103-424: (Redirected from C-120 ) C120 or C-120 may refer to: 120 minute Compact Cassette , an audio cassette with 60 minutes recording time on each side Olympus C-120 , a late-1990s digital camera See also [ edit ] Fairchild XC-120 Packplane [REDACTED] Topics referred to by the same term This disambiguation page lists articles associated with
206-403: A 3 ⁄ 16 -inch-wide (4.8 mm) strip of wax-covered paper that was coated by dipping it in a solution of beeswax and paraffin and then had one side scraped clean, with the other side allowed to harden. The machine was of sturdy wood and metal construction and hand-powered by means of a knob fastened to a flywheel . The wax strip passed from one eight-inch reel around the periphery of
309-469: A cassette for storage. The use of magnetic tape for sound recording originated around 1930 in Germany as paper tape with oxide lacquered to it. Prior to the development of magnetic tape, magnetic wire recorders had successfully demonstrated the concept of magnetic recording , but they never offered audio quality comparable to the other recording and broadcast standards of the time. This German invention
412-648: A cassette tape , audio cassette , or simply tape or cassette , is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback . Invented by Lou Ottens and his team at the Dutch company Philips , the Compact Cassette was released in August 1963. Compact Cassettes come in two forms, either containing content as a prerecorded cassette ( Musicassette ), or as a fully recordable "blank" cassette. Both forms have two sides and are reversible by
515-576: A loudspeaker . The first wire recorder was the Telegraphone invented by Valdemar Poulsen in the late 1890s. Wire recorders for law and office dictation and telephone recording were made almost continuously by various companies (mainly the American Telegraphone Company) through the 1920s and 1930s. These devices were mostly sold as consumer technologies after World War II. Widespread use of wire recording occurred within
618-533: A phone connector converts the electrical signals to be read by the tape head, while mechanical gears simulate reel to reel movement without actual tapes when driven by the player mechanism. In order to wind up the tape more reliably, the former BASF (from 1998 EMTEC ) patented the Special Mechanism or Security Mechanism advertised with the abbreviation SM in the early 1970s, which was temporarily used under license by Agfa . This feature each includes
721-606: A Blattnerphone at Avenue House in September 1930 for tests, and used it to record King George V 's speech at the opening of the India Round Table Conference on 12 November 1930. Though not considered suitable for music the machine continued in use and was moved to Broadcasting House in March 1932, a second machine also being installed. In September 1932, a new model was installed, using 3 mm tape with
824-651: A US affiliate of Philips, introduced M.C. to the US in July 1966. The initial offering consisted of 49 titles. However, the system had been designed initially for dictation and portable use, with the audio quality of early players not well suited for music. Some early models also had an unreliable mechanical design. In 1971, the Advent Corporation introduced their Model 201 tape deck that combined Dolby type B noise reduction and chromium(IV) oxide (CrO 2 ) tape, with
927-609: A boom in bootleg cassettes made at live shows in the 1980s. The Walkman dominated the decade, selling up to 350 million units. So synonymous did the name "Walkman" become with all portable music players—with a German dictionary at one point defining the term as such without reference to Sony—that the Austrian Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that Sony, which had not sought to have the publisher of that dictionary retract that definition, could not prevent other companies from using that name, as it had now become genericized. As
1030-409: A cassette. Very simple cassette recorders for dictation purposes did not tightly control tape speed and relied on playback on a similar device to maintain intelligible recordings. For accurate reproduction of music, a tape transport incorporating a capstan and pinch roller system was used, to ensure tape passed over the record/playback heads at a constant speed. If the cassette is held with one of
1133-723: 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. British record labels began releasing compact cassettes in October 1967, and they exploded as a mass-market medium after the first Walkman , the TPS-L2, went on sale on 1 July 1979, as cassettes provided portability, which vinyl records could not. While portable radios and boom boxes had been around for some time,
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#17328010788511236-399: A continuation of the increasingly slower speed series in open-reel machines operating at 30, 15, 7 + 1 ⁄ 2 , or 3 + 3 ⁄ 4 inches per second. For comparison, the typical open-reel 1 ⁄ 4 -inch 4-track consumer format used tape that is 0.248 inches (6.3 mm) wide, each track .043 in (1.1 mm) wide, and running at either twice or four times the speed of
1339-540: A continuous demand for English language cassettes, as of 2011, due to the affordable cost. National Audio Company in Missouri, the largest of the few remaining manufacturers of audio cassettes in the US, oversaw the mass production of the "Awesome Mix #1" cassette from the film Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014. They reported that they had produced more than 10 million tapes in 2014 and that sales were up 20 percent
1442-437: A double-coating technique to enhance overall tape output levels. This product was marketed as "High Energy" under its Scotch brand of recording tapes. Inexpensive cassettes commonly are labeled "low-noise", but typically are not optimized for high frequency response . For this reason, some low-grade IEC Type I tapes have been marketed specifically as better suited for data storage than for sound recording. In 1968, DuPont ,
1545-501: A foothold for Western culture among the younger generations. Likewise, in Egypt cassettes empowered an unprecedented number of people to create culture, circulate information, and challenge ruling regimes before the internet became publicly accessible. One of the political uses of cassette tapes was the dissemination of sermons by the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini throughout Iran before the 1979 Iranian Revolution , in which Khomeini urged
1648-410: A large margin. Philips was competing with Telefunken and Grundig (with their DC International format ) in a race to establish its cassette tape as the worldwide standard, and it wanted support from Japanese electronics manufacturers. Philips' Compact Cassette became dominant as a result of Sony pressuring Philips to license the format to them free of charge. In the early years sound quality
1751-419: A lesser extent in hardcore punk , death metal , and black metal circles, out of a fondness for the format. Even among major-label stars, the form has at least one devotee: Thurston Moore stated in 2009, "I only listen to cassettes." By 2019, few companies still made cassettes. Among those are National Audio Company, from the US, and Mulann, also known as Recording The Masters, from France. Sony announced
1854-701: A pair of electrodes which immediately imprinted the modulated sound signals as visible black stripes into the paper tape's surface. The audio signal could be immediately replayed from the same recorder unit, which also contained photoelectric sensors, somewhat similar to the various sound-on-film technologies of the era. Magnetic recording was conceived as early as 1878 by the American engineer Oberlin Smith and demonstrated in practice in 1898 by Danish engineer Valdemar Poulsen . Analog magnetic wire recording , and its successor, magnetic tape recording, involve
1957-456: A period in the 1990s. Another barrier to cassettes overtaking vinyl in sales was shoplifting ; compact cassettes were small enough that a thief could easily place one inside a pocket and walk out of a shop without being noticed. To prevent this, retailers in the US would place cassettes inside oversized "spaghetti box" containers or locked display cases , either of which would significantly inhibit browsing, thus reducing cassette sales. During
2060-406: A problem solved by gramophone discs . Franklin C. Goodale adapted movie film for analog audio recording. He received a patent for his invention in 1909. The celluloid film was inscribed and played back with a stylus, in a manner similar to the wax cylinders of Edison's gramophone. The patent description states that the machine could store six records on the same strip of film, side by side, and it
2163-567: A pulley (with guide flanges) mounted above the V-pulleys on the main vertical shaft, where it came in contact with either its recording or playback stylus . The tape was then taken up on the other reel. The sharp recording stylus, actuated by a vibrating mica diaphragm, cut the wax from the strip. In playback mode, a dull, loosely mounted stylus, attached to a rubber diaphragm, carried the reproduced sounds through an ear tube to its listener. Both recording and playback styluses, mounted alternately on
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#17328010788512266-410: A rail to guide the tape to the spool and prevent an unclean roll from forming. Magnetic tape is not an ideal medium for long-term archival storage, as it begins to degrade after 10 – 20 years, with some experts estimating its lifespan to be no more than 30 years. Tape recorder An audio tape recorder , also known as a tape deck , tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder ,
2369-588: A recording time of 32 minutes. In 1933, the Marconi Company purchased the rights to the Blattnerphone, and newly developed Marconi-Stille recorders were installed in the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in March 1935. The quality and reliability were slightly improved, though it still tended to be obvious that one was listening to a recording. A reservoir system containing a loop of tape helped to stabilize
2472-460: A result of this, a number of Sony's competitors produced their own version of the Walkman. Others made their own branded tape players, like JVC, Panasonic, Sharp, and Aiwa, the second-largest producer of the devices. Between 1985, when cassettes overtook vinyl, and 1992, when they were overtaken by CDs (introduced in 1983 as a format that offered greater storage capacity and more accurate sound),
2575-522: A small case (cartridge)—hence "cassette". These spools and their attendant parts are held inside a protective plastic shell which is 4 by 2.5 by 0.5 inches (10.2 cm × 6.35 cm × 1.27 cm) at its largest dimensions. The tape itself is commonly referred to as "eighth-inch" tape, supposedly 1 ⁄ 8 inch (0.125 in; 3.17 mm) wide, but actually slightly larger, at 0.15 inches (3.81 mm). Two stereo pairs of tracks (four total) or two monaural audio tracks are available on
2678-504: A trend that continued in 2017 and 2018. In the UK, sales of cassette tapes in 2021 reached its highest number since 2003. Cassettes are favored by some artists and listeners, including those of older genres of music such as dansband , as well as independent and underground artists , some of whom were releasing new music on tape by the 2020s, including Britney Spears and Busta Rhymes . Reasons cited for this include tradition, low cost,
2781-454: A year. ABC agreed to let him use transcription discs for the 1946–47 season, but listeners complained about the sound quality. Crosby realised that Mullin's tape recorder technology would enable him to pre-record his radio show with high sound quality and that these tapes could be replayed many times with no appreciable loss of quality. Mullin was asked to tape one show as a test and was subsequently hired as Crosby's chief engineer to pre-record
2884-414: Is 0.15 in (3.81 mm) wide, with each mono track 1.5 millimetres (0.059 in) wide, plus an unrecorded guard band between each track. In stereo, each track is further divided into a left and a right channel of 0.6 mm (0.024 in) each, with a gap of 0.3 mm (0.012 in). The tape moves past the playback head at 1 + 7 ⁄ 8 inches per second (4.76 cm/s), the speed being
2987-591: Is 3.8 mm. For mono recording the track width is 1.5 mm. In stereo mode each channel has width of 0.6 mm with a 0.3 mm separation to avoid crosstalk . The head-gap width is 2 μm which gives a theoretical maximum frequency of about 12 kHz (at the standard speed of 1 7/8 ips or 4.76 cm/s). A narrower gap would give a higher frequency limit but also weaker magnetization. Cassette tape adapters allow external audio sources to be played back from any tape player, but were typically used for car audio systems. An attached audio cable with
3090-405: Is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present-day form, it records a fluctuating signal by moving the tape across a tape head that polarizes the magnetic domains in the tape in proportion to the audio signal. Tape-recording devices include the reel-to-reel tape deck and the cassette deck , which uses
3193-458: Is used for the capstan and one for driving the reels for playback, rewind, and fast forward. The storage of an analog signal on tape works well, but is not perfect. In particular, the granular nature of the magnetic material adds high-frequency noise to the signal, generally referred to as tape hiss . Also, the magnetic characteristics of tape are not linear . They exhibit a characteristic hysteresis curve, which causes unwanted distortion of
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3296-465: Is usually called a tape recorder or – if it has no record functionality – a tape player , while one that requires external amplification for playback is usually called a tape deck (regardless of whether it can record). Multitrack technology enabled the development of modern art music and one such artist, Brian Eno , described the tape recorder as "an automatic musical collage device." Magnetic tape brought about sweeping changes in both radio and
3399-830: The Berlin Radio Show , and in the United States (under the Norelco brand) in November 1964. The trademark name Compact Cassette came a year later. The team of Dutch and Belgian origin at Philips was led by the Dutch Lou Ottens in Hasselt , Belgium. Philips also offered a machine to play and record the cassettes, the Philips Typ EL 3300 . An updated model, Typ EL 3301 was offered in
3502-494: The DIY ease of use, and a nostalgic fondness for how the format's imperfections lend greater vibrancy to low-fi, experimental music, despite the lack of the "full-bodied richness" of vinyl. Cassette tapes are made of a polyester-type plastic film with a magnetic coating. The original magnetic material was based on gamma ferric oxide (Fe 2 O 3 ). Circa 1970, 3M Company developed a cobalt volume-doping process combined with
3605-765: The Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) made use of cassettes to spread their messages. 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, as well as pirated tapes. Some sales channels were associated with cassettes: in Spain filling stations often featured a display selling cassettes. While offering also mainstream music these cassettes became associated with genres such as Gipsy rhumba , light music and joke tapes that were common in
3708-474: The 1950s. Consumer wire recorders were marketed for home entertainment or as an inexpensive substitute for commercial office dictation recorders, but the development of consumer magnetic tape recorders starting in 1946, with the BK 401 Soundmirror, using paper-based tape, gradually drove wire recorders from the market, being "pretty much out of the picture" by 1952. In 1924 a German engineer, Kurt Stille, developed
3811-446: The 1970s and 1980s. Despite sales of CDs overtaking those of prerecorded cassettes in the early 1990s in the U.S., the format remained popular for specific applications, such as car audio , personal stereos , boomboxes , telephone answering machines , dictation , field recording , home recording , and mixtapes well into the decade. Cassette players were typically more resistant to shocks than CD players, and their lower fidelity
3914-571: The Brush Development Company in the United States, where work continued but attracted little attention until the late 1940s when the company released the very first consumer tape recorder in 1946: the Soundmirror BK 401. Several other models were quickly released in the following years. Tapes were initially made of paper coated with magnetite powder . In 1947/48 Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company ( 3M ) replaced
4017-525: The EMI TR90 and a Philips machine which was lightweight but very easy and quick to use. Bush House used several Leevers-Rich models. The Studer range of machines had become pretty well the studio recording industry standard by the 1970s, and gradually these replaced the aging BTR2s in recording rooms and studios. By the mid-2000s tape was pretty well out of use and had been replaced by digital playout systems. The typical professional audio tape recorder of
4120-519: The Poulsen wire recorder as a dictating machine. The following year a fellow German, Louis Blattner , working in Britain, licensed Stille's device and started work on a machine which would instead record on a magnetic steel tape, which he called the Blattnerphone. The tape was 6 mm wide and 0.08 mm thick, traveling at 5 feet per second; the recording time was 20 minutes. The BBC installed
4223-509: The US dropped from 442 million in 1990 to 274,000 by 2007. For audiobooks , the final year that cassettes represented more than 50% of total market sales was 2002 when they were replaced by CDs as the dominant media. The last new car with an available cassette player was a 2014 TagAZ AQUiLA. Four years prior, Sony had stopped the production of personal cassette players. In 2011, the Oxford English Dictionary removed
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4326-422: The US in November 1964 as Norelco Carry-Corder 150 . 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. By the end of the 1960s, the cassette business was worth an estimated 150 million dollars. By the early 1970s the compact cassette machines were outselling other types of tape machines by
4429-483: The Walkman was the first truly personal portable music player, one that not only allowed users to listen to music away from home, but to do so in private. According to the technology news website The Verge, "the world changed" on the day the TPS-L2 was released. Stereo tape decks and boom boxes became some of the most highly sought-after consumer products of both decades, as the ability of users to take their music with them anywhere with ease led to its popularity around
4532-639: The ability to pre-record their broadcasts with the high quality of tape, and the recording ban was lifted. Crosby invested $ 50,000 of his own money into the Californian electronics company Ampex , and the six-man concern (headed by Alexander M. Poniatoff , whose initials became part of the company name) soon became the world leader in the development of tape recording, with its Model 200 tape deck, released in 1948 and developed from Mullin's modified Magnetophons. The BBC acquired some Magnetophon machines in 1946 on an experimental basis, and they were used in
4635-508: The broadcasts had to be transcriptions, but their audio quality was indistinguishable from that of a live broadcast and their duration was far longer than was possible even with 16 rpm transcription discs. In the final stages of the war in Europe, the Allies' capture of a number of German Magnetophon recorders from Radio Luxembourg aroused great interest. These recorders incorporated all
4738-471: The cassette shell indicate the type of tape. Type I cassettes have only write-protect notches, Type II have an additional pair next to the write protection ones, and Type IV (metal) have a third set near the middle of the top of the cassette shell. These allow later cassette decks to detect the tape type automatically and select the proper bias and equalization. The cassette was the next step following reel-to-reel audio tape recording , although, because of
4841-444: The cassette tape was the most popular format in the United States and the UK. Record labels experimented with innovative packaging designs. A designer during the era explained: "There was so much money in the industry at the time, we could try anything with design." The introduction of the cassette single , called a "cassingle", was also part of this era and featured a music single in Compact Cassette form. Until 2005, cassettes remained
4944-426: The coils of the tape head creates a fluctuating magnetic field. This causes the magnetic material on the tape, which is moving past and in contact with the head, to align in a manner proportional to the original signal. The signal can be reproduced by running the tape back across the tape head, where the reverse process occurs – the magnetic imprint on the tape induces a small current in the read head which approximates
5047-610: The decades spanning from 1940 until 1960, following the development of inexpensive designs licensed internationally by the Brush Development Company of Cleveland, Ohio and the Armour Research Foundation of the Armour Institute of Technology (later Illinois Institute of Technology ). These two organizations licensed dozens of manufacturers in the U.S., Japan, and Europe. Wire was also used as a recording medium in black box voice recorders for aviation in
5150-484: The dominant medium for purchasing and listening to music in some developing countries , but compact disc (CD) technology had superseded the Compact Cassette in the vast majority of music markets throughout the world by this time. Compact cassettes served as catalysts for social change. Their small size, durability and ease of copying helped bring underground rock and punk music behind the Iron Curtain , creating
5253-642: The early '70s. By 1968, 85 manufacturers had sold over 2.4 million mono and stereo players. By the end of the 1960s, the cassette business was worth an estimated 150 million dollars. By the early 1970s the compact cassette machines were outselling other types of tape machines by a large margin. The mass production of "blank" (not yet recorded) Compact Cassettes began in 1964 in Hanover , Germany. Prerecorded music cassettes (also known as Music-Cassettes , and later just Musicassettes ; M.C. for short) were launched in Europe in late 1965. The Mercury Record Company ,
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#17328010788515356-1166: The early 1950s used 1 ⁄ 4 in (6 mm) wide tape on 10 + 1 ⁄ 2 in (27 cm) reels, with a capacity of 2,400 ft (730 m). Typical speeds were initially 15 in/s (38.1 cm/s) yielding 30 minutes' recording time on a 2,400 ft (730 m) reel. Early professional machines used single-sided reels but double-sided reels soon became popular, particularly for domestic use. Tape reels were made from metal or transparent plastic. Standard tape speeds varied by factors of two: 15 and 30 in/s were used for professional audio recording; 7 + 1 ⁄ 2 in/s (19.1 cm/s) for home audiophile prerecorded tapes; 7 + 1 ⁄ 2 and 3 + 3 ⁄ 4 in/s (19.1 and 9.5 cm/s) for audiophile and consumer recordings (typically on 7 in (18 cm) reels). 1 + 7 ⁄ 8 in/s (4.8 cm/s) and occasionally even 15 ⁄ 16 in/s (2.4 cm/s) were used for voice, dictation, and applications where very long recording times were needed, such as logging police and fire department calls. The 8-track tape standard, developed by Bill Lear in
5459-502: The early 1960s Philips Eindhoven tasked two different teams to design a tape cartridge for thinner and narrower tape compared to what was used in reel-to-reel tape recorders. By 1962, the Vienna division of Philips developed a single-hole cassette , adapted from its German described name Einloch-Kassette . Philips selected the two-spool cartridge as a winner and introduced the 2-track 2-direction mono version in Europe on 28 August 1963 at
5562-443: The early 1980s some record labels sought to solve this problem by introducing new, larger packages for cassettes which would allow them to be displayed alongside vinyl records and compact discs , or giving them a further market advantage over vinyl by adding bonus tracks . Willem Andriessen wrote that the development in technology allowed "hardware designers to discover and satisfy one of the collective desires of human beings all over
5665-488: The early stages of the new Third Programme to record and play back performances of operas from Germany. Delivery of tape was preferred as live relays over landlines were unreliable in the immediate post-war period. These machines were used until 1952, though most of the work continued to be done using the established media. In 1948, a new British model became available from EMI: the BTR1. Though in many ways clumsy, its quality
5768-442: The end of cassette Walkman production on 22 October 2010, a result of the emergence of MP3 players such as Apple's iPod. As of 2022, Sony uses the Walkman brand solely for its line of digital media players. In 2010, Botswana-based Diamond Studios announced plans for establishing a plant to mass-produce cassettes in a bid to combat piracy. It opened in 2011. In South Korea, the early English education boom for toddlers encourages
5871-450: The fidelity of the reproduced sound, magnetic tape has been the highest quality analog recording medium available. As of the first decade of the 21st century, analog magnetic tape has been largely replaced by digital recording technologies. The earliest known audio tape recorder was a non-magnetic , non-electric version invented by Alexander Graham Bell 's Volta Laboratory and patented in 1886 ( U.S. patent 341,214 ). It employed
5974-425: The flutter the more noise that can be heard causing the quality of the recording to be worse. Higher tape speeds used in professional recorders are prone to cause head bumps , which are fluctuations in low-frequency response. There is a wide variety of tape recorders in existence, from small hand-held devices to large multitrack machines. A machine with built-in speakers and audio power amplification to drive them
6077-520: The following year, their best year since they opened in 1969. In 2016, cassette sales in the United States rose by 74% to 129,000. In 2018, following several years of shortage, National Audio Company began producing their own magnetic tape, becoming the world's first known manufacturer of an all-new tape stock. Mulann, a company which acquired Pyral/RMGI in 2015 and originates from BASF , also started production of its new cassette tape stock in 2018, basing on reel tape formula. In Japan and South Korea,
6180-459: The globe. Like the transistor radio in the 1950s and 1960s, the portable CD player in the 1990s, and the MP3 player in the 2000s, the Walkman defined the portable music market for the decade of the '80s, with cassette sales overtaking those of LPs . Total vinyl record sales remained higher well into the 1980s due to greater sales of singles, although cassette singles achieved popularity for
6283-565: The heavy paper reels warped. The machine's playback head was also missing. Otherwise, with some reconditioning, they could be placed into working condition. The waxed tape recording medium was later refined by Edison's wax cylinder , and became the first widespread sound recording technology, used for both entertainment and office dictation. However, recordings on wax cylinders were unable to be easily duplicated, making them both costly and time consuming for large scale production. Wax cylinders were also unable to record more than 2 minutes of audio,
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#17328010788516386-527: The innovative pop music studio-as-an-instrument recordings of artists such as Frank Zappa , the Beatles , and the Beach Boys . Philips advertised their reel-to-reel recorders as an audial family album and pushed families to purchase these recorders to capture and relive memories forever. But the use for recording music slowly but steadily rose as the main function for the tape recorder. Tape enabled
6489-577: The introduction of the first commercial tape recorder, the Ampex 200 model, launched in 1948, the invention of the first multitrack tape recorder , brought about another technical revolution in the recording industry. Tape made possible the first sound recordings totally created by electronic means, opening the way for the bold sonic experiments of the Musique Concrète school and avant-garde composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen , which in turn led to
6592-404: The inventor of a chromium dioxide (CrO 2 ) manufacturing process, began commercialization of CrO 2 media. The first CrO 2 cassette was introduced in 1970 by Advent , and later strongly backed by BASF , the inventor and longtime manufacturer of magnetic recording tape. Next, coatings using magnetite (Fe 3 O 4 ) such as TDK 's Audua were produced in an attempt to approach or exceed
6695-538: The key technological features of modern analog magnetic recording and were the basis for future developments in the field. Development of magnetic tape recorders in the late 1940s and early 1950s is associated with the Brush Development Company and its licensee, Ampex . The equally important development of the magnetic tape medium itself was led by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3M) corporation. In 1938, S.J. Begun left Germany and joined
6798-1124: The labels facing the user and the tape opening at the bottom, the write-protect notch for the corresponding side is at the top-left. Tape length usually is measured in minutes of total playing time. Many of the varieties of blank tape were C60 (30 minutes per side), C90 (45 minutes per side) and C120 (60 minutes per side). Maxell makes 150-minute cassettes (UR-150) - 75 minutes per side. The C46 and C60 lengths typically are 15 to 16 micrometers (0.59 to 0.63 mils) thick, but C90s are 10 to 11 μm (0.39 to 0.43 mils) and (the less common) C120s are just 6 μm (0.24 mils) thick, rendering them more susceptible to stretching or breakage. Even C180 tapes were available at one point. Other lengths are (or were) also available from some vendors, including C10, C12 and C15 (useful for saving data from early home computers and in telephone answering machines ), C30, C40, C50, C54, C64, C70, C74, C80, C84, C94, C100, C105, C110, and C150. As late as 2010, Thomann still offered C10, C20, C30 and C40 IEC Type II tape cassettes for use with 4- and 8-track portastudios . The full tape width
6901-438: 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
7004-455: The major radio networks didn't permit the use of disc recording in many programs because of their comparatively poor sound quality. Crosby disliked the regimentation of live broadcasts 39 weeks a year, preferring the recording studio's relaxed atmosphere and ability to retain the best parts of a performance. He asked NBC to let him pre-record his 1944–45 series on transcription discs , but the network refused, so Crosby withdrew from live radio for
7107-453: The market that use a pure (CrO 2 ) coating. Simple voice recorders and earlier cassette decks are designed to work with standard ferric formulations. Newer tape decks usually are built with switches and later detectors for the different bias and equalization requirements for higher grade tapes. The most common are iron oxide tapes (as defined by the IEC 60094 standard ). Notches on top of
7210-502: The mid-1960s, popularized consumer audio playback in automobiles in the USA. Eventually, this standard was replaced by the smaller and more reliable Compact Cassette , which was launched earlier in 1963. Philips 's development of the Compact Cassette in 1963 and Sony 's development of the Walkman in 1979 led to widespread consumer use of magnetic audio tape. In 1990, the Compact Cassette
7313-498: The original signal and is then amplified for playback. Many tape recorders are capable of recording and playing back simultaneously by means of separate record and playback heads. Modern professional recorders usually use a three-motor scheme. One motor with a constant rotational speed drives the capstan . Usually combined with a rubber pinch roller, it ensures that the tape speed does not fluctuate. The other two motors, which are called torque motors, apply equal and opposite torques to
7416-530: The overthrow of the regime of the Shah , Mohammad Reza Pahlavi . During the military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990) a "cassette culture" emerged where blacklisted music or music that was by other reasons not available as records was shared. Some pirate cassette producers created brands such as Cumbre y Cuatro that have in retrospect received praise for their contributions to popular music. Armed groups such as Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) and
7519-406: The paper backing with cellulose acetate or polyester , and coated it first with black oxide, and later, to improve signal-to-noise ratio and improve overall superior quality, with red oxide ( gamma ferric oxide ). American audio engineer John T. Mullin and entertainer Bing Crosby were key players in the commercial development of magnetic tape. Mullin served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and
7622-563: The phrase "cassette player" from its 12th edition Concise version, which prompted some media sources to mistakenly report that the term "cassette tape" was being removed. In India, music continued to be released on the cassette format due to its low cost until 2009. Although portable digital recorders are most common today, analog tape remains a desirable option for certain artists and consumers. Underground and DIY communities release regularly, and sometimes exclusively, on cassette format, particularly in experimental music circles and to
7725-593: The pop acts Seiko Matsuda , SHINee , and NCT 127 released their material on limited-run cassettes. In Reiwa era Japan, the revived popularity of cassette tapes is an example of Showa retro . In the mid-to-late 2010s, cassette sales saw a modest resurgence concurrent with the vinyl revival . As early as 2015, the retail chain Urban Outfitters , which had long sold LPs , started selling new pre-recorded cassettes (both new and old albums), blank cassettes, and players. In 2016, cassette sales increased,
7828-465: The radio industry for the first time to pre-record many sections of program content such as advertising, which formerly had to be presented live, and it also enabled the creation and duplication of complex, high-fidelity, long-duration recordings of entire programs. It also, for the first time, allowed broadcasters, regulators and other interested parties to undertake comprehensive logging of radio broadcasts for legislative and commercial purposes, leading to
7931-411: The recording industry. Sound could be recorded, erased and re-recorded on the same tape many times, sounds could be duplicated from tape to tape with only minor loss of quality, and recordings could now be very precisely edited by physically cutting the tape and rejoining it. In August 1948, Los Angeles-based Capitol Records became the first recording company to use the new process. Within a few years of
8034-509: The rest of the series. Crosby's season premier on 1 October 1947 was the first magnetic tape broadcast in America. He became the first major American music star to use tape to pre-record radio broadcasts, and the first to master commercial recordings on tape. The taped Crosby radio shows were painstakingly edited through tape-splicing to give them a pace and flow that was wholly unprecedented in radio. Soon other radio performers were demanding
8137-560: The same title formed as a letter–number combination. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=C120&oldid=918974874 " Category : Letter–number combination disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages 120 minute Compact Cassette The Compact Cassette , also commonly called
8240-482: The same two posts, could be adjusted vertically so that several recordings could be cut on the same 3 ⁄ 16 -inch-wide (4.8 mm) strip. While the machine was never developed commercially, it somewhat resembled the modern magnetic tape recorder in its design. The tapes and machine created by Bell's associates, examined at one of the Smithsonian Institution 's museums, became brittle, and
8343-521: The signal. Some of this distortion is overcome by using inaudible high-frequency AC bias when recording. The amount of bias needs careful adjustment for best results as different tape material requires differing amounts of bias. Most recorders have a switch to select this. Additionally, systems such as Dolby noise reduction systems have been devised to ameliorate some noise and distortion problems. Variations in tape speed cause wow and flutter . Flutter can be reduced by using dual capstans. The higher
8446-482: The sound quality of vinyl records . Cobalt - adsorbed iron oxide (Avilyn) was introduced by TDK in 1974 and proved very successful. "Type IV" tapes using 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 as of 2024 are either "normal" or "chrome" consists of ferric oxide and cobalt mixed in varying ratios (and using various processes); there are very few cassettes on
8549-511: The speed of the recording. Despite these drawbacks, the ability to make replayable recordings proved useful, and even with subsequent methods coming into use (direct-cut discs and Philips-Miller optical film the Marconi-Stilles remained in use until the late 1940s. Magnetic tape recording as we know it today was developed in Germany during the 1930s at BASF (then part of the chemical giant IG Farben ) and AEG in cooperation with
8652-404: The speed. The tape was 3 mm wide and traveled at 1.5 meters/second. They were not easy to handle. The reels were heavy and expensive and the steel tape has been described as being like a traveling razor blade. The tape was liable to snap, particularly at joints, which at 1.5 meters/second could rapidly cover the floor with loops of the sharp-edged tape. Rewinding was done at twice
8755-498: The standard in recording rooms for many years and was in use until the end of the 1960s. In 1963, the Beatles were allowed to enhance their recordings at the BBC by overdubbing. The BBC didn't have any multi-track equipment; Overdubbing was accomplished by copying onto another tape. The tape speed was eventually standardized at 15 ips for almost all work at Broadcasting House, and at 15 ips for music and 7½ ips for speech at Bush House. Broadcasting House also used
8858-536: The state radio RRG . This was based on Fritz Pfleumer 's 1928 invention of paper tape with oxide powder lacquered onto it. The first practical tape recorder from AEG was the Magnetophon K1 , demonstrated in Berlin, Germany in 1935. Eduard Schüller [ de ] of AEG built the recorders and developed a ring-shaped recording and playback head. It replaced the needle-shaped head which tended to shred
8961-516: The supply and take-up reels during recording and playback functions and maintain the tape's tension. During fast winding operations, the pinch roller is disengaged and the take-up reel motor produces more torque than the supply motor. The cheapest models use a single motor for all required functions; the motor drives the capstan directly and the supply and take-up reels are loosely coupled to the capstan motor with slipping belts, gears, or clutches. There are also variants with two motors, in which one motor
9064-710: The tape. Friedrich Matthias of IG Farben/BASF developed the recording tape, including the oxide, the binder, and the backing material. Walter Weber, working for Hans Joachim von Braunmühl [ de ] at the RRG, discovered the AC biasing technique, which radically improved sound quality. During World War II , the Allies noticed that certain German officials were making radio broadcasts from multiple time zones almost simultaneously. Analysts such as Richard H. Ranger believed that
9167-536: 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 when the tape comes to an end, or by the reversal of tape movement, known as "auto-reverse", when the mechanism detects that the tape has ended. After the Second World War , magnetic tape recording technology proliferated across
9270-416: The use of a magnetizable medium which moves with a constant speed past a recording head. An electrical signal, which is analogous to the sound that is to be recorded, is fed to the recording head, inducing a pattern of magnetization similar to the signal. A playback head can then pick up the changes in magnetic field from the tape and convert it into an electrical signal to be amplified and played back through
9373-518: The user. Although other tape cassette formats have also existed—for example the Microcassette —the generic term cassette tape is normally used to refer to the Compact Cassette because of its ubiquity. Compact Cassettes contain two miniature spools, between which the magnetically coated, polyester -type plastic film (magnetic tape) is passed and wound —essentially miniaturizing reel-to-reel audio tape and enclosing it, with its reels, in
9476-559: The world, independent of region, climate, religion, culture, race, sex, age and education: the desire to enjoy music at any time, at any place, in any desired sound quality and almost at any wanted price". Critic Robert Palmer , writing in The New York Times in 1981, cited the proliferation of personal stereos as well as extra tracks not available on LP as reasons for the surge in popularity of cassettes. Cassettes' ability to allow users to record content in public also led to
9579-458: The world. In the United States, Ampex , using equipment obtained in Germany as a starting point, began commercial production of tape recorders . First used in studios to record radio programs, tape recorders quickly found their way into schools and homes. By 1953, 1 million US homes had tape machines. In 1958, following four years of development, RCA Victor introduced the stereo, quarter-inch, reversible, reel-to-reel RCA tape cartridge . In
9682-453: Was Bing Crosby's technical director, Murdo Mackenzie. He arranged for Mullin to meet Crosby and in June 1947 he gave Crosby a private demonstration of his magnetic tape recorders. Bing Crosby , a top movie and singing star, was stunned by the amazing sound quality and instantly saw the huge commercial potential of the new machines. Live music was the standard for American radio at the time and
9785-401: Was a chance visit to a studio at Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt while investigating radio beam rumors, that yielded the real prize. Mullin was given two suitcase-sized AEG 'Magnetophon' high-fidelity recorders and fifty reels of recording tape. He had them shipped home and over the next two years he worked on the machines constantly, modifying them and improving their performance. His major aim
9888-490: Was good, and as it wasn't possible to obtain any more Magnetophons it was an obvious choice. In the early 1950s, the EMI BTR 2 became available; a much-improved machine and generally liked. The machines were responsive, could run up to speed quite quickly, had light-touch operating buttons, forward-facing heads (The BTR 1s had rear-facing heads which made editing difficult), and were quick and easy to do fine editing. It became
9991-413: Was mediocre, but it improved dramatically by the early 1970s when it caught up with the quality of 8-track tape and kept improving. The Compact Cassette went on to become a popular (and re-recordable ) alternative to the 12-inch vinyl LP during the late 1970s. As with prerecorded reel-to-reel and 8-track, sales were slow to start, but picked up rapidly to tie with the 8-track before superseding it by
10094-501: Was not considered a serious drawback in mobile use. With the introduction of electronic skip protection it became possible to use portable CD players on the go, and automotive CD players became viable. CD-R drives and media also became affordable for consumers around the same time. 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. Sales of pre-recorded music cassettes in
10197-466: Was possible to switch between them. In 1912, a similar process was used for the Hiller talking clock . In 1932, after six years of developmental work, including a patent application in 1931, Merle Duston, a Detroit radio engineer, created a tape recorder capable of recording both sounds and voice that used a low-cost chemically treated paper tape. During the recording process, the tape moved through
10300-476: Was posted to Paris in the final months of WWII. His unit was assigned to find out everything they could about German radio and electronics, including the investigation of claims that the Germans had been experimenting with high-energy directed radio beams as a means of disabling the electrical systems of aircraft. Mullin's unit soon amassed a collection of hundreds of low-quality magnetic dictating machines, but it
10403-465: Was the dominant format in mass-market recorded music. The development of Dolby noise reduction technology in the 1960s brought audiophile-quality recording to the Compact Cassette also contributing to its popularity. Since their first introduction, analog tape recorders have experienced a long series of progressive developments resulting in increased sound quality, convenience, and versatility. Due to electromagnetism , electric current flowing in
10506-548: Was the start of a long string of innovations that have led to present-day magnetic tape recordings. Magnetic tape revolutionized both the radio broadcast and music recording industries. It gave artists and producers the power to record and re-record audio with minimal loss in quality as well as edit and rearrange recordings with ease. The alternative recording technologies of the era, transcription discs and wire recorders , could not provide anywhere near this level of quality and functionality. Since some early refinements improved
10609-467: Was to interest Hollywood studios in using magnetic tape for movie soundtrack recording. Mullin gave two public demonstrations of his machines, and they caused a sensation among American audio professionals; many listeners literally could not believe that what they heard was not a live performance. By luck, Mullin's second demonstration was held at MGM Studios in Hollywood and in the audience that day
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