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 home recording 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.
Video Home System, commonly abbreviated/initialized to VHS, is a standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes.
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. Invented by Lou Ottens and his team at the Dutch company Philips in 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 have two sides and are reversible by the user. Although other tape cassette formats have also existed - for example the Microcassette - the generic term cassette tape is normally always used to refer to the Compact Cassette because of its ubiquity.
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.
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 mini 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.
Quadraphonic sound – equivalent to what is now called 4.0 surround sound – uses four audio channels in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of a listening space. The system allows for the reproduction of sound signals that are independent of one another.
Nagra is a brand of portable audio recorders produced from 1951 in Switzerland. Beginning in 1997 a range of high-end equipment aimed at the audiophile community was introduced, and Nagra expanded the company’s product lines into new markets.
Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name AMPEX is a portmanteau, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence. Today, 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 or tracking, 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.
Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape is spooled between reels. To prepare for use, the supply reel containing the tape is placed on a spindle or hub. The end of the tape is manually pulled from the reel, threaded through mechanical guides and over a tape head assembly, and attached by friction to the hub of the second, initially empty takeup reel. Reel-to-reel systems use tape that is 1⁄4, 1⁄2, 1, or 2 inches wide, which normally moves at 3+3⁄4, 7+1⁄2, 15 or 30 inches per second. All standard tape speeds are derived as a binary submultiple of 30 inches per second.
A video tape recorder (VTR) is a tape recorder designed to record and play back video and audio material from magnetic tape. The early VTRs were open-reel devices that record on individual reels of 2-inch-wide (5.08 cm) tape. They were used in television studios, serving as a replacement for motion picture film stock and making recording for television applications cheaper and quicker. Beginning in 1963, videotape machines made instant replay during televised sporting events possible. Improved formats, in which the tape was contained inside a videocassette, were introduced around 1969; the machines which play them are called videocassette recorders.
TASCAM is the professional audio division of TEAC Corporation, headquartered in Santa Fe Springs, California. TASCAM established the Home Recording phenomenon by creating the "Project Studio" and 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. Since the early 00's, TASCAM has been an early innovator in the field-recording and audio accompaniment to video with their DR-series recording platforms. TASCAM celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2021.
The TASCAM Portastudio was the 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.
1–inch type B VTR 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 VTR 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. 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.