tapes, tape loops - loop music

DETOX · Joined: May 22, 2008 Posts: 143 Location: Germany

hey !

as the title says i want to know wether any of you use tapes /tape loops (mainly cassette tapes) as a medium for making music (as sort of an instrument) and for compositions, noise, background etc.....

i plan to build a multi (quatro) tape looping device and i'm interested in other techniques related to tape music and tape looping.

i first want to buy a cheap 4 or 8 track analog cassette tape recorder and recorded loops on loop-ified audio cassetttes to later put them together in compositions / noise / ambient pieces.

does anyone of you act similar?

i can imagine that it's a good technique to cut pieces out of field recordings and use them as loops .
which (analog/digital ?) device is quite affordable for field recording (a handy recorder, microphone etc.)?

thanks !

elektro80 · Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 4:25 pm Post subject:

I actually made some tape loop music nearly 30 years ago. I mainly used reel to reel recorders. I don´t think I have done much of this since say 1984.

andrewF · Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 4:46 pm Post subject:

When I had access to a radio station's studio, I made some pretty strange stuff connecting two reel2reels in series. I can't remember exactly but i think the tape loop runs thru both machines, one is set to 'record' the other to 'play' - ends up with a 'sound on sound' loop which builds endlessly.

If you don't already know the term, you are proposing a style called 'musique concrete'. You can download Judd's book, "electronic music and musique concrete" from here -
http://www.sdiy.org/pinky/judd1.pdf
http://www.sdiy.org/pinky/judd2.pdf

in part2 he discusses techniques for splicing tape to give varying attack/release effects

DETOX · Joined: May 22, 2008 Posts: 143 Location: Germany

thank you both !

well, i've already heard of musique concrete and bruitism and such "ancient" (revolutionary ?!) forms of music using reel to reel techniques but those seem to be more hi-fi than i actually want my own stuff to be. the stuff i'm looking forward to produce should actually give me a sense of a very comfortable living room in my head which in my personal taste is given when the sound isn't that clean and has some scratches, glitches and more analog than digital sounds. that somehow gives me a warmer and better feeling than
hi-fi sounds. that's the first reason why i want to mainly use cassette tapes insted of reel to reel tapes. the other reason is obvious, i still go to school and just moved out home so i haven't that much money for expensive vintage reel to reele quipment. the third reason is handiness.
i want to be able to change tapes relatively fast within my custom quatro looper system.

i might not have enough knowledge and might be wrong with my impressions of musique concré(è ?)te (....can impressions be right or wrong?) but the most important reasons for my are lo-fi-ness, handiness and price (-ines).....

anyway, keep on posting, still haven't read anyone making music with cassette tape (loops).

blue hell · Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:15 pm Post subject:

Some links :

http://ofsoundmind.wordpress.com/2006/12/05/wonders-of-the-cassette-tape-loop-part-1/

blue hell · Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:17 pm Post subject:

Also fun : http://www.f7sound.com/tapebreak.htm

andrewF · Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 7:57 pm Post subject:

Ilanode · Joined: Sep 14, 2007 Posts: 80 Location: Berlin/FRG

About 25 yrs ago I did many loops. Among others I used an old top loading cassette recorder without a cover. Thus I could insert small nails (which were sticking out) into the cassette by heat and force which were leading long loops through the cassette. Worked fine for me. Similiar to the more elaborated version explained in Blue Hell first link.
Sometimes I *carefully* scratched off parts of the tape's coating for new effects. Yes, I was very much into noise.

Scott Stites · Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 7:21 am Post subject:

numbernone · Joined: Aug 16, 2006 Posts: 477 Location: new york city

Look into 8 track cartridge tapes. They are just giant loops which you can cut to whatever length you like with a bit of fiddling.

DETOX · Joined: May 22, 2008 Posts: 143 Location: Germany

very cool to hear that so many of you once did some tapelooping.
i just won an auction for a 4 track recorder which will be the basic piece in my hopefully soon established noise and looping setup.
it's a Yamaha MT3X and i hope it will be in a good condition.
i haven't really any experiences with tape loops yet, except some improvised cassette speeding up and slowing down.

DETOX · Joined: May 22, 2008 Posts: 143 Location: Germany

please don't let this thread die Very Happy

unfortunately i already know most of the links you posted, i'd really like to read your personal ideas/experiences.
and what about the field recording?
maybe you can post some links to threads if any exist !?

thanks !

Alexander · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 3:43 am Post subject:

I will be doing a performance together with a performance artist and another sound artist later this month.

The theme is building, and the material we will be using is wood.

My setup will be a boss loopstation and korg kaosspad 3, both of them filled with sound material of breaking, burning, smashing, sawing etcetera of wood.

My part will be loops and loops and I would really love to do that stuff with tape, the only thing holding me back is price and experience. The boss and korg were very cheap and have an ease of use, i don't find using tape.

When I grew up, cassettes and vhs were slowly dying and I never had a chance to spend a lot of time with tape. Crying or Very sad

Is it the aesthetics or the technical (analog) side of tape that makes people choose tapeloops over looping devices, because even a youngster as myself is drawn to tape?

DETOX · Joined: May 22, 2008 Posts: 143 Location: Germany

elektro80 · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 7:23 am Post subject:

Scott Stites · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 7:38 am Post subject:

Arguably one of the most famous, if not the most ubiquitous, examples of tape looping:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun05/articles/classictracks.htm

I loved that song from the first minute I heard it back in the '70s.

geg3 · Joined: Apr 21, 2008 Posts: 25

i did this a lot in the early 2000s when i was ultra poor and had no gear except a guitar/amp and no desire to play rock music. i i would compose songs based around lots and lots of chord changes, then splice up loops inside cassette tapes and record sustaining guitar chords onto each one. then using 2 cassette decks id fade between one loop and another, switching tapes back and forth. made some sweet ambient tracks that are still some of my personal favorites. the tape warble from an imperfect loop = the best thing ever.

State Machine · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 1:30 pm Post subject:

One of the masters at tape music is Hugh LeCaine.

http://hughlecaine.com/en/biography.html

Also check out his composition "Dripsody" The entire composition was done from a single "drip" of water that was recorded. It was amazing what had ben done using just tape techniques. Hell, even the "flanger" was discovered using reel to reel analog tape decks.

http://hughlecaine.com/en/compositions.html

Also, you can take found sounds and create "Electro Acoustic" music. It typically involves taking sampled sounds then processing them until they are not recognizable anymore. This of course is not always the case but mostly was. A university close to me usually has about three EA music concerts a year and they are just amazing to attend.

The picture below is of his "Special Purpose Recorder"

From the Hugh LeCaine website

Alexander · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 10:15 am Post subject:

Thanks to this topic, I adjusted my setup. It is now a loopstation, kaosspad 3 and several walkmans running cassette tape loops!

The cassette tape loops will be swapped and selected at random, feeding the kaosspad and loopstation, creating layer upon layer upon layer.

Drawing it and thinking about the depth of possibilities, I will be stuck doing this for a while... great!

I love this topic, really, another great example of why a good forum is so valuable. You guys are one of a kind Cool

ps.. I am neglecting my g2 for this cassette obsession...

DETOX · Joined: May 22, 2008 Posts: 143 Location: Germany

yeah, you're right, the topic defintely turned out pretty cool.

but for some reason (probably because of the post not being sent to the right address) i didn't get the 4track recorder yet....bah !

anyway, just won 2 further auctions on ebay for identical walkmen and currently bidding on another one of that kind so i think next month or so i caqn start building my loop device.

DETOX · Joined: May 22, 2008 Posts: 143 Location: Germany

aaaaah!
my mother just told me tha package arrived at her so i'll get it today !!! woohoooo

Alexander · Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:58 am Post subject:

Let me know how you're going to apply the walkmans.. I will be using a few of those too this week, but I propably just use them to play looped cassettes.

Enjoy!

DETOX · Joined: May 22, 2008 Posts: 143 Location: Germany

well, i haven't that much money at the moment because i just moved into a new flat so i'll probably will start building my tape loop device next month but the plans are already in my head and on paper (at least sketches).
if everything works as it shouldmi'll i will be able to control speed/pitch, volume and maybe aux and (if i'm able to manage it) eventually a sync start and stop.

State Machine · Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:38 pm Post subject:

Alex I ilke the fact that you are merging these technologies:
The tape machines can add lots of their own character since they don't have an A/D convertera to overrun but instead achieve their distortion by saturating the tape with high level signals. And, if I may, produces a more pleasant distortion Wink

Alex wrote :

Alexander · Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:21 am Post subject:

I posted the recordings of my performance on my site:

http://husc-sound.com/sound.html

"husc+marc+youri" 3 parts

The performance was very nice to do, and hard. What you will hear is a mono mixdown of the two stereo outputs.

One is my setup, the tascam 4 track running tapeloops into the kaosspad and the loopstation. Their outputs were interconnected as well, so I could loop and record/bounce from one device to the other.

The rest of the things you hear are Youri constructing things with palletwood on a stage, his hammer, saw, drill and other tools are all connected to marc's setup, using contact mics and lots of gaffatape.
The sounds of the tools went into marcs laptop and dr sample. And using the live input he did similar things as I did using ableton and the boss sampler.

We will definitely try to do this again and maybe interconnect both setups, but this generated a lot of nice sounds. Please comment and as soon as we have it ready I will post a video of the performance.

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