Tape loop, keeps on turning round, forever

And now an ode to cartridged tape,
Against the capstan did it scrape
And from two tracks it did spew
Endless noise and a cue.

The next audio format we discussed in Propel’s practicum course was the item that most everyone said (with a groan) reminded them of eight-track tapes. As I had never been put into the awkward predicament of using an eight-track tape – let alone ever seeing one up to that day in class – the cringe-factor was somewhat lost on me. What Propel introduced to us that day was the spool of audiotape called the cart, or cartridge, which, to justify the collective ridicule from the class, was sort of the broadcast equivalent of the very same eight-track cartridges that were popular in the retail industry in previous decades. Propel had dug one out of his personal archives for this bit of show and tell, too.

Tape cartridges were, once upon a pre-digital time, what the radio industry used for the playback of material over the air, be it music, commercial spots, or other elements like jingles or liners. Those who were not privy to the true differences might actually confuse them for their somewhat ridiculed eight-track brethren but we would be trained to tell the two apart. Which, we found out quite quickly, was a wholly simple task.

What made the cart memorable was the key fact that was beaten repeatedly into our heads: the tape is endless. If a brand new, never-been-used cart is placed in the playback machine and the “play” button is pushed, the tape would roll through the machine indefinitely with nothing save a power outage able to stop it (I suppose you could unplug the cart machine to make it stop but then that’s messy and cheating...). No, the only thing that could stop the tape was an inaudible 1 KHz cue tone that was added to the tape during the recording process.

Say you had cartridge that held the equivalent of 0:70 seconds and you’re recording a 0:60 second public service announcement. When the user presses the record and play buttons a cue tone is placed on the audiotape to signify the “start” of the tape. Once the 0:60 seconds are completed the user presses the stop button. To return the tape to the “start” the user presses play by itself, allowing the tape to run for approximately another ten seconds before it stops – the inaudible cue tone has told the machine that this is now the stopping point. More importantly, the cartridge is now “cued” such that it will play from the “start” when the play button is pressed.

Here then was one of the ongoing issues we had at the radio station: people stopping carts before they were cued. It was a major inconvenience (and embarrassment) for a DJ to finish talking during a stop set and then hit the play button on the cartridge machine only to have the sound of shuffling audio tape hiss out over the air. Why did students stop the tape if the machine would do it automatically for them? Who can really say. I sometimes chalked it up the “neat freaks,” the students who assumed that once the 0:30 second spot was done playing that they needed to remove the cart as quickly as possible to get it out of their way. Too much clutter bogged these people down. There were other excuses, too. One person stopped them because the machine was too loud and she complained it distracted her. Another countered that all his carts were always stopped so he felt he should return them the way he found them. I recall one student who “bragged” that he only cued his carts at the end of his shift – it made “more sense that way” he claimed, although it didn’t to me. (It still doesn’t.)

I was always just a user of the carts during my undergraduate years, but about my junior year something sparked a sudden interest in rebuilding carts, something I found utterly out of my league. The idea was to find chipped or broken plastic cartridges and carts with bad audiotape and then combine the best of both: quality audiotape was put into well-kept cartridges and bad audiotape and irreplaceable cartridges were discarded. It may have not been time consuming but there were a lot of tiny parts – wheels, levers, pieces of plastic, and so on – that deterred me from learning the reassembly process.

Usage of carts never diminished: we were using them when I started working at the station and we received a shipment of new ones shortly before I graduated. Carts weren’t a new concept – they seemed the antithesis of anything digital – but we gave them the love they deserved.

...an endless loop of love....

- - - - - - - - - - - -
Tape Loop
(Skye Edwards/Paul Godfrey/Ross Godfrey)
Morcheeba
From the album Who Can You Trust?
1996

Tape loop, keeps on turning round, forever,
Patience, love is coming 'round for your pleasure,
Wait now, no use trying to push, there's no need,
People, go against the grain, with their greed.

I've been here before, it ain't gonna work no more,
I've been here before, it ain't gonna work no more.

Focus, your mind will be strong, no distractions,
Soak up wisdom all year long, and then take action.

I've been here before, it ain't gonna work no more,
I've been here before, it ain't gonna work no more.

I've been here before, it ain't gonna work no more,
I've been here before, it ain't gonna work no more.

I've been here before, it ain't gonna work no more,
I've been here before, it ain't gonna work no more.