Okay, this is what I was talking about when I said "Tape Music"

  • Thread starter Thread starter lo.fi.love
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lo.fi.love

lo.fi.love

Functionally obsessed.
Glib Fraud Blues

I've spent maybe 40 hours on this piece over the last week. It's composed entirely from tape loops. I think there's around 20 individual tracks that went into the mix.

If I could do it again, I'd make it two minutes shorter, but I like it enough as it is.

If anyone's interested, I'll give a prize to anyone who can correctly guess what the 'instruments' are in this track :)
 
:D Pretty crazy sounding. I liked it. I have no idea what instruments.
 
Trippy. I think it could do with a little more in the way of backwards tape and varispeed - the instruments are perhaps a little too legible.

What equipment did you use to make it, by the way?
 
jpmorris said:
What equipment did you use to make it, by the way?
Click to expand...

Most of it was made using the typical splicing materials (editing block, leader tape, splice tape, razors) and I used a boom mic stand as a 'remote capstan' to hold the loops in place during loop playback.

I edited and played the loops on my Tascam 34b, which I also used for stereo bounces. Everything was tracked on my Tascam 48. I mixed-down and mastered on the 34b, with each stereo track taking up two adjacent channels on the tape. My mixdown deck, an Otari MX-5050 MKIII-2, badly needs calibrating, so it is unfortunately unusable right now.

The buzz/click/hum loop came from an existing recording in my 'archive'. Everything else was mic'ed with a Rode NT4 microphone.
 
For what it's worth, I used my pair of dbx 166xl compressors/limiters. Having four compressors is definitely a plus for a little home studio.

I'm a little displeased with the pumping on the low "ding-ding-dong"... it was deliberate, and I thought at the time that it created an interesting and pleasing effect, but I wish now that I had done it differently.

The big thing for me, though, was that this was the first piece that had I decided was 100% "complete", and that in itself was a victory for me. I still feel that way, and I'm going to use what I learned in future compositions :)
 
Interesting stuff. Not what I expected at all. Good stuff.
 
cool!

it kinda sounds like a Domino's pizza delivery at a CIA waterboarding...
 
that's fine but.........

I'd check with Nancy Pellosi first .. she may not want that released lol looking foward to hearing your next creation!
 
I liked it. I think it would go well with a song we are going to record soon. I would like to do something along thoes lines but just in a place or two. Good job.
 
Here's something kind of interesting. I'm working on a composition which uses chords made from vari-speed recordings of the 60Hz mains hum. I bounced the signal between my four-track deck and my eight-track deck, in order to make a four-track tape of "raw signal" to be played back at different speeds to create different notes/pitches.

I listened to the "raw signal" tape and the various punch-ins, speed changes, etc made it an interesting piece on its own. Admittedly, it gets a little old after 1:30, but I really like it. It provided me with some ideas for future compositions.

Here It Is: Variable Speed Mains Hum
 
Hey Lo.fi. I listened to the latest post and thought it was cool. I think I liked the other one a little better. I gave you some rep points. Keep it up
 
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