mellotron sampler?

[CCartCat at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/28/0 1:08:55 PM, you wrote:

<<
In a message dated 3/27/2000 9:00:30 PM, t02e at hotmail.com writes:

<<I know this is way impractical, but I have plans to build a massive 
sequencer & sampler that runs off of lots of relays and tape decks with 
rec/play heads and looped tape.  I have two questions:
whats the minimal amount of circuitry I need to make a device that can 
convert a normal audio signal to the signal that a record head needs, and 
converts what a play head reads back to another standard audio signal? Does 
this involve complicated processing? or are tape heads pretty simple 
devices?>>

That's definitely the hard way. An easier, but much less flexible approach is 
that taken by, I think, a guy in Cabaret Voltaire. He had a bank of Sony 
Walkmans sitting on a table with the Play/Pause buttons facing up. He played 
this like a keyboard, unpausing & repausing deftly. The cassettes were 
prerecorded noises & loops.

Scott Fraser>>

In my caveman noisemaking days (early 80's--no doubt influenced by the likes 
of Cab. Voltaire) I recorded a squealing squawking sax mic'd thru a flanger.  
I then popped the cassette into a playback deck, hit play and used the remote 
on/off switch on a cheap mic to control the playback deck.  You get the 
ramping up to and down from normal playback speed and the consequent pitch 
bending when turning the deck on & off, but for my purposes (there were no 
other pitched sounds, etc.) this made no difference.  

One adaptation of the pause button/mic switch approachs (for steady state 
sounds/unsynced loops anyhow) would be have the sounds recorded for the 
length of the respective cassettes, let the cassette players run and have 
some central keyboard/mixer/interface where you mute and unmute these sounds 
at will.  Which is heading back to the hard way, but less involved with 
remote control of decks themselves.  Cassette multitracks and such would be 
less funky versions of the same.

In any case, your idea sounds cool;  please share your results.

A once & future lurker,
Kevin Seward