This is fascinating to watch. When I was younger, I imagined that tape duplication plants worked by having loads of recording decks all dubbing onto ready-assembled cassettes, then they all just pop out ready to be boxed and sold. It never occurred to me that they were spooled into the shells after recording, even though I knew the tapes were exactly the right length to hold that album/single/computer program and not longer.
Yeah same here and when i first found out about this process of manufacturing audio cassettes it looked sort of complicated but also interesting at the same time.
That originated a lot of negative feedback about cassettes, variations in molding and other assembly components can create various azimuth errors in pre-recorded cassettes. Also aligning a deck is an art to be mastered: it's not as easy as turning a screw.
I managed “ETC” a cassette duplication company in Chicago. It was fun and I made tons of blank cassettes for myself. Most people have no idea how they were made.
I built, serviced, installed and trained operators how to work on them and run them, loved that job! Ended up working for a replicator with 16 of my machines plus 20 Electrosound duplicators and everything else you needed to mass produce cassettes. Best job in the world!
Best job in the world huh. Yeah you're right fixing machines that creates cassettes sounds a hundred times better than being a Playboy model photographer in exotic locations.
Hard to believe it did not got in flames with this spooling speed. How much slower was an ordinary consumer player? I think it took about minute or two...
una maravilla...yo repare esta maquina en emi-odeon chilena (chile).emi odeon era un sello discografico aca en chile...yo trabaje en ese lugar hace 25 años atrás, excelente maquina...era italiana.
How is it threaded onto the cassettes' other reel then? I've also always wanted to know how they made 8-track tapes, how did they get it to come out the center?
I spent a while looking for the spool that the red leader tape was coming off of, before commenters pointed out that it's all already built into the cassettes. I do see the white spool of tape that's attaching them together, though.
I can't tell at what point the leader for the other hub gets attached. And why does the little bit that shuttles back and forth hold out a length of leader that looks like it's coming from the hub that's having tape wound on it when it obviously can't be?
There's two tracks there - one holds the leader that's going to be spooled up into the other side, and the other temporarily holds the beginning leader that quickly gets patched onto the real tape and spooled inside. At the end of spooling (note the spool building up inside the cassette window), it switches tracks, cuts and splices the magnetic tape to the other leader, then rolls the thing into the cassette. Happens super quickly at the start and end of the process.
I had to slow the video down. The leader is one piece to both reels, the shuttle grabs the leader loop and pulls it out. it then cuts it, so it has one leader to one reel and one t'other. Then splices the tape and once wound on cuts the tape and splices the remaining leader back on. :)
bassl0va it also had a sound at the end of the program the machine would pick up on and know where to stop. Before the it was manual and sometimes at the end of a cassette you would hear the beeps. But these machines were quite accurate. The self splicing made it so much easier to use as well.
For the longest time I thought cassettes were duplicated in a room full of cassette decks, each one recording from a master - then someone had to come along and replace the cassettes with fresh blanks. This must be so much easier!
That kind of production DID exist. The company Telex used to make duplicators that could copy 8 cassettes at a time from a reel-to-reel master. They were used in small scale production - typically news tapes for the blind, services for religious groups, language tapes for the education market, and other productions where only a small amount of copies were needed.
@@organfairy nakamichi also did it for 'the Sound of Nakamichi' metal demo tape because it would burn up the tape if you tried to do it normally so you had to do a 1 to 1
trankillodad it doesn't. The shells come pre-assembled with a short length of leader already attached between the hubs. The loader pulls out part of the leader with vacuum, cuts it and splices onto magnetic tape.
I see what the machine does. What would happen if you put a cassette in that machine, that allready is fitted with a tape and you switch of the "put the band in" part? It would rewind it!
How is fixed the tape into the other reel? Can you explain or Its possible to see full production process please?? Im very interested. thankyou very much PD: Mr @Techmoan sent me too
it pulls tape out from cassette ,cut it,tape with music part is glued on,then it is winded to reel and the other cut part of it is glued to the pulled out tape prom cassette.
@@Ali1671 yes I do before question because I cant see how the tape is fixed to the other reel of the cassette. I can see 2 red leads tape , I supose one is only to guide the other , but unable to see how it ends on the left cassette reel , sorry
@@spartanx8846 The shells come pre-assembled with a short length of leader already attached between the hubs. The loader pulls out part of the leader with vacuum, cuts it and splices onto magnetic tape.
Many many moons back, Virgin Megastore on Oxford st, London had a setup in the front window showing the CD making process. It was fascinating as it included many stages.
What about vinyls? A negative metal plate is pressed against molten polymer, less mechancs, winding, etc than cassette and is expensive as shite and has no noise reduction.
SFtheGreat The master negative plate which is used for the Vinyl disk is very hard to be made because it passes many stages. There are some RU-vid videos about the production of Vinyl records.
Nope, not a job for me, only two possible outcomes. 1) I'd snap from repetition/boredom and end up on the news. Or 2) I wouldn't be able to resist tinkering with or disassembling the winder and either get fired or end up turning someone into a ferrous saran wrap mummy, and then get fired. o.0
So interesting that an automated machine would be given both a Christian, as well as a surname, like "Taylor Williams". They're becoming more human by the moment. 😝
