Back in the 80′s and early 90′s my friends and I would always make mixtapes for one another. We’d make them for girlfriends or would-be/wanna-be girlfriends, other friends, bars, event specific ones like camping or a holiday. We would also record vinyl to cassette, so we could still carry around the music in our Walkmans.

Back then making mixes meant something. It would take from a couple to several hours to fill all 60 or 90 minutes on a tape. Sure you could dupe a mix for multiple friends, but you would still have to hand write the liner notes and draw a cool cover.

The challenge with cassette mixes was always trying to fit songs right to the end of each side. Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet saved me so many times with their perfect ending, short songs.

In the mid 90′s CDs sprung up and began to take over. A standard CD could hold 74 minutes of music, about 18 songs. The ability to make mixes still existed, the need for liner notes and cover art did too. However, you could easily print the insert rather than hand draw it. It took much less time and less effort. Plus, you could easily drop songs in to Nero (or whatever software you used) to determine if they would fit the disc.

Soon after MP3s appeared and file sizes were greatly reduced it was easier to include more great songs for your lucky mix CD recipient. The trouble was that now the number of songs was up to about 138!

It takes a lot of time to carefully craft a mixtape (or CD) for that special person. You can’t just blindly drop music in, you need to pace the mix perfectly too. A fast song, followed by a medium one, then a slow one, followed by a medium and fast one again. Or something to that effect.

Choosing 173 songs was simply too much work. This is where I think it ended. This is where the mixtape died.

There are new ways to make mixes using online tools, but is it the same thing? I made you a mix of Canadian music back on Canada Day, it seemed to be well received. But somehow the lack of something tangible seems to be leaving a void for me. Am I just a grumpy old fool recollecting on days past?

I’d be interested on your take on mixtapes and CDs versus online mixes. Are they just as relevant? What do you think? What are you using for mixes now? Or have you given up on the art form?

Any of my oldest friends from the T Dot (no not this TDot) will tell you how I use to be among the kings of mixtapes. Whether it was tapes made for friends or girl friends, I made hundreds of them over the years. I even provided our local watering hole, The Bistro 422, with tapes of punk rock and blues tunes in exchange for free pitchers of beer. It was a sweet deal, because I would drink for free and my friends and I would all get to listen to the our favourite music.

I would spend hours recording from deck to deck, or from vinyl to deck. I would always aim to fill as much of the 90 minutes as possible. A tricky process, because the last song would usually be cut off, which would mean I would have to replace it with a shorter song (thank you Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet). Finding that perfect song to end the A or B side was essential. My tapes often include soundbites from radio, television shows, movies, recorded conversations with friends, or my answering machine messages.

With the demise of the CD, making mixes is becoming a thing of the past. Especially now that we can easily burn hundreds of songs to a DVD. Not to mention that most of us are using MP3 players now, which obviously kills the ability to share music (for the most part).

A few months ago Muxtape.com was launched, a clever way to create personal “mixtapes”. The site included an image of a cassette, and you could upload up to 90 minutes of music (I believe it was 90). Unfortunately the good ol’ RIAA shut them down.

I don’t know about you, but I was introduced to most music I listen to from mixtapes friends made for me. I’m not going to make this a post about file sharing and the RIAA, I’ll save that one for a rainy day. It’s just frustrating when friends can’t share music with each other.

Luckily, Opentape.fm has been created. Opentape provides you the files and folders to simply upload to your FTP host. You can easily upload songs to your very own personal mixtape site. This isn’t about allowing people to download music, it’s just a way to share your favourite music with your friends.

Dave Tape is now available for your listening pleasure. It’s still a work in progress. Since the OpenTape is an open source project, perhaps someone will develop a way to incorporate RSS, this way you can be alerted automatically when there are new songs added.

Back in the day I would never share a mixtape until it was completed, but what the heck…

Be sure to share your tape with me here, I’d love to hear what you come up with.

Also of interest: LastFM, are we friends there yet?