Master C-60 Low Noise Audio Cassette (Sound Recording Media Artefact)

Abstract

A blank Master-brand C-60 Low Noise audio cassette with its plastic case, from the personal collection of Prof. Kamaruzzaman Bustamam Ahmad, documented as a sound recording media artefact. The writing on its case states that a C-60 cassette provides 60 minutes of playing time (30 minutes per side), reminds users not to touch the tape, to break off the safety tab to prevent recordings from being erased, and to keep the cassette away from heat, humidity, and magnetic fields. The tape cassette (Compact Cassette) was introduced by Philips in 1963 as a recording medium more compact than reel-to-reel tape. Plastic tape coated with iron oxide stores sound in analogue form through magnetic patterns. Its popularity soared in the 1970s and 1980s thanks to radio-cassette players (tape recorders), car tape players, and the Sony Walkman (1979). In Indonesia, the cassette became the main medium of the dangdut, pop, and qasidah music industries, as well as a means of recording pengajian (religious study gatherings), sermons, lectures, research interviews, and family messages; blank cassettes of local brands such as Master were widely sold in electronics shops. The transition began when the audio CD (1982) offered digital sound without hiss, and then the MP3 format and digital players such as the iPod (2001) made it possible to hold thousands of songs in a single device. Today sound recording is done with smartphones and digital recorders, while music and sermons are listened to through streaming services and podcasts. The new devices replaced the cassette because their capacity is far larger, their sound quality does not deteriorate even when played repeatedly, and files can be searched, edited, copied, and sent instantly via the internet. Cassettes are still kept as archives, because the old recordings on them can be digitised before the tape is damaged by age and mould.