Why weren't cassettes ever used for dubplates in early 80's Jamaica? The format was around and highly popular with sound tapes and it must have been both cheaper and easier to create a C90 dubplate than on 10" acetate.
The flaws are obvious as it can't be played as a acetate/vinyl record (flipping for the dub etc) and the sound quality is a bit iffy (but still has to be better than a worn out acetate?). So I can't see why there wasn't any sounds experimenting with this?
Rather ... with the JA technical ingenuity I'm certain some sound must have tried this and then abandoned the format for various reasons.
But what sounds? And why not more? Did acetates have such a technical momentum that they didn't even think about other options until DAT's and later on CD-R's?
C90 dubplates?
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Max
- Posts: 153
- Joined: Sat Mar 25, 2006 2:04 pm
Re: C90 dubplates?
My humble guess is that it was mainly due to the poor and unreliable sound quality. Recording on cassette causes bad sound reproduction and distortion, as there might be cutting and boosting of frequencies and so on, and it's also not as easy to adjust tape speed since it might vary on different devices. It's just not hi-fi enough for a pro audio set, to put it simple.
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daniel
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Sun May 06, 2007 12:47 am
Re: C90 dubplates?
I don't think a decent recording on a good cassette is that bad quality. Obviously it depends on the type of blank cassette you are recording onto.
But likewise the acetate dubplates would have produced good quality sound at least for the first months- and given how quickly things were moving musically in early 80's Jamaica I don't imagine a dubplate would have held its importance much longer than that. (could somebody correct this assumption if it is wrong?)
Practically playing your set from one format is (from experience!) a lot easier than switching things up all the time. I'm not saying it would have been impossible for sound systems to have a set up for this but the more simple you make your systems the less chance you have of something going wrong.
Also with cassette tapes you aren't able to visually cue tracks. Obviously this could be partly overcome by just having a track per side but you would have to really want to play from cassette to get to this point.
With the popularity of the cassette for soundtapes was there maybe a sort of associated hierarchy at the time? Were cassettes considered pure consumer/pirate format as opposed to vinyl/dubplate soundsystem format. Would a sound playing from a cassette have lost credibility regardless of the sound quality etc.? Or am I looking at this too much through the eyes of a 90's/00's/10's music fan who has been exposed to too much vinyl vs CD (vs mp3/flac/etc.) format debate? (no I don't want to start this debate again)
Maybe the main reason for the continued popularity of the dubplate is that, unlike cassette tapes (or indeed CDRs!), they don't allow easy copying thus ensuring more exclusivity.
But likewise the acetate dubplates would have produced good quality sound at least for the first months- and given how quickly things were moving musically in early 80's Jamaica I don't imagine a dubplate would have held its importance much longer than that. (could somebody correct this assumption if it is wrong?)
Practically playing your set from one format is (from experience!) a lot easier than switching things up all the time. I'm not saying it would have been impossible for sound systems to have a set up for this but the more simple you make your systems the less chance you have of something going wrong.
Also with cassette tapes you aren't able to visually cue tracks. Obviously this could be partly overcome by just having a track per side but you would have to really want to play from cassette to get to this point.
With the popularity of the cassette for soundtapes was there maybe a sort of associated hierarchy at the time? Were cassettes considered pure consumer/pirate format as opposed to vinyl/dubplate soundsystem format. Would a sound playing from a cassette have lost credibility regardless of the sound quality etc.? Or am I looking at this too much through the eyes of a 90's/00's/10's music fan who has been exposed to too much vinyl vs CD (vs mp3/flac/etc.) format debate? (no I don't want to start this debate again)
Maybe the main reason for the continued popularity of the dubplate is that, unlike cassette tapes (or indeed CDRs!), they don't allow easy copying thus ensuring more exclusivity.
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Jumbo showa
Re: C90 dubplates?
even in the 90s many smaller dubstudio's (both in town and Country) used cassettes as a recording medium: they recorded the dubs first on cassette, then took the cassette to a dubcutter like Arrows, Jammys etc. to cut the dubs on acetate.