When I first began this journey and began to read up on cassette manufacturing, the cassette ribbon seemed to flow like ancient Greek wine—seemingly abundant. Wine is still made and consumed in modern day Greece, but does it still have the romanticism connected to it several millennia later? Of course it doesn’t—I mean, it does, just in a different way. That’s not to say that modern wine makers can’t make a decent bottle of wine anymore (not that we know what ancient wine tasted like—it could have tasted like Minotaur piss—which I’m guessing it didn’t). Okay, enough about wine, let’s talk about the cassette ribbon shortage. I know, try to hold your excitement to a minimum—but I’m wanting to shed some light on a subject that is scientifically brilliant that not a lot of people know about, how it affects me personally, and how it’s hanging on by a—um—ribbon?
Although cassette tapes had their heyday that peaked around the late 80’s and early 90’s, it’s still having, let’s say, “a day”—but that day is slowly fading to night—and hopefully not a pitch black one. Over the years modern technology in compact discs, iPods, and now simple streaming has caused a shortage in several facets of the cassette industry. What most people don’t realize is the amount of engineering and chemistry that goes into making the cassette ribbon, the machines that make the ribbon and cassettes and that also load the cassette shells, and the machines that consumers buy to play the actual cassettes—I know I didn’t. I grew up with cassettes in the 80’s and 90’s and never thought twice about how it all happened. Whether I was buying new tapes or blank ones to make mixtapes or record songs from the radio, I was a genuine “tape head”, in it’s simplest form—the real tape heads actually know the science and beauty (yes beauty) that goes into it all—just like a fine wine (more wine).
In the 1970’s there were basically four ways you could listen to music: reel to reel, 8-track, vinyl records, and cassette tapes. Let’s not even talk about the first two options (even though I have nostalgia for 8-tracks as well). Of course vinyl has always and will always be awesome on so many levels (not to mention that wax and vinyl records are the absolute best ways of preserving sound for long periods of time if stored correctly). However, we’re here to talk tapes—which had an upper hand on the other formats because they were simply smaller and you could carry or store them in a smaller amount of space. You could carry several in your pockets, store hundreds in a drawer or on a shelf, or keep some in your T-top Camaro and blast them while cruising the mall—truly a golden era in high fidelity, or, hi-fi.
So basically the 70’s and 80’s were ruled by vinyl and cassettes. I personally was a vinyl kid in the first part of the 80’s until I started listening to rap, like many people my age at the time—which I can only assume came from the literal “boom” of the boombox cassette player fad, which happened due to the surge of the hip hop and B-boy movement in urban settings in the mid/late 80’s. By the late 80’s I had given my vinyl metal collection to my older brother and fully moved to cassettes (for about three years until CD’s came along)—which brings me to the partial demise of the cassette.
Cassette sales in the mid 70’s were in the low millions—in the years between 1988-1990, cassette sales were up to about 450 million in sales—by about 2006, sales were basically non-existent. Within about 30 years cassettes went from being new technology, to an exploding industry and back to a place where we almost forgot that they even existed.
So why the shortage of cassette ribbon—seems simple enough to make, right? Not in the least. I’m not going to go too deep into the science and engineering of it all because honestly, most of it is beyond me and probably the majority of people reading this—but that’s what makes it so amazing. A technology that is so advanced, that it doesn’t seem like technology at all, but rather, simple “magic”.
The short of how cassette magic happens: Polyester type film is coated with inorganic magnetic compound particles called ferric oxide, which is one of three main oxides of iron. The particles are extremely small and then bonded, smoothed, dried, polished and then cut into small strips that are 3.3mm thick (there are also other kinds of ribbon that are even more obsolete that are made from other chemicals such as chromium dioxide, or a mix of both—as well as metal based particle ribbon). Then the ribbon is loaded onto spools which are then reloaded, trimmed and attached into a cassette shell.
Shall we talk about the science that deals with actually getting the audio signal onto the ribbon? How about electric currents? Magnetic fields? Did I mention the machinery that helps make all of this happen? Or the machinery that the consumer uses? Naw, let’s not talk about those things right now.
What I just briefly touched on is a very basic and elementary explanation of the process of making a “simple” cassette, but it gives you an idea. The important information I wanted to convey here is that you need real engineers and chemists in your factory in order to make cassettes—and if you’re a real engineer or chemist, likely you’re looking to make some money with your skills—and if an industry like cassette tape is not making a lot of money, then likely you will take your skills elsewhere. When the scientists go elsewhere, there is no one left to make cassette ribbon or build or maintain the machinery to make these things happen. At that point, companies shut down and there is no one else making that ribbon—which means, no more tapes.
Now fast forward around another 10 years give or take after the great demise, and tapes are slowly making a comeback (yes I had LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” on a maxi-cassette single)—and it seems that we have the indie-music scene to thank for bringing cassettes out of the ferric ashes. As CD’s began to become obsolete and vinyl was too pricy for young bands to pay for to put music out on, guess who was waiting patiently at the end of the bench, ready to get back into the game? You guessed it—our magnetically coated, polyester-type plastic film friend, the cassette tape.
Cassettes surged even more when feature film Guardians Of The Galaxy featured an “old school mixtape” element and then also made the film’s soundtrack available on cassette. Major recording artists such as Prince, Metallica, Eminem and Justin Bieber have furthered popularity by also releasing music on this archaic format. From 2015 to 2016, cassette sales went up by 74% and sold about 126,000 units in total. So if there are no more scientists making cassette ribbon anymore, how are cassette sales going up again?
First off, there was still a large quantity of ribbon left over from some of these old ribbon making companies just hanging out in warehouses that they were willing to sell off to some of the manufacturing companies that were willing to stick through the “low sales” era. However, now that there has been a new interest in cassettes, that back stock of ribbon has almost entirely dried up.
Enter National Audio Company—a duplication company from Springfield, Missouri that never stopped making cassettes. Through their unapologetic love for the audio cassette format, the day of the cassette tape may last just a bit longer, and perhaps even longer than that—thanks to NAC owner, Steve Stepp. In recent years, with the end of cassette ribbon nearing, Steve stepped in and decided that if no one else is going to keep making the ribbon, they may as well be the ones to do it. NAC then purchased a massive amount of equipment that was used to manufacture credit credit ribbon, and then refurbished it to make cassette ribbon. They now make their very own ribbon which they like to describe as, FerroMaster C456™ Super Ferric, Ultra-high performance Type-1 music grade tape. Boom. Problem solved. The tape world is saved! Well, not so fast—I mean, yes and no. The problem now is that they are only able to make cassette lengths up to 64 total minutes, or 32 minutes per side. If you were into cassettes back in the day, we all know that the majority of people preferred a good 90 minute cassette over a 60 minute cassette any day—I know I did—and still do. What I was told by NAC is that they are awaiting approval of a new formula, which has not been approved yet and they are unaware of when that will get approved (I’m sure any business owner knows the perils of paperwork, approval and permits). Apparently from my understanding, you would not be able to use the current chemical for anything greater than 64 minutes because it would just be too bulky to load into the cassette shells (again, don’t ask me to explain this science too deeply—we’ll just have to trust them). From what it sounds like, this new chemical that is awaiting approval will be less bulky and allow a greater length of tape to be loaded into the cassette shells.
So why my interest in all of this? Surely it’s not simply an armchair interest in cassette tapes, or a childhood nostalgia that drives me? Well certainly those are reasons that play into writing this, but it actually goes a bit deeper for me. Some of you reading this will know that I have recently released a cassette only music podcast, or pod’cassette (a termed coined by yours truly). I provide commentary on a number of musical styles, genres, themes and artists that have been recorded over the past 100 years. Once the library of episodes grows, it will feature a cavalcade of musical contributors who span an extremely diverse and often obscure century-ish of music. Those interested can make monthly donations on my Patreon page and receive the cassette shows in the mail as they come out, along with brand new portable cassette players and boomboxes. Currently I have only released one episode and although the process has been extremely fun and diverse, it has proven difficult with many obstacles that are not needed for mention at this time. However, my most recent and unfortunate obstacle is the amount of time length for the cassettes. Although I personally love podcasts that keep it under 60 minutes in length, I ultimately decided that these shows would flow better with more time to talk about the music and to hear the music itself. Currently, a 64 minute tape would only allow me to feature about five to six songs per episode, to whereas a 90 minute tape might allow me eight to ten songs.
Starting something new can often be challenging, especially if there is no model to work from—I am literally creating the model—which is creatively fantastic, but functionally challenging. Also, with such a small fanbase contributing (my deepest thanks) to something that is costing more money than anticipated, it has proven to be yet another bump as far frequency of releases and cost and repair of vintage, fragile equipment. Now add a cassette ribbon shortage and you have a recipe for a very slow aged wine (and yet, more wine).
Until the cassette ribbon shortage is remedied—which is hopefully very soon—the only solution to my personal issue with the HDLD pod’cassette seems to be to release double cassettes. The upside means I will then be able to release up to 120 minute shows if I so choose (keep in mind that every side of each tape will act as it’s own “mini-episode”, which you can come back to at any time), which means about ten to twelve songs per episode. The downside means that it will literally cost me about twice the amount of money to release each episode and possibly more money to ship it out to my patrons.
Whether you are already a patron of Hi-Def Lo-Down or not, here are a couple of ways that you can help me in my artistic endeavor: If you are a patron, I ask you to simply be patient with the process and know that your money is going to something worthy and creative and unlike anything else out there. If you are not a patron yet, I ask you to please consider signing up to my Patreon account and contributing in order to help further the unforeseen costs that have popped up recently.
Something a friend recently said to me when I was expressing my anxiety about getting my patrons episodes in a timely matter was, “If you commission a painter, you don’t rush them and give them a deadline, you allow them to work and give you a piece of artwork worthy of your commission”. I thought that was a damn good point. Although initially I had planned to release these every month, it’s obvious that that just may not be the reality. I’m certainly not saying that wouldn’t eventually be the case, that is the goal as soon as I can make that happen—but right now as I’m learning how to bring it up to speed, it may have to be released as I’m able to release them. Please keep in mind, this is not just a podcast, it’s an art project that requires patience from my dear patrons—which I humbly thank you for.
Who knew that those mixtapes from our childhood had such an interesting and scientific background? In a strange way, each of those mixtapes that seemed so special from Johnny in 7th grade back in 1988 are actually artistic science projects! Maybe it’s time to dust off the old Caselogic tape case and listen to those old mixtapes from Johnny again. Who knows how different those old songs will sound now that you’ve had a small glimpse into the inventive and esoteric world of the cassette tape? Long live ferric oxide!
Written by Westen Borghesi