My first tape loop

[jpmorris]

Yesterday I decided to try my hand at making a tape loop for the first time. It was quite an interesting experience. Easier that I'd thought.. but then at 15ips I guess you have a lot of margin for error.

I used a Uher 4000 to find the edit points, since although head access is dire, it can run at 0.94 ips which makes it useful for finding the gaps. The recording was made from my kitchen timer ticking, a nice periodic sound.

The fun came when I put the loop on the Revox. It behaved very much like a horse being straddled for the first time. The spool motors went absolutely berserk, like fast-forward speed. I'm not sure they were turning in the same directions. In my naivety I just let the loop flop down between the spools.. it quickly got tangled and a portion of the tape stretched into a weird, hard, flat thing, which I promptly spliced out using the UHER again.

After that I started using the chinagraph pencil to hold it, as was done by The Cure. Unfortunately that cause the tension to change a lot, varying the pitch. I eventually settled on using a spare spool, left hanging from the left-hand side of the machine. That worked wonderfully. But I got confused about which way the tape loop went and put it on backwards. It still sounded good though, so I kept it.

*EDIT* the blips in the photo are where the digital camera went mad and I had to reassemble the image using Gimp.

[A Reel Person]

Are you gonna do anything with the tape loop, now that it's basically situated?

Do you have Yoko there with you?

Will you record "Too Vergins 2006"???

[Herm]

Id like to hear it.

[jpmorris]

Originally Posted by A Reel Person

Are you gonna do anything with the tape loop, now that it's basically situated?

Do you have Yoko there with you?

Oh, all right. http://www.dougtheeagle.com/stuff/dragon_finale.ogg

It's in ogg format, and I can't be bothered to edit it down. The loop is in two places, at about 1:58 and 2:50-end

If you have an ogg-capable player that can also run in reverse (SOX will do this) you'll be able to hear the clock ticking properly.