Apparently it’s the year of the tape or something. Interested in being part of it? The Year of the Tape Discord is a welcoming community for fans of video game music & cassettes. We're happy to help with homemade tapes & design feedback.

This guide was written for beginner hobbyists. Tear in Abyss tapes follow the DIY ethos, but not the DIY production.

The intention of this guide is to help those who are interested to create one-offs and small runs of their own personal tape projects. Please take the information provided with a grain of salt and do your own research as well.

 

Written by Gaz with special thanks to the tape community for their insights and inspiration 💖

*This guide does not contain any affiliate links.*

Overview

General advice: be resourceful. Use what's easily available to you, ask questions, and don't worry about perfection.

Here's the process in a nutshell:

1. Choose your project
2. Choose the tracklist
3. Design j-card
4. Design labels
5. Source supplies
6. Source audio
7. Dub the tape
8. Put it all together
9. Show it off 😎

Your Project

Pick something that speaks to you. If you aren’t passionate about the idea, you’re less likely to complete it. It doesn’t matter what other people want or if it’s something that’s been done before. You have something unique to offer.

And remember, it’s your vision. Getting opinions from others can be helpful, but this is your project, for you. Have confidence in your ideas 😊✨

The Tracklist

For a first time project, I recommend a soundtrack or selections that will fit on one tape. Keep it simple while you get a feel for things. The tracks you choose will determine the length of tape you need.

For example, let’s imagine we’ve picked a soundtrack that has 15 songs with varying track lengths. The combined length of all 15 tracks is 58:42. It doesn’t split perfectly even, but we decide:

• Side A — 8 tracks (29:40)
• Side B — 7 tracks (29:02)

Since we need to be able to fit the higher length (29:40), we decide to use a C60. Cassettes that are C60 have 30 minutes per side, totalling 60 minutes. This ensures we’ll have enough length for all our audio, with a bit of extra time to be safe and in case we’d like a few seconds of silence between tracks.

Design

Please be considerate with your artwork selections. Artists and their work deserve our respect, so if there’s any doubt, please ask for permission if you’d like to use someone else’s art for your project. If you're able to create your own art or arrange official art in a unique way, that's even better.

Some general suggestions when it comes to art that will be printed:

1. Create in at least 300 DPI (dots per inch) — this means more detail will be visible when the art is printed, providing a higher quality image.
2. Add a bleed area to your work (generally ⅛”) — this means extending your design past the actual size of the j-card or labels so it can be trimmed down to the proper size without accidentally losing any detail. Templates will often have bleed & cut lines added to them for reference.
3. Print in CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, key) — screens show colour in RGB (red, green, blue) whereas print colours are CMYK. To get a better idea of what your colours will look like in print, you’ll want to preview and export it in CMYK. This process for this will depend on the tool you use.

A general image editing program is all you’ll need for designing. There are plenty of PDF and PSD templates available, such as the ones available here from Duplication that you can import into your program to use for guidance.

Some free Photoshop alternatives include GIMP and Krita, both of which are open source and available for Linux, macOS, Windows.

Inspiration tips:

• Look up cover art for the game or other games in the series
• Watch some gameplay to refresh your memory of the visuals
• Reference other cassettes and album covers you like
• Observe how retro cassettes and j-cards were designed
• The placement of soundtrack title, tracklists, credits, logos, artwork, etc.
• Font size and style (good rule of thumb is to limit how many used)
• There is a large variety of styles out there you can pull from for inspiration and guidance
• Some great sources of layout designs include Discogs, thrift stores, libraries, music shops, or your peers in the community
  
• Ask yourself some questions, such as:
• What do I like about this game? Why?
• What’s a recurring theme in the game?
• Is there a memorable scene?
• Are there any noteworthy items or objectives?
• What aspect or aesthetic do you want to emphasize?

J-card

We’ll need to design the front and back. Your exact j-card size may vary depending on the template used and where it’s being printed. The following j-card (with no extra panels) measures 4.0625” in width and 4.00” in height without bleed.

Below is an example template for an outer j-card design that matches those dimensions. This template is JP0 from the Duplication link in the previous section.

Black line — this is your bleed area. You’ll want to extend art to this line. Art between the black and red line most likely won’t be shown in print, but this ensures there will be no white edges if alignment shifts during printing.
Red line — this is the cut line. Anything outside of the solid line will most likely not be seen. The dotted line shows the spine folds.
Blue line — safe area. You generally want to keep text & other key elements within these lines. This way, in the event that printing is misaligned, important info won’t be cut off.

Generally speaking, unless you’re printing to size, you won’t need to worry too much about the safe area. My personal preference when printing at home is to print up to the bleed line on a paper larger than the actual j-card. This way I can trim down to size myself with some room for error.

The inner j-card template is a mirrored version of the outer and is included with the download of JP0 from Duplication. 

Labels

Okay firstly, you’re probably wondering: how do I print directly on the cassette shell?

The good news — it’s possible. The bad news — it’s not realistic for most small (sub 25) runs. If you’re interested in learning more, do some digging into “cassette pad printing” and/or “cassette UV printing”. As with a lot of printing/manufacturing, minimum order quantities often need to be met for it to be worth a business’ time. Which means as a customer you need to buy more than one.

That being said, we’re going to look into paper labels since they’re much more affordable for the average hobbyist creator. Again, we can utilize Duplication’s templates for labels. There are a few different options for label style, so pick whichever you like best; just ensure it will fit the physical design of your shell.

As with the j-card templates, the lines here represent the same things. Black line is your bleed, red line is where it will be cut, and blue line shows your safe area.

Label tips:

• Assuming the audio is different between sides, we’ll want to be able to differentiate between which side is A and which is B
• Choose a base colour that complements the colour of the shell
• Info to possibly include: game title, “Original Soundtrack” or “Soundtrack Selections”, composer, and/or your ‘label’ name (make something up just for fun!)
• If the tracklisting is manageable you can include the songs on the label. Alternatively, you can leave it blank and add a matching texture or image
  

Supplies

What we’ll need:

1. Cassette shell — can be purchased new in varying lengths & colours, or can redub over a secondhand tape. If using secondhand, you’ll want to verify the length fits your project.
1. Duplication.ca offers a variety of shell colours and tape lengths to purchase. You may also enjoy the C60 pack that includes 10 assorted colours, norelco cases, and blank j-cards (also available in a C90 option).
2. Norelco case — can generally be purchased for less than $1.00, including coloured options. Can also be repurposed from thrifted cassettes.
3. Label paper — a lot of different options here. If you have a printer at home, you can buy sticker paper or cassette specific label sheets, you can also just print normally and hold them on with folded scotch tape (Figure A).
4. J-card paper — again, a few different options. Printing somewhere specifically that does j-cards will probably require a minimum order and this will cost you more than necessary. Instead, consider printing with a local shop on thicker cardstock and scoring the paper yourself. Alternatively, use printer paper and glue your design onto something thicker; watercolour paper (140lb/300gsm) has served me well for this. If going that route, I would recommend cutting the watercolour paper to size first, then folding, and then glueing your cut out design.
1. Another community member has recommended using FedEx Office to fit 4 j-cards on 8.5” x 11” flyers. I haven’t done this myself, but it could be worth trying.

Figure A — Labels printed on standard paper, cut out with scissors, and held on with transparent tape.

Audio

You’ll probably want to actually listen to it at some point, right?

This guide was written with more of an emphasis on art & design opposed to audio. So let’s refer to a guide written by The Walkman Archive on making good cassette recordings.

This guide covers topics like:

• Choosing a tape deck to record on — single vs double decks, 2-head vs 3-head.
• The hardware you record from (ie. laptop to deck) — this section may be outdated since the writer references their Dell Precision M4600 laptop, which was released in 2011. In my opinion, your default audio output will be perfectly fine for small scale projects.
• Different types of tape — normal (type I), chrome (type II) and metal (type IV).
• Line out vs headphone out — may be irrelevant depending on your output device.
• Using Dolby — suggestions on whether or not to record with Dolby NR (noise reduction).
• Recording levels — mastering is not as important for tapes as it is with vinyl. The key takeaway here is ensuring your audio peaks are not drastically different and that your device output volume is maxed.

For reference, I dub my homemade personal projects through a 2018 laptop’s headphone jack into a Sony 2-head double deck that originally belonged to my parents. It's nothing special, but it works. The results sound fine to me and others have been happy with the results, too.

My point being — use what’s available to you and don’t sweat buying new stuff if you don’t need it. If possible, use a phone to aux converter, iPod, or CD player, and avoid doing tape to tape recording as this can introduce extra noise.

Sourcing

If there’s an official CD, try to use the files from that. VGMdb can be helpful for seeing what kind of official releases exist. Depending on the title, you may need to rip audio directly from the game or get creative with other methods.

I will not be linking resources for free downloads of game music. I am sure you are capable of Googling, if needed.

Once you have your files, depending on how you plan on playing the audio, you may wish to prepare them into A & B side playlists. Alternatively, you can use a tool like Audacity to combine individual songs into one longer file. Audacity can also be used to add fade outs, balance audio levels, and add silence between tracks. 

Dubbing

If recording from a computer or phone, make sure you don’t have any notifications or programs open that might make sound during recording. Disconnecting from wi-fi can help reduce this. Worst case scenario, you can always redub over those pesky Discord pings.

When recording, watch your tape deck’s VU metres and make sure your highest points are just touching +0 or +3. Afterwards, listen back to your recording and trust your ears that it sounds good and not muffled or compressed.

In my opinion, mastering specifically for cassette is not necessary. If your mix sounds good when listening to it digitally, it will probably sound good on tape. The key takeaway is ensuring there aren’t any large volume discrepancies throughout the mix.

Steps:

1. Prepare your audio for playback
2. If outputting from a phone or computer, turn the volume up to max
3. If your cassette is tabs out, put some adhesive tape over the holes at the top of the shell (Figure B)
4. Hit record on your deck, count in ~10 seconds, then play your audio for side A
5. Stop and flip to your B side — rewind to the beginning if needed
6. Hit record on your deck, count in ~10 seconds, then play your audio for side B
7. Test playback. Peel off the adhesive tape if it sounds good, if it doesn’t, try again!

Figure B — Adhesive tape used to cover holes at the top of the cassette shell so it can be recorded over.

Construction

You’re in the final stretch on easy street, baby. 

Put it All Together

By this point you probably have your card printed and folded, the labels cut out and stuck on, and the tape dubbed and jamming. You know how to stick it all together.

At this point, I would highly recommend doing a project post-mortem.

Give yourself some time to reflect on how it all went. What parts were fun and which parts weren’t? What turned out well and what could have turned out better? Maybe you’re super happy with the cover art, but feel like the spine layout could have been improved. Focus on the positives while being mindful of your opportunities for growth.

Celebrate

Show people!!! We wanna see!!!!!!! It is infinitely easier to buy a tape than it is to make one, so seriously; be proud of yourself and the effort you’ve put in.

Thanks for reading!

Appreciated the guide and looking for a way to say thanks? Consider picking up something on the shop!

Misc. FAQ

Feel free to comment anything that's unclear — there are no stupid questions. I can’t guarantee I’ll always have an answer, but I’ll do my best to figure something out : )

Q: What is “tabs in” and “tabs out”? 

A: Tabs in cassettes have the holes at the top of the shell filled in, which allows the cassette to be dubbed. Having tabs out isn’t a problem at all, it just means you’ll need to cover the holes at the top with some adhesive tape in order to dub.  

Q: Can you wind tape yourself?

A: Yep! You can use a pen or pencil to manually turn the spool. Someone actually wrote a wikiHow on this here, which has handy picture examples. 

📼 🎮 🎶 👾