The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. It was developed by Philips in Hasselt, Belgium, and introduced in September 1963. Compact Cassettes come in two forms, either already containing content as a prerecorded cassette (Musicassette), or as a fully recordable "blank" cassette. Both forms are reversible by the user.
A cassette deck is a type of tape machine for playing and recording audio cassettes. The consumer electronics industry formerly used the term deck to distinguish them from a tape recorder, the "deck" being part of a stereo component system, while a "tape recorder" was more portable and usually had a self-contained power amplifier.
1000 Hurts is the third full-length album by Shellac, released on August 8th, 2000. It is Shellac Record #11. In its official promotional materials Shellac jokingly described this album as follows: "There are no 12-minute songs on this one. This record is more mean-spirited. Todd sings."
In music, tape loops are loops of magnetic tape used to create repetitive, rhythmic musical patterns or dense layers of sound when played on a tape recorder. Originating in the 1940s with the work of Pierre Schaeffer, they were used among contemporary composers of 1950s and 1960s, such as Éliane Radigue, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, who used them to create phase patterns, rhythms, textures, and timbres. Popular music authors of 1960s and 1970s, particularly in psychedelic, progressive and ambient genres, used tape loops to accompany their music with innovative sound effects. In the 1980s, analog audio and tape loops with it gave way to digital audio and application of computers to generate and process sound.
Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is the form of magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording medium is held on a reel that is not permanently mounted in an enclosed cassette. In use, the supply reel containing the tape is placed on a spindle or hub; the end of the tape is manually pulled out of the reel, threaded through mechanical guides and a tape head assembly, and attached by friction to the hub of the second, initially empty takeup reel.
Jeff Mangum is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, best known for his work as the lyricist, vocalist and guitarist of the band Neutral Milk Hotel, as well as being one of the cofounders of The Elephant 6 Recording Company. He is best known for his complex, lyrically dense songwriting, apparent on the critically lauded album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.
TASCAM is the professional audio division of TEAC Corporation, headquartered in Montebello, California. Tascam is credited as the inventor of the Portastudio, the first cassette-based multi-track home studio recorders. Tascam also introduced the first low-cost mass-produced multitrack recorders with Simul-Sync designed for recording musicians, and manufactured reel-to-reel tape machines and audio mixers for home recordists from the early 1970s through the mid-1990s.
The TASCAM Portastudio was the world's first four-track recorder based on a standard compact audio cassette tape. The term portastudio is exclusive to TASCAM, though it is generally used to describe all self-contained cassette-based multitrack recorders dedicated to music production. The Portastudio, and particularly its first iteration, the Teac 144, is credited with launching the home-recording wave, which allowed musicians to cheaply record and produce music at home, and is cited as one of the most significant innovations in music production technology.
Julian Koster is an American multidisciplinary artist. As a musician he is a member of the Elephant 6 Collective, the leader of The Music Tapes, and a member of Neutral Milk Hotel. He is known for writing, directing, and acting in audio fiction The Orbiting Human Circus , and for performing with the theatrical troupe of the same name. He is also known for his heavy use of the musical saw in recordings, even releasing The Singing Saw at Christmastime, his only solo album released under his own name, in 2008.
The Music Tapes is an experimental pop music and performance art project of Elephant 6 member Julian Koster. The Music Tapes is characterized by unusual orchestrations, the use of musique concrète and narrative storytelling, vintage home-recording practices, and musical inventions. They are also known for their unique live performances, such as the Caroling and Lullaby tours that bring them into the homes of fans, and theatrical shows like The Traveling Imaginary, which takes place in a circus tent.
1st Imaginary Symphony For Nomad was an album released by The Music Tapes, a project consisting mainly of Neutral Milk Hotel's Julian Koster in 1999 by Merge Records. It was recorded mainly on vintage equipment, using equipment such as a 1895 Edison wax cylinder recorder, a 1940s wire recorder, a "state of the art hard drive", and reel to reel tape recorders, hence its lo-fi sound. A partial concept record, among its themes the power of television, and the death of 1950s actor George Reeves, who played the hero Superman and whom Koster was entranced with as a child. The album took over 4 years to assemble, being recorded mainly at the home of the Grandmother of Music Tapes and Koster's own home. The album mixed straightforward pop songs with collage, musique concrète and traditional storytelling.
The 2nd Imaginary Symphony For Cloudmaking is a story album by The Music Tapes, consisting of the story of a boy named Nigh, who lives with his blind grandmother.
Multitrack recording of sound is the process in which sound and other electro-acoustic signals are captured on a recording medium such as magnetic tape, which is divided into two or more audio tracks that run parallel with each other. Because they are carried on the same medium, the tracks stay in perfect synchronisation, while allowing multiple sound sources to be recorded asynchronously. The first system for creating stereophonic sound was demonstrated by Clément Ader in Paris in 1881. The pallophotophone, invented by Charles A. Hoxie and first demonstrated in 1922, recorded optically on 35 mm film, and some versions used a format of as many as twelve tracks in parallel on each strip. The tracks were recorded one at a time in separate passes and were not intended for later mixdown or stereophony; as with later half-track and quarter-track monophonic tape recording, the multiple tracks simply multiplied the maximum recording time possible, greatly reducing cost and bulk. British EMI engineer Alan Blumlein patented systems for recording stereophonic sound and surround sound on disc and film in 1933. The history of modern multitrack audio recording using magnetic tape began in 1943 with the invention of stereo tape recording, which divided the recording head into two tracks.
The discography of Neutral Milk Hotel, a Ruston, Louisiana-based indie rock group, consists of two studio albums, two singles, two extended plays, one compilation album, and three demos.
Music for Nitrous Oxide is the first studio album released by Stars of the Lid on Sedimental Records in 1995. The album features minimal, droning compositions of varying length. The press release from Sedimental Records read: “Sedimental announces the first CD from Austin drone stars Stars of the Lid, an amazing 4-track recording that is created in the spirit of Eno, Main and Spacemen 3. Produced without keyboards, this lo-fi ambient journey employs predominately [sic] guitar, avoiding typical rock elements while still possessing the ‘home’ recorded feel of so much independent music.”
A mixtape is a compilation of music, typically from multiple sources, recorded onto a medium. With origins in the 1980s, the term normally describes a homemade compilation of music onto a cassette tape, CD, or digital playlist. The songs are either ordered sequentially or made into a continuous program by beatmatching the songs and creating seamless transitions at their beginnings and endings with fades or abrupt edits. Essayist Geoffrey O'Brien described this definition of the mixtape as "perhaps the most widely practiced American art form".
Xs on Your Eyes is the fourth album by +/-, released in late October 2008. An instrumental version of the song "sweet home Alabama" was used as menu loop background music in the band's 2007 Self Titled Debut Digital Video Disc DVD release. A music video for the song "Snowblind", directed by Nancy Mitchell, was released on 29 October 2008. The track "The Hours You Keep" appears as background music in Series 1 Episode 9 of Crash.
Live at the Matrix 1967 is a double live album by the American rock band the Doors. It was recorded at The Matrix in San Francisco on March 7 and 10, 1967 by club co-owner Peter Abram. The recording is notable as one of the earliest live recordings of the band known to exist, played to a mostly empty venue. By March 1967, the Doors had recorded only their debut album and "Light My Fire" had yet to be released as a single, and they were still relatively unknown outside Southern California.
Nesey Gallons is an American solo recording artist associated with the Elephant 6 Collective, and a former member of the bands Circulatory System and The Music Tapes. Gallons also works as a producer and engineer, including The Music Tapes' album Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes, Julian Koster's The Singing Saw at Christmastime, Circulatory System's album Signal Morning, and the Hot New Mexicans epononymous LP.
Mary's Voice is an album by The Music Tapes. Material from the album was previewed during the band's previous caroling tours. In the lead-up to the album, Julian Koster held a Kickstarter campaign for a subsequent tour, with rewards including signed copies/master copies of the album, personalized messages and images, and Koster's banjo used on previous albums, most notably Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. The album also features additional instrumentation from several members of the Elephant 6 Collective.
