Tape recorder in the context of Audio equipment

Analog recording is a category of techniques used for the recording of analog signals. This enables later playback of the recorded analog audio.

Analog audio recording began with mechanical systems such as the phonautograph and phonograph. Later, electronic techniques such as wire and tape recording were developed.

Documentation is any communicable material that is used to describe, explain or instruct regarding some attributes of an object, system or procedure, such as its parts, assembly, installation, maintenance, and use. As a form of knowledge management and knowledge organization, documentation can be provided on paper, online, or on digital or analog media, such as audio tape or CDs. Examples are user guides, white papers, online help, and quick-reference guides. Paper or hard-copy documentation has become less common. Documentation is often distributed via websites, software products, and other online applications.

Documentation as a set of instructional materials shouldn't be confused with documentation science, the study of the recording and retrieval of information.

A video tape recorder (VTR) is a tape recorder designed to record and playback video and audio material from magnetic tape. The early VTRs were open-reel devices that record on individual reels of 2-inch-wide (5.08 cm) tape. They were used in television studios, serving as a replacement for motion picture film stock and making recording for television applications cheaper and quicker. Beginning in 1963, videotape machines made instant replay during televised sporting events possible. Improved formats, in which the tape was contained inside a videocassette, were introduced around 1969; the machines which play them are called videocassette recorders.

An agreement by Japanese manufacturers on a common standard recording format, which allowed cassettes recorded on one manufacturer's machine to play on another's, made a consumer market possible; and the first consumer videocassette recorder, which used the U-matic format, was introduced by Sony in 1971.

A tape head is a type of transducer used in tape recorders to convert electrical signals to magnetic fluctuations and vice versa. They can also be used to read credit/debit/gift cards because the strip of magnetic tape on the back of a credit card stores data the same way that other magnetic tapes do. Cassette tapes, reel-to-reel tapes, 8-track tapes, VHS tapes, and even floppy disks and early hard disk drives all use the same principle of physics to store and read back information. The medium is magnetized in a pattern. It then moves at a constant speed over an electromagnet. Since the moving tape is carrying a changing magnetic field with it, it induces a varying voltage across the head. That voltage can then be amplified and connected to speakers in the case of audio, or measured and sorted into ones and zeroes in the case of digital data.

A dictation machine is a sound recording device most commonly used to record speech for playback or to be typed into print. It includes digital voice recorders and tape recorder.

The name "Dictaphone" is a trademark of the American Graphophone Company, but it has also become a common term for all dictation machines, as a genericized trademark.

In music, tape loops are loops of magnetic tape used to create repetitive, rhythmic musical patterns or dense layers of sound when played on a tape recorder. Originating in the 1940s with the work of Pierre Schaeffer, they were used among contemporary composers of 1950s and 1960s, such as Éliane Radigue, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, who used them to create phase patterns, rhythms, textures, and timbres. Popular music authors of 1960s and 1970s, particularly in psychedelic, progressive and ambient genres, used tape loops to accompany their music with innovative sound effects. In the 1980s, analog audio and tape loops with it gave way to digital audio and application of computers to generate and process sound.

An integrated amplifier (pre/main amp) is an electronic device containing an audio preamplifier and power amplifier in one unit, as opposed to separating the two. Most modern audio amplifiers are integrated and have several inputs for devices such as CD players, DVD players, and auxiliary sources.

Vintage integrated amplifiers commonly have dedicated inputs for phonograph, tuner, tape recorder and an auxiliary input. Except for the phono input, all of the inputs are line level, thus, they are interchangeable. The phono stage provides RIAA equalization.

Media player software is a type of application software for playing multimedia computer files like audio and video files. Media players commonly display standard media control icons known from physical devices such as tape recorders and CD players, such as play (), pause (), fastforward (⏩️), rewind (⏪), and stop () buttons. In addition, they generally have progress bars (or "playback bars"), which are sliders to locate the current position in the duration of the media file.

Mainstream operating systems have at least one default media player. For example, Windows comes with Windows Media Player and it’s 2022 successor, while macOS comes with QuickTime Player and Apple Music. Linux distributions come with different media players, such as SMPlayer, Amarok, Audacious, Banshee, MPlayer, mpv, Rhythmbox, Totem, VLC media player, and xine. Android comes with YouTube Music for audio and Google Photos for video, and smartphone vendors such as Samsung may bundle custom software.

Cabaret Voltaire are an English music group formed in Sheffield in 1973 and initially composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk, and Chris Watson. Named after the Zürich nightclub that fostered the early Dada movement, the band are often characterized as among the most innovative and influential electronic acts of their era.

The band's early work consisted of experimentation with DIY electronics and tape recorders, as well as Dada-influenced performance art, helping to pioneer industrial music in the mid-1970s. Finding an audience during the post-punk era, they gradually incorporated more conventional elements of synthpop, techno, house and funk styles. After Watson's departure in 1981, the group continued as a two-piece until disbanding in 1994. Kirk revived the name as a solo project from 2009 until his death in 2021.

Uher was a German brand of electronic equipment currently owned and licensed by Assmann Electronics of Bad Homburg.

The manufacturer Uher Werke was based in Munich, Germany, and is probably best known for its former range of portable reel-to-reel tape recorders which were once widely used by professionals in areas such as reporting and film-making. Since digital equipment has become widespread, these older analogue recording machines are no longer produced. Two parts of the Uher company still exist, one which has focused on informatics, and ATIS Uher focused on IT security.