To fast-forward means to move forward through a recording at a speed faster than that at which it would usually be played. The recordings are usually audio, video, or computer data. The term "fasten forward" is also used instead of fast-forward.

To reach a certain portion of a song, a person may fast-forward through a cassette tape by pressing a button (often labeled "Fast Forward" itself) on the tape deck

Tape recorder

An audio tape recorder, tape deck, reel-to-reel tape deck, cassette deck or tape machine is an audio storage device that records and plays back sounds, including articulated voices, usually using magnetic tape, either wound on a reel or in a cassette, for storage...

 containing the tape. The tape deck's motor activates at a speed higher than usual—for example, double the standard 1-7/8 ips

Inches per second

The inch per second is a unit of speed or velocity. It expresses the distance in inches traveled or displaced, divided by time in seconds...

 playing speed of the 1/8" cassette tape—and can be stopped by the end of the tape, the pressing of a "Stop" button on the deck (or another button mechanism disengaging the button), or simply lifting a finger from the "Fast Forward" button.

Fast-forwarding is the exact opposite of rewinding, in which tape, music, etc., are moved backward at a user's discretion. In either operation, because of sound distortion, volume is usually muted or severely reduced.

With the advent of inexpensive digital music media, fast-forwarding has most likely lost its past meaning related to the speed of a tape deck motor (or record turntable, or another device allowing fast-forwarding) and now may, especially as cassette tapes and other analogue

Analog signal

An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...

 media are used less and less by younger generations, only apply to the operation of moving ahead in a recording's time frame—accomplished today by simple clicking, dragging a slide image, or even via speech-recognition software

Speech recognition

Speech recognition converts spoken words to text. The term "voice recognition" is sometimes used to refer to recognition systems that must be trained to a particular speaker—as is the case for most desktop recognition software...

. (Still, some CD and DVD players offer tape-style fast-forwarding, so that the user can detect when the destination is reached and stop.)