Re: simulated tape loops

[Matt Davignon <mattdavignon@gmail.com>]

I used to do that all the time, back in 2000 to 2003 or so.

I had a field recording music project called "Tape Recorder". I'd go
out and collect sounds, using a handheld tape recorder. Then I'd
record each tape side of source material into the computer. Using
audio editing software, I'd create loops, which I would then dub back
to cassette. Each loop would fill a cassette side. For example, side A
would be "BART train arriving" and side B would be "bottle rolling
down the street". I'd keep the cassettes rewound to the middle, so
that I'd have at least 10 minutes of whatever loop I wanted.

For the live performance, I'd have about 30 of these cassettes, and
four multi-speed handheld cassette recorders, which I would use to
collage the field recordings into a sort of abrasive ambient music.

One of the big aesthetic decisions was that the flaws of cassette
recording (wind noise, tape hiss, low fidelity, the "chomping" sound
of hitting the stop button, etc) were going to be part of the project.
At the time, I was in a community of field recording people, most of
whom were interested in getting the cleanest recordings possible.


-- 
Matt Davignon
mattdavignon@gmail.com
www.ribosomemusic.com
Podcast! http://ribosomematt.podomatic.com



On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 3:39 PM, Tyler <programmer651@comcast.net> wrote:
> Hello! Is this my original idea, or has it been done before? If it has 
> been done before, I would
> like to hear from some people. Simulated tape loops. You take a digital 
> audio file that was converted from a
> tape (therefore it still has tape noise, and is lower quality than a 
> made-digital sound), and you use
> audio software to loop the tape-sampled digital recording, simulating a 
> tape loop. Is this
> my original idea?
> Tyler Z
>