[sdiy] Tape Head Derived Thereminish Thing

[Jean-Pierre Martineau]

You could make yourself a mellotron-like synth. One sample per note,  
each note having its piece of tape and a playback head. Of course,  
that would imply lots of building.

You could also make a tape loop delay. With multiple heads, you could  
build something really fun, although that too would require a non- 
trivial amount of building.

---

Jean-Pierre Martineau
jpmartineau at jpmartineau.com


> Anyway, getting back to things SDIYish, I'm trying to think of things
> to do with a zip-lock bag full of of cassette tape recorder
> heads... thinking that maybe creating an almost somewhat sort-of
> thereminish like synth with them, that could be played by waving a
> weak electromagnet over them---which can emit signals from switchable
> types of waveforms, with each head attached to a circiuit that's tuned
> to a specific frequency, might be fun.
>
> Any thoughts?  Hopefully I didn't toss these heads out... which is
> highly unlikely; about 25 years after finding them in a Radio Shack
> grab-box of misc. parts, they're probably still around here
> somewhere. :-)