The compact cassette tape was introduced in the 1960s. By the 1980s, it was the second most common format of recorded music. As the market for musical cassette tapes increased, so did the market for home tape reproduction and recording. To answer this demand, the dual cassette deck was developed. The machine could hold two cassettes at once, and the user could record or "dub" copies of music from one cassette tape to another within the single unit.
Mix Tapes
Dual cassette decks allowed much easier home reproduction of recorded music, enabling the listener to create "mix tapes" for the first time. These mix tapes, or compilations of songs selected from different albums or artists in a custom sequence, generated its own culture of tape trading that lasted well into the 1990s. It formed the ground work for online peer-to-peer music sharing.
High Speed Cassette Dubbing
Many dual cassette decks included advanced recording features such as "high-speed dubbing." This feature allowed the user to make quick, exact copies of existing cassettes by syncing the speeds of the two decks together, which played the original faster while the second deck recorded at the same speed. The result was a fully copied cassette tape in half or even one-quarter of the true play-back time.
Continuous Play
Some advanced dual cassette models had the continuous play feature. The user could load both decks with cassettes, then begin play-back on the first deck. Once this first tape reached its end, the first tape deck would stop and trigger the second to begin. This automatic function effectively doubled the unattended play-back time.
Auto-Reverse
Many dual cassette decks included an auto-reverse play-back feature. When the first tape reached its end, the deck automatically reversed the tape play-back direction and played the other side of the cassette. Some models featured a linking system between the decks. The auto-reverse and continuous play-back functions effectively extended the unattended play-back time four-fold.
Tags: cassette decks, cassette tape, first tape, play-back time, cassette decks included, decks included, dual cassette