When I was much younger, before my teens, I used the counter on my tape deck to mark where each song began on my mix tapes. When I got a new deck, I realised the counters didn't match up. Since then, I assumed the counter was machine-specific and nothing more than a transitory reference. It's interesting to find out there was some consistency across units and even actual attempts at standardisation. I did not expect a Mr. Regular crossover in this video. Nice touch.

They’re really useful for Datasettes as you can put several games onto one cassette and mark down the counter on the beginning of each data stream.

I was distracted and actually didn't see what happened when he said "pretend you didn't see that". And the best part is: when I rewound and saw what happened I was delighted! I replayed it several times and It was totally worth it! I don't know why it made me so happy, but it did. This channel induces weird and pleasant sensations beyond all rational explanations!

This is a thing I always wondered about, but I never had a simultaneous pile of cassette decks on hand to compare. You have performed a public service.

I remember back in the 70s and 80s, VCR's had a 4-digit counter, that didn't mean seconds, minutes, and hours like the more modern VCR's from the 90s and 00s, it was literally just a counter like mentioned in this video.

If you told me, this morning, that I was going to watch a video on tape counters I would have laughed. But I did watch it and I have to admit that I have thought about this in the way back past and am glad you answered it.

Wow, for nearly 40 years my eyes have glazed over watching tape counters and never thought for a moment there was any type of standard. Here are some results from my collection taken from the same NOS Sony HF60 of similar vintage: Digital counters: Technics RS-TR355 = 411 (deck A and deck B) JVC TD-W218 = 1644 (deck A) and 1646 (deck B) Denon DR M12HX = 1369 (I expected a similar result to your M24HX… odd) Akai GX-R60EX = 2054 Tascam CD-A500 = 1724 Mechanical counters: Technics M215 = 410 Luxman K111 = 492 Sony TC-RX410 = 426 Sears Professional Series = 435 (no model # on front of unit) My other 4 decks display only elapsed time. Thanks Kevin for a fascinating video!

I can't believe that I got fascinated by a 25 minute video about tape counters

When I saw the title, I said: "Man... a 26 minute video about tape counters??". Turned out to be pretty interesting. As usual. 👍

The slight difference in counter results when attempting to Fast Forward the tape a few times can be attributed to friction in the tape spool, stickiness of the tape, as well as loosening of the tape on subsequent FFs. This was common on tape decks with mechanical counters, and even with an Aiwa with 3 heads, with an electronic counter. Basically I used the counter in reverse (the end of the Side was set to 0000 and then rewound to the beginning) so that when I recorded an album or a compilation of songs, I'd know roughly how much tape I had - and I was pretty good at the time at estimating whether I could fit a 3,4 or 5 minute song with the leftover tape the counter would indicate.

So happy to see one of my favorite RCR moments on this channel.

As a kid growing up surrounded by cassette tapes and cassette recorders I would always wonder what was up with cassette tape counters. All these years lates I finally have an answer. Thank you, VWestlife.

Very interesting to all of us tech nerds. Obviously the best use of the tape counter is for convenience in rapid, rough cueing during the production or playback of a given individual tape on the same machine or on one that registers the same, as you've demonstrated. For the real story of exactly where to locate certain passages on a tape, actual observed net elapsed and interval times to the 'hack,' 'mark' or whatever you choose to call the edit point reference are the useful data when you know the tape will likely be played on other noncalibrated machines. When I used to make mixtapes for others I would note both net run time from zero and interval times for individual cuts and write them on the "j-card" next the songs so my friends could find their favorites easier on whatever machine they were using at the time.

Sorry the impatience with the slanted load mechanism at 7:59 made me laugh out loud. I apologise.

FYI, I take a lot of my channel inspiration from yours. Chill, informative, and not overly produced. Just right Goldilocks channel for sure

Might be interesting in a future video to see how accurate those "minute:seconds" tape counters are. It really would have been helpful to have a standard!

Ha Ha Ha! I was briefly confused when your sample of Regular Car’s content played.

Nice cassette deck collection! That Nakamichi is classy as hell, love that understated late 80s/early 90s style.

The Regular Car Reviews "cameo" got me good! 😂

I wrote a program for the Sinclair Spectrum which calculated the tape position counter relative to real time for VHS tapes I used (mostly 180 minutes). I took account of the gearing change from the thickness of the tape. I got it pretty accurate but never completely cracked it. I even contacted JVC to ask what the tape thickness was. (I posted here earlier and then remembered it was a VHS video recorder - it's an age thing) This is a brilliant peice of investigation. I never knew there were people who thought about these things like I do :)

That Sankyo eject mechanism had me roaring. Woke up the baby actually!

The Pioneer tape deck reminds me of the CT200 we used to have. Gorgeous looking player

Interesting tests for sure! Also, I perked up when you did that regular car reviews reference after showing that computer compatible deck

I recall seeing tape counter values listed on various published music education example tapes, probably dating from the 70s or 80s in the UK. I remember thinking it was odd to see this, as I presumed that no two machines would be the same and so these values would be no use to the majority of users. However, given that these were educational materials perhaps they were taking advantage of the 2x system. Who knew! (I didn't). Thanks for this video.

I always wondered why they didn’t design in a thin edge track on either side of the tape to store SMPTE LTC (longitudinal time code) or even a rudimentary version of TC. If they put it on the edge of the tape, it would be susceptible to issues due to tape edge damage, and possible bleed into program audio, but pro tape machines do this well… thinking Nagra 1/4 in. That or at the very least they could have standardized the counter using tach from the capstan instead of the reels, but that’s a more complex mechanism to implement assuming the capstan is always running…. Edit: shoot I just realized that tach from capstan won’t work in wind mode. Doh! Love ur vids, mate! Princess power! 👸🏼

Back in 2000, I had several ideas to improve compact cassette system to combat better against MP3s. One of them was ti put barcodes on back side of the tape along the tape length, which would serve as timestamps. The tape deck then would be able to determine tape position. As fallback solution for tapes without timestamps the tape deck would have real-time counter. The ratio of the RPMs of takeup spindle and supply spindle would be used as a hint for tapedeck counter, to determine actual tape position.

An Austrian company named Eumig made cassette decks (FL-1000) with such awesomely accurate tape counters that they could be used reliably to cue tapes to within 0.1 seconds, making them perfect for music and commercials in radio automation systems.

Very interesting video! I've wondered about tape counters for decades. In fact, since the late 70s.

Great video. Could watch another hour of that! I wonder why the counter isn't connected to either the motor, the capstan or to any point inbetween where the speed remains constant...

I operated a radio reading service in the 80s & 90s where we made extensive use of C-60 & C-120 cassette for our programs. As we used several different makes/models, we noted the counter readings at 5-minute increments of the 2 tape lengths from our tape supplier, on each of the deck models. Our programs were all padded with music to fill the 30 or 60-minute clock time slot.

It's great to see all of your best tape decks here. Still kicking in 2022! ❤️❤️❤️ 10:52 I still enjoyed that Nakamichi 2 review you did back in around 2013. And the Pioneer Double Tape deck (the one eliminates hiss)

I had no idea how very different these counters count from machine to machine. And also had no idea how interesting it would be to get to the bottom of that and that even some standards did exist for this. Thank you so much once more for a great video! Cheers!

I used to try to explain to a friend of mine hoe gear ratios worked on a cassette tape. He looked through the window one time and saw that he still had half of the cassette left to record on. I told him no. When you have a fresh or rewound tape the 1st part of recording is a "higher" gear ratio and therefore as the tape runs the "powered" reel will spin the other continuously faster and faster therefore consuming the tape faster at the end than at the beginning. I really like your content!

Nice test, Kevin. I tested my Marantz SD-63 with a TDK B60 (yes, B60) and it went to 2102 and 2098.

Interesting video. I figured out early on (aged around 10 or so) that tape counters weren't standardised and didn't correspond to time elapsed due to the discrepancies between the big 1970s music centre in our living room and the little portable Realistic machine I used to play tapes in my bedroom. Then I inherited a Sony all-in-one system that, being fairly basic with piano-key transport controls and a fully manual turntable, didn't include a counter, and that was the machine I used for most of my teens (throughout the 90s) to dub mixtapes. Never really missed having a counter - I got quite good at 'guesstimating' when one song ended and the next began. I was recently given another 1970s music centre - a British-made Fidelity - and a Coomber PA system, both with working tape counters - so I'll have to play around with them. I do feel that by not standardising them early on by driving them direct from the motor, Phillips missed a trick, but then I get the impression that they didn't really grasp just how wildly successful the format would turn out to be, especially for music playback / data storage.

I just so happen to have some Sony HF Type 1 60 cassettes, so I did the test. On a dual deck Sanyo RD W340, I get an average of 435 on the counter.

I never knew this. How facinating. My Sony TC-K808ES has a minutes and seconds digital counter (apparently uncommon) and very useful too.

I really appreciate the extensive testing you did! It's actually something I've wondered over the years, so it's nice to know there was some attempt to standardize things! Am I wrong in thinking that some really fancy decks use a realtime counter, like VCRs? (AFAIK, VCRs count the sync pulses on the control track to calculate the time)

I have an Aiwa AD-S950, and it has an incredibly acute counter that counts in minutes, and somehow knows the length of tape, because the counter digits start flashing when there's five minutes left on the tape when recording.

Excellent video, as usual. Personally, I've only ever paid attention to the counter when using a portable cassette recorder with my ZX Spectrum, otherwise finding programs on a tape was a bit tedious.

I'm so happy someone finally did a decent video about tape counters, and i'm even happier that it is you, i love to watch your videos, thanks for the interesting contents that you always upload

just knowing somebody has a 5x set of test Sony cassettes out in the world makes me smile. I love this content, keep it up!

i love that sankyo, i've never seen a cassette deck that judges your taste in music - what an unusual feature! looks like it doesn't want your tape in and absolutely spits it out at you just as soon as it can! 😂

The RCR bit caught me by surprise! Love his stuff. Love your stuff. :D

11:15 Pretend you didn't see that. I immediately repeat that part to see what fall off. 😂🤣 I always had the question laying in my head, what's with the tape counters? I never knew it had so much history to it. Really nice and interesting tests. Thanks for showing us.

I’ve very much enjoyed seeing so many of your cassette decks. Great video!

I'm reminded of the old saying: A man with one watch knows what time it is, a man with two watches is never sure.

When the RCR cut in I was convinced that KZfaq had skipped to the next recommended video 😂

Detail to detail holy moly! Excellent job!

That's one heck of a tape ejection lol

I bet that deck that has the counter that goes to 24XX has a sensor that generates exactly 3 pulses for every 2 pulses on the sensors of the 16XX decks. By the way, DCC recorders have tachometers on both reels and by comparing the numbers of rotations of the reels while playing, they can accurately guess the real time location on analog tapes within 5 seconds or so.

Man, I learn something new with every video!

You have a real impressive collection of tape machines! Nice video!

Thank you for your hard work and rigor.

Great and detailed research you have done there and many thanks for that. I have noticed the same issue with some of my reel to reel tape recorders as well. I used to record the start numbers for each song, when recording music of the radio in the 1970's and 1980's, that the numbers of the tape counters didn't match at all, so later on I didn't always bother making a numbered index with tape counter readings, especially when the tape was going to be played on a different machine.

One of my favorite channels uploads a video on the very same day I started wondering about this exact subject. Wow.

OMG one of my favorite clips from RCR - my brother and I reference this all the time when we are looking at retro computers.

I love your tests and dedication to electronics. I must say, in looking at all your incredible work, that if you ever have a yard sale please let us all know. best to you and thank you.

Fascinating this is indeed something I've never realized but realized but realized that the condition of the tape counter belt will also affect numbers. Now one of these days I have to go test out my tape players and recorders..........

Well done video! I bought a mid-end Denon cassette tape deck in the early 90s. It had an electronic 4 digit counter. I paid $600 very expensive for the time. I no longer use it for obvious reasons i.e., blank tapes are hard to find, I have an electronic recorder that can record for hours. My Denon machine no longer works from disuse and deterioration of the mechanism. It was awesome in its heyday, for sure! Thanks for the video!

Never thought I'd enjoy 25 minutes of watching a bloke fast-forwarding cassette tapes!! :-D Brilliant! It was a fascinating experiment, and I have to say, those two Pioneer decks shown are gorgeous!! Stunning! Seriously - in a way, I've always found tape counters pretty hopeless! You reset to zero, play or record the tape, then rewind, and it's either at 0004, or 9993, or thereabouts! So those decks with the RTZ (return to zero) function will never get the tape where you want it!! And if you rely on the counter to guide to a clear spot ready for recording more tracks, well, you stand a good chance of wiping the end of what you've just done if you don't manually check it first! :-D Great video anyway!

Great vid! This is a question that had been eating away in the back of my mind since I was 5, listening to those pink Disney book on tape cassettes on my GE cassette radio. Thanks for the vid!

I've got a Tascam 302 and despite the fact it displays minutes and seconds, the counter is entirely arbitrary and doesn't actually reflect minutes and seconds. It seems to do this weird thing where the counter is driven by both reels instead of just one.

I'm living for the sassy narration. 😂

What an interesting test. Now do the same with reel to reel machines and blow your mind with total inconsistency. LOL

Interesting. You learn new stuff every day. My old Sanyo Beta VCR which has a mechanical counter advances by 2 digits per one full rotation of the take-up spool.

I used to use my Akai CS-F12 -(1983) cassette deck with my Yamaha QX-21 music sequencer. It had Tape out for storing Data. The tape counter was really useful for getting to a specific set of song data quickly!

interesting video. I've never consider tape counter too much, I better relied on the amount of tape on the take wheel. But this videos show us that tape counter is just an delusion of tape movement

I picked up a Pioneer CT-W616DR because of the digital processing I was interested in (thanks to your video). My counter read 1712/1712. Yours 1727/1722. But I used a TDK 60 since I didn’t have a Sony handy. Is there a standard with tape leader lengths? In any case, thank you for another excellent video.

Learning something new every day.

Man, I thought I was the only one who was fascinated by tape counters as a kid. Does the fact I wrote for myself a computer simulation to explore what happens with a take-up-, supply-, or linear-driven counter with a tape of any desired spindle size and tape thickness/length make me a nerd? I had no idea there was a 2X counter standard. But I have a fairly recent (late-2000s or early-2010s) portable Sony voice recorder that has a counter that meets the standard (though not advertised). It counts exactly once for every pair of revolutions. Funny enough, I also have a Sony microcassette recorder from about the same era which has the same properties except it counts the take-up reel rather than the supply reel… though it /would/ be the supply reel if it were a compact cassette, since microcassettes run in the opposite direction. I also have a dual-deck Onkyo which has electronic counters that run into the 2400s territory with a C60, so they're apparently counting 3 for each revolution. I personally find the Marantz one that counts actual revolutions pretty oddball-with only three digits, that counter is going to roll over simply playing a 90-minute cassette.

I'm not sure what I'm more amazed about. The fact that I just spent 25 minutes watching a video about tape counters in a completely obsolete audio technology medium. Or the fact that you own so many different cassette player/recorders. HA HA About the only time I seriously used tape counters was for my TI-99/4A computer to be able to find a specific program I had written and saved to cassette tape. Great video as always!

Maybe the "defacto standard" is trying to get approximate number of seconds? 1650 seconds would be 27.5 minutes, which is fairly close to the 30 minutes per side of the tapes. Could never be perfect since it is driven from the takeup reel, but at least for a C60 it seems to give a rough approximation.

Excellent content as always.

You should make little sticker to put over the Eject button on the Sankyo and rename it the "Yeet" button 😁

I love the RCR reference lol. Great video.

LOVED the RCR bit from the 1988 Chrysler New Yorker review. Classic! 👍😂👍 P.S. The Sankyo would give a nice visceral tactile rejection of a tape full of music you hate. YEET!

You just solved a question of mine of which I've never found an answer to in 35 years... I asumed I'm simply to stupid to understand what and how tape counters are actually measuring. So I only use(d) them for realitve measuring mostly with language courses. At the beginning of a lesson I set the counter to zero, that I can easily rewind the lesson again. And no, my late 1980's "ITT SL-531"* that I still use for studying is not 2X compatible. *identical to the Nokia (!) SL-531 and half a dozend other companies.

My Yamaha KX-E100 stopps a Sony HF 60 at 1641, so it matches most of your measurements. My Sony TC-K611S has a Real time counter.

This video reminds me how back in the early '90s I made a chart for each kind of tape from different manufacturers, just so I would know how much time was left on it when recording songs from the radio. This was especially helpful when they would broadcast live concerts so I could switch tapes when I was pretty sure the next song would not fit on the tape anymore. (Later on I got a decent HiFi stereo video recorder and I would start recording such concerts from the radio to it instead of cassette tapes just because the recording time was so much longer and then copy the music to cassettes later for use in my Walkman. This had the added bonus of being able to cut out any kind of ads or some stupid DJ talking between the songs... and the VCR could be programmed to start recording at any time during the next month or so, which meant I didn't have to be home at all. Ahh, good old times... 😉) But, yes, there was never any consistency between different tape decks I or any of my friends had over the years. Quite annoying at times.

Nice to see a bit of Mr Regular in this video

I didn't really care about cassettes as a kid born in the early 80s, but have recently been dabbling with setting up a ridiculous stack, including a minidisc recorder, record player and a 300cd changer (for now). After finding a cassette deck for $10, I figured why not, it just seemed to need belts. I came across this video while trying to answer the question of why the tape counter only seemed to increment, never rewinding "with the tape". Thanks to your repeated highlighting of the counter running off the takeup or supply reel, I finally had that DUH moment and realized the counter won't work when rewinding if there isn't a tape in it.

The unseen part of the VWestlife channel: warehouses full of cassette decks and assorted vintage electronics.

That jingle in-between sections feel nostalgic makes me think of those old vhs setup tutorials you see in various products

And that's why, in general, they're not even properly called 'tape counters'. Because what they do count is, at best, spool rotations. The real quantity of tape depends (non-linearly, we might add) on the radius of the spool. So if, say, you've a 3.5min song, and it's recorded at the beginning of the tape, it will take N counter units, while recorded towards the end of the tape it'd take M tape units with M

I have to assume that the de-facto Japanese standard came about due to cassette mechanisms and components being outsourced to the same factories as the 90s progressed.

I'd always assumed that there was absolutely no consistency between counters on different machines, the surprise result here is that there is so much :o) You can't beat a bit of proper testing - and who knew tape counters could be interesting ? Haha.

Very interesting video!

An Ultrx (Sanyo) RD C21 reads from the takeup reel, yet would otherwise comply with the '2X' specification (10 revs/5 counts).

Never used one lol. I just play the tape.

YES SOMEONE REMEMBERS THAT RCR CLIP THANK YOU. that was PERFECT.

thanks V learnt a fair amount as always

good information...good presentation...

I have a Pioneer CT-W616DR taken apart on my desk right now. (I took it apart because the motors are noisy - good to know they're all like that). Looking at the tape mechanism I think it's just some fraction of rotations of the motor. The same is probably true for the decks that conform to the defacto '1640' standard except they probably have a motor pulley and takeup wheel that are a more even fraction. Like maybe they're 4:1 and the pioneer is 4.25:1. I have to take it apart again because now it's not playing on the left deck (the takeup wheel just turns about a quarter turn and stops) so I'll take some measurements and hopefully get it playing again so I can see what the relationship of motor turns to counter digits is.

Video Cassette Recorders(VCR'S) from the 70's and 80's had a similar tape counter system that wasn't consistent across makes and models as well. Around the mid 90's however, VCR's went from using a tape counter that was dependent on the spindle position to finally using the SMPTE time code system. STC information was recorded directly on the the control track of the tape. By using the STC system. VCR's that supported STC would give consistent results across all makes and models. Plus, instead of just getting some arbitrary number. STC gave you an actual time lapsed reading of HH:MM:SS.

Project Farm would be so proud of your work! (that's a massive compliment)

The Mr. Regular appearance was a really nice touch.

I had a Sony B and C deck in the 1980's that really counted time, but its accuracy depended on the length of the cassette, such as a C-60 cassette. Other lengths would throw off the accuracy of the time counted for the cassette.

@VW Westlife Your cassette ejector's got nothing on a car tape deck i had. My buddy gave me his Kenwood stereo when he upgraded, even though there wasn't anything wrong with it, worked like new. But the one problem it had, when you pushed the eject firmly it would throw the cassette over the front bench seat ( 69 Ford Falcon ) into the back seat! Got a lot of surprised laughter from passengers lol. 😁

If you leave the door closed on the Sankyo, the cassette will land in front, behind the door. The door is still able to be opened and the tape can be removed. I had a Pioneer CT-F2121 that had the same design and did the same thing when a tape was ejected.