#tape machine

David Kilgour, "Tape Machine" (1987?)

Lamina System has successfully installed its advanced Taping machine at Kilby Packaging, a prominent packaging company based in Kettering, UK. This state-of-the-art machine is equipped with a detachable feeder and features two tape applicators arranged in series, specifically designed for applying double-sided finger lift tapes. This installation marks a significant step forward in enhancing…

It's hard to imagine life without a computer these days. Before there was internet or any digital consumer-grade electronics, people used analogue devices for all kinds of entertainment. One of the most popular ways of entertainment was music, which at that time was stored and played back either mechanically or magnetically. At the first stage of the evolution of music recording, there were wax cylinders, which stored all vibrations caused by the sound of the music played onto tiny grooves on a small cylinder made of wax, these recordings were unreliable and quite frankly mostly impractical. Because of these limitations you with your band of highly trained musicians needed to perfectly record the song in one take, which wasn't an easy task, with no editing, splicing or punch-ins, just a straight live performance at its best captured on a small cylindrical object.

Of course, progress doesn't stop. After that, we got a new development in music technology — vinyl records. But let us move on from mechanical playback to a completely new world of magnetic tape recording. The first practical tape machines started as bulky reel-to-reel one-channel mono recorders (invented in Germany in 1935 by a not-so-friendly group of people) [1] and one of the first-ever compositions recorded on these types of machines was a live performance of Debussy's "LA MER" by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of conductor Arturo Toscanini in June 1935 in Queen's Hall that was later destroyed during World War II [2]. By the late 1940's this technology was upgraded and later commercialized becoming the industry standard in the U.S. studios after 1947 when a famous American folk singer Bing Crosby did the first ever radio broadcast using the tape machine [3].

Around 1975, digital recording started to gain popularity, but advancements in tape recording continued. It had become the fastest way to record music at that time, thanks to recent developments in multitrack technology. But in my opinion, the peak of tape machine evolution is the invention of the so-called "portastudio" created by Tascam (TEAC) in 1979. Tascam model 144 was the first ever portable 4-track recorder designed for everyday users, instantly becoming a hit in the emerging independent music scene, allowing them to record high-quality demos without needing access to a professional recording studio. Even though it was still cheaper and faster than studio time or a professional 4-track machine, when it was first introduced in 1979 its price was a whopping $1,200 which adjusted for inflation would be around $4,800 in 2024. I, myself, am a lucky owner of Tascam model 244 portastudio and I should say I could easily rely on it in the absence of a computer or an audio interface. Of course, I'm not the only one to be recording on a tape machine in 2024, there are still a bunch of artists doing this to this day.

In conclusion, there's much more to the analogue sound than just old cassette tapes, it's a whole vibe, a movement if you will, that might never stop existing, who knows maybe in a 100 years or so there still will be people tinkering around with tape machines.

References: [1] "Magnetic Recording: The First 100 Years" by Eric D. Daniel and C. Denis Mee [2] Vox - Tape recording was introduced 70 years ago today - https://www.vox.com/2016/5/16/11672678/tape-recording-70th-anniversary-jack-mullin [3] Toscanini 1935 - LA MER - Debussy - BBCSO Orch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-8xjtDNGOc