Tape and Tape Recorders:

The invention of magnetic tape was the most important historical event in the evolution of electronic music. It consists of an acetate or polyester backing that is coated with a layer of fine magnetic particles referred to as the coating. Each of the particles acts as a tiny bar magnet and when a signal is recorded on the tape the particles align themselves in such a way to reflect the characteristics of the signal. The tape recorder has a deck which contains the mechanical features concerned with handling tape (operating controls ) and the electronics which is part of the recorder used for processing the signals (playback and record volumes for example)

Digital tape/tape recorders typically involve analogue to digital conversion (and visa versa), digital signal processing, and the storage of digital data. A/D conversion is done by sampling the analogue signal so many times a second (sample rate) and generating a binary number to represent the analogue waveform for each sample.