duplication question

[famous beagle]

I'm just curious about this.

So, when they duplicated professional cassettes before the digital age, how did they do it?

They mix down to their super awesome 1/2 track, which I'm assuming was better than a 1/4" machine (maybe 1/2" or 1" even?).

Then ... what did they do? Copy that to several kick ass cassette masters, and run a certain number of duplications from those masters?

Or .. what?

How many cassettes could they duplicate at one time (with one machine)?

Just curious.

Thanks

 

[RRuskin]

I'm just curious about this.

So, when they duplicated professional cassettes before the digital age, how did they do it?

They mix down to their super awesome 1/2 track, which I'm assuming was better than a 1/4" machine (maybe 1/2" or 1" even?).

Then ... what did they do? Copy that to several kick ass cassette masters, and run a certain number of duplications from those masters?

Or .. what?

How many cassettes could they duplicate at one time (with one machine)?

Just curious.

Thanks

Quality high speed duplication use was done as follows.

Like lp mastering, everything started with the original stereo master. Said master was played through the mastering system with the result being recorded on to a 1/2" - 1/4 track stereo machine @7.5 ips. The longest side would be recorded 1st so that the tape could be turned over and have enough rom for the remaining side of the program.
The 2 ends of the production master would be spliced together into a loop and placed in a "bin loop" master machine which would feed a number (it varied depending on the particular system) of slave cassette recording units. These slaves would record both stereo sides in one pass. Note: Some systems recorded the cassettes "in the shell," while others recorded on cassette tape on pancakes which were then cut and loaded into the shells.
The loop just kept going round and round while the slaves kept recording away. No rewind time meant more efficient use of the equipment.

The process could be done at various speeds from real time to 16X, if I recall correctly. You paid more for real time because it took more machine time. they'd use the bin loop master until it wore out. If needed, a new one would be generated.