about tapedeck
Tapedeck.org is a project of neckcns.com, built to showcase the amazing beauty and (sometimes) weirdness found in the designs of the common audio tape cassette. There's an amazing range of designs, starting from the early 60's functional cassette designs, moving through the colourful playfulness of the 70's audio tapes to amazing shape variations during the 80's and 90's. We hope you enjoy these tapes as much as we do!

about audio tapes
The compact audio cassette medium for audio storage was introduced by Philips in 1963 under the name Compact Cassette. Although there were other magnetic tape cartridge systems at the time, the Compact Cassette became dominant as a result of Philips' decision (in the face of pressure from Sony) to license the format free of charge. It went on to become a popular (and re-recordable) alternative to the vinyl record deck during the 1970s. During the 1980s, its popularity grew further as a result of the Sony Walkman, with cassette sales overtaking those of LPs. (Vinyl overall remained ahead due to greater sales of singles, although cassette singles achieved popularity for a period in the 1990s).

The mass production of compact audio cassettes began in 1965 in Hannover, Germany, as did commercial sales of prerecorded music cassettes (also known as musicassettes; MC for short). The system had been initially designed for dictation and portable use, thus the audio quality of early recorders was not well suited for music. Some early models also had unreliable mechanical design. As time went on, various improvements (in particular, the introduction of Dolby noise reduction) resulted in the format being taken seriously for musical use.

Although its use in the West has declined as a result of more advanced technologies, it remains widespread, and is still the dominant medium for listening to music in many third world countries.

In essence, the audio cassette is simply a cassette-based (and smaller) version of the older reel-to-reel tape format. It consists of two miniature reels, between which an oxide-coated plastic tape, or magnetic tape, is passed and wound. These reels (along with some other mechanical parts) are held inside a protective plastic shell.

Four single audio tracks are available on the tape. These are paired to produce two stereophonic tracks – one played when the cassette is inserted with its 'A' side facing up, and the other when it is turned over (with the 'B' side up), thus mimicking gramophone records.

(Source: Wikipedia, right here. Wikipedia Copyright stipulations apply.)

send us your tapes
Have you got some cool audio tapes lying around? Send us a picture then, we'd love to get e-mail from you!

Please take a picture of your tape on white background from straight above without using a flash. The tape should measure about 800x600 pixels on the image. Please try to use as little JPG compression as possible (quality 10 or better when saving from Photoshop) and send the files to tapes@tapedeck.org

Thanks you all so much for the contributions tapedeck.org has already received - without your input this site would be impossible. Thank you very much: Alexandru, Diego, Ahmed, George, Dominik, Marcello, Jouse, Pascal, Niko, Jaromir, Tim, Paul, Luciano, Marc, Andreas, Colin, Alexander, Roland, Maurice, Sven, Radu, Daniel, Scott, Reinhard and Ronny!



generic_transparent audio cassette tape

orig_0043_no_name_red_reels audio cassette tape

compact_cassette_c90 audio cassette tape

cc_gelb_60 audio cassette tape

HIFIFERRO C60_MCiPjH_121006 audio cassette tape

Super audio cassette tape

Svema audio cassette tape

superpila_chord-x_sf90 audio cassette tape

SOUND C90_MCiPjH_121006 audio cassette tape

no_name_90 audio cassette tape

white_c60_variation_3 audio cassette tape

white_c60_variation_1 audio cassette tape

no_name_black_090811 audio cassette tape

white_c60_variation_2 audio cassette tape

ARGENTINA-78-C60_MCiPjH_121006 audio cassette tape

HIFIFERRO-C90_MCiPjH_121006 audio cassette tape

noname_oge_120922 audio cassette tape

wegert_superferric_60_071126 audio cassette tape

sunflower audio cassette tape

SilverSound_C60_111227 audio cassette tape

Mart_Chroomdioxide_C60_111227 audio cassette tape

axia_a1_150_081001 audio cassette tape

Audio_plus audio cassette tape

artb_crx_90_081001 audio cassette tape

Scotch-C-60-Extended-Range audio cassette tape

Reel-Cleer-Optics-I-60 audio cassette tape

other_111227 audio cassette tape

KLAUS_c90_111227 audio cassette tape

Europa_C60_111227 audio cassette tape

AXIA_ps1_74_111227 audio cassette tape

STAR-PARTY-C30-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

NO-NAME-OHNE-ETIKETT-C30-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

NO-NAME-C90-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

NO-NAME-C30-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

MSC-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

MAGTAPE-C90-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

MAGTAPE-C60-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

IMG_0230-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

IMG_0016-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

IMG_0015-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

IMG_0012-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

IMG_0011-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

IMG_0010-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

DAK_C60_23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

super_ferro_i_60_071201 audio cassette tape

super_ferro_071126 audio cassette tape

studio_c60_071201 audio cassette tape

srt_he5s_071126 audio cassette tape

panasonic_endlos_30sec_080417 audio cassette tape

COMBO-HIFI-C90-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

COMBO-HIFI-C60-23-04-2011 audio cassette tape

music_to_please_071201 audio cassette tape

compact_cassette_c90_071201 audio cassette tape

bush_fe90_080417 audio cassette tape

bfad_071126 audio cassette tape

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tapedeck.org responsive layout

after changing the ad layout (which only supports the site and does NOT make me rich, by the way) on tapedeck to inline, tape-sized ads i was finally able to make tapedeck even more responsive: sizing your browser now gives you 1, 3, 4, 5 or 6 columns of tapes, depending on the space available. go ahead and try it! a few pics are on facebook

Isolating Tapes 101

[photo album] http://on.fb.me/MX2BHS — isolating this denon tape was a real piece of work. Still, properly isolated tapes make better tees! Remember that. New Stuff coming soon to Tapewear!

Updates first on Facebook

to stay up to date with the tapes we post, be a fan of tapedeck on Facebook — all updates are posted there first, sometimes days before officially appearing on the site! on Facebook, you'll also get updates on the tapes we're going to post in the future: the shape of tapes to come.