During the early years of my childhood, audio recording was very primitive compared to today’s standards. The recorder was a long square box with knobs near the top. You placed round reels onto the knobs in the same way you attached film reels on a movie projector. After that, you threaded a film-like tape through some slots and fastened it to an empty reel. In addition to the volume control knob, there were two holes which allowed you to connect microphones. You needed two mikes to get a stereo sound : one for the left channel and the other for the right. Recording was done by turning a knob. And once you started recording a tape, that was it. No splicing. No editing. No dubbing over a previous recording. It was one and done. That was the reality of the model my parents had.
I can’t recall anyone using the recorder all that much. My father said he used it to record messages to his mother while he was serving the army at a supply base in Vietnam. However, any other usage beyond that, I know nothing. For most of our listening came from the radio and record player.
I do recall one time when my parents did use the recorder. It was a Saturday night and Elvis was going to do a live concert on television from Hawaii. At the time, I didn’t know who Elvis was, except that he was a famous singer who once did some movies. I really didn’t care for his music and didn’t understand how he could possibly be famous. Regardless, as I sat in the family den near the only TV in the house, I watched my father tinker with the recorder as he prepared to tape the entire concert. He inserted the tape, plugged in the mikes, and put them right next to the TV speakers. Around and around the reels went as Elvis sang away. I can’t remember much after that. I don’t know if my father managed to record the whole thing. I cannot recall if I ever listened to it or any other recording. The only strong memory I have is watching the machine as it did its job that fateful night.
The cumbersome reels and the large boxes which played them eventually gave way to the 8-track. Eight-tracks were rectangular, plastic cases the size of a video game cartridge. After you inserted one into the player’s slot, you pressed the play button, then chose which track to listen to. Each of the tracks had one or two songs, sometime more if if the tunes were really short. No longer did you have to clumsily search for a song. In addition, you could listen to uninterrupted music in the car for the first time. All you had to do was stick an 8-track into a slot in the car’s console and your favorite music would start playing. Not only that, you could go back and forth between songs simply by pressing the buttons marked One through Eight.
Despite this advancement, my family did not have much of an eight-track collection. My favorite of the lot was the movie soundtrack for “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. A close second was an instrumental Christmas album. We had cartridges for Elvis Presley and the Star Wars soundtrack, but that is all I can remember about the small collection we had. It didn’t really matter because 8-tracks would soon go extinct, thanks to a new invention which would take the world by storm and change everything in the world of musical entertainment. It was called the cassette tape.
The cassette tape revolutionized the way we listened to music and recorded audio. Unlike the 8-track, which was big and bulky, the cassette was very small with the capability of fitting in the palm of your hand. It was less than half an inch thick, making it easy grasp and carry around. The best part was its ability to hold twice as much storage capacity than an 8-track, containing an entire hour of music. For recording purposes, you could find cassettes capable of storing ninety minutes of audio. These features made the eight-track obsolete and started the decline of the record player.
While the single cassette players and recorders were serviceable, it was the dual cassette recorder which really got things cooking. For you could now make exact copies of cassettes quickly and easily without any professional assistance. Regardless of which type you acquired, they both allowed you to record over previous material over and over again with no problems or complications. The most popular type of cassette player and recorder was the boom box. Its built-in radio allowed you to record your favorite music from the various local radio station.
However, there were some downsides to using cassette tapes. For starters, the tape could get worn out from lots of use, resulting in the audio becoming dull or high-pitched. You knew the tape was getting worn when the tape started sounding like a bird or chipmunk as it was rewinding or fast-forwarding. Sometimes, it was at this time that the tape would break, snapping in two as if it had been snipped by a pair of scissors.
There was also the problem of the tape snapping when it got caught in the gears of the player, appearing as though it had been eaten by the machine. After lots of tinkering, you might get lucky and manage to pry it loose with no harm being done to the tape. Most of the time, however, you had to snip the tape to remove the cassette and count your losses.
Of course, this wasn’t the only way that the player could eat your cassette tape. It could pull at the tape and loosen it without trapping it. When you heard a weird sound coming from the player, opened it, and tried to pull out the cassette, you discovered a whole wad of tape bunched up together. This meant lots of pushing, pulling, and unraveling, hoping the cassette would play with little noticeable difference in audio quality. Once the untangling was done, you had to go through the long, arduoud task of getting the tape back into the cassette. This was accomplished by putting a finger, pen, or pencil into one of the cassette holes and rotating the plastic gears inside the holes. Slowly, very slowly, the tape was put back into place. The final way that the player could mess with your cassette was by scrunching the tape in such a way that it resembled a multi-folded sheet or super deluxe accordion. This meant that your recording and playback would be affected in some way.
Despite all these catastrophes waiting to happen, cassette tapes remained popular. The tape may have been fragile, but the plastic containers were extremely durable. They did not break as easily as records and had a lot more content. There was also less trouble in changing sides. You also didn’t have to worry about scratching the surface or exposing it to dust. Nor did you need to replace expensive, hard-to-find needles when they got worn, lost, or broken.
Throughout my life, I used tape recorders for a variety of creative endeavors. I would read books, act out homemade skits, and perform audio dramas. I did them all in the style of old time radio, complete with amateur voice impersonations and sound effects. A lot of times, I would team up with my brother and do our own renditions of read-along books, comic strips, and comic books.
When I got older, I recorded myself playing my electronic keyboard with its sound library of ninety-nine instruments, a large number of them belonging to the percussion group. While living in the dorms during my college years, I performed comedy and drama skits, sometimes causing my neighbor to knock on the door to find out what was going on. I stopped my recording habits for several years, but restarted around 2005 while working at Home Depot. I experienced a burst of creative energy and started performing again. I did voice impersonations, comedy skits, and parody songs. This would be the last time I would use the cassette tape to record audio.
I can’t recall anyone using the recorder all that much. My father said he used it to record messages to his mother while he was serving the army at a supply base in Vietnam. However, any other usage beyond that, I know nothing. For most of our listening came from the radio and record player.
I do recall one time when my parents did use the recorder. It was a Saturday night and Elvis was going to do a live concert on television from Hawaii. At the time, I didn’t know who Elvis was, except that he was a famous singer who once did some movies. I really didn’t care for his music and didn’t understand how he could possibly be famous. Regardless, as I sat in the family den near the only TV in the house, I watched my father tinker with the recorder as he prepared to tape the entire concert. He inserted the tape, plugged in the mikes, and put them right next to the TV speakers. Around and around the reels went as Elvis sang away. I can’t remember much after that. I don’t know if my father managed to record the whole thing. I cannot recall if I ever listened to it or any other recording. The only strong memory I have is watching the machine as it did its job that fateful night.
The cumbersome reels and the large boxes which played them eventually gave way to the 8-track. Eight-tracks were rectangular, plastic cases the size of a video game cartridge. After you inserted one into the player’s slot, you pressed the play button, then chose which track to listen to. Each of the tracks had one or two songs, sometime more if if the tunes were really short. No longer did you have to clumsily search for a song. In addition, you could listen to uninterrupted music in the car for the first time. All you had to do was stick an 8-track into a slot in the car’s console and your favorite music would start playing. Not only that, you could go back and forth between songs simply by pressing the buttons marked One through Eight.
Despite this advancement, my family did not have much of an eight-track collection. My favorite of the lot was the movie soundtrack for “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. A close second was an instrumental Christmas album. We had cartridges for Elvis Presley and the Star Wars soundtrack, but that is all I can remember about the small collection we had. It didn’t really matter because 8-tracks would soon go extinct, thanks to a new invention which would take the world by storm and change everything in the world of musical entertainment. It was called the cassette tape.
The cassette tape revolutionized the way we listened to music and recorded audio. Unlike the 8-track, which was big and bulky, the cassette was very small with the capability of fitting in the palm of your hand. It was less than half an inch thick, making it easy grasp and carry around. The best part was its ability to hold twice as much storage capacity than an 8-track, containing an entire hour of music. For recording purposes, you could find cassettes capable of storing ninety minutes of audio. These features made the eight-track obsolete and started the decline of the record player.
While the single cassette players and recorders were serviceable, it was the dual cassette recorder which really got things cooking. For you could now make exact copies of cassettes quickly and easily without any professional assistance. Regardless of which type you acquired, they both allowed you to record over previous material over and over again with no problems or complications. The most popular type of cassette player and recorder was the boom box. Its built-in radio allowed you to record your favorite music from the various local radio station.
However, there were some downsides to using cassette tapes. For starters, the tape could get worn out from lots of use, resulting in the audio becoming dull or high-pitched. You knew the tape was getting worn when the tape started sounding like a bird or chipmunk as it was rewinding or fast-forwarding. Sometimes, it was at this time that the tape would break, snapping in two as if it had been snipped by a pair of scissors.
There was also the problem of the tape snapping when it got caught in the gears of the player, appearing as though it had been eaten by the machine. After lots of tinkering, you might get lucky and manage to pry it loose with no harm being done to the tape. Most of the time, however, you had to snip the tape to remove the cassette and count your losses.
Of course, this wasn’t the only way that the player could eat your cassette tape. It could pull at the tape and loosen it without trapping it. When you heard a weird sound coming from the player, opened it, and tried to pull out the cassette, you discovered a whole wad of tape bunched up together. This meant lots of pushing, pulling, and unraveling, hoping the cassette would play with little noticeable difference in audio quality. Once the untangling was done, you had to go through the long, arduoud task of getting the tape back into the cassette. This was accomplished by putting a finger, pen, or pencil into one of the cassette holes and rotating the plastic gears inside the holes. Slowly, very slowly, the tape was put back into place. The final way that the player could mess with your cassette was by scrunching the tape in such a way that it resembled a multi-folded sheet or super deluxe accordion. This meant that your recording and playback would be affected in some way.
Despite all these catastrophes waiting to happen, cassette tapes remained popular. The tape may have been fragile, but the plastic containers were extremely durable. They did not break as easily as records and had a lot more content. There was also less trouble in changing sides. You also didn’t have to worry about scratching the surface or exposing it to dust. Nor did you need to replace expensive, hard-to-find needles when they got worn, lost, or broken.
Throughout my life, I used tape recorders for a variety of creative endeavors. I would read books, act out homemade skits, and perform audio dramas. I did them all in the style of old time radio, complete with amateur voice impersonations and sound effects. A lot of times, I would team up with my brother and do our own renditions of read-along books, comic strips, and comic books.
When I got older, I recorded myself playing my electronic keyboard with its sound library of ninety-nine instruments, a large number of them belonging to the percussion group. While living in the dorms during my college years, I performed comedy and drama skits, sometimes causing my neighbor to knock on the door to find out what was going on. I stopped my recording habits for several years, but restarted around 2005 while working at Home Depot. I experienced a burst of creative energy and started performing again. I did voice impersonations, comedy skits, and parody songs. This would be the last time I would use the cassette tape to record audio.