Cassettes: Lenticular Classics & Endless Loops
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- A look at some cassette related things I've picked up recently.
Links: Lenticular HipHop tapes: www.respectthec...
Endless Loop Tapes: tapeline.info/...
Cassette Deck Section on eBay:
UK: goo.gl/H5pvEO
US: goo.gl/d33jMD
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the gap is pretty much unavoidable if you stick with this type of recorder: The erase head a distance of at least 2 cm to the recording head. Since the tape advances with 4,something cm/s, you will end up with a pause of 1/2 second.
Unless you erase the tape first and then disable the erasing on the recording turn.
I will never be able to reconcile his appearance with his taste in music. This is most definitely my favorite channel.
he's way too interesting to have such terrible taste
Yeah, proper hip hop head this one.
@@theMansalad he just listens to a wide range of music, sorry if its not the exact same things you like
@@JaredConnell you should be
I am a 56 yearcold black male from jamaica who loves death metal so....yeah!
The ending skits never fail to make me laugh, don't let anyone discourage you from including those :D
I come for the ridiculously impractical audio setups, stay for the RUclips Pedant segments
My very first TechMoan video was something about the smallest Discman. Before I got to the skit at the end, I made an incorrect comment about something in the video. After being throughly schooled by the author himself, I could only embarrassingly reply with an apology.
+Super Smash Dolls I stay for both
New muppet yayyyyyyyy :)
Same. Those puppet skits are funny to see. Makes the TechMoan channel have more diversity and entertainment.
That Dr. Octagon cassette is CLASSIC! Blue flowers! Oh and that PE cassette also classic but everybody already knows that.
If no one has mentioned it yet, I believe the skip you had at the end of the song was due to the erase head. If you notice, the erase head is an inch or so ahead of the record head. Thus, when you stop the recording, you will have that amount of tape that was erased by the erase head, but had not reached the record head. The only way I can think of getting a total loop is to start with a blank tape and disable the erase head AND time it perfectly, which isn't a real solution.
My phone disconnected from my wifi when the dad said "there must be a tiny insignificant error in this video, you just have to find it" and then I got the RUclips error screen right after and I laughed for a good 15 seconds...
These videos really are the best 👏💯
Those puppets need their own tv show. Absolutely spot on and hilarious.
Endless tapes were often used in older answering machines for the outgoing message. For those there was usually a metal piece at the join that would cause the playback to shut off after playing the message one time through. Next incoming call, it would kick it into play again for another cycle.
I'm actually surprised he didn't mention that. It was the reason they were originally developed. They were also used in 'storybook' applications (like a child's animated stuffed animal) and some in-store advertising apparatus.
I didn't mention it because these are different tapes to the answer phone ones. They would use silver sensor tape to let the answer machine know when the tape had done a full loop. Without that it would be likely to stop in the wrong place and therefore only play a partial message the next time the message was played.
Techmoan
Oh, right. I forgot about that....
Techmoan Yeah, that's true, but if you're looking for an endless loop for something other than an answering machine, they worked just fine-- I've used answering machine loop tapes in standard tape decks for that purpose. You do have the short bit of metal that doesn't record any sound, but it's not like you're very likely to get a completely seamless loop anyhow, as Techmoan shows us here in his video...
You should do a video on dynamic range and the "loudness war"
Those 'unfunny' skits are effing brilliant.
The complaints about them are even funnier!
Nice to see that green guy's dad is from yorkshire.
He's probably related to Jeremy Clarkson.
Wonder if he heard Clarkson blow his house up recently...
I think you'll find it's Lancashire!
Regarding the endless loop cassette tape, I have some information about its origin and who invented it. Back in the seventies in New York, when I was about fifteen, my father introduced me to a few of these people that went to him seeking technical advice and his drafting experience. My father was tool maker and designer. One of these people was Rogelio. A Colombian that resided in NY. He had a brilliant mind and many ideas. He became a good friend with me and my family. One of the ideas that he was working on was the endless cassette. The application of the endless tape was to be used for continuous messages in advertising in stores, displays, etc. Since I was handy working with plastic, due to my modelmaking hobby, I helped him during the prototype process. During that time there were dozens of dissembled cassette cases all over the work bench while we played with them. At the beginning the tape could not pull smoothly from the reel and jammed. It was not until he came with the idea of making the spool beveled to one side. That made it work. Now, to make the story short, Rogelio sold his idea to this company (I don’t recall which) for a couple of hundred of dollars. That company later manufactured those cassettes for the answering machines market. I had lost contact with my friend Rogelio, but I still remember those times we tinkered together on those cassettes. Tony B. Mechanical Engineering Designer (Retired)
The reason it only has one tab and can't record to the other side is because the tape already records to both sides. You can see where it flips on the return to the reel. It's exactly as if you took a loop of 1.5mins of tape, cut it, flipped one side over, and spliced it back together: one continuous 3min loop on 1.5min double-sided tape.
There are few channels that inspire the level of excitement in me when a new video is posted. You have a great thing going and thanks for everything.
TDK made those endless loop cassettes as well back in the 70s / 80s. I remember we had them at a store where I worked. I know one use for them was the outgoing message tape in early dual cassette phone answering machines. Later they changed to smaller tapes and single tapes, then digital, but the early ones used a continuous loop outgoing message tape and actually there was a type with no leader for incoming messages so it could fully rewind and start recording from the moment the tape moved and not cut off the first few seconds of the first message. Ah, innovation.
Thanks for another great video.
Got to love the Muppet internet trolls =-)
The video was way longer than it needed to be, Techmoan owes me wasted data for loading those god awful skits that the end.
I'd watch these videos just for the muppets.
Those endless tapes are really good for making Ambient/Drone music, especially if you have a 4 track!
I have an old tape echo machine that uses endless cassettes. Tape echo is old tech but has unique character all its own!
I always chuckle at the thought of Techmoan, a respectable middle-aged Englishman with a collection of kitchen gadgets, listening to some gangsta garbage about dealing crack and running away from the cops in Brooklyn.
Absolutely loved that ending, especially the heavy accents!
We need a channel of just the muppets all the time. Please
search for "RUclips pedant"
It's a bit of a dig against the critics, but it shows he's reading the comments.
Subscribed - thanks!
jvan yes
*_i N t E r N e T p E d A n T_*
Techmoan is an old skool rap fan, who knew ;)
Some say, his Indesit IQ has second set of 18" chrome wheels, for thursday's bling parties.
I suppose those endless loop tapes would have been cool to record computer programs on, when that Commodore SX-64 was still new. That way you wouldn't have to rewind the tapes all the time. But in those days, I don't remember ever seeing them in the stores in my city (though I knew they existed). Nowadays you can buy anything online... Kids don't know how good they have it! :-)
Or imagine dealers: Just let the tape play with no need to rewind it or flipping it around.
The SX-64 had a disk-drive built-in.
I've seen a ton of those cassettes in old answering machines.
The Compucolor 8001 actually did use two 8-track tape drives as nonvolatile storage, and those tapes were endless loop. The advantage of using 8-track tapes is that it only takes one mono channel to record a program, and since the mechanism can move the head across the width of the tape to select one of 8 tracks to play, one tape can gives you 8 "randomly accessible" programs with no need to seek through the tape to find them prior to loading. The caveats, though, are that no programs can exceed the tape loop duration and all programs will take the same time to load and reset the mechanism, even if they are very small programs. But you're right; no rewinding! Have a gander: oldcomputers.net/compucolor-8001.html
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I had a two-tape answering machine in college (1991-95). The message tape was a standard cassette, but the greeting tape was an endless loop. It wasn't like this though; it ran the tape across the inside of the cassette body several times. I think it was a 30-second loop, but I think there were 60-second ones too.
The puppets are amazing! I'd honestly watch a show just about your puppets.
I used these endless loops on answering machine back in the day for the intro tape, and regular tapes for the messages themselves.
Love the puppet skits at the end. And you're right. That Tefifon jingle does get stuck in your head.
Love the videos. Love the Hip Hop albums in all the videos as well. Classic stuff!
This show should be on the telly . I'm not that into hi-fi ,but love gadgets . I've learnt a lot about the other items that you show ,like the clocks ,cameras etc . The skits at the end has me in fits of laughter . So there you go a informative enjoyable show for free ,what can be wrong with that . Many thanks for your hard work .
this was awesome. I used to be a huge audiophile back in the day. I would record, cut, splice and edit all with a stereo and a dual deck tape deck. Long before digital media and software could do it with a few simple clicks. I was making my own recordings off the radio, adding fade out, fade in, and having a blast at it. I was also physically cutting and pasting, and full disassembly including having to pop out the cogs and reattach the tape after a catastrophic failure (tape breakage) that would generally happen with a too vigorous rewind that hits the end and it snaps off. It worked as long as you didn't drop the tape, that was horribly time-consuming to re-roll up an entire 90minute cassette with nothing more than gloves and a pencil
When I worked at the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia back in the 70's they used cart tapes for any object that needed audio. One played 3 or 4 tracks from Dave Brubeck's classic album Time Out as background music for a room sized exhibit.
Your taste in music is a little surprising and refreshingly varied. I admire that.
I hope the quality of these new hip-hop cassettes are better than the tapes made back then. Pre-recorded tapes in the USA in the 70's and 80's were very hit and miss in quality. I have some Columbia and Epic tapes that have developed "sticky tape" syndrome and won't play anymore. Keep up the awesome work with the videos!
Aha, the pinch roller! I've always wondered about these sprocket-less loop tapes, that i find in secondhand answering machines here in the states. Thanks for the enlightenment!
I love how you've picked someone from t'Yorkshire as t'Internet t'troll. Very clever and subtle, love it!
If i'm not mistaken, that endless cassette applies a twist to the tape so that you can record 3 minutes of audio to a length of tape that would only provide 1.5 on a standard cassette. It's an audio Möbius strip.
Endless tapes were popular as Outgoing Message (OGM) tapes in answering machines. The ones used in answering machines frequently had a small portion of metal tape spliced in so that the machine could sense (using two contacts) when the tape finished going all the way around, to cue the OGM for the next caller without having to use complicated electronics to detect tones or similar on the tape.
I had a late 80s Code-A-Phone answering machine and remember it being quite a marvel of mechanics inside. It would use the same head+erasehead+pinch roller assembly to access both the OGM tape and the messages tape and would move it to one tape or the other as required. The two tapes were stacked and shared the same capstan and reel spindles.
No wonder the things cost a fortune back then.
If a tape is genuine Chomium Dioxide, the tape itself will smell of crayons! This doesn't work with cobalt tapes but it does work with prerecorded chromes on BASF duplication stock.
I have no sense of smell.
+Techmoan doesn't that effect your taste too?
For real? How does that affect you in your daily life?
Not surprising. A lot of people who came of age in the 1980's have lost their sense of smell.
It makes it pretty damn miserable. I'm having another operation on it later this month.
My god r&b that's easy to dance to and easy to synch on a 6 min repeat. Like it was made that way. Love ur work.
Your comment on decks getting more expensive is why I'm so glad I got my technics RS-B355 for cheap. (£15 down from £40 because I didn't want the FM receiver with it)
That endless-loop tape reminds me of a Christmas gift I made for my uncle: Three Christmas song parodies--that I knew he'd appreciate--recorded onto a brand-new, short-runtime cassette meant for answering machines. And yes, he loved it.
How convenient that you dropped this right when i have lunch. :P
LMAO@the Dr. Octagon tape. Could you please do a video on your epic Hip Hop collection?
One one hand it would be an interesting video because it looks like he has a lot of them, but one the other he wouldn't really be able to make us listen to it because of content ID and whatnot.
SteelSkin667 True, but he could post recommended playlists as a work around. If you have Kool Keith in your collection, it tells me that you're a Hip Hop aficionado/historian.
+MrBlaq Agreed, plus if you need to hear the music because the names of the artists and albums mean nothing to you then it probably wouldn't be a particularly interesting video for you in the first place. Do it Mat, I'd be super interested to see your hiphop collection!
My only tape deck that comes close to your deck is a Marantz SD-55 which aparently costed 800$ back in 1988. I was wondering about loop cassettes a few days ago and you answered some of my question. Thank you very much. Cheers :)
At the end some of these videos we get a passive-aggressive Muppet show.
I would love a more in-depth analysis of how the endless loop cassette works (or even the 8-track, for that matter). It still escapes me how tape can go endlessly, round and round in the same direction on the same hub/spool and never tangle or the likes thereof. I've seen the inside of 8-track tapes, and this cassette offers a transparent shell, but I'm still a little naive on exactly how the "mechanics" of these tapes actually play out. If you have the time, Mr Techmoan, perhaps you could whip up a short video to really examine how these tapes function, for daft blokes like myself, lol. Thanks for all the great videos thus far.
Exactly like you said it. "It takes you back when you were younger"
I'm 36 and I remember playing with a boombox in my room or on my mom's kitchen table radio.
Making my own mix tapes.
You can open any music file in Quicktime and turn on "Loop" so you can preview your looping beforehand. Excellent video as always.
I made an endless tape just yesterday. good to know they can be purchased
Haha, loved the skit at the end, gave me a good laugh! I always wonder where people find the time and desire to go trolling...
When I was a kid my parents had a tape like this in a answering machine. It was a 20 sec tape that would loop your recorded greeting Wow blast from the past. Thanks:) for all of the videos.
Wow I've got the exact same cassette deck in gold as well! It was a while ago, when I (re)started to appreciate cassettes again, and it was my first high end deck!
As you've said, it's a Japan only model and here we can find the "bigger" brother, the 555ESJ with some minor improvements such as copper plated chassis, double sapphire capstan bearings, audio board with thicker traces, and heavy insulators.
Thanks for always uploading interesting contents, cheers from Japan!
Almost missed the comic in the end, that would have been unfortunate!
The retro tech and HiFi videos are my favorite!
yep just realized I have never watched your videos to the end and seen the skits.... sooooo gotta go back and re watch them all....
Lovely. You touched the tape directly with your finger. Tape rule #1: don't touch the tape directly with your bare finger that runs through the head system as grease and oil on your finger could transfer to the tape, and then cause the tape to stick to parts of the head system especially the roller pin and capstan causing the tape to get eaten. I learned that when I was five. Of course, the ends of the tape as in reel-to-reel tape don't count since they don't pass through the head system. It's best to use disposable gloves when repairing tapes. Well, the average person should know that anyway. It probably wouldn't manage that much if your hands were recently washed. It's just unrecommended practice. I'm certain someone already posted about it. At any rate, I get to practice my touch typing skills. I highly recommend that everyone learn how to touch type. It's so much faster. I can't even tell where the keys are without looking. It's like I have magic fingers. That's enough spamming I think for now... :P
damn man.. i shouldn't judge a book by its cover! i like dr octagon too and u don't strike me as a dr. octagon fan (but that makes it even more kool, lol.. awesome hiphop choices mang)!!
I love the puppet at the end. I remember/regret buying from "Harveys" (a high end store in Nyc. My Nakamichi silver and McIntosh and B&W speakers and a lot of mombo jumbo, when i enjoyed my Walkman and my cellphone, Pandora
Sweet video. I totally agree. Hip Hop sounds best on tape, blaring out of a ghetto blaster. Public Enemy and Dr. Octagon are great, you have awesome taste!
Love the retro tech videos. I had no idea endless loop CASSETTES exist!
3:33
Wait a second...
**GTA:San Andreas flashbacks**
This comment, I was looking for
All we had to do was follow the damn train CJ!
I-I don't get it.
cant remember what the name of that song is :/
Rebel Without A Pause (I think)
"ey up! Your 'dad' sounds like he's from Yorkshire. Nice ending sketch there.
I remember playing with an endless tape that recorded the outgoing message on an answering machine. The plastic was not opaque though so I never understood how it worked. Thanks for the video! I'm looking forward to seeing the new old gadgets.
LOL i lost it when the puppet dad made his first appearance. Brilliant! Deserve there own channel :D
I love your friends at the end. They need their own show!
The Public Enemy tape : not sure coz I didn't get a good look at the top of the cassette but you can usually tell the tape type by the holes on the top edge.
1) Just the record protect holes = Ferric Tape
2) Hole right next to the record protect holes (or a long single hole at each end) = Chrome Tape
3) As 2 but with 2 extra holes towards the middle = Metal Tape
These holes are put in so that some cassette players can detect the holes (and hence the type) and adjust the playback bias :)
Not sure if you already knew this but hey , thanks for the video :)
That doesn't work for pre-recorded tapes. They don't use the chrome holes as they are only required for recording bias adjustments.
LOL, nice troll you watched his all of his casette video's didn't you.
Ah , my bad.
Apologies for my ignorance.
For some reason I thought that bias also affected playback as well.
I must be getting confused - been a long time since I played with cassettes.
Thanks for the reply and looking forward to more retro tech vids :)
Yes Techmoan, Dr Octagon + Public Enemy
Awesome ending! :D
uploaded 2 min ago...
comment: 52 min ago
????
magic!
+Snoop Doge time travel
Endless tapes were really popular years ago in special effects (i.e. - Halloween haunts) and business (i.e. - ambiance music in a gift shop) until digital replacement.
I find it amusing that i enjoy your retro videos, when in my house I don't even have one of those old school Blu ray players.... everything is streaming these days
I used to make perfectly looping carts while working in the radio broadcast industry. Here's how I did it.
First you must realize that a looping tape (Cassette, broadcast cart, 8-track, etc) will never be EXACTLY the length the manufacturer lists. It may be as much as several seconds off. But even a fraction of a second can ruin the loop illusion.
So I would record a short beep on the loop tape that was my target media (in my case, a broadcast cartridge). I then would play the loop back into digital recording software. Once I had heard the beep twice... that was it. Measure the length between the beeps (beginning of one beep to the beginning of the other beep) and you have the EXACT length of that particular tape's loop.
I then edit the music or sound efx I wanted looped to that exact length, then recorded it on the tape. Voila! perfectly looped tape.
You have to do the measurement and final recording relatively soon after, as room temperature changes will affect the precise length of the tape.
That's how I did it in the final days of radio broadcast cartridges, and the infancy of digital recording.
Interesting. Never knew endless loop cassettes existed so thanks for that. Like the little skit at the end too.
I love how creative you are with the ending skits!!! I stick around just to see if you bust out your puppets after every single video!!! Keep your amazing and diverse videos coming mate!!!
RUclips is full of people who have nothing better to do than bitch and moan about the most bizarre and inane minor stuff, and I love how you used the puppets to mock the TROLLS!!!!
During the late 70's and early 80's, we would swap albums and make mix tapes. If we didn't have enough room at the end of a tape to record an entire song, we made an edit. We'd record up to and beyond the point where we wanted to stop. rewind a little and pause at the edit point. Then we'd cue up the album again and at the point of the edit to run to the end of the song, we'd unease the tape and the recording would continue. Sometimes it took a few tries but over several 'cuts' we became quite proficient. The mark of a good edit was that no-one knew that the cut had taken place. The rhythm pattern, any percussion and associated timing indicators sync'd so nicely, it could have been a normal recording - except an entire verse was missing or whatever.
If you didn't get it right, there was an obvious hesitation or the end of the first part was overwritten a little by the rest of the recording and the magic was lost.
Then there was the time that my friend returned to a record shop three times because his copy of the Mike Oldfield album "Discovery & The Lake" 'had a scratch' and the track "To France" skipped. By the third visit, the shop agreed to play the track and discovered that seven other copies of the album had the same skip - it was deliberate.
I used to buy endless loop cassettes at a local Radio Shack back when they were actually used in answering machines. Of course, I used them not for answering machines, but just for playing around. I used them for background music loops in walkthrough tours and stuff. I wired up a security system for my bedroom and the alarm itself consisted of loud sound effects and speech recorded onto one of these, warning the intruder of their impending doom. Since the ones I bought were made for answering machines, they had a foil splice for the player to sense joining the tape loop, and as such, the transition was far from seamless.
The ending skits just keep getting better haha.
"Face de la cassette à ne pas utiliser" = "Side of the cassette not to be used"
Wish I could give an extra thumbs up for the puppet show at the end. Brilliantly funny!
I could watch them poppets while listening tetifon all day long. love them!
To avoid a significant blank interval when switching off the recorder on previously-recorded material, I think it would be necessary to disconnect the erase head about half a second before stopping the tape, stopping the tape just as the no-longer-erased material would be about to reach the record head.
Best ending skit yet. Wonderful!
best approach is recording a 1 sec. tone at the very end of the tape. Making a note of the deck's counter when it reaches the end point with the tone. The best timer/ marker is using the deck's built in one.
I used to work with 2" audio tape many years ago. That's propper tape that is! Love the northern muppets - and subscribed - finally. Thought I did that ages ago!
Thanks! always loving your videos, reminds me of arcane experiments i used to do with hifi components... nevermind, i still do them :)
The more cassette videos the better.
Tapeline are a great company.
You must do a video on that SX64.
Great to see a third Muppet character😊👍
"Listening to Hiphop on Tape... Just sounds Right"... I would've never thought that until I heard TechMoan say it. But its true!
I have an endless cassette. Amazing Horse fits perfectly on it.
That 3D effect is nice. The camera picked up the jumping around of the characters.
I've been following your channel for a while and I have to say the production quality has greatly increased! Keep up the good work!
I don't mean the old ones are not good
Its so cool seeing all the vintage equipment you have! if i had the room i'd be doing the same thing. keep on keepin on!
the tc-k990es was actually a tc-k333esA. the model before the 333esj, which was never available outside of japan. the tc-k222esj was available as the tc-k909es outside of japan.
What a relief .I thought i was the only one taking apart multiple things at one time
You listened to Hip hop when you were younger? You just became by favorite channel on here!
Lenticular what a cool word, I have to shoehorn that into my daily conversations. Thanks for the cool & funny video!
A trick I've learned from the internet,
chromium dioxide has a wax/candle like smell to it. Very distinctive and recognizable in my opinion.
Ferric oxide and ferricobalt tapes do not have that kind of smell.
Just put the bottom of the cassette, with the naked tape, up to your nostril and sniff. I don't think it's too toxic, or most oxides for that matter. They're already oxidized after all.
Here in the US endless loop cassette tapes were used almost exclusively for vintage answering machines and children's "speaking toys". I've never even seen a E.L. music cassette before this one! It's pretty much a cassette format version of an 8-track. Except I guess it would be considered a 2-track. 😉
45 King - 900 number on a 6 minute loop tape, a thing of beauty!
I just found one of those endless loop cassettes today a TDK Endless EC3. Still sealed!
there IS a muppet show at the end. Yeah. 10:LOL!
I'm so excited for the upcoming retro tech! This guy is an artist
Oh, a Commodore SX64, yes! I was waiting for more retro computer stuff to pop up on this channel! Please-please do anything you like in this category. Instant watch for me, just like anything retro hifi :)
We used to use those loop tapes for commercials and jingles in de radio station i used to work as a younger boy.