How Cassettes Work

Cassettes have been around since the early ‘60s. They are devices that you can record audio on and are most often used for music. The two types of cassettes are Musicassette and  Blank. A Musicassette is a type of cassette tape with recordings already on them, essentially it's like buying an album or whatever you need with no extra steps. Blanks can be described with just their name. A Blank is a completely blank cassette with no recording on it.  These would be used to record your playlist/mix. You can also put an album onto these, but it's a little more difficult to do this. A cassette has two sides that you can play; Side A will play and once it's done you must take the cassette out, flip it onto B side, and put it back in, kind of like flipping sides on a vinyl. Now the reason we have to flip it is because there are two stereo pairs or tracks (so four in total). Stereo tracks are essentially what makes it possible to hear one sound in one ear and a different sound in the other. (For example, you'd hear a guitar in the right ear and drums in the left). Now one stereo pair is played/recorded when the tape is moving in one direction, and the second pair can be heard when you reverse it. Reversing it would be flipping your cassette onto the B side. That is how a cassette tape works in a nutshell!

How to Record Music on Your Very Own Cassette Tape!

In order to actually make your own mix/playlist, you'd need a device to stream your music on (computer, iPod, phone, or even a radio!), a blank cassette, and lastly a cassette player with a record option. Now depending on what the time length on your cassette is, it can be difficult to use. For example, if you have a 30-minute cassette you have to split the recording into two parts. Side A with one half of the recording being 15 minutes, and Side B with the other half of the 15 minutes. Now of course these will vary depending on the blank cassette you buy. There are options for a 30-minute recording, a 45-minute recording, and finally a 60-minute recording. 60-minute cassettes happen to be the standard and most common. So with whatever playlist/mix you want to record, make sure the time fits into the cassette’s boundaries. To record something make sure your cassette player and/or recorder is plugged into your streaming device via an aux cord.  From there you'd hit “record” on your player, wait about three seconds, and then start recording. The reason why you have to wait three seconds before starting your music is due to a part of the tape itself. This part of the tape doesn't really have a name, but you can't record anything on it, and it's a function to get the tape onto the reel properly and to start spinning your tape without a hitch. That is all the information you need to start recording music onto a cassette!