Lou Ottens, Inventor of the Cassette Tape, Dies at 94: It Was a 'Revolution'

Jerry Lampen/EPA/Shutterstock

Lou Ottens, who changed the music landscape when he invented the cassette tape nearly six decades ago, has reportedly died at age 94 at his home in the Netherlands.

It was in 1952 that Ottens began working for Dutch electronics maker Philips, where he'd become the head of the company's product development department, Dutch News reported. By 1963, his team had created both the first portable tape recorder and the cassette tape, an analog magnetic tape recording format that allowed for audio recording and playback.

According to NPR, Ottens was inspired to create the cassette by a vision of making music portable and accessible for everyone.

"He advocated for Philips to license this new format to other manufacturers for free, paving the way for cassettes to become a worldwide standard," documentary filmmaker Zack Taylor told the outlet.

"Cassettes taught us how to use our voice, even when the message came from someone else's songs, compiled painstakingly on a mixtape," Taylor, who spoke to Ottens for his film, Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape, said.

RELATED: Famed Photographer Peter Beard Dead at 82: 'He Died Where He Lived: In Nature,' His Family Says

Jerry Lampen/EPA/Shutterstock

While creating the cassette, Ottens knew he wanted something that could fit in consumers' pockets, so he used a wooden model to come up with the perfect size, Dutch News reported.

More than 100 billion cassettes were sold worldwide after Ottens introduced his team's invention to the public.

RELATED: Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Celebrated Poet, Dies at 101: 'Our Poet and Hero'

Of course, the cassette would be phased out by the compact disc a few decades later. But Ottens also played a part in the creation of the disc, called the "CD" for short, through a partnership with Philips and Sony.

"From now on, the conventional record player is obsolete," Ottens said after Philips debuted the CD in 1982, according to the BBC.

Taylor said Ottens' impact on music can still be felt today, even if consumers have largely turned to digital streaming over physical media for their music.

"So next time you make that perfect playlist on Spotify, or send a link to share a song, you can thank Lou Ottens," he said of the engineer, according to NPR.

Following his death, Philips called Ottens an "extraordinary man" who launched a "revolution."

"It saddened all of us to hear about Lou Ottens' passing. Lou was an extraordinary man who loved technology, even as his inventions had humble beginnings," the Philips Museum said in a statement, according to WTOP News. "During the development of the cassette tape, in the early 1960s, he had a wooden block made that fit exactly in his coat pocket. This was how big the first Compact Cassette was to be, making it a lot handier than the bulky tape recorders in use at the time."

"His invention came to be known as the Cassette Tape and over 100 billion were sold globally. In addition the Compact Cassette, the Compact Disc or CD, was thanks in part to his inventiveness," the company added. "The worldwide success always surprised him though: 'We knew it could become big, but could have never imagined it would be a revolution.'"