Compact Cassette

Compact Cassette

A TDK D-60 cassette, a common speech-quality tape with a 60-minute playing time, in a housing similar to that of the original Compact Cassette specification Media type Encoding Capacity Read mechanism Write mechanism Usage Magnetic tape Analog signal Usually up to 30 or 45 minutes of audio per side. Some cassettes have 60 minutes of audio per side Tape head Magnetic recording head Audio and data storage

The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. Although originally designed for dictation, improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant reel-to-reel tape recording in most non-professional applications.[1] Its uses ranged from portable audio to home recording to data storage for early microcomputers. Between the early 1970s and late 1990s, the cassette was one of the two most common formats for prerecorded music, first alongside the LP and later the Compact Disc.[2] Cassette is a French word meaning "little box." Compact Cassettes consist of two miniature spools, between which a magnetically coated plastic tape is passed and wound. These spools and their attendant parts are held inside a protective plastic shell. Two stereo pairs of tracks (four total) or two monaural audio tracks are available on the tape; one stereo pair or one monophonic track is played or recorded when the tape is moving in one direction and the second pair when moving in the other direction. This reversal is achieved either by manually flipping the

cassette or by having the machine itself change the direction of tape movement ("autoreverse").[3]

Contents
[hide]

1 History o 1.1 Introduction of music cassettes o 1.2 Decline 2 Features o 2.1 Cassette types o 2.2 Playback length o 2.3 Write-protection o 2.4 Tape leaders o 2.5 Endless loop cassette 3 Cassette players and recorders 4 Applications o 4.1 Audio o 4.2 Home studio o 4.3 Home dubbing o 4.4 Data recording 5 Successors 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] History

Cassettes of varying tape quality and playing time. In 1958, following four years of development, RCA Victor introduced the stereo, quarter-inch, reversible, reel-to-reel RCA tape cartridge.[4][5] It was a cassette, big (5" x 7"), but offered few pre-recorded tapes; despite multiple versions, it failed. In 1962 Philips invented the compact audio cassette medium for audio storage, introducing it in Europe in August, 1963 (at the Berlin Radio Show),[6][2][7][8][9] and in the United States (under the Norelco brand) in November 1964, with the trademark name Compact Cassette.

Although there were other magnetic tape cartridge systems, the Compact Cassette became dominant as a result of Philips's decision in the face of pressure from Sony to license the format for free. Philips also released the Norelco Carry-Corder 150 recorder/player in the U.S. in November 1964. By 1966 over 250,000 recorders had been sold in the US alone and Japan soon became the major source of recorders. By 1968, 85 manufacturers had sold over 2.4 million players.[10] In the early years, sound quality was mediocre, but it improved dramatically by the early 1970s when it caught up with the quality of 8-track tape and kept improving.[2] Cassette went on to become a popular (and re-recordable) alternative to the 12 inch vinyl LP during the late 1970s.[2]

[edit] Introduction of music cassettes

The mass production of compact audio cassettes began in 1964 in Hannover, Germany. Prerecorded music cassettes (also known as Musicassettes; M.C. for short) were launched in Europe in late 1965. The Mercury Record Company, a U.S. affiliate of Philips, introduced M.C. to the U.S. in July 1966. The initial offering consisted of 49 titles [11] However, the system had been initially designed for dictation and portable use, with the audio quality of early players not well suited for music. Some early models also had unreliable mechanical design. In 1971 the Advent Corporation introduced their Model 201 tape deck that combined Dolby type B noise reduction and chromium dioxide (CrO2) tape, with a commercial-grade tape transport mechanism supplied by the Wollensak camera division of 3M Corporation. This resulted in the format being taken more seriously for musical use, and started the era of high fidelity cassettes and players.
[1]

During the 1980s, the cassette's popularity grew further as a result of portable pocket recorders and hi-fi players such as Sony's Walkman, which used a body not much larger than the cassette tape itself, with mechanical keys on one side, or electronic buttons or display on the face. Sony even made the WM-10 which was smaller than the cassette itself and expanded to hold and play a cassette.[12]

1979 Sony Walkman Like the transistor radio in the 1960s, the portable CD player in the 1990s, and the MP3 player in the 2000s, the Walkman defined the portable music market in the 1980s, with cassette sales overtaking those of LPs.[2][13] Total vinyl record sales remained higher

well into the 1980s due to greater sales of singles, although cassette singles achieved popularity for a period in the 1990s.[13] Apart from the purely technical advances cassettes brought, they also served as catalysts for social change. Their durability and ease of copying helped bring underground rock and punk music behind the Iron Curtain, creating a foothold for Western culture among the younger generations.[14] For similar reasons, cassettes became popular in developing nations. One of the most famous political uses of cassette tapes was the dissemination of sermons by the Ayatollah Khomeini throughout Iran before the 1979 Iranian Revolution, in which Khomeini urged the overthrow of the regime of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1970s India, they were blamed for bringing unwanted secular influences into traditionally religious areas. Cassette technology was a booming market for pop music in India, drawing criticism from conservatives while at the same time creating a huge market for legitimate recording companies and pirated tapes.[15] In some countries, particularly in the developing countries, cassettes still remain the dominant medium for purchasing and listening to music.[16]

[edit] Decline
In many Western countries, the market for cassettes has declined sharply since its peak in the late 1980s. This has been particularly noticeable with pre-recorded cassettes, whose sales were overtaken by those of Compact Discs during the early 1990s. By 1993, annual shipments of CD players had reached 5 million, up 21% from the year before, while cassette player shipments had dropped 7% to approximately 3.4 million. [17] The decline continued such that in 2001 cassettes accounted for only 4% of all music sold. Since then, the pre-recorded market has undergone further decline, with few retailers stocking them because they are no longer issued by the major music labels.[16] Sales of pre-recorded music cassettes in the U.S. dropped from 442 million in 1990 to 274,000 by 2007.[18] Most of the major U.S. music and record companies had discontinued them by late 2003. However, as of 2010, blank cassettes are still being produced and are sold at many retail stores, and facilities for cassette duplication remain available. Cassette recorders and players are gradually becoming scarcer, but are still widely available and still feature in a notable percentage of Hi-Fi systems[19]. Cassettes remained popular for specific applications, such as car audio, well into the 1990s. Cassettes and their players were typically more rugged and resistant to dust, heat and shocks than the main digital competitor (the CD). Their lower fidelity was not considered a serious drawback inside the typically noisy automobile interior of the time. However, the advent of "shock proof" buffering technology in CD players, the reduction of in-car noise levels, the general heightening of consumer expectations, and the introduction of CD auto-changers meant that by the early 2000s, the CD player was rapidly replacing the cassette player as the default audio component in the majority of new vehicles in Europe and America. While digital voice recorders are now common, Compact Cassette (or frequently microcassette) recorders may be cheaper and of sufficient quality to serve as adjuncts or

substitutes for note taking in business and educational settings. Audiobooks, church services, and other spoken word material are still frequently sold on cassette, as lower fidelity is generally not a drawback for such content. While most publishers sell CD audiobooks, they usually also offer a cassette version at the same price. In the audiobooks application, where recordings may span several hours, cassettes also have the advantage of holding up to 120 minutes of material whereas the average CD holds fewer than 80.[19] While cassettes and related equipment have become increasingly marginal in commercial music sales, recording on analog tape remains a desirable option for some, however that method is recently being overtaken by portable digital recorders.

[edit] Features
The cassette was a great step forward in convenience from reel-to-reel audio tape recording, though because of the limitations of the cassette's size and speed, it initially compared poorly in quality. Unlike the 4-track stereo open reel format, the two stereo tracks of each side lie adjacent to each other rather than being interleaved with the tracks of the other side. This permitted monaural cassette players to play stereo recordings "summed" as mono tracks and permitted stereo players to play mono recordings through both speakers. The tape is 3.81 mm (0.150 in) wide, with each stereo track 0.6 mm wide and an unrecorded guard band between each track. The tape moves at 4.76 cm/s (1 7/8 in/s) from left to right.[20] For comparison, the typical open reel format in consumer use was inch (6.35 mm) wide, each stereo track nominally 1 16 inch (1.59 mm) wide, and running at either 9.5 or 19 cm/s (3.75 or 7.5 in/s).

[edit] Cassette types

Notches on the top surface of the audio cassette indicate its type. The rearmost cassette at the top of this picture, with only write protect notches (here covered by write protect tabs), is a Type I. The next cassette down, with additional notches adjacent to the write protect notch, is a Type II. The bottom two cassettes, featuring the Type II notches plus an additional pair in the middle of the cassette are type IV (metal); note the removal of the tabs on the second of these, meaning the tape is write-protected. Cassette tapes are made of a polyester type plastic film with a magnetic coating. The original magnetic material was based on gamma ferric oxide (Fe2O3). Circa 1970, 3M Company developed a cobalt volume-doping process combined with a double-coating technique to enhance overall tape output levels. This product was marketed as "High Energy" under its Scotch brand of recording tapes.[21] Inexpensive cassettes are

commonly labeled "low-noise," but typically are not optimized for high frequency response. At about the same time, chromium dioxide (CrO2) was introduced by DuPont, the inventor of the particle, and BASF, the inventor of magnetic recording,[22] and then coatings using magnetite (Fe3O4) such as TDK's Audua were produced in an attempt to approach the sound quality of vinyl records. Cobalt-absorbed iron oxide (Avilyn) was introduced by TDK in 1974 and proved very successful. Finally pure metal particles (as opposed to oxide formulations) were introduced in 1979 by 3M under the trade name Metafine. The tape coating on most Cassettes sold today as either "Normal" or "Chrome" consists of Ferric Oxide and Cobalt mixed in varying ratios (and using various processes); there are very few cassettes on the market that use a pure (CrO2) coating.[2] Simple voice recorders are designed to work with standard ferric formulations. High fidelity tape decks are usually built with switches or detectors for the different bias and equalization requirements for high performance tapes. The most common, iron oxide tapes (defined by an IEC standard as "Type I"), use 120 s playback equalization, while chrome and cobalt-absorbed tapes (IEC Type II) require 70 s playback equalization. The recording "bias" equalizations were also different (and had a much longer time constant). BASF and Sony tried a dual layer tape with both ferric oxide and chrome dioxide known as 'ferrichrome' (FeCr) (IEC Type III), but these were only available for a short time in the 1970s. Metal Cassettes (IEC Type IV) also use 70 s playback equalization, and provide still further improvements in sound quality.[21] The quality is normally reflected in the price; Type I cassettes are generally cheapest, and Type IV usually the most expensive. BASF chrome tape used in commercially pre-recorded cassettes used 120 s (type I) playback equalization to allow greater high frequency dynamic range for better sound quality, but the greater selling point for the music labels was that the same Type I cassette shell could be used for both ferric and for chrome music cassettes. Notches on top of the cassette shell indicate the type of tape within. Type I cassettes only have write-protect notches, Type II have an additional pair next to the write protection ones, and Type IV (metal) have a third set in the middle of the cassette shell. These allow cassette decks to automatically detect the tape type and select the proper bias and equalization. Virtually all recent hi-fi systems (with cassette decks) lack this feature; only a small niche of cassette decks (hi-fi separates) have the tape type selector. Playback of Type II and IV tapes on such a player will produce exaggerated treble, but it may not be noticeable because typically such devices have amplifiers that lack extended high frequency output. Recording on these units, however, results in very low sound reproduction and sometimes distortion and hiss is heard. Also, these cheaper units cannot erase high bias or metal bias tapes. Attempting to do so will result in "print-through."

Playback length
Tape length is usually measured in minutes of total playing time. The most popular varieties are C46 (23 minutes per side), C60 (30 minutes per side), C90, and C120. The

C46 and C60 lengths are typically 1516 m thick, but C90s are 1011 m and C120s are just 9 m thick, rendering them more susceptible to stretching or breakage. Some vendors are more generous than others, providing 132 meters or 135 meters rather than 129 meters of tape for a C90 cassette. C180 and even C240 tapes were available at one time, but these were extremely thin and fragile and suffered badly from effects such as print-through, which made them unsuitable for general use. Although the TDK-D C180 was produced for two decades, it is very rare, because of several technical flaws. The tape had to be so thin that it was nearly transparent and therefore had fewer particles to magnetize, resulting in a poor sound quality and even worse durability. It required a strong motor to be driven, and had high wow and flutter. Finally, it took a relatively long time to rewind. Other lengths are (or were) also available from some vendors, including C10 and C15 (useful for saving data from early home computers and in telephone answering machines), C30, C50, C54, C64, C70, C74, C80, C84, C100, C105, and C110.[21] Some companies included a complimentary blank cassette with their portable cassette recorders in the early 1980s. Panasonic's was a C14 and came with a song recorded on side one, and a blank side two. Except for C74 and C100, such non-standard lengths have always been hard to find, and tend to be more expensive than the more popular lengths. Home taping enthusiasts may have found certain lengths useful for fitting an album neatly on one or both sides of a tape. For instance, the initial maximum playback time of Compact Discs was 74 minutes, explaining the relative popularity of C74 cassettes.

Inside a cassette. "Supply reel" and "takeup reel" are from the point of view of the player looking at the back of the cassette: when viewed from the front of the machine, the tape "plays" from left to right (though of course an auto-reverse deck can play in either direction). The tape is pressed into close contact with the head by the pressure pad; guide rollers help keep the tape in the correct position. Smooth running is assisted by a slippery liner between the spools and the shell; here the liner is transparent. The magnetic shield reduces pickup of stray signals by the heads of the player.

[edit] Write-protection
All Compact Cassettes include a write protection mechanism to prevent re-recording and accidental erasure of important material. Each side of the cassette has a plastic tab on the top that may be broken off, leaving a small indentation in the shell. This

indentation allows the entry of a sensing lever that prevents the operation of the recording function when the cassette is inserted into a cassette deck. If the cassette is held with one of the labels facing the user and the tape opening at the bottom, the writeprotect tab for the corresponding side is at the top-left. Occasionally, manufacturers provided a movable panel that could be used to enable or disable write-protect on tapes. If later required, a piece of adhesive tape can be placed over the indentation to bypass the protection, or (on some decks), the lever can be manually depressed to record on a protected tape. Extra care is required to avoid covering the additional indents on high bias tape cassettes adjacent to the write-protect tabs.

[edit] Tape leaders

In most compact cassettes the magnetic tape was attached to each spool with a leader, usually made of strong plastic (see right-hand image). This leader protected the weaker magnetic tape from the shock occurring when the tape reached the end. Leaders can be complex: a plastic slide-in wedge anchors a short fully-opaque plastic tape to the takeup hub; one or more tinted partly-opaque plastic segments follow; the clear leader (a tintless partly opaque plastic segment) follows that wraps almost all the way around the supply reel before splicing to the magnetic tape itself. The clear leader spreads the shock load to a long stretch of tape instead of to the microscopic splice. Various patents have been issued detailing leader construction and associated tape player mechanisms to detect leaders.[23] Cassette tape users would also use spare leaders to repair broken tapes.[24] The disadvantage with tape leaders was that the sound recording or playback did not start at the beginning of the tape, forcing the user to cue forwards to the start of the magnetic section. For certain applications such as dictation special cassettes containing leaderless tapes were made, typically with stronger material and for use in machines which had more sophisticated end of tape prediction.

[edit] Endless loop cassette

Compact cassettes were also made that played a continuous loop of tape without stopping. Lengths available are from around 30 seconds to a standard full length. They are used in situations where a short message or musical jingle is to be played, either continuously or whenever a device is triggered, or whenever continuous recording or playing is needed. Some include a sensing foil on the tape to allow tape players to recue. From as early as 1969 various patents have been issued, covering uses such as unidirectional, bi-directional, and compatibility with auto-shut-off and anti-tape-eating mechanisms.[25]

[edit] Cassette players and recorders

The first cassette machines (e.g. the Philips EL 3300, introduced in August, 1963 [26][9]) were simple mono record and playback units. Early machines required attaching an external dynamic microphone. Most units after the 1970s also incorporated built-in condenser microphones, which have extended high frequency response, but may also pick up noises from the recorder motor. A common portable recorder format still common today is a long box, the width of a cassette, with a speaker at the top, a cassette bay in the middle, and "piano key" controls at the bottom edge. The markings of "piano key" controls near the handle were soon standardized and is a legacy still emulated on many software control panels, though many DVD panels have eliminated the fast forward and rewind buttons in favor of next and previous tracks, which are only implemented on machines which have logic to search for blank spots in the tape. These symbols are commonly the square for stop, right pointing triangle for play, double triangles for fast forward and rewind, red dot for record, and a vertically-divided square (two rectangles side-by-side) for the pause button. Another format is only slightly larger than the cassette, also adapted for stereo "Walkman" player applications. Main article: Cassette deck

A typical portable desktop cassette recorder from RadioShack. Stereo recorders eventually evolved into high fidelity and were known as cassette decks, after the reel-to-reel decks. Many formats of cassette players and recorders have evolved over the years. Initially all were top loading, usually with cassette on one side, VU meters and recording level controls on the other side. Older models used combinations of levers and sliding buttons for control.

Nakamichi RX-505 audio cassette deck A major innovation was the front-loading arrangement. Pioneer's angled cassette bay and the exposed bays of some Sansui models were eventually standardized as a frontloading door into which a cassette would be loaded. Later models would adopt electronic buttons, and replace conventional meters (which could be "pegged" when overloaded) with electronic LED or vacuum fluorescent displays, with level controls typically either being controlled by rotary controls or side-by-side sliders. BIC and Marantz briefly offered models which could be run at double speeds, but Nakamichi was widely recognized as one of the first companies to create decks which rivaled reelto-reel decks with frequency response from the full 2020,000 Hz range, low noise, and very low wow and flutter.[27][28] The 3-head closed-loop dual capstan Nakamichi 1000

(1973) is considered[by whom?] to be the first truly Audiophile High Fidelity Cassette Deck ever made. Unlike typical cassette decks, the recording and playback functions were split onto separate heads (with the third head being the erase head), allowing each to be optimized. Other contenders for the highest, "HiFi" quality on this medium were two companies already widely known for their excellent quality reel-to-reel tape recorders: Tandberg and Revox (consumer brand of the Swiss professional Studer company for studio equipment). Tandberg started with combi-head machines like the TCD 300 and continued with the TCD 3x0 series with separate playback and recording heads. All TCD-models possessed dual capstan drives, beltdriven from a single capstan motor and two separate reel motors. Frequency range extended to 18 kHz. When Tandberg entered the much more competitive TV-market it folded and revived without the HiFi-branch these came from. Revox went one step further: after much hesitation about whether to accept cassettes as a medium capable for meeting their strict standards from reel to reel recorders at all, they produced their B710MK I (Dolby B) and MK II (Dolby B&C) machines. Both cassette units possessed double capstan drives, but with two independent, electronically controlled capstan motors and two separate reel motors. The head assembly moved by actuating a damped solenoid movement, eliminating all belt drives and other wearable parts. These machines rivaled the Nakamichi in frequency and dynamic range. The B710MKII also achieved 2020 kHz and dynamics of over 72 dB with Dolby C on chrome and slightly less dynamic range, but a larger headroom with metal tapes and Dolby C. Revox adjusted the frequency range on delivery with many years of use in mind: when new the frequency curve went upwards a few dB at 1520 kHz, aiming for flat response after 15 years of use and headwear to match. A last step taken by Revox produced even more advanced cassette drives with electronic finetuning of bias and equalization during recording. Revox also produced amplifiers, a very expensive FM tuner and a pickup with a special parallel arm mechanism of their own design. After releasing that product, Studer encountered financial difficulties. It had to save itself by folding its Revox-branch and all its consumer products (except their last reel to reel recorder the B77). Note that while Nakamichi violated the tape recording standards to achieve the highest dynamics possible, producing non-compatible cassettes for playback on other machines, both Tandberg and Revox kept to the standards and produced cassettes which could be played back on other machines. A third company, the well known Danish Bang & Olufsen, invented a special, improved system for improving headroom at high frequencies, to reduce tape saturation despite lower bias levels. This "head room extension method, HX" was called Dolby HX Pro in full and patented. Their finest machine with HX Pro was the Beocord 9000, which indeed performed excellently. However, this machine's transport possessed only a single capstan and a single drive motor - as opposed to multiple motors dual capstan arrangement. This did not make the B&O contender a popular choice with HiFi enthusiasts. Most of them favored Nakamichi, Tandberg or Revox instead, which were all more mechanically complex. HX Pro was adopted by other manufacturers including

Technics, while Aiwa incorporated the technology into their top of the range personal stereos. As they became aimed at more casual users, fewer decks had microphone inputs. Dual decks became popular and incorporated into home entertainment systems of all sizes for tape dubbing. Although the quality would suffer each time a source was copied, there are no mechanical restrictions on copying from a record, radio, or another cassette source. Even as CD recorders are becoming more popular, some incorporate cassette decks for professional applications.

An assortment of boomboxes Another format that made an impact on culture in the 1980s was the "boom box" which combined the portable cassette deck with speakers capable of producing significant sound levels. The boom box became synonymous with urban youth culture in entertainment, which led to the somewhat derisive nickname "ghetto blaster." Applications for car stereos varied widely. Auto manufacturers in the U.S. would typically fit a cassette slot into their standard large radio faceplates. Europe and Asia would standardize on DIN and double DIN sized faceplates. In the 1980s, a high end installation would have a Dolby AM/FM cassette deck, and they rendered the 8-track cartridge obsolete in car installations because of space, performance and audio quality. As the cost of building CD players declined, many manufacturers offered a CD player, but some cars, especially those targeted at older drivers still offer the option of a cassette player, either by itself, or sometimes in combination with a CD slot. In fact, the 2009 Lexus ES 350 still comes with a cassette player as standard equipment. The newest cars are not often designed to accommodate cassette players, but the auxiliary jack advertised for MP3 players can also be used with portable cassette players.

A head cleaning cassette Although the cassettes themselves were relatively durable, the players required regular maintenance to perform properly. Head cleaning may be done with long swabs, or cassette-shaped devices that could be inserted into a tape deck to polish the heads and remove smudges and dirt. Similarly shaped demagnetizers used magnets to degauss the deck, which kept sound from becoming distorted. A common mechanical problem occurred when a worn-out or dirty player rotated the supply spool faster than the take-

up spool or failed to release the heads from the tape upon ejection. This would cause the magnetic tape to be fed out through the bottom of the cassette and become tangled in the mechanism of the player. In these cases the player was said to have "eaten" the tape, and it often destroyed the playability of the cassette altogether, and resulted in the common sight of tangled tape on the side of the road.[29] Cutting blocks, analogous to those used for open reel 1/4" tape, were readily available though, but mainly used for retrieving valued recordings, through removing the damaged portion of, or repairing the break in, the tape. Creation of compilations was usually by re-recording rather than splicing sections of songs because of the much smaller tape area.

[edit] Applications
[edit] Audio

A dual compact cassette tape based Panasonic answering machine The Compact Cassette was originally intended for use in dictation machines. In this capacity, some later-model cassette-based dictation machines could also run the tape at half speed (1516 in/s) as playback quality was not critical. The Compact Cassette soon became a popular medium for distributing prerecorded musicinitially through The Philips Record Company (and subsidiary labels Mercury and Philips in the U.S.). As of 2009, one still finds cassettes used for a variety of purposes such as journalism, oral history, meeting and interview transcripts and so on. However, they are starting to give way to Compact Discs and more "compact" digital storage media. The Compact Cassette quickly found use in the commercial music industry. One artifact found on some commercially produced music cassettes was a sequence of test tones, called SDR soundburst tones, at the beginning and end of the tape, heard in order of low frequency to high. These were used during the recording process to gauge the quality of the tape medium. Many consumers objected to these tones since they were not part of the recorded music.[30]

[edit] Home studio

In the 1980s, Tascam introduced the Portastudio line of four and eight-track cassette recorders for home studio use.

In the simplest configuration, rather than playing a pair of stereo channels of each side of the cassette, the typical "portastudio" used a four-track tape head assembly to access four tracks on the cassette at once (with the tape playing in one direction). Each track could be recorded to, erased or played back individually, allowing musicians to overdub themselves and create simple multitrack recordings easily, which could then be mixed down to a finished stereo version on an external machine. To increase audio quality in these recorders, the tape speed was sometimes doubled to 3 3/4 inches per second in comparison to the standard 1 7/8 ips; additionally, dbx, Dolby B or Dolby C noise reduction provided compansion (compression of the signal during recording with equal and opposite expansion of the signal during playback), which yields increased dynamic range by lowering the noise level and increasing the maximum signal level before distortion occurs. Multi-track cassette recorders with built-in mixer and signal routing features ranged from easy-to-use beginner units up to professional-level recording systems.[31] Although professional musicians typically only used multitrack cassette machines as "sketchpads," Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska," was recorded entirely on a four-track cassette tape.

[edit] Home dubbing

An opened Magnavox dual deck recorder with high-speed dubbing Most compact cassettes were sold blank and used for recording (dubbing) the owner's records (as backup or to make mixtape compilations), their friends' records or music from the radio. This practice was condemned by the music industry with such slogans as "Home Taping Is Killing Music." However, many claimed that the medium was ideal for spreading new music and would increase sales, and strongly defended at least their right to copy their own records onto tape. For a limited time in the early 1980s Island Records sold chromium dioxide One Plus One cassettes that had an album prerecorded on one side and the other was left blank for the purchaser to use. Cassettes were also a boon to people wishing to tape concerts (unauthorized or authorized) for sale or trade, a practice tacitly or overtly encouraged by many bands with a more counterculture bent such as the Grateful Dead. Blank Compact Cassettes also were an invaluable tool to spread the music of unsigned acts, especially within tape trading networks. Various legal cases arose surrounding the dubbing of cassettes. In the UK, in the case of CBS Songs v. Amstrad (1988), the House of Lords found in favor of Amstrad that producing equipment that facilitated the dubbing of cassettes, in this case a high-speed twin cassette deck that allowed one cassette to be copied directly onto another, did not constitute the infringement of copyright.[32] In a similar case, a shop owner who rented cassettes and sold blank tapes was not liable for copyright infringement even though it was clear that his customers were likely dubbing them at home.[33] In both cases, the courts held that manufacturers and retailers could not be held accountable for the actions of consumers.

As an alternative to home dubbing, in the late 1980s, the Personics company installed booths in record stores across America which allowed customers to make personalized mixtapes from a digitally-encoded back-catalogue with customised printed covers.

[edit] Data recording

A C2N Datassette recorder for Commodore computers

German-made cassettes sold for computer data recording, circa 1980 The Hewlett Packard HP 9830 was one of the first desktop computers in the early 1970s to use automatically controlled cassette tapes for storage. It could save and find files by number, using a clear leader to detect the end of tape. These would be replaced by specialized cartridges such as the 3M DC-series. Many of the earliest microcomputers implemented the Kansas City standard for digital data storage. Most home computers of the late 1970s and early 1980s could use cassettes for data storage as a cheaper alternative to floppy disks, though users often had to manually stop and start a cassette recorder. Even the first version of the IBM PC of 1981 had a cassette port and a command in its ROM BASIC programming language to use it. However, this was seldom used, as even then floppy drives had become commonplace in high-end machines. The typical encoding method for computer data was simple FSK which resulted in typical data rates of 500 to 2000 bit/s, although some games used special faster loading routines, up to around 4000-bit/s. A rate of 2000-bit/s equates to a capacity of around 660 kilobytes per side of a 90-minute tape.

Among home computers that primarily used data cassettes for storage in the late 1970s were Commodore PET (early models of which had a cassette drive built-in), TRS-80 and Apple II, until the introduction of floppy disk drives and hard drives in the early 1980s made cassettes virtually obsolete for day-to-day use in the US. However, they remained in use on some portable systems such as the TRS-80 Model 100 line until the early 1990s. Due to the high price of disks, cassettes also remained the primary data storage medium for 8-bit computers in many countries (for example, the UK, where 8bit software was mostly sold on cassette until that market disappeared altogether in the early 1990s.) In some countries, including the United Kingdom, Poland, Hungary and the Netherlands, audio cassette data storage was so popular that some radio stations would broadcast computer programs that listeners could record onto cassette and then load into their computer.[34] See BASICODE. The use of better modulation techniques like QPSK or those used in modern modems, combined with the improved bandwidth and signal to noise ratio of newer cassette tapes, allowed much greater capacities (up to 60 MB) and speeds (1017 kB/s for data rate) on each cassette. These were typically used as hard disk backup for PCs in the late 1980s.[citation needed] They also found use during the 1980s in data loggers for scientific and industrial equipment.

[edit] Successors

A Compact Cassette and a microcassette Technical development of the cassette effectively ceased when digital recordable media such as DAT and MiniDisc were introduced in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Anticipating the switch from analog to digital, major companies such as Sony shifted their focus to new media.[35] In 1992, Philips introduced the Digital Compact Cassette (DCC), a DAT-like tape in the same form factor as the compact audio cassette. It was aimed primarily at the consumer market. A DCC deck could play back both types of cassettes. Unlike DAT, which was accepted in professional usage because it could record without lossy compression effects, DCC failed in both home and mobile environments, and was discontinued in 1996.[36] The microcassette has in many cases supplanted the full-sized audio cassette in situations where voice-level fidelity is all that is required, such as in dictation machines and answering machines. Even these, in turn, are starting to give way to digital recorders of various descriptions.[37] Since the rise of cheap CD-R discs, and flash memory-based digital audio players, the phenomenon of "home taping" has effectively switched to recording to Compact Disc or downloading from commercial or music sharing websites.[38]

Because of consumer demand, the cassette has remained influential on design over a decade after its decline as a media mainstay. As the Compact Disc grew in popularity, cassette-shaped audio adapters were developed to provide an economical and clear way to obtain CD functionality in vehicles equipped with cassette decks. A portable CD player would have its analog line-out connected to the adapter, which in turn fed the signal to the head of the cassette deck. These adapters continue to function with MP3 players as well, and are generally more reliable than the FM transmitters that must be used to adapt CD players to MP3s. MP3 players shaped as audio cassettes have also become available, which can be inserted into any tape player and communicate with the head as if they were normal cassettes.[39][40]

Microcassette
Microcassette

A Microcassette is significantly smaller than a Compact Cassette Media type Encoding Magnetic tape Analog signal MC60 (30 min per side at 2.4 cm/s) Capacity MC15 MC30 MC90 Read mechanism Write mechanism Developed by Usage Tape head Magnetic recording head Olympus Dictation, audio storage

A Microcassette (often written generically as microcassette) is an audio storage medium introduced by Olympus in 1969. It uses the same width of magnetic tape as the Compact Cassette but in a much smaller container. By using thinner tape and half or a quarter the tape speed, microcassettes can offer comparable recording time to the compact cassette. The original standard microcassette, the MC60, gives 30 minutes recording per side at its standard speed of 2.4 cm/s, and double that duration at 1.2 cm/s; an MC90, giving 45 minutes per side @ 2.4 cm/s, is also available from a few manufacturers. Unlike the Compact Cassette, a choice of recording speeds was provided on the original recorders and many others; the tape also spools in the opposite direction, from right to left. For transcription purposes, continuously variable speed was provided on many players.

Three devices which use microcassettes Microcassettes have mostly been used for recording voice. In particular, they are commonly used in dictation machines and answering machines. However, Microcassettes have also been used as a medium for computer data storage, and as a medium for recording music. For the latter purpose, devices for recording in stereo were produced in 1982 and, for higher fidelity, microcassettes using Type IV ("metal", i.e. coated with pure metal particles rather than oxide) tape were sold. This was an attempt by Olympus to cash in on the burgeoning Walkman market; one model, the Olympus SR-11, even had a built-in FM tuner and offered a stereo tie-clip microphone as an accessory, which made the unit somewhat popular with concert-goers who wanted to record the concerts they attended without drawing attention to themselves with larger, bulkier full-sized cassette recorders. Unfortunately, both these "high-fidelity" microcassette recorders and the special Type-IV blanks they required were relatively expensive and of limited availability, so the system was not widely adopted and Olympus phased them out after only 2 years on the market. (Battery life was also a problem, since the relatively high bias currents required by Type-IV tape, combined with the state of battery technology at the time, meant that even a brand-new pair of alkaline batteries might give out in as little as 2 hours when the unit was in recording mode.) Comparable products to the microcassette include the minicassette, produced by Philips, and the picocassette, produced by Dictaphone. Of the three formats, the microcassette was the most common. In 1992, Sony released the NT memo recording system which employs a small cassette, but records digitally.

Mini Cassette
Mini Cassette
Media type Encoding Capacity Read mechanism Write mechanism Developed by Usage magnetic tape analog signal 30 minutes tape head magnetic recording head Philips dictation

A Sony Mini Cassette dictation recorder. The Mini Cassette, often written minicassette, is a tape cassette format introduced by Philips in 1967. It is used primarily in dictation machines and was also employed as a data storage for the Philips P2000 home computer. Unlike the Compact Cassette, also designed by Philips, and the later Microcassette, introduced by Olympus, the minicassette does not use a capstan drive system; instead, the tape is propelled past the tape head by the reels.[1] This is mechanically simple and allows the cassette to be made smaller, but produces a system unsuited to any task other than voice recording, as the tape speed is not constant (averaging 2.4 cm/s) and prone to wow and flutter. However, the lack of a capstan means that the tape is well suited to being repeatedly rewound and fast-forwarded short distances, leading to the minicassette's continuing use in the niche markets of dictation and transcription, where fidelity is not critical, but robustness of storage is, and where analog media are still widely preferred.

Micro and mini cassettes. A smaller version of the Mini Cassette was later introduced that could be used in a standard player using an adaptor; however, this did not become widespread. A very similar (but incompatible) Mini Cassette format was produced by Hewlett Packard and Verbatim (the HP82176A Mini Data Cassette) for data storage in their HP82161A tape drive, which like other Mini Cassettes did not use a capstan.

[edit] External links

Cassette culture

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Cassettes of varying tape quality and playing time Cassette culture refers to the trading of home-made audio cassettes, usually of rock or alternative music. The culture was in part an offshoot of the mail art movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In both the United States and the United Kingdom, it owed a lot to the DIY ethic of punk. In the UK cassette culture was at its peak in what is known as the post-punk period, 19781984; in the US, activity extended through the late 80s and into the 90s. It was largely postal-based (though there were a few retail outlets, such as Rough Trade in the UK) with the artists selling or more likely exchanging music on compact audio cassettes via a loose network of other artists and fanzine readers. Several factors made the "cassette" boom occur. Obviously the recording format of the cassette tape was important. More significant, however, was the fact that bands did not need to go into expensive recording studios any longer. Multi-track recording equipment was becoming affordable, portable and of fairly high quality during the early 1980s. One could purchase a "four track" cassette recorder and get a reasonable sound at home. Therefore, due to inexpensive (or less expensive) recording and the ease of duplicating tape there was an increase of recording artists. Add to this the fact that college radio was coming into its own. For many years there were non-commercial college radio stations but now they had a new found freedom in format. With the influx of new music from sources other than the major record companies - and the quasi-major medium of college radio to lend support - the audio boom was on.

Contents
[hide]

1 United Kingdom 2 United States 3 Creative packaging 4 21st century 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit] United Kingdom

In the UK Cassette Culture was championed by marginal musicians and performers such as Storm Bugs, the insane picnic, Instant Automatons, Stripey Zebras, What is Oil?, The APF Brigade, Blyth Power, The Peace & Freedom Band, Academy 23, Cleaners From Venus, Chumbawamba, 5ive Ximes of Dust and many of the purveyors of Industrial music, e.g. Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, and Clock DVA . Artists self-releasing would often copy their music in exchange for "a blank tape plus selfaddressed envelope". But there also existed many small 'tape labels' such as Snatch Tapes, Falling A Records, Datenverarbeitung (in Germany), Deleted Records, Face Like a Smacked Arse, Fuck Off Records, Man's Hate (which distributed the International Sound Communication compilation series), New Crimes Tapes, Rasquap Products, Sterile Records and Third Mind Records that operated in opposition to the capitalistic aim of maximizing profit. There was great diversity amongst such labels, some were entirely 'bedroom based', utilising new home tape copying technologies (see below) whilst others were more organised, functioning in a similar way to more established record labels. Some also did vinyl releases, or later developed into vinyl labels. Many compilation albums were released, presenting samples of work from various artists. It was not uncommon for artists who had a vinyl contract to release on cassette compilations, or to continue to do cassette-only album releases (of live recordings, work-in-progress material, etc.) after they had started releasing records. Cassette culture received something of a mainstream boost when acknowledged by the major music press. Both the New Musical Express (NME) and Sounds, the main weekly music papers of the time in the UK, launched their own 'cassette culture' features, in which new releases would be briefly reviewed and ordering information given. In the U.S. magazines such as Op Magazine, Factsheet Five and Unsound rose to fill the void.

[edit] United States

Although larger operators made use of commercial copying services, anybody who had access to copying equipment (such as the portable tape to tape cassette players that first became common around the early 1980s) could release a tape, and publicise it in the network of fanzines and newsletters that existed around this scene. Therefore cassette culture was an ideal and very democratic method for making available music that was never likely to have mainstream appeal. Arguably, such freedom led to a large output of poor quality and self-indulgent material in the name of 'artistic creativity'. On the other hand, many found in cassette-culture music that was more imaginative, challenging, beautiful, and groundbreaking than output released on vinyl.

In the United States, Cassette Culture was associated with DIY sound collage, riot grrrl, and punk music and blossomed across the country on cassette labels like Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine, Swinging Axe, Pass the Buck, E.F. Tapes, Mindkill, Happiest Tapes on Earth and Sound of Pig (which released over 300 titles), Portland's label From the Wheelchair to the Pulpit, and in Olympia, Washington on labels like K Records and brown interiour music. Artists such as PBK, Alien Planetscapes, Don Campau, Ken Clinger, Dino DiMuro, Tom Furgas, The Haters, Zan Hoffman, If, Bwana, Minoy, Dave Prescott, and hundreds of others recorded numerous albums available only on cassette throughout the late 80s and well into the 90s. A notable pioneer of cassette culture and 'outsider' music in the United States is R. Stevie Moore, who, through the 'R. Stevie Moore Cassette Club', has been releasing DIY, home-recorded music steadily since the 1970s. Moore lives in New Jersey and continues to make many releases in the cassette-only format.

[edit] Creative packaging

The packaging of cassette releases, whilst sometimes amateurish, was also an aspect of the format in which a high degree of creativity and originality could be found. For the most part packaging relied on traditional plastic shells with a photocopied "J-card" insert, but some labels made more of an effort. The Chocolate Monk-released album "Anusol" by the A Band, for instance, came packaged with a "suppository" unique to each copy - one of which was a used condom wrapped in tissue.[citation needed] BWCD released a cassette by Japanese noise artist Aube that came tied to a blue plastic ashtray shaped like a fish. EEtapes of Belgium release of This Window's (UK) "Extraction 2" was packaged with an X-ray of a broken limb in 1995.

[edit] 21st century

Though in the mid-'90s cassette culture seemed to decline with the appearance of new technologies and methods of distribution such as the Internet, MP3 files, file sharing, and CD-Rs, in recent years it has once again seen a revival, with the rise of tape labels like American Tapes, Obsolete Audio Formats, Heresee, From the Wheelchair to the Pulpit, Woodsmoke, Object Tapes, Brown Interiour Music, Retirement Records, 1019 Records, Bart Records, Breaking World Records, Lost Sound Tapes and To Hip To Hop Tapes. An exhibition was held at Printed Matter in New York City devoted to current American cassette culture entitled "Leaderless: Underground Cassette Culture Now" (May 1226, 2007)

Cassette single
Cassette single

Media type Encoding Capacity Read mechanism Usage

magnetic tape analog signal generally less than 10 minutes total (2-3 songs), sometimes repeated on both sides tape head audio playback

Insert from the "Winter" cassette single by Tori Amos. Like many British cassette singles, it was sold in a regular cassette box with a paper insert. A cassette single (CS, also known by the trademark "Cassingle" or capitalized as the trademark "Cassette Single") is a music single in the form of a Compact Cassette. American record companies began releasing cassette singles on a large scale in 1987, when vinyl record album sales were declining in favor of cassette recordings; the cassette single was meant to replace the 45 record in a similar way.[1] The format was not new, though; Bow Wow Wow's "C30, C60, C90, Go!" was released on cassette in the U.K. in 1980[2], and I.R.S. Records released the Go-Go's "Vacation" in the U.S. in 1982.[1] Originally, most cassette singles were released in a cardboard sleeve that slipped over the outside of the release. This was then usually shrink wrapped in plastic. Some singles contained one song on each side, much as 45s had done, but others repeated the songs on both sides. In some markets, cassette singles generally used the same packaging as standard cassettes, a plastic box with a paper insert. As the cassette maxi-single was released, more intricate packaging was incorporated that looked similar to the packaging of a regular cassette release. These were placed in regular plastic cassette cases with a paper/cardstock insert. Unlike a full-length cassette album, these were generally only one two-sided inlay instead of a fold-out. Maxisingles usually contained four versions of a single song, ie: unique mixes & edits, but some contained versions of two different songs. Although the cassette had reached a high level of popularity by the late 1980s, due to the ubiquity of mobile devices such as the Sony Walkman, the boombox and car audio

cassette players, cassette singles never eclipsed gramophone records to the same extent as cassette albums had done.

Contents
[hide]

1 Cassette singles around the world o 1.1 Australia o 1.2 United Kingdom o 1.3 United States o 1.4 Norway o 1.5 The Netherlands 2 References 3 External Links

[edit] Cassette singles around the world

The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with Englishspeaking territories and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page.

[edit] Australia
In Australia, cassette singles were popular until the late 1990s. Australian cassette singles suffered from a lack of packaging and design when compared to their UK or European counterparts. Record companies such as Virgin and EMI would use a standard design for all releases, which featured a square copy of the vinyl artwork on the cover and standard typography and record company logos on the inlay card. Rear cover artwork was not used. CBS/Epic released some cassingles in maxi single configuration, which were particularly popular for releases for Michael Jackson, and these had up to 40 minutes of remixes on each side, and full back and front cover artwork.

[edit] United Kingdom

The first cassette single in the UK was released in 1978, with the song "Howard Hughes" by The Tights. The ZTT label made good use of the format by 1984, with singles by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Art of Noise and Propaganda being issued in unique versions on cassette. The BPI began recording sales of cassette singles in 1987, and they were first made eligible in the UK Singles Chart in 1989, due to the song "Hand On Your Heart" by Kylie Minogue selling enough on the format to make her debut at number 1 in the chart (something no female had ever done at the time) combined with vinyl and CD sales, but instead entering at number 2 due to the format not being eligible. The rules were quickly changed so that they were included in sales. They were sold as a low-cost

alternative to CD singles, sold alongside the CD version, but at a somewhat lower price (often 2.29 compared to 3.99 for the CD), and often with fewer "bonus" tracks. The peak year of cassette singles was 1995, when 22 million were sold - 32% of all singles on all formats released that year, and a weekly average of just under 400,000 shipped. They continued selling steadily for the rest of the 1990s, but by the beginning of the 2000s many forms of prerecorded audio cassettes were being phased out, and sales rapidly dropped from 20 million in 1999 to under 1 million in 2003, after which they were no longer stocked by most retailers. In June 2004 the BPI announced that not a single one had been reported as shipped in the first quarter of the year. However, it is still an eligible format for the chart and still occasionally sells. Music Week announced in February 2005 that 22 had sold in one week, and in January 2008 it reported that 715 were sold in the year 2007, a 45% increase from the previous year.

[edit] United States

Bryan Adams' "Heat of the Night" b/w "Another Day" was released as a cassette single by A&M Records on March 13, 1987, making it the first to be released in the U.S. after the industry had agreed to introduce the format on a wide scale and to begin phasing out the production of 45-rpm singles. In contrast to the earlier Go-Go's single, which was packaged in a regular cassette box, the Bryan Adams single was issued in a unique outer snap-open soft black plastic case with a red colored cassette shell. This case was not used on later single issues and most companies issued them in the new low-cost cardboard slipcase packaging with only one or two opting for the regular type cassette box.

[edit] Norway
In Norway, cassette singles were introduced in 1981 with the experimental release of four singles that already were hits as vinyl singles. The format did not take hold.

[edit] The Netherlands

In The Netherlands, cassette singles were introduced in 1991 to tackle the fall in singles sales for both vinyl and CD formats. All major record companies worked together to ensure all major titles would be released on CD, vinyl and cassette simultaneously. Also, every cassette single carried the same artwork and special logo. However, the format never gained significant popularity, due to the increasing availability of the CD single after 1992. The cassette single format survived into the early 2000s but only in relatively small numbers.

Digital cassettes
Digital audio cassette formats introduced to the audio professionals and consumer markets:

Digital Audio Tape (or DAT) is the most well-known, and had some success as an audio storage format among professionals and "prosumers" before the prices

of hard drive and solid-state flash memory-based recorders dropped in the late 1990s. Hard drive recording has mostly obsoleted DAT, as hard drives offer more editing versatility than tape, and easier importation into digital audio workstations (DAWs) and non-linear video editing (NLE) suites. Digital Compact Cassette was intended as a digital replacement for the massmarket analog cassette tape, but received very little attention or adaptation. Its failure is generally attributed to higher production costs than audio CDs, and lukewarm reception by consumers.

Digital video cassettes include:

DV MiniDV (a small form factor version of DV) DVCPro (a variant of MiniDV designed by Panasonic for ENG applications) Digital8 (stores DV video on 8 mm video tape cassettes)

Analog cassettes used as digital data storage:

Historically, the Compact audio cassette which was originally designed for analog storage of music was used as an alternative to disk drives in the late 1970s and early 1980s to provide data storage for home computers. See Kansas City standard. The ADAT system uses Super VHS tapes to record 8 synchronized digital audiotracks at once. There have also been several audio recording systems which used VHS video recorders as storage devices and tape transports, generally by encoding the digital data to be recorded into an analog composite video signal (which resembles static) and then recording this to tape. These systems were generally used as "mixdown" recorders, to record the finished mix from a multi-track recorder in preparation for the manufacture of a vinyl record, cassette tape, or CD. An example was the dbx Model 700. Several companies sold VHS backup solutions in the 80s and 90s where data was converted to a video image which was then saved on a VHS tape [1]

Elcaset
Elcaset was a short-lived audio format created by Sony in 1976, building on an idea perfected 20 years earlier, giving birth to the RCA cartridge in 1958. In 1976, it was widely felt that the compact cassette was never likely to be capable of the same levels of performance that was available from reel-to-reel systems, yet clearly

the cassette had great advantages in terms of convenience. The Elcaset system was intended to marry the performance of reel to reel with cassette convenience. The name "Elcaset" may simply mean L-cassette, or large cassette, since the 1/4" tape inside was double the 1/8" width found in standard cassettes.

Size comparison of Elcaset (left) with standard Compact Cassette The cassette itself looked very similar to a standard cassette, only larger - about twice the size. It contained 0.25 in (6 mm) tape running at twice the speed9.5 cm/s (3.75 in/s), -- giving much greater frequency response and dynamic range. One unusual difference from compact cassettes was that the tape was withdrawn from the cassette when run through the transport mechanism so that the manufacturing tolerances of the cassette shell did not affect sound quality. The Elcaset also had all the features of deluxe open reel decks, like separate heads for erase, recording, and playback, remote control, and heavy duty transports for low wow & flutter and excellent specs. The system was technically excellent, but a total failure in the marketplace, with a very low take up by a few audiophiles only. Apart from the problem of the bulky cassettes, the performance of standard cassettes had improved dramatically with the use of new materials such as chromium dioxide, and better manufacturing quality. For most people, the quality of standard cassettes was adequate, and the benefits of the expensive Elcaset system limited. Audiophiles turned away from Elcaset and towards high-end cassette decks from companies like Nakamichi, which began making very high-quality tape decks using the regular audio cassette in late 1973. The early Nakamichi decks were expensive (over $1000 for the original model 1000), but ushered in a revolution of sound quality. Elcaset began a fast fade-out in 1978, but it was a very well-designed, innovative formatunfortunately, one that nobody wanted to buy. The system was abandoned in 1980, when all the remaining systems were sold off in Finland.[1]

Mixtape

An early pirate 8 track mixtape from 1974

The compact audio cassette brought homemade mixes of pop songs within the reach of the casual music fan. A mixtape or mixed tape is a compilation of songs recorded in a specific order, traditionally onto a compact audio cassette. A mixtape, which usually reflects the musical tastes of its compiler, can range from a casually selected list of favorite songs, to a conceptual mix of songs linked by a theme or mood, to a highly personal statement tailored to the tape's intended recipient. Essayist Geoffrey O'Brien has called the personal mixtape "the most widely practiced American art form",[1] and many mixtape enthusiasts believe that by carefully selecting and ordering the tracks in a mix, an artistic statement can be created that is greater than the sum of its individual songs, much as an album of pop music in the post-Beatles era can be considered as something more than a collection of singles. With the advent of affordable, consumer-level digital audio, creating and distributing mixes in the form of compact disc or MP3 playlists has become the contemporary method of choice, but the term mixtape is still commonly used, even for mixes in different media (CD, MP3, MiniDisc, audio cassette 8 track, etc.).[citation needed] Video mixtapes have emerged as well.

Contents
[hide]

1 History 2 Mixtapes vs. compilations 3 Legal issues in the United States 4 Aesthetics 5 Types of mixtapes 6 Mixtapes in hip hop 7 Mixtapes in global culture 8 See also

9 References 10 Further reading

[edit] History
The most common early mixtapes were bootleg 8 track tapes that were sold at flea markets and truck stops in the late 60's through the early 80's, with names like "Super 73", "Country Chart Toppers" or "Top Pops 1977". Homemade mixtapes became common in the 1980s. Although the compact audio cassette by Philips appeared at the 1963 Berlin radio show,[2] the sound quality of cassettes was not good enough to be seriously considered for music recording until further advances in tape formulations, including the advent of chrome and metal tape. Before the introduction of the audio cassette, the creation of a pop music compilation required specialized or cumbersome equipment, such as a reel-to-reel or 8 track recorder, that was often inaccessible to the casual music fan. As cassette tapes and recorders grew in popularity and portability, these technological hurdles were lowered to the point where the only resources required to create a mix were a handful of cassettes and a cassette recorder connected to a source of prerecorded music, such as a radio or LP player. The 8-track tape cartridge was more popular for music recording during much of the 1960s, as the cassette was originally only mono and intended for vocal recordings only, such as in office dictation machines. But improvements in fidelity finally allowed the cassette to become a major player. The ready availability of the cassette and higher quality home recording decks to serve the home casual user allowed the cassette to become the dominant tape format, to the point that the 8 track tape nearly disappeared shortly after the turn of the 1980s. The growth of the mixtape was also encouraged by improved quality and increased popularity of audio cassette players in car entertainment systems, and by the introduction of the Sony Walkman in 1979. A distinction should be drawn between a private mixtape, which is usually intended for a specific listener or private social event, and a public mixtape, or "party tape", usually consisting of a recording of a club performance by a DJ and intended to be sold to multiple individuals. In the 1970s, such DJs as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force, Kool Herc and the Herculoids, DJ Breakout, the Funky Four, and DJ Hollywood would often distribute recordings of their club performances via audio cassette, as well as customized recordings (often prepared at exorbitant prices) for individual tape purchasers. These recordings tended to be of higher technical ability than home-made mixtapes and incorporated techniques such as beatmatching and scratching. One 12 October 1974 article in Billboard Magazine reported, "Tapes were originally dubbed by jockeys to serve as standbys for times when they did not have disco turntables to hand. The tapes represent each jockey's concept of programming, placing, and sequencing of record sides. The music is heard without interruption. One- to three-hour programs bring anywhere from $30 to $75 per tape, mostly reel-to-reel, but increasingly on cartridge and cassette." Club proprietors, as well as DJs, would often prepare such tapes for sale.

The CD-R disc is currently the most common medium for homemade mixes Throughout the 1980s, mixtapes were a highly visible element of youth culture. However, the increased availability of CD burners and MP3 players and the gradual disappearance of cassette players in cars and households have led to a decline in the popularity of the compact audio cassette as a medium for homemade mixes. The high point of traditional mixtape culture was arguably the publication of Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity in 1995. Since then, mixtapes have largely been replaced by mix CDs and shared MP3 playlists, which are more durable, can hold more songs, and require minutes (rather than hours) to prepare. While some mixtape enthusiasts bemoan the obsolescence of the cassette tape, others concede that the greater convenience offered by the mix CD has expanded the possibilities and accessibility of the medium, as indicated by the recent resurgence of mix-swapping clubs that trade mix CDs by regular mail. Some mix enthusiasts also appreciate the potential of the mix CD for extended, continuous mixes and creative album art. Today, websites concerned with electronic music provide mixes in a digital format.[3][4] [5] These usually consist of recorded DJ sets of live, beat-matched mixes of songs, which are used by DJs seeking to demonstrate their mixing skills to an online audience. Some radio shows worldwide specialize in mix series, including The Breezeblock on BBC Radio 1, The Solid Steel Show (formerly on KISS-FM), and The BTTB Show. Additionally, DJs such as Grandmaster Flash, DJ QBert, DJ Spooky, DJ Z-Trip or DJ Shadow, The Avalanches, and Rjd2 have gained fame for creating new songs by combining fragments of existing songs (which need not necessarily belong to the same genre). The resulting remix or mash-up can be seen as an evolution of the mixtape, in that it appropriates existing songs to give them new meanings through their juxtaposition, but does so in a quicker, more integrated style. This practice is heavily derived from the use of song loops as musical backdrops for an MC's rhymes in hip hop music, which is also related to turntablism.

[edit] Mixtapes vs. compilations

Many commercially available compilations of pop music initially seem to share certain important characteristics with mixtapes. Like many private mixes, a significant number of the earliest pop LPs were essentially collections of popular singles, and such compilation albums have often taken cues from underground mixes of the same era. One example is Disco Par-r-r-ty, the first nonstop dancing LP record, which was released by Spring Records in October 1974. Consisting of a continuous mix of songs by such artists as James Brown, Mandrill, and Barry White, it was clearly inspired by the bootleg DJ mixes that were becoming popular at the same time. However, the relative anonymity of the compilers of such albums is arguably inconsistent with the

rationale behind most mixtapes, which typically reflect the musical tastes of a single compiler. While the editors of such compilations do exercise a certain amount of discretion over song order and selection, the term mixtape is generally restricted to a compilation where the identity of the compiler is clearly associated with the album itself. For example, Starbucks, the coffee chain, sells a compilation CD series called Artist's Choice, which consists of mixes based on selections by such artists as Johnny Cash, Tony Bennett, and Sheryl Crow. Similarly, Apple Computer's iTunes Store features Celebrity Playlists, downloadable mixtapes in AAC-compatible form, selected by such artists as Moby, Barry Manilow, and Andrew W.K. The Late Night Tales series has seen artists such as Four Tet and Turin Brakes make their own compilations that are distributed in mainstream record shops such as HMV. The presence of an identifiable compiler whose tastes are reflected in song selection and arrangement allow retail mix CDs to be distinguished from other types of compilations. The distinction can be rather subtle. For example, while most "greatest hits" compilations of individual recording artists consist of a collection of singles in chronological order, others include album tracks, new songs, or obscure selections in addition to established hits, and sometimes reorder the songs for optimal listening. As such, these compilations can be seen as "artist-specific" mixes selected and arranged by the artists themselves. One could also argue that the modern movie soundtrack, which often consists of selected pop music tracks (rather than the traditional orchestral score) is a mixtape with songs selected by the film's director or music supervisor.

[edit] Legal issues in the United States

One important distinction between homemade mixes and retail compilations of pop music is that the latter generally obtain permissions for the use of copyrighted songs, while the former do not. As a result, mixtapes such as those produced and sold by club DJs in the 1970s are illegal. Most mixtape enthusiasts assume that private mixtapes are inoffensive from a fair use standpoint, but this is far from clear. An article in the New York Times cites Frank Creighton, a director of anti-copyright infringement efforts for the Recording Industry Association of America, as saying that "money did not have to be involved for copying to be illegal."[6] While mixes on cassette tapes may not have inspired the wrath of the record industry in the past, Mr. Creighton said, "digital mixes have better sound quality." And given the proliferation of CD burning for friends and relatives, "it would be naive of us to say that we should allow that type of activity", he said.

[edit] Aesthetics
While the process of recording a mix onto an audio cassette from LPs or compact discs is technically straightforward, many music fans who create more than one mixtape are eventually compelled to confront some of the practical and aesthetic challenges involved in the mixtape format. From a practical standpoint, such issues as avoiding an excessive amount of blank tape at the end of one side (which requires careful planning of the length of each side of the mix) and reducing the audible click between songs (which requires mastery of the pause button on the cassette recorder) have been

identified as part of the shared experience of mixtape aficionados. From an aesthetic point of view, many enthusiasts believe that because a tape player, unlike a CD player, lacks the ability to skip from song to song, the mixtape needs to be considered in its entirety. This requires the mixtape creator to consider the transitions between songs, the effects caused by juxtaposing a soft song with a loud song, and the overall "narrative arc" of the entire tape. One notable listing of such aesthetic "rules" can be found in a paragraph from Nick Hornby's High Fidelity:

To me, making a tape is like writing a letter there's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again. A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with "Got to Get You Off My Mind", but then realized that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straightaway, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you've got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs and...oh, there are loads of rules.

Many enthusiasts also devote substantial attention to the packaging of a mixtape intended as a gift, sometimes going so far as to create cover art and customized liner notes. The cover of the original McSweeney's edition of 31 Songs, a 2003 essay collection by Nick Hornby, was intended to suggest the packaging of a homemade mix CD. It also came with an actual CD featuring ten of the songs discussed in the text. Indeed, the look of mixtapes, featuring hand-written notes on the recording medium manufacturer's supplied labels, has become one of the aesthetic conventions of modern design, a distinct style that designers may attempt to copy or cite. From an artistic point of view, many creators of mixtapes seem to regard them as a form of emotional self-expression, although whether a mixtape retains the same web of emotional associations when passed from its creator to the recipient is, at best, debatable. Some argue that in selecting, juxtaposing, or even editing originally unrelated tracks of pop music into a new work of art, the "author" of a mixtape moves from passive listener to archivist, editor, and finally active participant in the process of musical creation. (Some legitimacy for this viewpoint was provided by Cassette Stories, a 2003 exhibition at the Museum of Communication in Hamburg, Germany, which featured stories and submissions from eighty mixtape enthusiasts.) However, this perception of the mixtape as a work of art has been criticized as resulting in a sort of elitism, with creators becoming more concerned with finding arcane and surprising combinations of tracks than with creating a tape that is listenable, enjoyable, or appropriate to its intended recipient. (In High Fidelity, for example, the narrator's girlfriend complains that his mixtapes are too didactic.) On a very basic level, the creation of a mixtape can be seen as an expression of the individual compiler's taste in music, often put forward for the implicit approval of the tape's recipient, and in many cases as a tentative step towards building the compiler's personal canon of pop music.

[edit] Types of mixtapes

Although a "comprehensive" list of the different genres or categories of mixtapes could be extended indefinitely, and probably to no useful end, creating a taxonomy of mixtapes is a project that many mixtape enthusiasts have intuitively attempted. The different types of mixtapes identified on such community sites as FoundTrack and Art of the Mix (which lists over two hundred genres, sometimes tongue-in-cheek) suggest the variety of potential categories. Beyond such basic genres as the simple taping of an entire album, the collection of favorite songs, and the "snapshot" mix of recent favorites, some of the more commonly cited categories (most of which are selfexplanatory) include the driving mix, the workout mix, the party mix, the krazy mix (eclectic selections of obscure, rare or otherwise unconventional tracks), the didactic mix (intended to educate the recipient as to the essential works of a particular artist or genre), the concept / theme mix (a mix of Christmas songs, songs about cars, or covers of songs by a particular artist or similar), and the mood mix (simply a mix of songs intended to sustain a specific mood, stated or unstated notable sub genres include the romantic mix and the break-up mix). As times changed, mixtapes eventually made their way onto television screens by video mix DJs (i.e., DJ SWB).

[edit] Mixtapes in hip hop

In hip hop's earliest days, the music only existed in live form, and the music was spread via tapes of parties and shows.[7] Hip hop mixtapes first appeared in the mid-1970s in New York City, featuring artists such as Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaata.[7] As more tapes became available, they began to be collected and traded by fans. In the mid1980s, DJs such as Brucie B began recording their live sets themselves and selling their own mixtapes, which was soon followed by other DJs such as Kid Capri and Doo Wop creating their own mixtapes at home.[7] Ron G moved the mixtape forward in the early 1990s by blending R&B a cappellas with hip hop beats (known as "blends").[7] Blend tapes became increasingly popular by the mid-1990s, and fans increasingly looked for exclusive tracks and freestyles on the tapes. Mixtapes are now commonly used by labels and new artists as a promotional tool, as a way of generating hype.[7] An unsigned artist might release several mixtapes to generate buzz, leading to interest from record labels, while a signed artist may release a mixtape to promote a future studio album, in a sales model relying on word of mouth to increase the artist's street cred. Often each track on a promotional hip hop mixtape will feature the same artist, thus making it more difficult to differentiate from a standard album. However, these mixtapes will usually have much lower production values than a studio album (such as housing "demo" or roughly mixed versions of the tracks), and contain numerous collaborations, remixes, freestyles and voice-overs, often arranged in a specific flowing fashion, much like retail albums are. Most hip hop mixtapes are professionally packaged, with a pressed CD and artwork, and are often housed in a slim-format jewel case, rather than the more expensive full jewel cases most retail albums come in. Hip hop mixtapes are usually sold on the street, given out at the artists' live shows, or through independent record dealers or mail order. Many mixtapes are also sold or given away for free in MP3 format over the internet. In the Mixtape, Inc. documentary, filmmakers attempt to show the importance of an otherwise illegal practice (specifically hip hop mixtapes) and how it relates to the growing popularity of this music genre.

Although hip hop mixtapes have been instrumental in supplementing the marketing and promotions endeavors of record labels, and are utilized by major acts with the implicit support of their labels, the Recording Industry Association of America, a political lobby group funded by the major record corporations, classifies these mixtapes as bootleg or pirated music CDs.

[edit] Mixtapes in global culture

All of the references to mixtapes cited above come from media sources in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, or continental Europe. The use of mixtapes in other countries is less documented. However, it seems reasonable to believe that mixes exist wherever access to popular music is combined with a convenient means of recording homemade compilations (although mixtapes may not have been a significant element of the youth culture in such countries). For example, Sarah Erdman's 2003 book Nine Hills to Nambonkaha includes a description of the tape collection of a middle-class African in Cte d'Ivoire: