Quadraphonic open reel tape or Q4 was the first consumer format for quadraphonic sound recording and playback. Pre-recorded tapes in this format were introduced in the United States by the Vanguard Recording Society in June 1969. [1] Specialized machines to play these tapes were introduced by electronics manufacturers such as TEAC Corporation at about the same time.
This was a consumer, or home format based on the much larger and more expensive professional reel-to-reel tape multitrack recording systems that had been built for recording studios by 1954. [2] Professional four-track machines used either one inch or ½-inch tape at a speed of 15 or 30 inches per second (IPS) for the highest quality sound.
Prices of consumer four-track machines were rather high but still affordable. Sound quality was judged to be excellent by home users at the time. Recordings had a relatively high signal-to-noise ratio and the tapes allowed for full four-channel "discrete" playback with superior channel separation over the "matrix" four-channel quadraphonic systems used on LP phonograph records. In order to keep costs as affordable as possible, home machines used slower tape speeds and narrower track widths compared to professional machines. Home models may have also lacked professional features.
Like other quadraphonic formats it was unsuccessful and not widely adopted. Recording companies mostly stopped selling pre-recorded Q4 tapes by the late 1970s.
As the popularity of four-channel quadraphonic pre-recorded tapes declined, electronics manufactures continued to manufacture the recorders for a new market. In 1972 TEAC introduced the first home four-track recorders with Simul-Sync that were capable of overdubbing. Musicians used them as the basis of home recording studios and created sophisticated home demo recordings for the first time. Some of these recordings were also released commercially to the public. TEAC, and its TASCAM division, as well as other manufacturers sold many of these machines to musicians well into the 1990s.
All four tracks are used in one direction on ¼-inch tape, playing at a speed of 7½ IPS (twice the 3¾ IPS speed of many other consumer reel-to-reel tapes). [3] [4] Quadraphonic tapes have only one music program and are "one-sided" in contrast with the two sides of consumer stereo reel-to-reel tapes. The special track configuration and the higher speed of pre-recorded Q4 reels means that the tape length is four times longer than a comparable stereo tape recorded at 3¾ IPS.
The four fully discrete tracks had full-bandwidth (unlike Q8 cartridges which had a more limited frequency range). Q4 tapes used a faster speed and wider track width than Q8.
Q4 tapes or home four-channel reel-to-reel recordings are not compatible with comparable stereo machines. When these recordings are played on stereo machines only two of the four channels can be heard at a time.
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The Compact Cassette, also commonly called a cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens and his team at the Dutch company Philips, the Compact Cassette was released in August 1963.
An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present-day form, it records a fluctuating signal by moving the tape across a tape head that polarizes the magnetic domains in the tape in proportion to the audio signal. Tape-recording devices include the reel-to-reel tape deck and the cassette deck, which uses a cassette for storage.
The 8-track tape is a magnetic-tape sound recording technology that was popular from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when the compact cassette, which pre-dated the 8-track system, surpassed it in popularity for pre-recorded music.
A cassette deck is a type of tape machine for playing and recording audio cassettes that does not have a built-in power amplifier or speakers, and serves primarily as a transport. It can be a part of an automotive entertainment system, a part of a portable audio system or a part of a home component system. In the latter case, it is also called a component cassette deck or just a component deck.
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Ampex Data Systems Corporation is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name AMPEX is an acronym, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence. Ampex operates as Ampex Data Systems Corporation, a subsidiary of Delta Information Systems, and consists of two business units. The Silicon Valley unit, known internally as Ampex Data Systems (ADS), manufactures digital data storage systems capable of functioning in harsh environments. The Colorado Springs, Colorado, unit, referred to as Ampex Intelligent Systems (AIS), serves as a laboratory and hub for the company's line of industrial control systems, cyber security products and services and its artificial intelligence/machine learning technology.
Multitrack recording (MTR), also known as multitracking, is a method of sound recording developed in 1955 that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources or of sound sources recorded at different times to create a cohesive whole. Multitracking became possible in the mid-1950s when the idea of simultaneously recording different audio channels to separate discrete tracks on the same reel-to-reel tape was developed. A track was simply a different channel recorded to its own discrete area on the tape whereby their relative sequence of recorded events would be preserved, and playback would be simultaneous or synchronized.
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The Muntz Stereo-Pak, commonly known as the 4-track cartridge, is a magnetic tape sound recording cartridge technology.
1-inch Type B Helical Scan or SMPTE B is a reel-to-reel analog recording video tape format developed by the Bosch Fernseh division of Bosch in Germany in 1976. The magnetic tape format became the broadcasting standard in continental Europe, but adoption was limited in the United States and United Kingdom, where the Type C videotape format met with greater success.
Since the widespread adoption of reel-to-reel audio tape recording in the 1950s, audio tapes and tape cassettes have been available in many formats. This article describes the length, tape thickness and playing times of some of the most common ones.
The Fidelipac, commonly known as a "NAB cartridge" or simply "cart", is a magnetic tape sound recording format, used for radio broadcasting for playback of material over the air such as radio commercials, jingles, station identifications, and music, and for indoor background music. Fidelipac is the official name of this industry standard audio tape cartridge. It was developed in 1954 by inventor George Eash, and commercially introduced in 1959 by Collins Radio Co. at the 1959 NAB Convention. The cartridge was often used at radio stations until the late 1990s, when such formats as MiniDisc and computerized broadcast automation predominated.
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 synchronization, while allowing multiple sound sources to be recorded at different times.
The RCA tape cartridge is a magnetic tape audio format that was designed to offer stereo quarter-inch reel-to-reel tape recording quality in a convenient format for the consumer market. It was introduced in 1958, following four years of development. This timing coincided with the launch of the stereophonic phonograph record. It was introduced to the market by RCA in 1958.
The 1/4 inch Akai is a portable helical scan EIA and CCIR analog recording video tape recorder (VTR) with two video record heads on the scanning drum. The units were available with an optional RF modulator to play back through a TV set, as well as a detachable video monitor. The Akai Electric Ltd. VTR plant was in Tokyo, Japan.
Uher was a German brand of electronic equipment currently owned and licensed by Assmann Electronics of Bad Homburg.
A sound follower, also referred to as separate magnetic, sepmag, magnetic film recorder, or mag dubber, is a device for the recording and playback of film sound that is recorded on magnetic film. This device is locked or synchronized with the motion picture film containing the picture. It operates like an analog reel-to-reel audio tape recording, but using film, not magnetic tape. The unit can be switched from manual control to sync control, where it will follow the film with picture.