Oddly, these items... relics... are usually recognized for their historical importance only by a select few... and rarely by the people who originally owned them.

Such as it was with the treasures i received a year ago from a technician at KMTV. Here's the story. While working at Accutech Solutions (my employer at the time) one of the designers in the creative department informed me that his room mate really enjoyed viewing the WebLab. After a bit of discussion he mentions that his room mate is a technician at KMTV, and that a few weeks prior the boses there asked them to do some spring cleaning in the archive llibrary. In the cleaning they were instructed to throw away dozens of old audio carts ... used for various audio needs for producing programs, commercials and the like. Amongst the dozens of old carts were a few that were used in producing Creature Feature.

AUDIO CARTS?
Audio carts were the state of the art in sound technology for many, many years. They look a lot llike commercially available 8-tracks cartridges, and function very much the same as standard 8-tracks. The major difference with audio carts was that they were superior in sound quality in comparison to 8-tracks and were built to allow for splicing and phyisical editing of tape.

The audio cart, like the 8-track, was really one continuous loop of tape. When an audio tech laid out some music or SFX onto it, it could then be edited down to the appropriate length and prepped for use. Once the track was played for whatever it's purose was, it would automatically be cued up for the next use thanks to the loop. No rewinding required.

8-TRACKS - A BRIEF DESCRIPTION
For those of you not in the know, 8-tracks were designed to allow for continuous playback, having the tape set up as one large continuous loop. Music selections were divided up into four "programs", selectable by hitting a program button, which would cycle the user through the available tracks. Four "programs" ... all in stereo (requiring two audio tracks) .... which give you eight tracks. Thus the name.

The problems with eight tracks were numerous. The sound quality was not terribly good, and since the cartridges were designed for continuous playback, they would become worn all the more faster. The mechanics of the cartridge itself often caused the tape to jam in it's case, stopping the tape from moving, and becoming useless. You could not rewind or fast forward through an eight track, so selection a single song was not possible. On top of this (and perhaps the most maddening to music purists and artists) album continuity and track order would often times be compromised in order to fit music into the aloted music programs. This would ruin a lot of "concept albums" of the time, because track order was often very important for the overall story or concept presented by the artists. On top of this, often times songs ran longer than the alloted program, and when this happened the song would be cut in half, leaving the remainer on the following track (which was maddening if it was a song you bought the tape for in the first place!). Once the cassette tape became the music media of choice in the late seventies, 8-tracks became obseleteand a grave marker for the end of the seventies.

While public use of 8-tracks declined, dissapeared and became as iconic to the 70's as the poodleskirt did for the 50's, the audio cart was still in used. Once digital media became affordable to generate, the audio cart was slowly phased out. Thus the spring cleaning at KMTV.

After discussion about the fate of the tapes (which were picked out of the garbage at the studio) the designer said that he would bring in the carts for me to take a look at. I was more than excited as i had never seen the audio carts before.

The room mate offered to make copies of the audio on the cards for me, of which i was greatly appreciative I admit, i was really hoping to get to keep those carts, as they are some of the rarest of all Creature Feature artifacts, and would be a great privilledge to have. I mentioned to my friend that if his roomie didn't want the carts i would be more than happy to either buy them or trade for them. The designer said he would pass the info along to his friend.

After a few days, the designer brings me a tape of audio recorded from the cards, and.... as i had hoped... the original audio carts. The roomie passed them along to me, who now has them in a place of distinction.