RETAILING: Two Top Tunes To Go, Please

To record companies, it seems unfair. But to many music lovers, home taping of records is an inalienable right. Why buy a whole album, they ask, when a tape recorder enables them to copy only the songs they want from a friend's record?

Now a new recording system developed by Personics, a Menlo Park, Calif., company, may make both sides happy. The computerized Personics machines, which will be introduced in five California record stores this summer, will enable the consumer to make a customized cassette tape by choosing from an initial inventory of 1,000 songs. After consulting a catalog of available selections, the customer gives the order to a clerk, who transfers the music from a master optical disk to a blank cassette, and may use a computer to print a custom label for the tape. The high-speed equipment can record 40 minutes of music in less than five minutes. The cost: 50 cents to $1.25 a tune.

The system's selection will eventually exceed 15,000 songs, culled from the top hits of the past 30 years. So far, Capitol and Warner Bros. are among the leading record companies that have agreed to let their songs be distributed by the system. The firms, which will receive royalties whenever one of their songs is selected, hope to recoup some of the estimated $1.5 billion in sales that the record industry loses annually to home taping.