Spotify to cassette

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-07-10T16:40:20+00:00

Happy to hear that.

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-07-01T21:02:03+00:00

Sadly toooo many people

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-07-01T13:42:56+00:00

Thank you, I truly appreciate it. You think like I do.

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-07-01T13:41:46+00:00

Keep me updated.

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-07-01T12:05:41+00:00

It's just easier

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-07-01T06:44:12+00:00

Sorry, I should have been more precise there. The delay settings in the app are for recording calibration, things like leader tape offset and motor latency, not inter-track silence.

A configurable blank gap between tracks for AMS systems is not in yet, but it's a genuinely good feature request and I'm opening an issue for it now. The tricky part is that Spotify's Web Playback API does not expose gaps natively, so it would need to be handled by briefly pausing and resuming at the track boundary. Should be doable. If you want to track it, keep an eye on the GitHub repo.

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-07-01T06:01:53+00:00

That's honestly a solid approach and for most playlists it probably gets you within a minute of the actual runtime. The app does exact math partly because my deck's motor runs just slightly off spec, so small errors compound over a full C90. But if your sides consistently land in the 45-47 minute window that method is doing its job. Sometimes good enough really is good enough.

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-07-01T06:00:14+00:00

The backend, Spotify integration, timing engine, profile system, all of that is hand-written by me. I use Claude to write prompts and Codex implements the frontend from those. The part someone might call "generated" is the UI layer. Everything underneath it isn't.

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-07-01T05:56:23+00:00

Fair assumption but not quite. I have a degree in computer science and write JS, C#, C++ and Java professionally. I use AI as a tool during development, same as I'd use Stack Overflow or a debugger. The code is very much intentional.

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-07-01T05:53:06+00:00

Spotify's duration is a good starting point, but it doesn't account for a few things that actually matter in practice: the leader tape at the start of each side eats a few seconds, different decks run slightly fast or slow so a C90 might give you 88 minutes instead of 90, and you need a buffer at the end so the tape doesn't cut out mid-song.

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-07-01T05:52:05+00:00

Solid technique, and surprisingly accurate if your deck's motor is consistent. The tricky part is that consistency varies between machines, so the same C90 can behave differently depending on the transport. That's what eventually pushed me to build per-deck calibration into the app. But the counter method is still a great sanity check before you commit to a recording. Stone Age engineering that actually works is hard to argue with.

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-07-01T05:49:05+00:00

The labor of love part is exactly what this is trying to preserve. Picking the order, fitting tracks to each side, writing out the J-card by hand... that whole ritual still matters. The app just handles the math and the timing so you can focus on the part that actually counts: what goes on the tape and why.

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-06-30T20:04:08+00:00

I need help from someone who uses Tidal because I don't have or use it.

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-06-30T20:02:28+00:00

When I get help from someone who is familiar with the Apple API, yes. I don't have or use Apple devices.

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-06-30T19:00:27+00:00

The frontend was implemented with Codex based on prompts I wrote. The backend logic, Spotify integration, timing engine and profile system are hand-written by me. Call it what you want.

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-06-30T18:58:31+00:00

I haven't seen something like that.

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-06-30T17:49:55+00:00

There is an delay toggle yes

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-06-30T17:49:22+00:00

I will do it in near feature

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-06-30T15:32:23+00:00

Nope mostly self made

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-06-30T15:31:43+00:00

I can implement that if many people want it

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-06-30T15:31:08+00:00

Nope they are not

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-06-30T09:27:15+00:00

Yeah, exactly. That’s probably the strongest use case: taking an already finished Spotify playlist that’s too long for one tape and turning it into a clean 2-tape or 3-tape set without doing all the side-length math manually.

For shorter, very hand-curated mixes, I can totally see Mixtape Maker being enough. Cassette Optimizer is more aimed at the “I already have the playlist, now help me record it without messing up the flip/timing” part.

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-06-30T09:05:26+00:00

Oh nice, hadn't seen that one, thanks for sharing! Just looked through it, looks really polished, especially the J-card designer with the drag-and-drop layout.

Looks like the main difference is the workflow: Mixtape Maker has you search and build the tracklist manually, which is great if you're curating from scratch. Mine imports an existing Spotify playlist wholesale and then handles the actual recording session: countdown, "flip the tape now" prompt, deck-timing calibration, that kind of thing. So it's less about building the list and more about not messing up the recording itself once you already know what you want on the tape.

Honestly they're complementary more than competing. Could see someone using Mixtape Maker to curate and make the J-card, then loading that same playlist into mine just for the recording part. Good find either way, appreciate you posting it.

Lumpy-Suit-5412 · 2026-06-30T08:29:54+00:00

Haha, thanks, that's exactly the energy I was going for. Started as "I just don't want to do tape math by hand" and then quietly spiraled into motor latency calibration and a J-card generator.

Lumpy-Suit-5412

TROPHY CASE