What follows is a quick survey of the tools at our disposal. Given a decent home stereo system with a CD player / turntable / cassette deck, I have here listed the additional features that make professional-sounding home recordings possible, essentially maximizing your control over how your songlist will sound on your tape. They are listed in descending order of indispensibility.

Record Level: Some of us have it in the form of a knob; others have it in the form of a lever. It is an indispensable feature on your recording deck, it’s function being of course to vary the volume at which your tape receives an outside signal. For mix tapes, this means you will be able to compensate for volume differences in your source material – especially if you’re drawing from a mixture of LPs and CDs. Generally, for instance, I’ve found that in order to get my mixes to play back at the same volume, I have to set the record level for LP sources at least 2 notches above the level for CD sources.

But that is just its basic function.

It also works as an editing tool. Songs that run a bit too long for your taste can be ended early by creating a nice tasteful fade – drawing the knob slowly counterclockwise (or the lever slowly leftward or downward) until a monstrous 7-minute song has drawn to a tasteful silence at 3. I also use my knob at the beginning of a song. By starting a song with a record level of 0, then quickly swiping the knob up to full record level a split second before the song actually begins, I eliminate from my mix tape all the pops or hisses that fill the between-track silences of my source material. (Of course, with CDs or other digital sources, this isn’t an issue.) This way, the only thing I should hear between tracks on my tapes is the hiss from my tapes themselves.

Non-Logic Pause Button: The pause button on your record deck is possibly the single most important feature a home engineer can have. You can use it to magically and professionally remove passages from tracks, add passages, "slam" tracks together the way Stevie Wonder did on "Hotter Than July", and generally give you more control over the results of your mix. For instance, to remove a messy guitar solo from an otherwise competent piece of 3-minute pop, do the following:

1. Stop the recording somewhere after the solo begins.
2. Playback and hit PAUSE the split-second before the solo begins, preferably just before a drum beat.
3. Change modes from PLAY to RECORD without releasing the PAUSE.
4. Playback source with your finger on the PAUSE button, ready to release it. When the source comes around to the end of the solo, instantaneously release the PAUSE button precisely where you want your version of the song to resume.

Your timing has to be impeccable, but if you can nod your head to a beat, you can edit a song this way. Your listeners will be none the wiser.

Now the reason I specify a "non-logic" pause button is because of the blessing and the curse of full-logic cassette decks. Full-logic decks of course are considered high-end. The controls on these are electronic, which means that once you press PLAY, the deck itself goes through a circuitous step of its own before it actually plays the cassette. The problem then is that little moment of time between actually pressing PAUSE and the tape actually pausing, which means you can’t place an edit exactly where you want it.

The controls on a non-logic deck, however, are far more mechanical; the play button is literally attached to the mechanism that actually brings the head to bear on your tape. When you activate the PAUSE, the music stops in that very instant. When you release the PAUSE, the music starts instantly. That is why a non-logic deck actually works better here.

But even in both cases – full-logic and non-logic – the PAUSE button never fails to create a nice soundless transition between one track and the next.

Two Separate Single-Cassette Decks: I bring this up because most home stereo systems come with one dual-cassette deck. You can make great mix tapes with these but, if your source material happens to be another cassette, your Record Level knob is useless. The volume of a song you plan on using from a cassette source might be too high or too low for the rest of your mix tape, but you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

With two decks however, the one you choose to treat as your play deck will be subject to the same control as your turntable or CD player.

Graphic Equalizer: This is of course the component that alters the sound of whatever you’re playing on your stereo – essentially expanding on the capabilities of your amplifier’s bass and treble knobs. But if this is properly hooked up – receiving the signal from your amplifier, altering it, then sending it to your recording deck – then you have a powerful tool for improving the ambience of the track you’re recording. Even 7 bands ranging from low bass to high treble are adequate for strengthening a vocal, filtering out hissing and background noise, and especially making old or bootleg recordings sound almost new or professional.

Mixer: This is the one recording aid that you wouldn’t normally see attached to your average stereo system, but I include it here because it’s a real horizon-broadener. At its essence, when this little instrument is connected to two different sources, it combines their signals. As such, when you connect the mixer to your amplifier, you then hear your CD player and your turntable at the same time. Or, say, your CD player and your tape deck at the same time -- whatever happens to be connected.

Not that you would want to record that kind of noise. The best use of a mixer for mix tapes is as a cross-fader, making judicious use of the record levels (see entry above) that it has built in. Instead of having the traditional moment of silence between songs on your tape, you could actually set it up so that one song begins before the other ends. As one song is fading to a close, the other is rising up from underneath it. This is especially useful if you’re making a tape of live performances. You can make it seem like they’re coming from the same stage by cross-fading the applause.

Now you could buy expensive mixers with a multitude of inputs – the kind used for serious home recording by people who play their own instruments. But for the purpose of making little mix tapes, all you need is a 2-track mixer – that is, with room for 2 signals. Disc jockeys use them all the time to create live mixes for the dance floor. You can get these little ones relatively cheap.

Something On Which To Take Out Your Frustrations: In the process of making a good tape, things will go wrong. You may have to record whole songs over because you missed your cue, forgot to activate your equalizer, or accidentally recorded over your best work. This is especially the case if you went and bought a mixer (see entry above) because, then, a thousand things have to go right with every transition. If too many things go wrong, keep something on hand that is both breakable and throwable (without breaking other things). It should also, of course, be replaceable because, once it’s broken, you lose the satisfaction of breaking it. Styrofoam packing material works pretty well. It saves your equipment.

Comfortable Set of Isolating Headphones: Strictly speaking, these have no direct bearing on what your tape will sound like, but they allow you to monitor your work pretty closely. Before I had these, I had my ear right up to my speakers to make sure the song was really over before I stopped recording, or to make sure there were no ugly pops between songs in the playback. Using headphones instead allows you to work at such a level that you will always hear what the casual listener won’t, and comfortably, with minimum neck strain.

And if truth be told, headphones make you look professional, keep your friends (who, let’s face it, might not have an appreciable understanding of this little hobby of yours) tuned out, and keep the same friends from hearing your work in progress until it’s finished.

Turntable Pitch Control: A lot of high-end turntables have this, a knob which makes tiny adjustments to the speed at which the table turns. You can use this to make subtle but neat-sounding changes in the tempo and / or duration of your vinyl source material. Last time I checked, cassette decks and CD decks didn’t have a corresponding feature but I could be wrong. I’ve often used it to tame songs that I’ve found to be just to damn fast for their own good. And I have a suspicious feeling that a lot of my LPs were recorded that way.

A Third Cassette Deck, This Time Dual-Cassette, Preferably Full-Logic: This last is purely optional. I have one on hand to take care of my menial recording – a.k.a. dubbing. First I labor over a tape, taking hours to get one transition right. Then, when it’s finished, I make copies for friends using my dual cassette deck. I don’t even have it connected to my stereo; I just throw two tapes in, hit PLAY and RECORD. This way, I save my valuable equipment.

This concludes the survey, which is by no means comprehensive. There’s a wealth of knowledge to be mined regarding the paces mixed-tapers will actually put their equipment through. I hope this will generate lots of website correspondence of the "Yes, but you can also do this!" variety. Happy trails. And don’t forget to punch out your tabs.