Your mixtape starts here.
Make a mix. Leave a little message.
Give it a sleeve of its own.
Shift for fine control
Choose your cassette. Each side has its own mix.
Make it your mix.
Drag the handle to change order. Push a clip toward its neighbour to crossfade. Pull its edges to trim.
Starting local autosave…
Window seat
Original instrumental · 0:24
A little soundtrack
Click the loose cassette to load it. Click the seated cassette to stop and eject.
Made for the workshop. Both sides and their audio autosave on this device. Export WAV or MP3 files for a separate copy. Demo songs, voices and jingles were made with AI for this workshop.
A little time capsule.
Pick an era. Make the cover as personal as the music.
Kept by someone.
Standard 3-panel J-card · 101.6 × 103.19 mm.
Front 65.09 mm · spine 12.7 mm · flap 25.4 mm.
Side A on the left, Side B on the right.
Edit track titles
All songs and voice notes from both sides. Edit a title to update your timeline and printed cover.
About the styles
Original templates inspired by warm 1970s tape graphics, geometric 1980s hi-fi labels, and handwritten or photocopied 1990s mixtape covers. Decades are creative directions, not exact historical reproductions. Visual references: Tapedeck cassette archive and Open Culture’s archive overview.
Additional lettering from Google Fonts. Font files and their licenses are included locally and embedded in print PDFs.
Physical format based on National Audio Company’s 3-panel J-card template. PDF includes 3 mm bleed, trim marks, subtle fold guides and a 50 mm scale check. Choose Workshop fold-over for a single-sided landscape A4 sheet, or Double-sided for portrait A4 with duplex on the long edge. Always print at 100% / actual size. Printer alignment and case tolerances vary; try one plain-paper copy first.
No cassette player? Send a Walkman.
Give them both sides, your cover and a cassette to load. They just need the link and a pair of headphones.
Your current cover, note, cassette and both sides will be saved as a separate gift. Anyone with its link can listen for 90 days. You can remove the link here.
Braun C 301 · playable mixtape study
Counter in minutes + tenths · 0.1 min = 6 seconds.
What is true to the original?
The machine behind the motion
This prototype follows your C 301 photograph and Braun’s original C 301 service drawings. The accessible operating instructions are for the related C 301 M; their loading and playback sequence is used provisionally. The M model’s additional memory controls and metal-tape selector have not been copied into this C 301 faceplate.
Loading and playback
Fold the lower head cover down and leave it open while the cassette is fitted (your hardware correction); push in the cassette with its full reel on the left until it latches. Press start. Its green indicator lights, and the two meter rows show the playback signal. Recording-level knobs do not control playback loudness. These operating details come from the M manual (printed pages 11–12).
Front-panel map
| Part | Meaning in this study |
|---|---|
| Six transport indicators | Rewind, fast-forward, start, stop and pause are green; record is red. The C 301 transport circuit identifies these separately. Play, stop and pause are operated here. Rewind and fast-forward now seek automatically to track beginnings: an intentional digital addition, not a claim about the original machine. |
| Two meter rows | Left above, right below. Nine positions per row, six green and three red, following the photo. They follow the actual stereo demo waveform, with fast attack and slower release. |
| Adapted time counter | The original is a mechanical tape-position counter. At your request this interface instead shows minutes and tenths: 00.1 = 6 seconds, 03.5 = 3 minutes 30 seconds. It advances during playback, holds on pause and stop, and resets when loading a new cassette. This is an intentional departure from the hardware. |
| fecr / cr / fe / Dolby NR | Original C 301 selector arrangement, shown as labels. A normal ferric cassette is selected for this sample. The tape-type selectors are visual only. The recording knob adjusts the computer microphone input gain. |
| Green power button | Green physical switch in the reference. Its appearance is not treated as an independently verified power-indicator lamp. |
Automatic track beginnings
Next track winds forward to the next cue; Previous track rewinds to the nearest earlier beginning (the current track’s start if already partway through it). Clicking a song or voice note also cues it. The tape stops at the boundary, ready for Play; Stop can interrupt winding. This tape contains six actual audio segments, beginning at 0, 6, 30, 36, 60 and 66 seconds and ending at 90 seconds. The cues come from the arranged audio. Automatic track search is a digital addition to this model.
For the next recording interaction
The M manual describes record + start for immediate recording, and pause to hold/resume recording. Stereo green indicators show normal working levels and brief red peaks are permitted. Record arming, write protection and exact C 301 combined-LED states need a C 301 owner’s manual or hardware test before a faithful recording flow is shipped.
What remains an approximation
The cassette approach path, latch travel, cover angle, reel speeds, meter thresholds and decay are authored for legibility, not measured hardware behavior. Both reels turn counterclockwise as seen from the front, with the fuller supply reel slower than the take-up reel. Reduced-motion mode seats the cassette without the travel animation and suppresses reel motion. The latch click and deeper play-solenoid clack are separately synthesized and synchronized to seating and Start; they are sound-design placeholders, not recordings of the C 301. Playback uses three original synthesized instrumental excerpts and three synthetic spoken notes generated with the system Samantha voice. The winding motor, braking, light tape hiss, button clicks and mechanism sounds are synthesized, not recordings of this deck. Start takes approximately 420 ms, Pause 240 ms, and Stop 310 ms. Winding includes engagement, a short ramp and braking. These timings are authored approximations. The bottom cover stays open after insertion, following your hardware correction. Clicking the loose cassette loads it without starting playback. Loading is disabled whenever a cassette is already in the deck. Clicking the seated cassette stops the transport, releases it and removes it; the lower cover then closes. Sound is enabled initially and begins with your first interaction; the Sound control mutes both music and mechanism effects. No real tape is recorded by this browser sample.
Research sources
- Braun C 301 service manual — original model; printed pages 9, 16–17, connection diagram and transport circuit. Service page 9 establishes the 0 dB calibration reference and −18 dB low-end adjustment.
- Braun C 301 M owner’s manual — related model; printed pages 11–15, loading, playback, levels and recording.
- Your supplied front photograph — chassis, labels, bay silhouette, control positions and LED colors.