The Art of Making a Mix Tape – Retro or Relevant?

You could say I’m old school. I’ll shun Halo for a game of Air Hockey, Frogger or Space Invaders anytime. I prefer drinking Stoli to any of the new-fangled vodkas – give me the taste of mother Russia over triple purified distillation any day. And, I still enjoy listening to my mixed cassette tapes, some of which date back to the 70’s.

Now, for those of you who don’t know what a mixed tape looks or sounds like, you are definitely too young to understand the connection it conjures up. From the sketchy hand-written labels to the cracked case, my brain’s memory goes into overdrive as faces, places and emotions are instantly retrieved from some long-ago, distant time. Nothing brings the past alive more than hearing a song from my youth.

And, just when you thought mixed tapes were a thing of the past, comes MixWit. A melding of my analog past and digital present, MixWit brings all the excitement of making a tape for that special somebody to a shareable widget format. And, with plenty of cassette casing, hardware and label customization to choose from, MixWit is much more fun that my old double Aiwa cassette deck ever was.

The free service allows you to choose between Seeqpod and Skreemr to search and add songs, or upload from your hard drive. You can then customize the cassette and cover art. Here are some examples:

You get the idea. The playback controls are simple and straight forward. The case displays the title of each song as it’s played. This is a great concept in widgets and executed brilliantly. Everyone I’ve sent a tape mix to has signed-up and made their own mixes.

So, if you thought the cassette tape had seen its last days, think again. Everything old is new again, and MixWit makes retro relevant.