Jump to content

RFC Cassette Shop


Recommended Posts

Yeah, I love RFC a bunch and I'm not against you guys or your business tactics in anyway way but I do see the perspective that you guys have also been pumping out thousands and thousands in vinyl during some months so i wouldn't imagine there to be much of a necessity to have such a high profit rate on cassettes but I could easily be wrong I will openly admit I know nothing about running a business on the level of your label. It's just you guys started doing cassettes here outta nowhere and we all know the production costs of those cassettes and we all imagine you to be doing pretty well so far with your vinyl and CD releases so it's strange to see that price range for tapes.
When single tapes start costing over ten dollars after shipping I can understand the discomfort in the community. Definitely see the view of tapes taking the same road as vinyl and becoming less and less affordable, and it is frightening. Also I dunno what DIY labels are chaging $6-$7.50 for tapes but that's kinda crazy too so it's definitely not just RFC but a general shift of price margin, spooky.. shipping in us for a single tape is never gonna cost much more than $2.50 at the most for the label so any tape that exceeds $7.50 shipped makes me a bit anxious.. soon gone will be the days of ordering big six tape packages from labels for under $30 something shipped.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wouldn't the expenses have already been factored in when you did the vinyl release for the albums? 

 

Why wouldn't we factor it in to all formats? The only tapes we're talking about are current releases where the tapes were released at the same time (at least roughly) as the vinyl. Our old releases in the store are $5. 

 

Yeah, I love RFC a bunch and I'm not against you guys or your business tactics in anyway way but I do see the perspective that you guys have also been pumping out thousands and thousands in vinyl during some months so i wouldn't imagine there to be much of a necessity to have such a high profit rate on cassettes but I could easily be wrong I will openly admit I know nothing about running a business on the level of your label. It's just you guys started doing cassettes here outta nowhere and we all know the production costs of those cassettes and we all imagine you to be doing pretty well so far with your vinyl and CD releases so it's strange to see that price range for tapes.

When single tapes start costing over ten dollars after shipping I can understand the discomfort in the community. Definitely see the view of tapes taking the same road as vinyl and becoming less and less affordable, and it is frightening. Also I dunno what DIY labels are chaging $6-$7.50 for tapes but that's kinda crazy too so it's definitely not just RFC but a general shift of price margin, spooky.. shipping in us for a single tape is never gonna cost much more than $2.50 at the most for the label so any tape that exceeds $7.50 shipped makes me a bit anxious.. soon gone will be the days of ordering big six tape packages from labels for under $30 something shipped.

 

Near Mint, Orchid Tapes, Native Sound, Antique Records etc all sell cassettes for more than $7.50 shipped. In the 5 minutes I just took to research this the only labels I came across who were under that were Broken World and Flesh and Bone. I am sure there are others, and I am sure there are labels charging a lot more.

 

Also, we didn't start doing cassettes out of nowhere, we started in 2009 with a live Title Fight radio set, and have done them sporadically since. People requested we do them more, so we are. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why wouldn't we factor it in to all formats? The only tapes we're talking about are current releases where the tapes were released at the same time (at least roughly) as the vinyl. Our old releases in the store are $5. 

 

 

Near Mint, Orchid Tapes, Native Sound, Antique Records etc all sell cassettes for more than $7.50 shipped. In the 5 minutes I just took to research this the only labels I came across who were under that were Broken World and Flesh and Bone. I am sure there are others, and I am sure there are labels charging a lot more.

 

Also, we didn't start doing cassettes out of nowhere, we started in 2009 with a live Title Fight radio set, and have done them sporadically since. People requested we do them more, so we are. 

 

mine are usually over 7.50 shipped, everything was just on sale because i just moved across the country.  price the tapes at whatever you need to, they will still sell regardless. keep up the awesome work always.  so glad to see more people pushing hard into the cassette game!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Near Mint, Orchid Tapes, Native Sound, Antique Records etc all sell cassettes for more than $7.50 shipped. In the 5 minutes I just took to research this the only labels I came across who were under that were Broken World and Flesh and Bone. I am sure there are others, and I am sure there are labels charging a lot more.

 

Also, we didn't start doing cassettes out of nowhere, we started in 2009 with a live Title Fight radio set, and have done them sporadically since. People requested we do them more, so we are. 

The only labels out of those that i've purchased from are Orchid Tapes and Near Mint. With Orchid tapes I think there's a general consensus that, yes, things are more pricey than usual and we've all just accepted that out of a combination of love for the music released and out of understanding that Warren's full time gig is FiF/OT and that most of his income is from the releases. I dunno, I mean I guess you're right really. It's not absurd to charge what you're charging. Like I said I have nothing against the way you guys do things but I am afraid of the general price shift occurring. And I do know how impossible it is to make a profit of tapes. So I see both sides. Not to mention I'm sure RFC's quality is on point and worth an extra dollar or two over DIY releases. But if there's any way they could get down to $9.75 after shipping people here would probably be responding differently to it, that's all I'm saiyan 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why wouldn't we factor it in to all formats? The only tapes we're talking about are current releases where the tapes were released at the same time (at least roughly) as the vinyl. Our old releases in the store are $5. 

 

The cassettes just seemed like an afterthought. I assumed when you did the vinyl release the main expenses (advances, recording costs, radio campaigns, publicists, in store marketing) would have already been accounted for. The only main expense at this point would have been those to actually produce the tapes themselves. I don't run a label/business so I'm not sure of the inner workings of one. These are just my thoughts and opinions. Do what you want with your prices. I'm just trying to understand the reason behind raising the prices on those specific new releases when the rest, like you said, are $5. Regardless, the tape is cool and if y'all decide to lower the price I'll definitely pick one along with the mewithoutYou tape.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only labels out of those that i've purchased from are Orchid Tapes and Near Mint. With Orchid tapes I think there's a general consensus that, yes, things are more pricey than usual and we've all just accepted that out of a combination of love for the music released and out of understanding that Warren's full time gig is FiF/OT and that most of his income is from the releases. I dunno, I mean I guess you're right really. It's not absurd to charge what you're charging. Like I said I have nothing against the way you guys do things but I am afraid of the general price shift occurring. And I do know how impossible it is to make a profit of tapes. So I see both sides. Not to mention I'm sure RFC's quality is on point and worth an extra dollar or two over DIY releases. But if there's any way they could get down to $9.75 after shipping people here would probably be responding differently to it, that's all I'm saiyan 

 

Well...my point is there isn't a price shift occurring, things just cost more than you want them to. Every label I just mentioned, who are all unarguably "DIY," charge more than 7.50 shipped for a cassette. Many of these being 4-5 song EPs. 

 

The cassettes just seemed like an afterthought. I assumed when you did the vinyl release the main expenses (advances, recording costs, radio campaigns, publicists, in store marketing) would have already been accounted for. The only main expense at this point would have been those to actually produce the tapes themselves. I don't run a label/business so I'm not sure of the inner workings of one. These are just my thoughts and opinions. Do what you want with your prices. I'm just trying to understand the reason behind raising the prices on those specific new releases when the rest, like you said, are $5. Regardless, the tape is cool and if y'all decide to lower the price I'll definitely pick one along with the mewithoutYou tape.

 

I am not really sure what you're saying to be honest. The cassettes "seem like an afterthought" so they cost what you think they should cost despite all normal determining factors of price? What makes them seem like an afterthought? It is a format of music that we put our releases on, along with other formats of music, so people can listen to our releases in the way that they prefer. All of these formats (CD, vinyl, digital, cassette) contribute to us attempting to recoup our costs on a release, pay our bands, pay our staff, and not go out of business. There's not really much more to it than that. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's funny how tapes started to make a comeback as a cheaper, quick turnaround alternative, usually priced at $1-5, and now they're working their way up to $8. In a year or two they'll be $15-20 and a bunch of the original tape labels will all be complaining that they can't get their tapes manufactured no more cause every other label jumped on the tape wagon too.

 

i feel like a similar thing has happened before with a different format, but...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am not really sure what you're saying to be honest. The cassettes "seem like an afterthought" so they cost what you think they should cost despite all normal determining factors of price? What makes them seem like an afterthought? It is a format of music that we put our releases on, along with other formats of music, so people can listen to our releases in the way that they prefer.  All of these formats (CD, vinyl, digital, cassette) contribute to us attempting to recoup our costs on a release, pay our bands, pay our staff, and not go out of business. There's not really much more to it than that. 

 

"Afterthought" as in just another way to make money off the album on a rising trend / popularity of the album. I assumed that all the original costs of the album itself would have already been taken care of with the vinyl release. That any money made would be strictly profit at this point. Which isn't a bad thing at all. It's the point of being a business/label (which I am not). That was just my thinking. I apologize for being wrong in my assumption.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Personally, I think tapes are dumb. They sound flat with no dynamic and don't personally see the appeal as far as releases go. Maybe i'm old school  when DEMO TAPES were appropriate which is essentially what HVR is doing. But lets face it. I don't see Sony or anyone going back into the Walkman business. Just my two cents. Not saying anyone is right or wrong. Just an opinion and the reason i ALWAYS pass on tapes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Personally, I think tapes are dumb. They sound flat with no dynamic and don't personally see the appeal as far as releases go. Maybe i'm old school  when DEMO TAPES were appropriate which is essentially what HVR is doing. But lets face it. I don't see Sony or anyone going back into the Walkman business. Just my two cents. Not saying anyone is right or wrong. Just an opinion and the reason i ALWAYS pass on tapes.

 

This is like 99% of people in the world's opinion. It's obviously a pretty niche thing no matter how you slice it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

$11 or whatever our full length cassettes end up being after shipping is essentially a dollar two at most more than what it costs to download it from iTunes. AND it comes with a download.

 

This is what people seem to be missing.  It's ridiculous that some are thinking a physical copy of an album should be less than the digital (which they get anyway), no matter what format it's in.  I don't know the markup on these, but I'm guessing you're not getting rich off cassettes and it would be foolish to sell them for any less than the digital.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is what people seem to be missing.  It's ridiculous that some are thinking a physical copy of an album should be less than the digital (which they get anyway), no matter what format it's in.  I don't know the markup on these, but I'm guessing you're not getting rich off cassettes and it would be foolish to sell them for any less than the digital.

 

I think that's just a sign that digital is priced too high.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They still are a cheaper, quicker turn-around item, but what we're selling is not usually priced at $1-$5. Maybe I am wrong, and there are people out there losing money on every cassette they sell in the name of DIY, but those people are probably not getting cassettes professionally duplicated / printed in the first place. Tape labels that people on this messageboard follow or even own charge $6-$7.50 for 4-6 song EPs on cassettes. $11 or whatever our full length cassettes end up being after shipping is essentially a dollar two at most more than what it costs to download it from iTunes. AND it comes with a download. 

 

Also keep in mind we have tons of other expenses to recoup, like the cost of advances, recording costs, radio campaigns, publicists (sometimes multiple per record) pressing 5,000+ LPs, in store marketing, etc. You could say "well the tapes cost you $3 a copy, why can't you sell them for $6 and profit $3." Because after all of our costs, the tapes don't cost $3 anymore. 

 

Either way I am going to see if we can get them priced down a bit. 

 

My point was that they were previously a format that were considered cheap, fun items for bands to quickly get made for tour and sell for a few bucks/donation, but have now also been taken on board by labels that need to factor in things like "advances", "radio campaigns" and "publicists", which is in turn driving up prices.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My point was that they were previously a format that were considered cheap, fun items for bands to quickly get made for tour and sell for a few bucks/donation, but have now also been taken on board by labels that need to factor in things like "advances", "radio campaigns" and "publicists", which is in turn driving up prices.

 

 

That point is silly because before they were a "cheap, fun item for bands to quickly get made" cassettes were the standard music format for twenty years, and in the 90's were costing upwards of $11 SRP in stores. Things change. We are charging $5-$7 for full lengths. Those are the same prices as every other label is selling for EPs, and 9/10 of those labels we're talking about do not have those expenses. Please stop looking for things to argue about and trying to make us the bad guy as if we're trying to do anything but give people another way to affordably buy music. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

upvotes for RFC making the format available.  Got my Night School CS with the LP preorder last week. :)

 

Econ 101, if they're priced too high, they won't sell. And if they want to move them, they'll find the right price.

 

just paid $11 for a Mamiffer cassette #/50 and with a bunch of hand made frillies and art and jank. Tape looks generic and the label like an actual typewriter made the sticker, but dang, if it doesn't sound really good compared to most cassettes I've owned.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

just wanna say that my peripheral vision and pale horses tapes are two of the best sounding i own. the professional dubbing definitely retains the dynamic range, and the artwork and printing on the cassette casings (especially pale horses) is top notch.  i dont see the price being too much for full length records and can think of more than a few places charging 9 or 10 for their cassettes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tape labels that people on this messageboard follow or even own charge $6-$7.50 for 4-6 song EPs on cassettes.

Since you mentioned it multiple times (and I can't speak for any other of the DIY tape distributors here), all my tapes will be $5 regardless of length (ex. Ronnie's full-length, Nives/Field Day split, about to start a full-length from a garage punk band outta Ottawa). Haven't done a cassingle yet, would be under $5 for sure though.

Burger Records pricing, if you will. Lowest I can go to stay in the hole but not fall in the ditch, plus my time is worthless so I don't charge for that ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×

AdBlock Detected

spacer.png

We noticed that you're using an adBlocker

Yes, I'll whitelist