Today on The History of Sound series, Clairsy & Lisa hit the fast forward button and explored the world of cassettes with a bit of help from Tenille Hands from the Australian Film and Sound Archive.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is a journey into sound pop up, the value
of crazy releases, the history of sound. Yeah, well we
we are looking at the history of sound and the
National Film and Sound Archive of Australia have very kindly
teamed up with.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Us to talk about the history of sound. Today we're
all about the cassette tape.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome to Neil Hands from the National Film and Sound
Archive of Australia.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Lo Toanil Heydanil, welcome, Hi.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
Thanks for having it. Thank you any opportunity to talk
about you sound same.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
So take us back to Neil who invented the cassette tape.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Yeah, well, the compact cassette or cassette tape, yes, was
invented by the Dutch Lou Ottens in nineteen sixty three
for Phillips nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Well yeah, but I mean at the time I probably
would have thought it was even longer ago than that.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
So the Dutch gave us the compact cassette as it used.
Speaker 5 (00:53):
To BET cassette and we ended up with a compact
disc later. But it was you know, the technology at
the time was probably pretty cool. Well I had its limitations.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Absolutely, So you know, the tape, as we know, it
consists of two small spools of one in one magnetic
tape which is enclosed in a plastic case and it
fits in the palm of your hand, and so the
tape has two sides. You have to take it out
and flip it to play it. And there's roughly only
about sixty to one hundred and twenty minutes of recording.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yes, and of course you had to fast forward now
do the song you didn't lie, I'm I'm tumbling.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Around with it right now trying to get a song on.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
So was it designed for anything, for something specific other
than you know what we used it for.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Mostly absolutely, So, you know, the origins of magnetic tape
are actually much earlier than the nineteen sixties. We've got
recordings on reels of wire in our collection that start
in the early nineteen hundred and they were really intended
for field recordings or mostly on the domestic market for dictation, right.
(02:00):
But it was really, you know, only as a lot
of companies began experimenting with tapes and with cartridges that
we got into a much cheaper, much smaller system that
playing and recording became so much more accessible. And so,
you know, the first portable recorder available in Australia was
about eleven hundred dollars, which sounds like a lot. Yeah
(02:22):
it was, but all of a sudden, sound recording was
being democratized. I mean compared to a big studio system,
having a system in your house.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yeah, the early computer's very expensive.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
We were certainly keen to lip that dictation in the bud.
Austin said when we spoke to him on Monday, to
Neil that that's what the phonograph cylinder was first, you know, four.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Absolute dictation.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Right.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
I mean why it changed for us is that the
biggest innovation with tape as opposed to disc recording is
that with tape you can cut out section and you
can fly sections together. So what we did was we
moved away from that dictation and the recording actuality and
you're able to construct a creative work.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah enough.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
What that meant is eventually we developed multi track and
stereo and lower distortion and it became a really cheap,
easy format for say, small underground acts in Australia. You've
got Perths the Triffids in the late seventies. Yes, they
had one hundred songs over their first two years and
(03:30):
they released six independent cassette tapes within two years, and
they would sell them at gigs and that's how they
quickly distributed and became one of the most popular bands.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
And we still talk about them.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
It became It made the music more mobile as well,
didn't it. You could get out Like my dad one
night went and saw Neil Diamond I can't remember. It
was subi Ovall or the Whack and he recorded the
whole concert and the recording was awful because it bactually
started wearing out. So the end of the game like
crunching out olask Us around eighty seven. Yeah, you could, yeah,
but at least he got a couple of because you've
got a couple at the start of the gig. That
(04:02):
sounded a right. I don't know if he ever played again,
but we became more mobile. MoMA was the music ind.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
We definitely, I mean, and especially when the Walkman came
around in nineteen seventy nine, all of a sudden, you
had a player you could take anywhere, you can listen
to it by yourself, and you can custom make a
soundtrack for your own life.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Well this is I mean, The Walkman changed my life
because I was able to sit in the backseat of
the car on a road trip. This is on the
days where Mum and Dad chose the music and if
you didn't like the two mad I could sit in
the back and I could listen to David Bowie or
whatever while they've got Max Bargraves playing on their you know,
cassette tape in the car.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
And it was it was freedom.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, oh, that pratical destiny, pretty of choice.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
That's why it.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Became the leading format from nineteen eighty four to nineteen
eighty two. I mean the Walkman changed everyone's lives. Yeah,
but we still had you know, there was so much
development and a real boot room in cassette players. We
had them in cars from the nineteen sixty eight. It
really made it portable and enjoyable and it was really
picked up by surfers, you know, bringing them out and
(05:11):
playing them out the back of the vans and blasting
skyhooks and it really did amazing things for the Australian industry.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
Yeah, they replaced the smaller cassettes, replacing the old eye
track because a lot of people are the eye tracks
in the curve something else.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Absolutely, that was you know, probably it wasn't the right thing,
but it was life changing. The cassettes was coming back
from Bali with a suitcase full of.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
The dam flings.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I mean, was this the very first example of pirating music?
Speaker 4 (05:42):
I don't know if it's the first example because we're
kind of wily, but I would say it definitely was
a big concern for the Australian industry. They estimated that
it was costing them about four hundred and forty point
eight million, and that's not including just how easy tapes
were a shop lift compared to an LP.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I never gave that a pretty small slippy. I did
pick them a few pate copy Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
Yeah, you makes make them a mixtape so you don't
have to buy the album?
Speaker 3 (06:10):
You know you the c album? No, I don't have to.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Mixtapes were the first dating apps, in my opinion, because
we didn't know, we didn't have social media to flirt.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I found that the best.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
I think if there was someone you liked, you made
them a mixtape.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Oh really, and that was the key to their heart?
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Did you do that?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yes? Many.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
If you didn't make a mixtape for someone you cared
about it, I don't want to know you.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
Yeah, what about the revival I mean, it hasn't been
as huge as as people going and buying vinyl, But
there have been some releases on cassettes in recent times,
haven't they.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (06:48):
I think it has a large part to do with
the nostalgia. I think it's cheaper with an LP and labels.
While they're producing these digital releases, they'll often come with
a limited edition collectibook cassette and that comes with a
digital download with it. You know, the recent Barbie movie
released its soundtrack on a hot pink transparent cassette.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Oh my god, I loved that one first. No style too,
isn't it.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I do think they were sometimes the least loved of
all the forms, and yet they were the one probably
that did for me change so many things. Okay, the
quality might not have been as good as putting on
an album at home, but as I said, you know,
I was on the move with it.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
But when it got caught in the heads to take
the corner heads and your tape was rubbish?
Speaker 1 (07:32):
How many you try to save your favorite You've got
the pencil, you're trying to wind it back on, and
the moment you get that when you reach that moment
where you think, no, it's gone.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
What do you reckon to now? It's frustrating. I can
hear it in your voice.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Oh absolutely, I mean I've done it myself, getting the
tape and getting it out and winding it back with
the pencil and getting your own sticky tape and trying
to get it back together.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
But do you know what, I don't think CDs fixed
anything like that. They were just I think they were
more easily scratched and less durable, and.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
More when listening to them, the skating kind of thing
on them.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
Yeah, I think I think cassettes are hard done by.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
They were sturdier.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Well to Neil, thank you for taking us through the
history of the cassette today.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It's lovely to talk to you. Thank you by bye
so much.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Take care,
This is a journey into sound pop up, the value
of crazy releases, the history of sound. Yeah, well we
we are looking at the history of sound and the
National Film and Sound Archive of Australia have very kindly
teamed up with.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Us to talk about the history of sound. Today we're
all about the cassette tape.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome to Neil Hands from the National Film and Sound
Archive of Australia.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Lo Toanil Heydanil, welcome, Hi.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
Thanks for having it. Thank you any opportunity to talk
about you sound same.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
So take us back to Neil who invented the cassette tape.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Yeah, well, the compact cassette or cassette tape, yes, was
invented by the Dutch Lou Ottens in nineteen sixty three
for Phillips nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Well yeah, but I mean at the time I probably
would have thought it was even longer ago than that.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
So the Dutch gave us the compact cassette as it used.
Speaker 5 (00:53):
To BET cassette and we ended up with a compact
disc later. But it was you know, the technology at
the time was probably pretty cool. Well I had its limitations.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Absolutely, So you know, the tape, as we know, it
consists of two small spools of one in one magnetic
tape which is enclosed in a plastic case and it
fits in the palm of your hand, and so the
tape has two sides. You have to take it out
and flip it to play it. And there's roughly only
about sixty to one hundred and twenty minutes of recording.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yes, and of course you had to fast forward now
do the song you didn't lie, I'm I'm tumbling.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Around with it right now trying to get a song on.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
So was it designed for anything, for something specific other
than you know what we used it for.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Mostly absolutely, So, you know, the origins of magnetic tape
are actually much earlier than the nineteen sixties. We've got
recordings on reels of wire in our collection that start
in the early nineteen hundred and they were really intended
for field recordings or mostly on the domestic market for dictation, right.
(02:00):
But it was really, you know, only as a lot
of companies began experimenting with tapes and with cartridges that
we got into a much cheaper, much smaller system that
playing and recording became so much more accessible. And so,
you know, the first portable recorder available in Australia was
about eleven hundred dollars, which sounds like a lot. Yeah
(02:22):
it was, but all of a sudden, sound recording was
being democratized. I mean compared to a big studio system,
having a system in your house.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yeah, the early computer's very expensive.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
We were certainly keen to lip that dictation in the bud.
Austin said when we spoke to him on Monday, to
Neil that that's what the phonograph cylinder was first, you know, four.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Absolute dictation.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Right.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
I mean why it changed for us is that the
biggest innovation with tape as opposed to disc recording is
that with tape you can cut out section and you
can fly sections together. So what we did was we
moved away from that dictation and the recording actuality and
you're able to construct a creative work.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah enough.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
What that meant is eventually we developed multi track and
stereo and lower distortion and it became a really cheap,
easy format for say, small underground acts in Australia. You've
got Perths the Triffids in the late seventies. Yes, they
had one hundred songs over their first two years and
(03:30):
they released six independent cassette tapes within two years, and
they would sell them at gigs and that's how they
quickly distributed and became one of the most popular bands.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
And we still talk about them.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
It became It made the music more mobile as well,
didn't it. You could get out Like my dad one
night went and saw Neil Diamond I can't remember. It
was subi Ovall or the Whack and he recorded the
whole concert and the recording was awful because it bactually
started wearing out. So the end of the game like
crunching out olask Us around eighty seven. Yeah, you could, yeah,
but at least he got a couple of because you've
got a couple at the start of the gig. That
(04:02):
sounded a right. I don't know if he ever played again,
but we became more mobile. MoMA was the music ind.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
We definitely, I mean, and especially when the Walkman came
around in nineteen seventy nine, all of a sudden, you
had a player you could take anywhere, you can listen
to it by yourself, and you can custom make a
soundtrack for your own life.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Well this is I mean, The Walkman changed my life
because I was able to sit in the backseat of
the car on a road trip. This is on the
days where Mum and Dad chose the music and if
you didn't like the two mad I could sit in
the back and I could listen to David Bowie or
whatever while they've got Max Bargraves playing on their you know,
cassette tape in the car.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
And it was it was freedom.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, oh, that pratical destiny, pretty of choice.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
That's why it.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Became the leading format from nineteen eighty four to nineteen
eighty two. I mean the Walkman changed everyone's lives. Yeah,
but we still had you know, there was so much
development and a real boot room in cassette players. We
had them in cars from the nineteen sixty eight. It
really made it portable and enjoyable and it was really
picked up by surfers, you know, bringing them out and
(05:11):
playing them out the back of the vans and blasting
skyhooks and it really did amazing things for the Australian industry.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
Yeah, they replaced the smaller cassettes, replacing the old eye
track because a lot of people are the eye tracks
in the curve something else.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Absolutely, that was you know, probably it wasn't the right thing,
but it was life changing. The cassettes was coming back
from Bali with a suitcase full of.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
The dam flings.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I mean, was this the very first example of pirating music?
Speaker 4 (05:42):
I don't know if it's the first example because we're
kind of wily, but I would say it definitely was
a big concern for the Australian industry. They estimated that
it was costing them about four hundred and forty point
eight million, and that's not including just how easy tapes
were a shop lift compared to an LP.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I never gave that a pretty small slippy. I did
pick them a few pate copy Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
Yeah, you makes make them a mixtape so you don't
have to buy the album?
Speaker 3 (06:10):
You know you the c album? No, I don't have to.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Mixtapes were the first dating apps, in my opinion, because
we didn't know, we didn't have social media to flirt.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I found that the best.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
I think if there was someone you liked, you made
them a mixtape.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Oh really, and that was the key to their heart?
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Did you do that?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yes? Many.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
If you didn't make a mixtape for someone you cared
about it, I don't want to know you.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
Yeah, what about the revival I mean, it hasn't been
as huge as as people going and buying vinyl, But
there have been some releases on cassettes in recent times,
haven't they.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (06:48):
I think it has a large part to do with
the nostalgia. I think it's cheaper with an LP and labels.
While they're producing these digital releases, they'll often come with
a limited edition collectibook cassette and that comes with a
digital download with it. You know, the recent Barbie movie
released its soundtrack on a hot pink transparent cassette.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Oh my god, I loved that one first. No style too,
isn't it.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I do think they were sometimes the least loved of
all the forms, and yet they were the one probably
that did for me change so many things. Okay, the
quality might not have been as good as putting on
an album at home, but as I said, you know,
I was on the move with it.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
But when it got caught in the heads to take
the corner heads and your tape was rubbish?
Speaker 1 (07:32):
How many you try to save your favorite You've got
the pencil, you're trying to wind it back on, and
the moment you get that when you reach that moment
where you think, no, it's gone.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
What do you reckon to now? It's frustrating. I can
hear it in your voice.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Oh absolutely, I mean I've done it myself, getting the
tape and getting it out and winding it back with
the pencil and getting your own sticky tape and trying
to get it back together.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
But do you know what, I don't think CDs fixed
anything like that. They were just I think they were
more easily scratched and less durable, and.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
More when listening to them, the skating kind of thing
on them.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
Yeah, I think I think cassettes are hard done by.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
They were sturdier.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Well to Neil, thank you for taking us through the
history of the cassette today.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It's lovely to talk to you. Thank you by bye
so much.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Take care,
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