In part, the eight-track captures the zeitgeist of the 70s, a decade between decades, but they also demonstrate how we should never trust a bunch of suits with our music, mannn. Before there were eight tracks, one had two options for playing the music of choice. We had vinyl, and something called reel-to-reel.
Reel-to-reels were studio set-ups. Some aficionados would use them, but threading the spools the right way was a complicated process, beyond the scope of most music fans. Before the eight-track group forged their franken-music format, there was a similar looking four-track tape, which was incompatible and even worse. The suits rolled out their new eight-track tapes on September 15, The eight-track offered a more refined quality of sound, killing the category, as it were.
In the meantime, another inventor named George Eash designed and patented a similar cartridge that came to be known as the Fidelipac. Following Cousino's pattern, Eash designed and patented a cartridge with similar specifications, later modifying it to include a more complex reel braking mechanism. Eash's cartridge was the basis of dozens of commercial applications of the endless loop, two of which were particularly successful.
Eash's Fidelipac design became the basis of several new recorders adapted for radio station use; by the early s, many radio stations had put some or all of their music, spot announcements, and station i.
The second main commercial application was in the field of auto sound. Earl "Madman" Muntz was a former used car salesman who became something of a local celebrity on the West Coast by opening a chain of television retail outlets selling TV sets that were manufactured by his other firm, Muntz Television, Inc.
When he discovered the Fidelipac in the early 's, he threw in his lot with the endless loop, never to return to the television business. Muntz had inexpensive Fidelipac players custom manufactured in Japan, and licensed the music of several record companies for duplication on carts. Even though the players were intended to be installed in cars, Muntz sought to enhance the appeal of his product by adopting stereo tape standards established by recorder manufacturers a few years earlier, and his players used the new, mass produced stereo tape heads being made for the home recorder industry by firms like Michigan Magnetics and Nortronics.
Muntz players caught on quickly, starting an autosound fad in California which slowly spread east. During and a number of major labels began issuing new releases and old favorites on 4-track, and the Fidelipac looked like it was going to be the next big thing in consumer audio. A number of home players even appeared. Suddenly Bill Lear appeared on the scene, newly world famous for his Lear Jet business plane, and announced in that he had developed a cartridge with eight tracks that promised to lower the price of recorded tapes without any sacrifice in music quality.
Lear's enthusiasm for loops had not faded after the failure of his endless wire cartridge of the late s. In , he became a distributor for Muntz Stereo Pak, mainly in order to install 4-track units aboard his Lear Jets. Heck, even reel-to-reel has a cult following amongst audiophiles. Yet one of the earliest and briefly most popular tape formats remains a relic of the past. The 8-Track is associated with lava lamps, bell-bottoms, long-haired rock bands and funk. The chunky tape cartridges were perfect for slotting into the broad dashboard of a boat-sized Cutlass Supreme.
Some of your first boomboxes were perhaps portable 8-track players. William P. Lear founded the Lear Jet Corporation, giving plenty of celebrities and businesses private airplanes. The inventor gets less credit for his wonderful contributions to science. It's no wonder that the transportation industry would help popularize the format.
The first commercial 8-track players became available in September , as a dash-mounted stereo option in Ford's Mustang, Thunderbird and Lincoln models.
Additionally, those who'd purchased a Fairlane or Mercury could add on a "hang-on tape player. Daisuke Inoue, pictured, shows off his invention, the "8-Juke," a wooden box that combined microphone, amplifier, coin box, and an 8-Track tape player. Inoue claims to have sold 25, of the Juke 8. Sadly, Inoue, the son of a pancake maker, did not patent the device. Today, karaoke is a household word and Inoue hardly sees a dime. Unlike the more common cassette tape, and the bifurcated vinyl LP, the 8-Track featured four "programs," not two sides.
A listener would toggle from program to program, which required the tape player to physically move its reading head. This quirky segmentation was a part of the format's downfall. Image: 8 Tracks R Back. I have 8track players and tapes, and I can fix them when they break.
They are rich, fuzzy, round, warped, and living—every play is the only time you will hear that song exactly that way. My brother in law had one in his 57 Chevy. I listened to a lot of classic rock on 8 tracks. The first time I heard Highway to hell, it was on 8 track.
They were crude, but they did work. And BTW, Mr. Tom Shulz did. Know your history. Your description of the problems inherent to 8 track is something I have yet to experience. I have a Doors 8 track that still plays perfect along with many s Columbia House tapes that still play and have never been serviced.
I have played my Madonna 8 tracks to death for 35 years and they still play. Maybe I just got lucky??
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