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All mixed up

Internet sites recreate the mix tape

By Shea Stewart (Contact)

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

The mix tape — as an actual cassette tape loaded with carefully selected tunes with a flow and common core — is dead.

Cassette tapes can still be purchased, but the format is slowly going the way of the vinyl record and the 8-Track, and cassette mix tapes are being replaced by the mix tape on CD-R. And while vinyl records have acquired a certain cult status in a niche market, nostalgia is not likely to save cassette tapes.

No, the cassette mix tape has faded into the pages of history, with books such as Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture and Rob Sheffield’s Love is a Mix Tape holding the cassette mix tape’s place in time.

But the art of creating a mix tape as a concise introduction to a person’s musical taste is alive, even if a CD-R is the newly accepted music delivery system. And creating the perfect mix tape is an art, as the blend of tunes is labored over, with each peak and valley in the flow of songs being debated. As laid out in Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, “Making a tape is like writing a letter — there’s a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again.”

And thanks to the ingenuity of the Internet, the mix tape with a cassette theme continues through sites such as Mixwit and Muxtape.

Mixwit allows users to search for songs through music streaming services SeeqPod and Skreemr, creating expanded mix tapes, personalizing tape covers and forwarding tapes to friends through an e-mailed link. The added bonus is the player looks just like a real cassette tape, and Mixwit tapes can be embedded in social networks such as Facebook and MySpace.

Muxtape, created by Justin Ouellette, simply allows users to upload their MP3s to the site’s servers to create their own 12-song mix tapes. Once created, the mix tape can be distributed to friends through the short link to your own personal mix tape while also being shared with other Muxtape users.

Of course, with the Recording Industry Association of America suing for copyright infringement left and right, the legalities of both sites are debatable, especially Muxtape, where tunes are being uploaded to a server and users agree that they have the permission of the artist to upload songs. (No local songs are on my Muxtape for that very reason.)

While both sites are fun and recapture a little of the magic of creating the perfect mix tape, they also come with drawbacks and benefits. After playing around with both, creating various mix tapes along the way, here are my pros and cons.

Mixwit

Pros:

Tons of songs, including live versions and covers. Plus, even local artists such as American Princes’ “Real Love” and 607’s “Street Love” were available.

No limit on the size of songs.

No waiting for songs to upload.

You can personalize the player by uploaded your own photo as a cover.

Multiple Mixwits allowed.

You can search other mixes for particular artists or songs.

Cons:

Songs might be incomplete or distorted.

Sound quality is not as good.

Playback is sometimes choppy.

Site is a little more cluttered.

The songs come from a vast catalogue so it lacks a personal touch.

Harder to share with friends.

Muxtape

Pros:

The interface is simple and clean.

The songs you upload come from your personal musical collection and are a direct extension of your personality.

You can easily add and subtract songs from your mix tape.

Easy to share with friends.

Thousands of other Muxtapes available to introduce you to new music.

Links to amazon.com to purchase music on Muxtapes.

When clicking on another person’s Muxtape, you immediately see all the songs on the tape.

Cons:

Can’t fast forward or rewind a tune, only pause, play and stop.

Uploaded playlist has to be under 10 megabytes.

Too slow to upload at times.

Only MP3s — so songs purchased through iTunes do not work.

Only 12 songs.

Only one Muxtape per user.

While I appreciated the ability of Mixwit to track down hard-to-find tunes (Wilco’s cover of “James Alley Blues” and The Kinks “I’m Not Everybody Else”), since my Muxtape songs were coming from personal collection it seemed more personalized. With Mixwit, it seemed as though I was cheating on my musical collection. In the end, I believe I will use Muxtape as my mix tape site for sharing with friends (see below), and Mixwit as more of a personal jukebox.

http://brannonshea.muxtape.com