Why Is an 8-Track Tape Called an 8-Track Tape? | Audiomover
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- Опубликовано: 15 окт 2024
- In this video, Robert John Hadfield dives into a question that many have wondered about: Why is an 8-track tape called an 8-track tape? Sitting in one of our sound rooms next to an 8-track tape machine, Robert takes you through the history and technology behind this iconic format.
From explaining how multitrack recording revolutionized music in the 1940s and 50s to breaking down how 8-tracks work in comparison to cassettes, this video will leave you with a much clearer understanding of the 8-track tape and its place in music history. Spoiler alert: it's all about the tracks-8 of them to be exact, but not in the way you might think!
Watch as Robert shows you how the tape's programs and tracks work and why pushing that famous button switched between programs. Whether you're a fan of analog media or just curious about retro technology, this deep dive will answer all your questions!
#8track #oldschool #retro
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I had played many 8-track tapes in the 70’s and had no idea why it was called that. And I learnt a lot about the cassette tape too. What an absorbing tuition. And your explanations are second to none. Thanks for the video.
There Spotify, now I know
Came here for the exact same reason but honestly pretty interesting and kinda worth it
Tbf, if it weren't for Spotify, I wouldn't thought to investigate what an 8-Track Tape is
Spotify taught me also haha
Not just here cuz of spotify but also Fresh Prince lmao
lol
Excellent and simple. I've used tapes since the 80s yet never really bothered to understand why we flipped them over haha!
John, great video. As a child of the 70s, I remember well recording vinyl onto 8 tracks so we could listen in the car. All these years and I didn't know why they were called 8 tracks. Thanks.
You could do that back then? :O awesome. I only knew about cassettes.
Put my 8 tracks on cassettes.
This is one of the best educational videos I've ever seen. Fantastically explained.
Thank you very much. :)
Now I know, thank you. Never saw an 8-track in real life, so this is educational. spot on
Wow, I've been cramming old tech videos for days and this video was super concise and by far the easiest to understand.
Glad you liked it! :)
Wow. I never knew this. Very cool. I was born in 81 so I grew up with tapes. Still very interesting. Thank you 😊
The most succinct and to-the-point explanation I've found. Thank you!
Glad you liked it! :)
Spotify sent me here. Didn't even know that existed.
hahahaha same
So true!
same
@Wise Man What's up with you buddy? Not everything revolves around you. Nobody cares you didn't ask, since when was speech only allowed if somebody "asked".
@Wise Man you're not funny
Thanks for listening to Spotify!
No really!
You could've listened to the radio.
You could've spun some vinyl.
You could've listened to an 8-Track tape,
if you knew what an 8-Track tape looked like.
But you listen to Spotify.
Thanks for that,
and you still have hundreds more playlists to enjoy.
Thanks for posting this comment. Is that what Spotify says? Thousands of people have watched this video because of Spotify and we've never actually figured out what Spotify has been doing. Did they give you a direct link to to video?
@@audiomover It's an ad that Spotify used to play all the time in between songs. I always wondered what an 8 Track Tape looked like so I searched it up and this was the first video. Great video btw
Excellent explanation, even for a complete layman such as myself. Very cool - thanks for taking the time to put together the digital imagery: that REALLY made it understandable.
So glad you liked it! thanks for letting us know. :)
Thank you! As a child of the 70s, I had many 8 track tapes. This was super helpful for research for my podcast about growing up in the 70s
That's great! Let us know if we can be helpful on your podcast. We would love to join you sometime. :)
Wow. I'm glad I chose to watch this specific video during my RUclips video search! The 8-Track tape ribbon looks similar to a VHS tape ribbon. VHS, when it was new was quite amazing. That puts 8-Track format in perspective for me. Fascinating.
Very cool!
My uncle worked for a music store in the mid 80's and he explained this to me when i was like 10 yrs old. At the time i was like ... ok ... and moved on. I am 47 now and you just re-fresh my memory.
When my brother asked him why do we have to remove the cassette and flip it to play the other side, he said its because the tape head is in a fixed position in the player and does not move so to play the other 2 tracks on the other side of the tape, you have to "flip" the cassette over so the head can now read the other side.
You would be surprised how many have NO idea what the 8 track or 4 track cassette means ...
Thanks for the reminder
8 tracks were noisy, got out of alignment and were hard to fix. It was a myrical they even worked-! Hated it.
First this was a very informative video and I thank you for clearing up 40+ years of confusion!
I still have a few 8-track tapes & even an old Radio Shack Realistic cassette tape adapter that my Dad used in the early 80s in his 1978 Datsun’s 8-track player.
In the 80's growing up my parents had an 8 track player and 8 tracks. I used to listen to them although i hated it once they'd get worn out and sounded distorted.
They weren't very reliable.
Excellent and crisp explanation! Kudos and Thank you.
Great explanation and outstanding video! Now i know about 8 - track tapes at last! Thank you very much!
Thanks man, it was driving me nuts why I couldn’t understand the name 8 track. 😂
I'm glad it helped!
Came to Learn what an 8 track is (or was) and learned a lot more!
Glad you liked it! :)
Ohhhh myy god. THANK YOU. I have learned something today. My parents had 8-track tapes and players. I remember as a kid playing some of them. Most music came in the form of vinyls and compact cassettes. I never understood why they were called 8 tracks if there was only four programs LOL
Actually, the four top tracks are for left channel, program 1 on top then 2 below it, 3 below 2 and 4 below 3. The four bottom tracks are the right channels of programs 1, 2, 3, and 4
Thank you for that. Those things get visually confusing. We've considered making separate videos on the actual track locations on different types of tape players.
Thank you very much Sir for the explanation.... what a very amazing and helpful video!! 💖💖💖💖
Glad you liked it! :)
Well explained
Another Spotify searcher, this is a great explanation.
Thank you! We're so glad you liked this. :)
OLDER PERSONS GENERALLY ARE MUCH WISER, THEREFORE THE CONTENT OF THE VIDEO PRODUCED IS EQUALLY MUCH BETTER. I WANT TO CONGRATULATE YOU, SIR, BECAUSE THIS VIDEO IS SPECTACULARLY WELL EXPLAINED IN ALL DETAILS WE DON'T SEE IN OTHER VIDEOS.
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant explanation.
So glad you like it. :)
So...standard compact cassette is a 4-track with 2 programmes (side A and side B) each with a left and right track. 8-track is 4 programmes each with a left and right track. Makes sense. Interesting how all 8 of the tracks go the same direction unlike a standard cassette tape. Great video, cheers!
Steve They go in the same direction because the tape is on a continuous loop. With casette tapes you have to eject the tape and turn it upside down in order to hear side B. It is much like a 33rpm vinyl disc. An 8 track cartridge, on the other hand, goes in only one way and never needs to be turned over. If the tape is too long the looping will not work reliably, so it was designed so that the tape is shorter, but loops 4 times to play the entire recording. I loved my 8 track player. My first version of Hot August Night was on 8 track. But the tapes were more expensive than cassettes, the players were more expensive, and fewer artists were available on 8 track. I suspect that record stores with limited space didn’t want 3 formats, and casettes took way less room so they limited the available 8 track selections. However, 8 track sounded much better than casettes so I was not happy as they disappeared from stores. Mine was an Akai 82D. Sounded fantastic.
Great explanation, thanks. I basically discovered how this works when I got my first (Tascam) 4-Track _cassette_ recording deck for recording song demos, and I realized that pre-recorded cassettes were playing Side 2 _backwards_ if played all 4 tracks at once. On 8 Track players, I think they usually only had Fast Forward controls, and NO Rewind controls, wasn't that the case?
@Wise Man you're not funny
Yes. An 8 track cassette uses only one reel with a continuous loop of tape. I believe that if you were to try and run an 8-track cassette in the opposite direction to rewind it, it would unspool from the reel and it would be ruined.
Outstanding video,I appreciate the graphics and your verbal explanation. Great job!👍👍
Great Video. Thanks for the explanation. Makes a lot of sense.
So glad you liked it! :)
& don't forget the quadraphonic 8 track tape. it only had 2 programs instead of 4
Charles Hyde “Quaddddddddddaphonic soundddddddddddddd”
That would've been great for the car, or at least 5 seater cars which actually had 4 audio speakers.
Brilliant explanation. I don't know what caused me to wonder about this recently, but I finally got around to looking for the answer. :) Thank you!
Glad it helped!
Well informed now.
I have never owned one but I had heard about an 8 track tape being talk about and didn't really know what it was. Great video and explanation. Thanks :)
This is very interesting to know how it works. I k’ew the 8 track tapes since i was kid in the 70s but now i know more about it.
Great explanation man, it couldn't be clearer!
Glad you liked it! :)
I left a like, but to be honest I'm still confused. I may have to revisit this when I'm not stoned 😁
Potheads usually do have comprehension issues. It's ok, we understand.
@@USMC-Sniper-0137 Hey the video is 4 minutes 20 seconds after all right ;)
I take that back it showed up on the list as 4:20 but now that it has loaded its 4:19
@@starquestman1544 Hahahahahahaha, maybe I need to get stoned now........
maybe a person is like a one-track since they only have one stream of thoughts in their mind
then again, if you can sing with your voice and drum with your hands, you might be a two-track
These kinds of videos are great very informative unlike the trending nonesene videos!
Thanks for this video! Very informative and clearly explained.
You're very welcome!
I knew about the 4 track cassettes and DJ friend of mine had a 4 track recorder/player where he would record on all 4 tacks in one direction of a cassette similar to an 8 track however this device could record and play on all four tracks if remember correctly. Cicra 1990s lol. Thanks for the 8 track insight, now I know.
Very good video. Always wondered this but whenever i went to research it there was nothing definitive
Glad you liked it!
Now I understand 8 track. Thank you!
Glad you liked it! :)
Thank you. I love learning random things. (I miss my Walkman, i was grafted to that thing like todays kids are to their phones. )
Thanks for commenting! So glad you like it. :)
Thanks for explaining.
Excellent, Thanks for sharing 👍
Glad you liked it! :)
What a perfect explanation. Thank you!
Glad you liked it! :)
Perfect explanation!
Thanks for commenting! So glad you like it. :)
Thank you, that's very interesting.
Fabulous explanation and I thank you.
Interesting stuff,good job explaining it too
Very well explained and very informative graphics. Thx.
Super cool! Thank you!
in all my 30 years of loving tape i only learnt now
The more we grow old my dude the more we learn and that's a very good thing though :-)
Great video. Another great idea for a video would be to show what happens when you place a large magnet next to an audio cassette. 😆
8 track tapes were before my time. I was born in 1982, I only go as far back as compact cassettes.
Sad that had no chance of using it. So stellar and orthodox!
Amazing! Thanks much for priceless info. 🙏
thank you! this video is incredible!
So glad you like it. :)
Oh, I thought Spotify told me A-Track.
I thought Spotify was saying an A track tape
Me too
Same omf
Now this was informative!!! Thank you!!!
Glad it was helpful!
Excellent explanatory video!!!!!!!!!Congratulations!!!!!!
Thanks for the lesson. I was amazed.
Thank you! We're so glad you liked this. :)
you asked near the end, did i figure it out yet? hell nah, still needed the final piece of explanation
We hope it was interesting for you. :)
Nice explanation dude thx for the video and have Super Merry Christmas & the Happiest New Year :-)
This was so easy to understand but surpriselly a lot of people here is comfused !
really well explained,john!
Excellent explanation.
You learn something everyday. Like the video. Thanks!
Great explanation. Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
Awesome explanation!
Thank you. :)
Thanks for this video. It helped me to explain this to youngsters. 🙂👍🏻
Thanks. I recall that sometimes an 8 track tape would split a song when the head moved from the end of program 1 to the start of 2. Or am I just imagining that?
Yep, songs would fade out and then fade back in. I had several 8 tracks that did that.
can I pull samples from these - w individual, isolated stems (drums, vocals, guitar, bass)??
No. Just like a cassette tape, an LP, a CD, etc. The two tracks (left and right) on each program are just stereo signals.
Oh nice! Always wondered! Thanks
Great!! Thanks x your video
Hey Ricardo! So glad you liked it. :)
Great explanation John - thank you.
So then it sounds like an 8 track tape is better than a 4 track cassette. Why did the 8 track die out then? Could you store more data on the cassette vs 8 track?
It's hard to say why it died out but there were probably a few reasons. The inability to rewind was a serious usability problem. Also, when the tracks switched during normal play, it was often in the middle of a song, so they solved that problem by fading in and fade out, which was annoying. And also, recording on an 8 track, combined with the inability to rewind, made the format much less user friendly than the cassette. In the end the standard cassette was more versatile.
Thanks, excellent explanation! 👍
Glad it was helpful!
Excellent explanaton!
i honestly thought it was because they had just eight songs (or groups of songs) on them.
I knew about 8 tracks but never knew why they were called that did not know some had diffent programs on them
So you don´t rewind these tapes? Are they constantly playing in a loop?
Great video, very well explained. Thank you.
Thank you for explaining that. I own an 8 track player that does not play too well sometimes. I can wiggle the 8 track cartridge and it will play loud and clear or it will play poorly. Why is that happening?
Best teacher!! Thank you!!
Wow, thank you!
Very informative. Why did the 4-track cassette replace the 8-track? The continuous play and lack of flipping seems ingenious. Was it simply the more compact size, or was the continuous design more prone to failure? Also - I was surprised to learn (from wiki) that the 8 track was the idea of Bill Lear (of Lear jets)!
8 tracks can fail in a variety of ways. The compact cassette was more robust and I’m sure many people considered the ability to fast forward and rewind to be a massive improvement over the “great I have to sit through two songs I don’t want to hear to get to the one that I do” nature of 8 tracks. 8 tracks were successful because they allowed music to be “portable” and that’s where it ended. The same thing happened to the cassette itself. Most people wanted them because it meant they could clip a Walkman to their belt and jam. Once the Compact Disc came out, cassettes and their rubbish audio quality fell by the wayside.
Succinctly well explained.
Thank you! Glad you liked it! :)
Although before my teen years, I did use 8 track tapes (my dad had an 8 track car stereo and 8 track deck on his Hi-Fi system), I did not understand how they worked. Great video! Interesting though, I've never seen an 8 track deck swallow the tape! Why is that, or was I just lucky?
Thank you! We're so glad you liked this. :)
very nice explanation. thank you
90s kid here who grew up on cassette tapes then CDs. Heard of 8 track since I was little but never bothered looking it up till now. I feel educated 🤣
I did not know that. Thanks. Just what I was looking for.
I still have some gospel 8 track tapes. I've had them for over 40 years now.
That's awesome. :) The tape is pretty robust but the splice and pressure pad don't age very well. 40 years is a long time!
Great upload!
Thank you! We're so glad you liked this. :)
I'm here because spotify bullied be that I didn't know what an 8 track tape looked like lol
Music from the 40s and 50s sounds amazing, what are you talking about??
Nah, they usually sound flat and distant due to the way they were recorded back then.
Thanks for posting.
Do you have any of the magnetic tape? 🙂
Cool content... Just got a new sub
Thank you!
Well damn. I didn't know that. I learned something today.
Excellent!
So glad you like it. :)
great insight, thank-you!!