WEBVTT - The Story of the Sony Walkman 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:12.399 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:16.200 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:19.639 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:25.240 tech are you So? Back in twenty sixteen, an actual 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:28.600 a group of writers writing for Time magazine, or at 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:32.919 least Time dot Com, assembled a list of what they 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:37.839 called the fifty most influential gadgets of all time. They 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:42.800 said that the list was quote ordered by influence end quote, 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:45.559 and maybe that's the case. I do find it a 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:49.840 little hard to swallow because number fifty on their list, 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:54.600 as in the bottom of the list, was the Apple iPhone. Now, y'all, 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:57.800 I am not the biggest fan of Apple. I don't 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:01.960 own an iPhone, but I think if I were to 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:05.240 make a list of most influential gadgets of all time, 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:08.160 the iPhone would be way higher up on that list 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:11.319 than the very bottom. You know, the iPhone really ushered 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:14.200 in the era of the consumer smartphone. It was not 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:19.200 the first smartphone. Apple rarely ever brings a product to 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:23.080 market as the first of its kind. They bring refined 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.839 products to the market, and it was the first smartphone 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:30.240 to see huge success with a mainstream audience, not just 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:34.360 you know, executives on the go or executives who wanted 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:38.880 to have a technological status symbol. Plus, I mean, the 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:43.440 entire nature of the web changed due to a shift 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:47.400 toward mobile computing, and I think we have to lay 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:50.880 that largely at the feet of the Apple iPhone. While 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.720 the iPhone is not the most popular smartphone in the world, 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.800 I think that it's really what got the trend moving 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:03.600 toward mobile computing, and that in turn changed really like 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.080 the entire web. So I put it higher on the list. 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:08.560 But then my guess is that making a list of 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:12.200 the fifty most influential gadgets is hard in anyway. Today's 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:14.440 episode is not about the iPhone at all. It's just 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:16.800 this was the article that kind of launched me into 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:19.519 where I wanted to go today. So instead of talking 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:23.120 about number fifty, because I've done episodes about the iPhone before, 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:27.000 I thought we would talk about number forty seven on 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:30.520 this list. So this is more influential than the iPhone 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:33.720 according to that group of writers, and it's the Sony 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:38.120 Walkman as in the portable cassette player. It's still not 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:40.120 very high up on the list, but you know what 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:42.920 can you do? So the Walkman created the chance for 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:48.320 folks to experience pre recorded audio in a pretty new way, 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.520 a way that was portable, and it let them create 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:54.440 a kind of bubble around themselves, even if they were 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.760 walking around in public. And it meant you weren't tethered 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:02.079 to like a wall outlet or lugging around a large 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:05.520 tape deck or tape recorder. So that you can listen 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.240 to your pre recorded cassettes. You could just PLoP in 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.839 some batteries, a pair of double A batteries into this thing. 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:14.720 You put in your favorite audio cassette, You plug in 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:16.840 your headphones, put them on your ears, you push play, 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.480 you head out into the world. I think it's easy 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.919 for us to take for granted how portable the music 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:26.359 experience is today. You know the fact that we had 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:30.600 MP three players and iPods and then smartphones and streaming 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:34.280 services and all that that's transformed the way we experience 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:37.920 music in large part, But once upon a time that 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:40.560 wasn't so much of an option. So let's turn back 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:43.400 the clock and learn about the development, the release, and 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:46.800 the impact of the Sony Walkman. And before we get 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:48.920 to that, we have to have some preamble, because you 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:51.080 know this is tech stuff. You know tech stuff. I 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.240 like to talk about the history of technologies, and not 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:56.560 just the technology, but the stuff that led to the 0:03:56.600 --> 0:04:00.480 development of that tech. So let's talk about recorded media 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:04.480 and the development of the cassette tape medium. Now I've 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.920 done full episodes about the invention of recorded media. How 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:12.960 one of the earliest versions was recording sound to cylinders 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:16.840 that were coated in wax. Recording to a wax cylinder 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:21.400 essentially involved shouting into an acoustic horn, and that acoustic 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:24.720 horn at the narrow end had a little membrane that 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:28.400 was connected to a needle, and the membrane would vibrate 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:32.720 when sound waves would come into the horn. The needle 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:37.400 that vibrates would carve into the wax on the cylinder. 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:41.279 The cylinder would be turned and the needle would start 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:45.360 to carve a spiral into the cylinder. You could take 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:49.600 the carved cylinder and put that into a player, which 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:52.800 essentially did the same process, but in reverse. You would 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:56.200 put a stylust like another needle and fit it into 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:59.800 the groove in the cylinder. You would begin to rotate 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:03.000 the cylinder. The needle would travel through the groove and 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:05.760 it would vibrate as it did so, which would cause 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:08.040 a membrane to vibrate at the narrow end of an 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.400 acoustic horn, and then if you listened real carefully at 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:13.880 the wide end of the acoustic horn, you would be 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:18.200 able to hear the recorded sound, the playback of whatever 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:22.000 sound had been recorded originally. Now, it didn't take too 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:26.799 much longer after the invention of the cylinder for various 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:31.440 folks to come up with flat recorded discs as an alternative, 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:33.719 so instead of a cylinder, you would just have a 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:37.400 flat disc with audio recorded on one and then eventually 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:42.479 both sides of the disc. These would ultimately become easier 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.600 to store and to produce than wax cylinders were. They 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:49.760 were originally made all of stuff like shellac, which is 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:54.680 essentially something that you get from insects. But eventually companies 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:58.560 would make the shift to vinyl. While different music companies 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:02.680 battled it out over formats, we would mostly settle on 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:06.880 albums playing back at either forty five revolutions per minute 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:10.800 or thirty three in a third revolutions per minut on turntables. 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:13.640 Some older albums would actually play it like seventy eight 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:17.680 revolutions per minute. Now, the record album traces its history 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:21.840 back to the late nineteenth century. By the nineteen sixties, 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.120 you know, more than half a century later, vinyl albums 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:29.720 were the dominant form of recorded media for home use. 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:35.080 In fact, they were almost exclusively the media format for 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:38.200 home use unless you were really well off or maybe 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.040 you worked in the music industry or something, because then 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:45.040 you might have a real to real player. But otherwise 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:48.119 there just wasn't any call for that. So the music 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:50.880 industry had been relying upon real to reel players for 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.000 a while in order to make master recordings of performances, 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:57.520 as well as to edit and put together that master 0:06:57.600 --> 0:06:59.799 in the first place. And this, of course is magnetic 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:04.200 tape we're talking about now. Magnetic tape also traces its 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:07.839 evolution back to the late nineteenth century, though at that 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.640 point we weren't yet talking about tape. So back in 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:15.440 the eighteen eighties, there was this feller named Oberlin Smith, 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:19.560 which what a name, What a great name, Oberlin Smith. 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:24.480 Oberlin reckoned that you could use magnetization to record sound 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:28.720 onto a magnetic medium, and it would have to obviously 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.000 be a medium that would respond to magnetic fields. So 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:36.080 his suggestion was using like silk thread that had been 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:40.560 coded in steel particles. And here's how he proposed such 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.880 a device would work. So first, for recording, you would 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:47.200 have a microphone, so sound goes into the microphone, like 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:51.440 speaking into the microphone would then generate an alternating current. 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.040 I've done episodes about how microphones work, but essentially what 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.120 you're talking about is similar to what we were talking 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:00.280 about with recording with wax cylinders, except instead of the 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:05.120 membrane moving a needle to carve into wax, the vibrating 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:10.280 membrane would interact with an electromagnet and create a current, 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:14.560 a variable current. That current you could then use to 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.960 represent the sound. You could actually just send that current 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.760 to an amplifier and then to a speaker, a loud speaker, 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:26.800 and that's how you get microphone to loudspeaker amplified sound. Well, 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:29.280 in this case, you wouldn't be sending it to a loudspeaker. Instead, 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.200 you'd be using that current to go to an electromagnet 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:37.960 create a fluctuating magnetic field. And meanwhile you would run 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:44.640 the steel dust coded string past this electromagnet, and that 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:49.840 fluctuating magnetic field would cause the particles on that string 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:53.720 to align a certain way according to whatever the magnetic 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:56.600 field was at the moment that the string was running 0:08:56.760 --> 0:09:00.600 past it. And because that field is in fluck, the 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.880 direction of those particles would vary over time, So the 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:09.199 string would actually become a record of the magnetic fluctuations 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:13.080 over time. And you know, obviously the rate at which 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:17.319 you pulled the string past this electromagnet would determine the 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:20.680 speed of recording. So to play it back, you would 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:24.680 put the string near a conductor essentially connected to some 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.800 sort of playback device like a speaker, with an amplifier 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:31.280 in between, because the signal you're going to get is 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:33.960 going to be too weak to really drive a speaker. 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:38.400 So the magnetized particles on the string when you pull 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:42.840 it past a conductor, then you can induce current to 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:47.960 flow through that conductor, and that current, when amplified and 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:50.440 then sent to a speaker, would play back the recorded 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.880 sound used to create the record on the string in 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:58.480 the first place. Now, all Obey never build a working 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:03.560 model of his idea. However, a Danish inventor named Valdemar 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:08.360 Poulsen built upon this notion. He either had read about 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:15.480 the previous concept or had come to the same conclusion independently. 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.480 It's not clear which is the case, but you know, 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:24.760 Obey didn't build it. So Valdemar creates a patent for 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:30.680 a similar invention that he called the telegraphone, and he 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:33.439 got the patent. He was awarded the patent for this 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:37.360 invention in the late eighteen hundreds, and he landed essentially 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:40.959 a licensing deal here in America. He also landed other 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:43.559 deals elsewhere in the world, but in America he got 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:46.520 some folks to buy into it, and they created the 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:53.400 American Telegraphone Company of Washington, DC. So that device used 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:58.640 like steel wire to record upon, but same sort of 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.720 basic idea. You would run the steel wire past a 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:06.400 magnet that would magnetize the wire in various alignments, and 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:10.240 then running it back across a reader would play back 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:15.080 the recorded medium or media I should say. In that case, well, 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:17.679 the device didn't make that big of an impact here 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.600 in the United States. The utility was somewhat limited, and 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.440 the idea was that it really would be more like 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:28.520 a business equipment, right. It was meant for things like 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:31.360 taking notes for dictation, that kind of thing. The sound 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:37.040 quality wasn't fantastic. It was not really intended for pre 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:40.960 recorded music. It wouldn't do well for that purpose. The 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:44.040 invention actually did a little bit better in Europe than 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.200 it did here in the United States. Here in the US, 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.560 the business didn't stay around for very long, but other 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:54.760 businesses that also took Polson's patent and licensed it, they 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:58.520 were able to create a business that stood the test 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:01.760 of time a bit better than the American version. But 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:05.240 let's get to the development of magnetic tape. So this 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:11.040 approach showed that it was viable to use magnetism as 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:15.240 a recording medium or recording method, but the steel wire 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:19.760 just wasn't really the best approach. In the mid nineteen twenties, 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:23.400 there was an American named Joseph O'Neill who theorized that 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.360 you could quote quote a strip of paper or some 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:30.520 other cheap material end quote with magnetic material for the 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:33.720 purposes of recording audio to it, and this would remove 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:38.240 the need to use steel wire, or steel coated threads, 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:42.360 or steel tape. These all had limited utility. With the 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.400 case of thread, there was limited resilience, like it could 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:49.760 eventually break or fray. So he said, why not just 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:54.559 use a strip of material coat it with this magnetic 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:58.760 stuff and then use that for recording. However, while he 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:03.000 had suggests did the concept, he didn't appear to pursue 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:06.240 this in any serious way. As far as I am aware, 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:10.200 he did not produce an actual example of this. He 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.760 just kind of theorized that it could be done. Whereas 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:18.880 a German engineer named Fritz Fleoimer had developed a method 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:23.079 to put metal stripes on cigarette paper to want purpose. 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.320 I do not know. I'm sure there was a reason 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:29.520 to put metal stripes on cigarette paper, but I don't 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:31.800 know what it was, but I didn't look it up 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:34.360 because I've got enough bunny trails going on in this 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.480 episode anyway. But he reasoned that because he had figured 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.400 out how to do that how to put metal stripes 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:44.120 on cigarette paper, he could use a similar approach to 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:48.760 coat a strip of paper like paper tape, with magnetic material, 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:51.320 and then the paper tape could be used as a 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:54.760 recording medium for audio. The process of recording and playback 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:58.320 would be pretty similar as what it was with the telegraphones, 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:02.160 so not that different from steel wire or steel tape. 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:04.679 You would still have a right head that would use 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:08.960 a fluctuating magnetic field to record audio. Signals sent from 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:13.400 a microphone to this magnetically coded paper tape as it 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:17.120 passed by underneath the right head, and then later if 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:19.240 you wanted to play it back, a playback head a 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:23.800 red head would pick up the magnetic stripe with its 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.840 particles in various alignments, and this would create the electric 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:31.520 current that was created through induction, and then that current 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.720 would get amplified by an amplifier and could then be 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.160 sent as a signal to playback sound on a loudspeaker. 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:41.440 His work in the late nineteen twenties would ultimately lead 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:45.120 to the development of the Magnetophone K one, which he 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:49.000 unveiled in nineteen thirty five, which was the first practical 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:53.720 tape recorder. Okay, so that sets the first stage for 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:58.000 what would become the foundation for the Walkman. When we 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:00.320 come back, I'll talk a little bit more of about 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.240 Walkman prehistory, and we'll talk about Sony itself and how 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:08.320 it came about developing the Walkman device and why it 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:11.640 became one of the top fifty most influential gadgets in 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:14.840 history according to these folks in time. But first, let's 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:28.120 take a quick break. Okay. When we left off. Before 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:33.560 the break, I was talking about Fritz Fleoimer, a German engineer, 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:39.280 an Austrian German engineer who developed this magnetic tape that 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:43.880 ultimately he would unveil in nineteen thirty five, and that 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:47.040 was the Magnetophone K one that was the first practical 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:51.040 tape recorder. But this was also during a time where 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:54.800 the world was heading into World War Two. Obviously, World 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:59.880 War two ends up being this massive conflict, and you 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:05.120 US forces were very much interested in one learning what 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:09.600 technology the Germans had access to and two stealing it. 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:13.760 Now that's not just the Americans. Everybody was like this, 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:18.080 right in. Any country that perceived that another country had 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:22.960 a technological advantage wanted to remove that advantage from their opponents, 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:25.680 wanted to be able to exploit it themselves. So this 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:30.280 was going on across all enemy lines, like everybody was 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:34.520 spying on and stealing from everyone else, even allies in 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:38.120 some cases. But here US forces were able to get 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:41.000 possession of some German recording equipment as well as some 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:45.400 German tapes, and soon Americans began developing their own version 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:50.440 of Floimer's technology. They began to create their own magnetic 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:55.080 tape systems and magnetic tapes themselves. By the late nineteen forties, 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:59.560 the recording industry had begun to use magnetic tape in 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:03.440 order for you know, music production. Tape actually opened up 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:07.720 a ton of new opportunities. For one thing, you could 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:12.199 record several sessions to tape, and then you could physically 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:16.440 cut and edit the tape to put together a master recording. 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:21.840 You know, maybe you have some various takes that are 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:25.359 all pretty close to each other, but maybe take three 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.120 the band had a really great intro into the song. 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.800 It just sounded really good. But take five has the 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.680 best version of the bridge, and the group really nailed 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:40.720 the ending of the song just on the second take. Now, 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:44.119 before the days of magnetic tape, you pretty much had 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:48.280 to decide which of these takes was your favorite, and 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:51.360 it may not have all the best qualities of all 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:54.280 the best takes, but you're stuck with what you've got, 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:56.280 and so you got to pick whichever one is going 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:57.920 to be the master, and that's what you go with. 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.280 But with tape, with a really good editor, you could 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.959 actually put together a recording that doesn't really exist right, 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:08.560 or at least it doesn't exist in one performance. It's 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.680 actually a combination of performances. You could do that if 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.320 you were really good with editing, and if the band 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:17.320 was really consistent, you could actually put this together. And 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:19.600 you could also do other things, like you could do 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:23.679 multi track recording. You could do overdubbing. That really opened 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:28.560 up a lot of opportunities. Overdubbing means you would record someone, 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.320 Let's say it's a vocalist singing, but it could just 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:34.879 as easily be a musician playing some instrument like guitar 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:38.359 or piano or whatever, and then you've got your recording. 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:42.280 Then you could play the recording back, and meanwhile the 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:46.600 vocalist or musician or whatever could play their own harmonies 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:51.080 along with the original recording, so they're accompanying themselves. They're 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:55.040 accompanying the recorded version of themself live. Then you could 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:59.199 record that. That's overdubbing. This way, you could layer your 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:03.080 recordings again, a more lush, rich sound than would be 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:07.040 possible if you were just relying on a single artist 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:10.920 or band or whatever. You could really flesh sounds out 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:14.320 that way. The tape machines in those days were often 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.760 these big, real to real devices, and so it was 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:20.359 not common for your average person to get hold of 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:23.720 one of those. I mean they were sold sometimes to consumers, 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:28.040 but they were expensive and to get the actual media 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:30.640 was hard to There weren't a lot of places selling 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:34.800 real to real tape of performances, so vinyl records were 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:38.639 still the dominant form of recorded media in the consumer space, 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:42.720 but that would change thanks to a Dutch electronics company 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:47.480 called Phillips. Now, the Phillips Electronics Company dated back to 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:51.359 eighteen ninety one. Sensing a theme here, I'm sure like 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:54.280 all these technologies and companies date back to like the 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:59.159 late nineteenth century, Brothers Anton and Gerard Phillips created the 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:02.439 Phillips Company in the Netherlands. Their original focus was on 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:06.120 light bulbs, and generally the company's philosophy was that they 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:10.159 would aim to create high quality products, even though that 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:13.240 meant that their products would be priced for a fairly 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:15.680 limited market, which is a nice way of saying their 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:19.400 stuff was expensive. You know. Now, for a while, their 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:22.399 company was part of a global cartel that dominated the 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:24.880 light bulb market, and on the one hand, that did 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:28.720 lead to forming certain standards in the light bulb industry, 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:31.800 but on the other it arguably prevented competition in the 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:36.000 marketplace anyway. By the late nineteen forties, Phillips was starting 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:38.600 to get into other types of technologies, you know, like 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.840 electric shavers. But they found out the profit margins are 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:44.800 razor thin. Not really, but I couldn't resist the pun. 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:48.960 But in the nineteen fifties, Phillips got into the recording business. 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:51.760 They launched a music label. They later in the nineteen 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:56.680 sixties acquired smaller record labels like Mercury Records. And they 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:58.960 were also thinking, well, how can we also be in 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.919 the business of the the medium upon which recorded music 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:06.359 can go. So an engineer at Phillips named lew Atten's 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:09.560 worked out of an office in Belgium where he was 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:13.000 pioneering a new technology that would bring magnetic tape media 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:16.960 to home consumers. This was in nineteen sixty two and 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:20.359 the invention that he pioneered was the cassette tape. This 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:23.600 tape would use a very thin strip of plastic film 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:27.479 coded in magnetic material. The film would wrap around a 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:31.239 pair of reels. Those reels would be encased inside a 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:35.600 plastic cartridge. On the outside of this cartridge you would 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.040 see like the two holes that'd be the center of 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:40.760 these two reels. They'd be pronged so that they could 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:45.080 fit onto a tape player's spokes, and a small length 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:48.400 of this tape is obviously uncovered. That section could be 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:52.080 then inserted into a tape recorder for recording or playback. 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:56.760 The cassette was such a small form factor that immediately 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:00.600 people saw advantages over larger reel to reel machine that 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:04.000 were far more bulky and expensive. Now, the initial plan 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:06.960 for the audio cassette was to sell them as business 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:09.840 tools like this was an idea like again, for dictation 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:12.600 and taking notes and that kind of stuff. It didn't 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:16.960 take long, however, before Phillips and other companies said, hey, 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:20.840 what if we put pre recorded music on these and 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:24.199 sold them like we do with vinyl albums. Now you 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:27.680 might wonder what artist was the first to offer an 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:31.680 album on cassette tape. The answer to that is unclear. 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:37.119 Christian Romer has a blog post on legacybox dot com 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:41.399 about this and lists a few potential contenders for the 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:45.520 first album on cassette tape. One is Nina Simone's Wild 0:22:45.760 --> 0:22:49.919 Is the Wind. Another is Johnny Mathis's The Shadow of 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:54.480 Your Smile, But my favorite is Eartha Kit's Love for 0:22:54.680 --> 0:23:00.720 Sale album. I Love Eartha Kit, What an amazing, But 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:04.040 as Romer points out, no one was really documenting the 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:07.560 history of albums on cassette when they first started to 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:10.439 become a thing, so it's unclear what the actual answer 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:12.520 is of who was first. I would also like to 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:15.720 point out that music labels likely produced more than just 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:18.960 one album on cassette at a time, because it seems 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:21.119 like an odd choice to just go with let's just 0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:24.200 do one and see how it goes. Someone's album obviously 0:23:24.320 --> 0:23:26.720 had to be the first off the manufacturing line, but 0:23:26.760 --> 0:23:30.119 I think that's just splitting hairs. At that point, cassettes 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:33.800 were easier to store than vinyl albums, they took up 0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:37.639 less space. They did have their own peculiarities. However, if 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:41.000 you brought a cassette tape near a strong magnet, well 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:43.320 you just screwed up the recording on your cassette tape 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:46.760 because the magnetic particles on the tape would realign to 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:51.160 this new powerful magnetic field, so effectively you would erase 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:54.720 your cassette. Anyone who had cassette tapes also knows the 0:23:54.760 --> 0:23:59.080 pain of tape getting snagged on something and then unreeling 0:23:59.160 --> 0:24:02.200 from inside the cassette. You would just have this massive 0:24:02.480 --> 0:24:06.879 plastic film just unspooled from outside inside the cassette. Now 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:09.560 it's outside the cassette. So to fix that you would 0:24:09.560 --> 0:24:13.440 have to do the old standby, which is what I 0:24:13.520 --> 0:24:16.520 call inserting a pencil into the spokes on one reel 0:24:17.000 --> 0:24:20.520 and gently coaxing the tape back into place by twisting 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:24.040 the pencil slowly, one twist at a time. What a 0:24:24.160 --> 0:24:27.760 joy that was. But you know, while the cassette media 0:24:27.800 --> 0:24:32.199 was far more portable than vinyl, the players weren't that 0:24:32.480 --> 0:24:35.199 much more portable, at least not at first. I mean, 0:24:35.240 --> 0:24:39.840 they were smaller than turntables, but they weren't pocket sized, 0:24:40.320 --> 0:24:44.439 you know. Tape decks, like tape recorders, were still fairly large. 0:24:45.160 --> 0:24:48.000 They were too large to carry around easily. Like you 0:24:48.000 --> 0:24:50.960 could put a strap on one and wear it around 0:24:51.119 --> 0:24:54.200 your neck like it was like a handbag or something, 0:24:54.560 --> 0:24:57.480 but it was still pretty bulky. A lot of tape 0:24:57.480 --> 0:25:00.600 decks did have headphone jacks, but not all of because 0:25:00.640 --> 0:25:03.439 a lot of them had a built in speaker in 0:25:03.560 --> 0:25:06.040 the tape deck itself, so you would just push play 0:25:06.040 --> 0:25:08.119 and listen to the music coming straight out of the 0:25:08.119 --> 0:25:11.239