This Kickstarter campaign is trying to make cassette tapes a thing again

Wilfred Collins May 25, 2017

These days we are used to playing our music with the convenience of Spotify, Apple Music and even YouTube. But if you long for a simpler time when the options to listen to your music was considerably more limited, the MIXXTAPE Kickstarter campaign is for you.

This Kickstarter campaign is trying to make cassette tapes a thing again

With almost $25,000 pledged so far, MIXXTAPE throws the clock back to the 1980s, albeit with a modern digital twist. A cassette more by design than anything else, MIXXTAPE attempts to reinvent the classic media player with an LCD display, Bluetooth functionality and a headphone jack – that’s right, the tape is a fancy MP3 player.

So it’s just a retro MP3 player skin? Not quite. Perhaps the most eye-catching feature of this Kickstarter project is its ability to fit in standard cassette players. With the magnetic head, this gives users a full analog music experience, minus the tape. Also, it supports microSD cards up to 64GB, so you can play over 15,000 tracks per card. This is considerably more than a standard tape that typically held about 45 minutes of audio per side.

It’s not the first piece of vintage tech to be brought back from the dead: digital archaeology is apparently a big deal now. The Teletext Salvagers tried to resurrect Ceefax last year through VHS tapes. It’s not even the first nostalgic Kickstarter music campaign, with the classic vinyl turntable getting a reimagining for the digital age.

On the technical side, MIXXTAPE boasts a rechargeable battery, as you’ve come to expect from digital music players. This brings around 12 hours of playback, which should give it better stamina than quite a few smartphones, and it is set to feature “Rapid Charging,” which allows MIXXTAPE to reach full battery in less than an hour.

MIXXTAPE can connect to a PC or Mac via its USB 2.0 port, which is how you’ll need to transfer all your content as the device doesn’t have apps itself. This is purely for those with a large MP3 collection, rather than those who have made the switch to streaming.

The Kickstarter campaign is running until 21 June, with production set to begin this summer. First deliveries should be completed by November 2017. As ever with Kickstarters, though: buyer beware. Don’t pledge anything you can’t afford to lose, as they don’t always end brilliantly.