Tape Techniques I Use

In addition to circuit bending, my main interest for the past couple years has been tape delay techniques, using reel-to-reel players. I currently have three reel-to-reel players - they are rather hard to find for cheap, but if you look around at thrift stores, junk lots, etc. you will eventually find some - I got two from my uncle, one for $10 from a school that was being abandoned and having a tag sale, another in a neglected back room of a junk shop in Middletown CT for $10, and one for free from the electronics dump at Wesleyan. The techniques have been around since the 60s, pioneered by a lot of people, but mainly Pauline Oliveros. In her excellent book Software for People, there's a great essay detailing many of the same tape delay techniques I figured out myself. Essential listening is Electronic Works 1965-1966, particularly the track Big Mother Is Watching You (preview here).

The most basic setup for tape delay involves two reel-to-reel players on the same reel of tape, with one set to record from a mic or whatever, one to play, and the play signal looped back to the record head.




In this most basic setup, the sound is simply delayed based on the length of tape between the heads. If you're running tape at 7.5 inches per second (ips), this can turn into a sizeable delay with the reel-to-reel players not too from each other.

The setup I currently use in performance, which works on the same basic principle as the basic setup just described, is considerably (unnecessarily?) more complicated.



I use 3 reel to reel players, usually with no input, but in a closed feedback system, analogous to mixer feedback like this:



or pedal chain feedback in the noise world. Sometimes I use a mic to yell into, which becomes completely unitelligible processed through my system. My basic interest in this system, however, is in the tape players themselves, and their internal sounds - hence the feedback loop. The guitar effects pedals give me additional possibilities, but the source sound comes from the reel to reels themselves - specifically, the cheap, discard-type reel-to-reels I use - no pro gear here.

Myspace of my band Jock Jams in which I use this setup (playing with a guy doing a lot of circuit bent stuff and more pedal complicated feedback loops than I use)