I never saw Say Anything or read High Fidelity (for me, mopey indie straight dudes are cute in theory -- just not as John Cusack). But I am a nerd, and subject to all the emotional turmoil and reward a good mixtape can heap upon the recipient and maker. Yeah, I mean mixtape as in "fire up the ol' press play-and-record and unleash your TDK, baby" -- not the semi-underground hiphop cds that the big record companies have unsuccessfully hijacked of late.
Trouble is, the tiny plastic or chrome (eek, remember those being eaten every third play?) reel-to-reels have bit the dust, CDs are so un-green it hurts, and MP3 shareware is too complex for me and probably good ol' High Fidelious Jack Black.
Enter, then, Muxtape, this neato site with a very indie bent that launched a little bit ago. You can upload up to 10 MBs of MP3s to a handy little link and email it to your friends. They then can click on individual tracks and listen. Also: it's free. And: anyone in the world can click on your muxtape and hear what your thing is. You can RSS your favorite Muxtapers, even.
Pretty nifty -- although I still miss the lovely rickety squeaks and hisses of cassettes. Anyone got a good app on hand to insert them? TapeSqueal? Memorexia?
Tip o' the nib to my pal Steven Reaume for turning me on to this. Check out his Detroit classics muxtape (including lost early house tune "Liferaft" by Juicy Fruit) here.
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Comments (8)
Muxtape is pretty cool, but I like Mixwit. Sweet old school cassette designs, no uploading, no size limits, embed anywhere. Since they just find mp3s on the net there are some issues with quality, but much less likely to be shutdown than muxtape. Check it: mixwit.com
Posted by ed | March 31, 2008 11:59 PM
Muxtape's pretty cool, but I much prefer the flexibility of imeem.com. I have no doubts that Muxtape has a lot up its sleeve in upcoming features, but imeem already supports multiple playlists - plus you don't have to upload every audio file yourself, you can just add what others have already discovered (and easily).
Also, I cannot hide my Bay Area bias. I do love Tumblr, though! (Microblogging site by the same group of people)
And no, I don't work for imeem...
Posted by theMaykazine | April 1, 2008 12:25 AM
I love imeem -- but only in a professional sense: it's great for when I need to hear something for work, but a bit impersonal. And yes, MixWit! Although I'm one of those stiff-assed minimalists who really likes clean, tiny, autumnal multi-hex color palette design on their web sites -- so my interface choice would be Muxtape. But in terms of shareability, MixWit takes the mixcake.
And I do like Tumblr too (especially in a design sense) -- it's local? But it gets too Twitterish for me sometimes -- I'm in antiTwitter mode in '08. But there's a lot of cool stuff on there. Especially this!
Posted by Marke B. | April 1, 2008 09:57 AM
Ha! it's all words (see below -- my comp clock is off) ... and I hate being ubertrendy, darnit!
Posted by Marke B. | April 1, 2008 10:39 AM
Ack, poorly written post. Jumbled thoughts. WORDS - Okay, so, imeem is local. Tumblr/Muxtape are part of David Karp's NYC ubertrendy web apps.
Posted by theMaykazine | April 1, 2008 11:26 AM
Yeah imeem.com is the local player and they're the biggest web2.0 music site - they really are youtube for music.
imeem is muxtape, but
1) there's no limit on how many tracks you can upload
2) there's no limit on how many tracks can be on your mix
3) you can have more than one mix
4) you can use tracks that other people have uploaded
5) It's legal and isn't going to get shutdown tomorrow.
Can anyone give me a single reason why muxtape is deserving of attention? I mean the only thing they're doing better is that they don't have the 30 second previews where they can't license the music. but guess what, imeem was like that a year ago before they got sued and licensed the music. if muxtape is going to grow into a legal service the same thing will happen to it.
oh wait I know the one way in which muxtape is superior
muxtape is a better name than imeem
Posted by Gordo | April 3, 2008 08:45 PM
Yeah imeem.com is the local player, I think their office is down by AT&T park. They're the biggest web2.0 music site - they really are youtube for music.
imeem is muxtape, but
1) there's no limit on how many tracks you can upload
2) there's no limit on how many tracks can be on your mix
3) you can have more than one mix
4) you can use tracks that other people have uploaded
5) It's legal and isn't going to get shutdown tomorrow.
Can anyone give me a single reason why muxtape is deserving of attention? I mean the only thing they're doing better is that they don't have the 30 second previews where they can't license the music. but guess what, imeem was like that a year ago before they got sued and licensed the music. if muxtape is going to grow into a legal service the same thing will happen to it.
oh wait I know the one way in which muxtape is superior
muxtape is a better name than imeem
Posted by Gordo | April 3, 2008 08:49 PM
@ Gordo:
Ha! and thanks for the breakdown ... but to me imeem still reeks too much of social networking, where's as muxtape, besides better design, also feels calmer and hushed -- much more my aesthetic, even for music sites! but you're right -- it may get torpedoed soon ...
Posted by Marke B. | April 4, 2008 09:03 AM