You don't have to modify anything in order to use decks creatively, in several ways. Typically, I have used them for tape delay: patch your source signal into an input, run that out to a mixer, and run your signal path back into the other input (s) with the record sync enabled. The level you send to the first input sorta regulates both level and feedback. You will need to disable the erase head, but you can do that by clipping a wire or placing a spacer of some kind on it. Hello, Frippertronics.
Running a tape loop through both machines, configured in similar ways to the above, will give you all kinds of fun. we used to build huge tapeloops and thread them all around the apartment...on stool legs, mic stands, etc.
You can physically warble your source by grabbing the tape or the reel and yanking it around. Go ahead...it can take it. Lots of fun.
Suggest what I could do with my tape machines
3Years ago, (early 80's) I was doing a very complicated series of piano recordings involving, among other things, underwater speakers and mics -- and pianos. But we were using an A77 HS for experiments. The circuit that conrols the capstan is an RF tank circuit with a very analog phase locked loop part (in other words it's not an IC).
By making an outboard sine / triangle wave oscillator, you can inject that slow moving (try 5 Hz) wave into the capstan circuit, and then it will start warbling, but never quite be able to reach a "sync" speed because it will always be changing.
This makes for some pretty cool tape delay fx.
The way it was "discovered" is quite cool... It was summer and the machine was outside in the sun on Cape Cod -- not terribly hot but certainly in the 80's. (degrees, that is...) We had to splice the tape and there was no splicing tape around, but there was an old roll of Tuck tape - sort of like the early scotch tape but it was so old and had been through a few weathered seasons, so when we made the splice some of the adhesive came off on the pinch roller and stayed there. Every time the pinch roller went around it would then grab the tape a bit and make this WONDERFUL goofy sound when using the machine as tape delay.
Another trick: record on one channel of the tape. Turn the reels over. Play back the first channel, which will now be backwards in time, and feed THAT through a nice fat reverb... then record the output of the reverb on the other channel. Now turn the tape over again, and play the last channel ou recorded, which will now be forwards with backward echo - instead of an echo tail you'll have an echo head.
PART of the mystique is that since there are no sync heads on the A77, you will always get a bit of delay or predelay leakin through (oh, perhap 60dB down) an you can creatively incorporate that into your "sound" -- witness the predelay tricks Eddie Kramer did on Led Zep I and II.
The inverted tape trick was notably used on the Paul Simon "You Can Call Me Al" song with the all-too-short cute bass solo. However the first use of it that I know about was the Andy Pratt "Avenging Annie", done by the nearly invisible but very interesting John Nagy in Boston in the early 70's.
This whole procedure was WAY more fun in the 80's with 16 and 24 track machines; it was GREAT FUN to turn the entire tape over and mess with the tracks, and to try and keep an inverted track sheet - especially when everyone was high...
Enjoy your experiments!
By making an outboard sine / triangle wave oscillator, you can inject that slow moving (try 5 Hz) wave into the capstan circuit, and then it will start warbling, but never quite be able to reach a "sync" speed because it will always be changing.
This makes for some pretty cool tape delay fx.
The way it was "discovered" is quite cool... It was summer and the machine was outside in the sun on Cape Cod -- not terribly hot but certainly in the 80's. (degrees, that is...) We had to splice the tape and there was no splicing tape around, but there was an old roll of Tuck tape - sort of like the early scotch tape but it was so old and had been through a few weathered seasons, so when we made the splice some of the adhesive came off on the pinch roller and stayed there. Every time the pinch roller went around it would then grab the tape a bit and make this WONDERFUL goofy sound when using the machine as tape delay.
Another trick: record on one channel of the tape. Turn the reels over. Play back the first channel, which will now be backwards in time, and feed THAT through a nice fat reverb... then record the output of the reverb on the other channel. Now turn the tape over again, and play the last channel ou recorded, which will now be forwards with backward echo - instead of an echo tail you'll have an echo head.
PART of the mystique is that since there are no sync heads on the A77, you will always get a bit of delay or predelay leakin through (oh, perhap 60dB down) an you can creatively incorporate that into your "sound" -- witness the predelay tricks Eddie Kramer did on Led Zep I and II.
The inverted tape trick was notably used on the Paul Simon "You Can Call Me Al" song with the all-too-short cute bass solo. However the first use of it that I know about was the Andy Pratt "Avenging Annie", done by the nearly invisible but very interesting John Nagy in Boston in the early 70's.
This whole procedure was WAY more fun in the 80's with 16 and 24 track machines; it was GREAT FUN to turn the entire tape over and mess with the tracks, and to try and keep an inverted track sheet - especially when everyone was high...
Enjoy your experiments!
Suggest what I could do with my tape machines
4soundoctor wrote:Another trick: record on one channel of the tape. Turn the reels over. Play back the first channel, which will now be backwards in time, and feed THAT through a nice fat reverb... then record the output of the reverb on the other channel. Now turn the tape over again, and play the last channel ou recorded, which will now be forwards with backward echo - instead of an echo tail you'll have an echo head.
isn't this the poltergeist effect? ie, the effect they use on the voice of the kid trapped in the tv in the movie poltergeist (and would be later used many other movies and video games)?
Suggest what I could do with my tape machines
5Sorry, I don't know. I have managed to avoid certain movies... however my daughter is the expert in moviedom, having memorized every actor, director, script, audio snippet, gaffer, f-stop, and grain of film on the planet. I'll get it from her and check it out...
However without even knowing I might venture a guess it's a done with an (Eventide) Harmonizer, the original basis for most effects starting in the mid 70's.
Barry
However without even knowing I might venture a guess it's a done with an (Eventide) Harmonizer, the original basis for most effects starting in the mid 70's.
Barry