Make a mixtape online
Side B is a free cassette tape maker that runs in your browser. Pick a few songs,
press record, and you hear them the way a tape would have played them: a hiss
floor under the quiet parts, the pitch wobbling as a worn motor drags, and the
transients rounded off by saturation. The reels turn in time with the audio and
the counter runs. When it sounds right, one link carries the whole tape to
whoever you made it for.
Nothing is uploaded. Your files are decoded in your browser and never leave it.
Why it sounds like tape and not like a filter
The audio runs through a chain built from scratch in the Web Audio API. Wow and
flutter come from two LFOs driving a variable delay line, which bends pitch the
way an unstable transport does. Saturation is a waveshaper curve that compresses
peaks and adds harmonics. The hiss is filtered noise mixed under the music, level
matched so it reads as a noise floor rather than static. Every one of those is
live: drag a slider and the graph retunes under the playhead. There is no
rendered file to wait for.
Questions
- How do I make a mixtape online?
-
Click one of the built-in tracks to start, or drop your own audio files onto the
tray. Press Record. Set wow and flutter, saturation and hiss per track if you
want to. Draw a cover. Press Share tape and the link lands on your clipboard.
- Is this a cassette tape maker, or just cover art?
-
Most cassette tape makers online draw a picture of a tape around a playlist
link. Side B processes the sound. The cassette on screen is driven by playback
position, so the reels and the counter tell you where you actually are on the
tape.
- Can I make a playlist look like a mixtape?
-
Yes, and sound like one. Doodle the cover on the pad and it prints onto the
j-card label of the cassette. The share link carries your drawing, the running
order and every effect setting, so the tape opens on the other end the way you
left it.
- Do my songs get uploaded anywhere?
-
No. There is no backend and no account. Files are decoded in your browser and
stay on your machine.
- Why does a tape I was sent say a track is missing?
-
The link carries the tracklist, the settings and the cover, not the audio. The
built-in tracks are synthesized in code, so they rebuild anywhere. A track that
came from someone's own file will ask you for that file.
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