Hi, Corey,
The more I hear, the more I want to keep this to my narrow original
concept: Formats for CONSUMER DELIVERY (mostly of MUSIC though I
accept input regarding Old Time Radio, Talking Books, and a global
perspective and I've acceded to pressure to keep the cassette out of
the dead zone).
I don't think there was any significant attempt to sell pre-recorded,
commercial (mostly music) recordings in any of the following formats:
--Recording wires
--Dictabelts
--IBM Executary magnetic belts
--Rim-drive reel machines
--Rim-drive cassette machines
--Microcassettes
--Minicassettes (a subspecies of rim-drive cassettes)
I am NOT planning on incorporating any of the above. Although their
time lines can be of interest in dating historic artifacts, it's
beyond the scope of the present project. It was pointed out to me
that the death of manufacturing of a product/system by no means is an
accurate method for date-ranging of a recording as a frugal field
recordist might have stockpiled the fading format and used it far
beyond the official termination date. For example, I have a few NOS
DCC tapes which I guess I could still use for a field recording (if I
were deranged and didn't want to use my file-based digital recorders).
There are four formats that I'm on the fence about:
--RCA Sound Tape cartridges
--Playtape (thanks, Shai)
--Revere/CBS tape cartridges
--Elcaset
What I need to understand is the depth (if any) of offerings in
pre-recorded tapes for these formats. I know that at least RCA and
CBS issued what amounts to not much more than "sample" recordings in
these formats. I have a bunch of the Revere/CBS cartridges that a
client gave me after I rescued some family stuff off a few, but that
doesn't really count because his Dad had been involved in the
marketing of the format.
I rescued a Sound Tape pre-recorded tape for a friend about eight
years ago. It was a Disney or some other children's story and it had
never been reissued in any other format that the friend could find
even mention of--at least not with the same cast. But how broad was
the Sound Tape commercial release?
I agree with Shai, I do not think there was any significant body of
Elcaset commercial releases. I don't know about Playtape. I keep
forgetting about it as a format. Apparently many others did, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayTape but before you say there's a
CBS connection, note that the entrepreneur Frank Stanton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Stanton_entrepreneur was not the
same Frank Stanton who was President of CBS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Stanton
Maybe I need to put Playtape on the list as here is a catalog of 480
tapes in the format
http://bajasdogs.com/bajas_playtape_catalog.htm
Cheers,
Richard
At 01:24 PM 2009-12-31, you wrote:
>Would the Micro-cassette be worth mentioning perhaps as a
>sub-species? The format is still in production.
>
>What about the short lived Elcaset?
>
>http://home.claranet.nl/users/pb0aia/cm/elcaset/index.html
>
>
>Holiday cheers!
>
>Corey
>Corey Bailey Audio Engineering
Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask]
Aurora, Ontario, Canada (905) 713 6733 1-877-TAPE-FIX
Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
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