Cuántas horas invertidas en preparar cintas con mezclas de canciones. Yo intentaba asegurarme de que el sonido fuese bajando poco antes de que terminase la cinta.
La gente le pone mucho ingenio al uso actual de los casetes:
these days it is hard to avoid the continuing debate that surrounds the ‘future of music’ and the formats that bring it to us. however this so called ‘digital age’ isn’t the first time that new music formats have created such a stir, some time not too long ago it was cassette tapes that were causing the music industry concern. the design of the cassette tape was resolved in the 1960s by the dutch electronics company philips as a portable alternative to the large vinyl formats. having not been patented the cassette tape design was quickly copied by many manufacturers leading to its widespread use. during the mid 1980s cassettes were at their most popular accounting for more than half of the worlds total music sales. alongside the attraction of music on the move, the cassette tape offered the opportunity for people to edit and customize their music easily for the first time. the DIY ethic of the tapes didn’t stop with home recording though, as many people often created their own artwork for their mixes.
Lo de convertir un walkman en un pequeño coche de carreras… Genialidad.
Y también:
History’s Dumpster: The History of Cassettes
The advent of the cartridge style tape began with the usual seven words that begin the road to any invention. Fourteen if you count those other seven nasty words (that usually precede these):
“There’s GOT to be a better way!”
Tape, like the wire recordings that came before them were on spools or reels and had to be hand threaded through the playback mechanism. A time consuming feat in itself for the average person. And prone to accidents.
When the first reel tape became available to the masses, it had immediate advantages over the vinyl records of the time. First, they were in stereo years before the first stereo LPs were available. They didn’t scratch or have surface noise (other than a very low level audible hiss. Noise reduction would be another 15 years away.) And best yet, you could record 3 hours of uninterrupted, high quality music or radio broadcasts per reel.
But to a consumer base who were used to instant playback as offered by records, they didn’t want to waste time setting up and threading a reel of tape and take the risk of any clumsy and at the time, expensive accidents. No matter what the audio advantages were.
RCA noticed this and sympathized. And ever the innovators, they began work on a simple, self threading style of tape and unveiled it in 1958.
