Below are some images of the cassette packaging for my Bandcamp release, Terra Organization.
I took a break from generic covers and added an image!
music - tm
retroactive j-cards
The cassette versions of my 2014-5 bandcamp releases came in clear plastic shells without paper j-cards.
After teaching myself how to make j-cards for my newest releases, the older ones suddenly looked naked! Even though I had managed to cram all relevant info onto the cassette labels.
So I made retroactive j-cards for the existing cassettes. Very simple design -- basically just a way of getting text onto the spine for easier identification. If you bought one of the 2014-5 batch and want a j-card, shoot me an email and I'll be happy to send.
"2007-2013 Beats" released on Bandcamp
Am pleased to announce my 29th Bandcamp release, 2007-2013 Beats, available for streaming or as a two-sided, one-hour audiocassette tape:
Liner notes:
National Audio Company's announcement that it was running out of chrome type II high bias tape was kind of a shock. Who knew there was a limited supply? Apparently no one is manufacturing it anymore -- the wisdom of the market. Possibly unrelated, many of the electronic music netlabels I've been following stopped releasing new music, or offering cassettes, around the same time.
I haven't lost interest in the medium but given my own limited supply of chrome blanks, my days of producing one-sided cassettes with only ten songs are clearly over!
With this release I "maxed out" a two-sided, one hour tape with beats I made in 2007-2013 (before coming to Bandcamp). Some of these percussion tracks were incorporated into later songs. Equipment/software used were Elektron Octatrack, Vermona DRM1 mk ii, LinPlug RMV, NI Battery/Kontakt, Reaktor grooveboxes, and MIDI sequencing in Cubase.
"SQP Beatslicer" is not shown on the "prototype" j-card depicted above; it has since been added to the card.
audiocassette j-card - preliminary (2)
I have a series of music releases on bandcamp, Generic PC (Vols 1-5) that I was thinking about condensing to a 60 minute cassette tape.
Am experimenting with what can be done with a home printer. The above packaging is a placeholder to test size and potential layout.
Probably the track listing will be in smaller type.
I bought tape supplies a few years ago from a US business, National Audio Company. They have since stopped offering blank cassettes with "Chrome Type ii High Bias" (the standard above-average tape sold by companies like Maxell before The Man killed analog).
Possibly quite a few indie musicians were surprised to learn that no company makes this chrome tape anymore. NAC had been buying it in bulk from pre-digital-era manufacturers and respooling it onto their blanks.
I still have a box of their chrome tapes left but I need to rethink my "marketing." I'd been offering 10-song releases on a single side of a 40 minute tape. This now feels (more) wasteful. So my next releases will be two-sided, which means I won't have room on the label to list the songs and track times, and I'll need to make j-cards (which I had been avoiding).
NAC's pre-scored j-card stock doesn't print very sharply, unfortunately. I will likely use Epson "Enhanced Matte" paper and hand trim the j-cards. See above for initial tests.
Update: Instead of the Generic PC release, have decided my first two-sided tape will be a collection of beats I made from 2007-2013. Am appropriating some of the packaging ideas and graphics above for that tape.
Mutable Edges LP released on Bandcamp
Mutable Edges by Tom Moody
[embedded player removed]
LP liner notes:
"Edges," a Eurorack module for chiptune-like sounds, was one of Mutable Instruments' least popular modules and was discontinued fairly shortly after production. The device has four voices that are easy and fun to configure: three pulse waves and a fourth voice that produces either a pure sine tone or digital noise.
In this LP, titled Mutable Edges, I played around with all the voices and how they can be stacked as chords, in unison, or with modulation.
The ten tracks were made from Aug - Nov 2018, and are in chronological order.
The first track consists of 4 voices, played with MIDI-to-cv, using notes I wrote in Ableton MIDI tracks. Later songs add other instruments, effects, and methods of working. The "instrument" in the photo is two Edges units triggered by CV and gate signals from Expert Sleepers' ESX-8CV and ESX-8GT modules (also playing MIDI notes from Ableton).
My objective here isn't videogame nostalgia so much as simple enjoyment of the pulsewidth timbres.
released November 26, 2018