Magnetic Tape, 1935

Magnetic tape made sound editable and multi-tracked, turning recording from document into creation.

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ModernContemporaryTape music machinesSampler

In 1935 AEG showed the first practical magnetic tape recorder at the Berlin radio exhibition. Sound became magnetic particles on plastic tape, ready to be cut, joined and stacked.

Time and place

Berlin, 1935. AEG's Magnetophon K1 used plastic tape coated with carbonyl iron powder; German broadcasters soon used it. AC bias improved the sound in 1941, postwar machines reached the United States, and the Ampex 200 arrived in 1948.

What happened

Tape made recording editable. Engineers cut tape with a blade and reordered, joined or looped passages; multitrack machines recorded separate tracks and mixed them later. German radio used tape for delayed broadcasts, American stations pre-recorded shows, and labels cut masters on tape. The studio became a workshop that could revise a performance.

What changed

Recording became composition. Splicing assembled performances, multitrack let one player build an ensemble, and echo and delay became ordinary colours. Radio programmes could be pre-recorded, masters copied, and production costs and access redistributed.

Listen for the turn

The library holds no 1935 tape recording or tape-music original. Begin with the Goldberg aria, whose Gould 1955 recording was spliced from takes; then the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, assembled by Carlos from multitrack tape; finally Oh Happy Day, and hear the thickness of overdubbing.

Related

This turn spans Modern and Contemporary and connects Tape music machines and Sampler.

Sources

• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry "Recording" — tape technology checked, not quoted
• Peter Copeland, Manual of Analogue Sound Restoration Techniques (British Library, 2008) — tape history checked, not quoted

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.