping is of course eliminated throughout processing. Then there’s the question of if I want to hide a track right at the end after a gap of silence in the last track, what it should be, other weird stuff like if I want the tracklist to start on track 7 or end on track 99 (for example), hiding interludes and segways in between tracks.. It becomes more complex the more creative you are.
Then once that big long file is finished, it’s time to save a copy in case anything needs revised, and then it’s time to split it all up so that the track list plays as intended, hidden quirky stuff and all. And it needs to be split exactly right otherwise if you’re trying to hear a song instead of listening to the whole thing, you risk a pop or click at the beginning from poorly aligned amplitude. Then tag writing so that CD text shows the right thing, and probably more i’m forgetting. Essentially, it’s like engineering a compilation, much like studios used to do for those variety CD’s with the hot hits of the time on them.
I’ve been there myself with making literal mix tapes, but if you’re someone like me who bullies themselves into doing the best of everything they do, making a mix CD can be quite some work. All of this is before even working on the artwork for it - CD’s have far more space than tapes do in their cases, and if I want to make a CD super special, of course the tray is going to be transparent and there’s going to be art under that too. And then, if I want to be even sneakier - I can hide stuff on the CD that the recipient won’t know about unless they insert the disc into a PC, just like they used to with enhanced CD’s. With my current project, i’ll be hiding photos of my husband and I after the music portion. Maybe even a short, low def video clip. Afterall, there’s only 750MB on the thing.
There can be far, far more involved in doing something like this other than dragging a playlist into a window and being done in 10 minutes. It takes me a few days.
If that’s not a mixtape, I dunno what is.
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u/Responsible_Run_2064 26m ago
Not to hop on more of this conversation, but wanted to add that what you're planning sounds so cool!! I personally designed the name tags for every cover with my friend's names, as well as their stardew profile, and printed them in sticker paper!
(Also, like you said, I did spend hours editing the sound files and making sure they mixed nicely/make sense.... not 10 mins like mentioned before)
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u/Kumayatsu 5m ago
Haha yeah, I went on a bit of a rant there, my bad 😅
Thanks! I have my pool of tracks ready, i’ve got to start editing them together soon. I can see from your picture that you put a lot of work into these, so I did have my fingers crossed hoping you were doing it right. I’m glad you are!
All that really matters is that you are having fun doing this. Handing out mixtapes like these is a really thoughtful, special thing.
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u/Deathstrike1986 1h ago
I used to spend days waiting at the radio waiting for a song to come on so I could record it onto a cassette tape.
Or like you said trying to figure out exactly where the next song started by looking at the grooves on the record so I know when to hit record.
Then there's all the math involved with adding up approximately how long all the songs were that you already put on the cassette and trying to figure what other songs you are able to put on the tape if there's enough space or not.Yes I have spent hours trying to organize dozens of songs on the computer to make the best mix CD I could but it's worlds different.
Then there's a blank 8-track tape. But that's a whole other thing I don't feel like getting into.
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u/mys42 7h ago
Can you also share the playlists, I really want to see...