Time to flip your tape..

October 26, 2006 12:45 PM

What is the name of the sound at the start of cassette tapes and where can I find one online?
posted by Old Man Wilson to technology (7 comments total)

Do you mean the dud-dud-dud-dud sound they made? That's an analogue sound made by the glue that attaches the magnetic tape to the clear leader passing over the read head. I'd like to have a copy of it too, and one of a cassette being flipped: it'd be great for mixes.
posted by bonaldi at 12:52 PM on October 26, 2006

Some sort of test tones I think, maybe for Dolby noise reduction. Have a look at this discussion. I can't find the "Hertz ride" sample mentioned there - it may have been removed for copyright reasons.
posted by exogenous at 12:53 PM on October 26, 2006

That's the XDR tone, previously discussed here.
posted by headspace at 12:54 PM on October 26, 2006

Heh. Around here, a lot of casette tapes start with the click-hiss of a beer can opening. My dad and uncle used to keep in touch by mailing audio tapes back and forth, and that's how they'd open each recording.
posted by Myself at 2:19 PM on October 26, 2006

I don't knowwhat they're called other than "test tones," but I used them in a song here (scroll down toward the bottom - the song is called "Oh Yes").
posted by SampleSize at 7:06 PM on October 26, 2006

There's a perl script for everything.
posted by shoesfullofdust at 9:00 PM on October 26, 2006

This is awesome, guys, thanks!

And, exogenous, just search for the user's name for the guy who created the "hertz ride," you can find it there.
posted by Old Man Wilson at 12:24 PM on October 28, 2006